"Why did Kim's Parents Come Here?"

Just up the street from us is a convenience store that the grand niece calls "the candy store". It is owned and operated by a vietnamese family, and she thinks that the daughter and mother walk on water. The teenage boys always like to tease her and after much prompting by me she just looks at them and says "you are full of prunes".

A few months ago we took her to a buffet we frequent and while we were having dinner she gets this shocked look on her face. "Mimi, I see a chinese lady and she's beautiful." Well I knew instantly that the lady in question was our favorite waitress. I explained that Snow wasn't chinese she was vietnamese like Kim and Emily. And yes she is very beautiful.

"Mimi where is Viet Nam? Is it a long way?"

"Yes honey, it is a very long way. You have to fly or take a boat to get there."

"Mimi, why did Emily and Kim come here then?"

Well, at that point I took a deep breath and knocked out the easy part first.

"Emily was born here. Snow might have been born here too, I don't know."

Then I waited for the other shoe to drop and wondered how I was going to explain so much in words that she could understand.

Then it came. "Well then why did Kim come here?"

At this point my husband was looking at me with this horrified look on his face. At the same time he was obviously glad that he wasn't on the receiving end of such a question. I just wanted to pinch his head off.

"Well when Kim came here she was a little girl, not much older than you are now. Her parents brought her." I was hoping this would be the end of it. No such luck.

"Mimi, why did Kim's parents come here?"

Where do you begin to explain man's inhumanity to man. She's five, she has no concept yet of true evil.

Another deep breath, "Well the government there wasn't being nice to the people that lived there. There were a lot of things they weren't allowed to do."

She looked at me and for a minute I thought I was going under for the third time. But no, she went back to her dinner. The only problem now is that my very fair, blond niece can't figure out why she can't have long black hair and almond eyes. She thinks that they should have them at Wal-mart.