The Mountains Sing

Diệu Lan continues her story, reciting a haiku for Hương and discussing her struggle to understand how the Japanese can be so similar to the Vietnamese and yet have treated them so monstrously.

Black Eye decapitates Diệu Lan’s father while his children watch in horror. They bring their father’s body home, and the community honors him. Wracked with grief, the family throw themselves into childrearing and work.

Three years later, the Great Famine of 1945 devastates Vietnam, killing two million, including “more than half of Vīnh Phúc” (91). That April, with their family on the verge of starvation, Diệu Lan and her mother trek 15 kilometers (approximately nine miles) to the forest in search of food, witnessing the dead and dying all along the way. Following a forest path cut by her husband, Diệu Lan’s mother takes her daughter to a hidden cornfield. They begin devouring the crop but are caught by the landowner, who happens to be Wicked Ghost. He kills Diệu Lan’s mother and beats Diệu Lan, then leaves her tied to a tree. She is saved by Hải, a friend of Công’s who works for Wicked Ghost.