Crickets, story summary

The story is about a Vietnamese man, named Thieu, he grew up in Mekong delta. But then he moved to America with his new bride, they ended up in Louisiana. He likes Louisiana because it reminds him of Mekong delta, with the rice paddies and the water and the land which are in the most delicate balance with each other. He work as a chemical engineer, the people that he work with call him Ted, it bothers him a bit but he thinks that they call him Ted because they want to see him as one of them.

Ted has a son named Bill, he is ten years old. He is proud to be an American. He doesn’t speak Vietnamese at all. Teds wife says that Ted doesn’t have to worry, but Ted does. It was also Ted’s wife who came up with the idea ten years ago that their boy should have a real American name.

The last summer Ted found his son, hanging around the house, in the middle of vacation. Ted wanted to learn Bill how to play “fighting crickets” Bill didn’t know what it was, so Ted explained it to him. When Ted was a boy, he and his friends always played it. There were two kinds of crickets. “Charcoal crickets”, these are large and strong, but they are not so fast. Then there are “fire crickets” they are small, but smart and quick.