VCF Updates: The Struggle to Forgive
TEMPLE VISIT: Kieu Chinh explores a Buddhist temple after visiting parents' graves outside Hanoi.
Written by John Gittlesohn | Photographed by Daniel A. Anderson
A WOMAN'S SEARCH FOR PEACE OF MIND
25 YEARS LATER AFTER THE WAR
The story of Kieu Chinh is like the history of Vietnam: Her divided family is still trying to heal 25 years after the end of war.
Born in Hanoi, she fled to Saigon in 1954 when Vietnam was partitioned into north and south.
She became the most famous actress in South Vietnam. The father and brother she left in North Vietnam were jailed for crimes against the state.
She lost everything when Saigon fell in 1975, only to rebuild her life as a refugee in California.
Now, Kieu Chinh returns to Vietnam on a mission of charity: to build a school in her ancestral village, a monument of healing between former enemies.
Each encounter in her homeland tests her ability to overcome the pain of her past.
Her troubling journey ends in Orange County, where she faces a community still struggling to forgive.