When Heaven and Earth Changed Places

 Chapter 1: Coming Back 

In the opening chapter of When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, the reader is introduced to the life Phung Thi Le Ly Hayslip encountered as a young farm girl in the village of Ky La of Vietnam.  In addition, the reader also joins in Le Ly's journey to reunite with both her family and the place she once called home.  This memoir is a frame device.  Within the journey back to Vietnam, Le Ly Hayslip narrates the story of her childhood and how she came to be the person she is now.

From birth, Le Ly underwent brutal circumstances.  For example, her mother was told to "suffocate her" at birth because she appeared so sickly; expecting that the child would soon die, most of her family ignored her existence.  With unrelenting strength, Le Ly, often called Bay Ly, survived.  Unfortunately, the harsh wold she had known from birth would only continue decline as she aged.  With a raging war throughout Vietnam, she would continue to just merely escape the hands of death for the rest of her life.  At her aunt's funeral, Le Ly realizes something that would foreshadow a constant conflict she would face throughout her young life.  She says, "I wanted to be a good person, too, but I also wanted to live.  The two did not seem to go together."  In many parts of the world, being morally "good" is a survival device; in Le Ly's world, it was a survival threat.      

With her mother's warrior-like strength and her father's strong will within her, Le Ly steps out on two journeys. One is to begin her first cycle of life; the other is to finally complete it.
(image: Le Ly Hayslip)