The globally beloved Vietnamese Bánh Mì sandwich needs no introduction at this point. But to me, it’s a symbol of resilience, as my Dad used to sell Bánh Mì to survive after the fall of Saigon, and compassion, as the memory of a man I called Thầy Hiển is forever etched in my mind.

"Thầy Hiển" was the youngest teacher at our school, and nobody liked him. "Hiển" was his name, and "Thầy" means "teacher."

It was unclear to me why he was always the object of backhanded ridicules among the adults.  Perhaps it was his young age. Perhaps it was his awkward personality and appearance. Perhaps it was his boorish style of speech.  Or perhaps every community just needs its own black sheep and the masses decided that "Thầy Hiển" was an easy target.

And since us kids simply modeled our behaviors after what we observed from our elders, we, too, decided that we did not like "Thầy Hiển," and so the unsuspecting bloke was often offered up as the butt of cruel schoolyard jokes.

One day, Thầy Hiển was in charged of the school crossing line, a job every teacher hated since it means managing hundreds of students across busy mid-day traffic under the scorching heat.  Suddenly, my usual daydreaming was abruptly halted by frantic clamoring coming from a group of students behind me.

"HELP! HELP! Nam fainted!" One of our classmates shouted.  Nam was a frail kid whose mousy, high pitched voice matches his mild manner and soft, pale skin.  There we were, dozens of scared 8-year-olds, all simultaneously looked towards our confused leader, the man who we loved to underestimate: Thầy Hiển.

But to our suprise, Thầy Hiển calmly signaled for traffic to stop, rushed over to Nam, immediately loosened his red neck scarf, and pulled out from his own pocket the other half of his uneaten "bánh mì" sandwich that I guess he was saving for lunch, and instructed Nam to take a bite.

It turned out, Nam has not eaten anything the whole day, and it would be revealed later on that this has been a prolonged period of tough times at home for Nam.

28 years later, as I'm writing this, I still don't understand why people hated Thầy Hiển so much, and I don't want to speculate because I don't know enough.  But what I do know, is on that stressful day, during a crucial moment when his distraught students needed him the most, Thầy Hiển came through and did what he could with what he had. 

And perhaps that is all I need to know about him.