Chef Silver

Hello Blip Friends!
I am making a come back to blip and hope you will all re-join me on my journey :)

We went to have sushi and try out the new chef in town. He was an interesting person and the food was DELISH!! We were the only ones there so we sat up at the counter and had a wonderful conversation with chef Silver. Turns out he came to America on a boat from Saigon back in '79 with his Mom and 6 of his siblings (he has 11!!) His father had come earlier with his brother to get prepared. Here's the "wow" part.... When his Dad and brother came the immigrants, or refugees as he called them, were processed through Seattle Washington. When his mother and the 7 kids came over later they were then being processed through Washington D.C. (4 of his siblings stayed in Vietnam to care for their grandmother) The WOW part??? They didn't speak any english and it took them almost 2 years to find the father and brother! At that time there was no internet, cell phones etc that helps us communicate today so they had to rely on snail mail back and forth to Vietnam to try to find their family. They thought they were in the same "Washington" for quite a while. When they found out they needed to go to Seattle Washington, they hopped on a bus and traveled all the way from the east coast to the west coast. He told us of some of those adventures. Burger King at every train stop with the gold crowns were a big hit with the kids :) He then grew up and went to school in Seattle from kindergarten up to graduation from high school. He said he had a good Asian friend the whole school years and when they were in high school they discovered that their dads had come to America on the same boat!! They both had the same photo of them taken on the trip over. How fun! His dad purchased him a plane ticket back to Vietnam to get married but chef Silver said he was too scared to go back so he joined the service! Ended up being called up for Desert Storm. After that was over they released many units of their duties, including his, so he found himself out of the service but with the opportunity to go to college, so he did taking computer science classes. He says he went from computers to sushi making :) He seems happy here in our little coast town, married with 5 kids and likes to play video games. We very much enjoyed our dinner and the great conversation. Thanks Chef Silver!! We will definitely be going back :)

Happy Tuesday
smile