Juliette Mai Triozon

Waltzing with the Dragons Juliette Mai Triozon

Waltzing with the Dragons is the true story of a Vietnamese woman and her Eurasian daughter. Born in 1922 in the north of Vietnam, under French colonial rule, Ly was the daughter of one of the last Mandarins, a childhood friend of Ho Chi Minh. After she rebelled against her family, by refusing an arranged marriage at thirteen, she was sent to live with her father's best friends, a French couple. It was the beginning of a life-long love affair with French culture and lifestyle. At seventeen, she married a French army officer who, shortly there after, was killed in action. She lived through the Japanese occupation during World War II, escaped her captors and after many adventures, found her way south. From having lost everything, In Cholon (the Chinese quarter of Saigon), she established herself as a successful business- woman under the protection of the gangland bosses who dominated the city in the late forties. It was during this time that she met the love of her life, a doctor in the French army. From this passionate affair, she became pregnant with her only child: Mai-Tâm, her daughter. Her lover having returned to France, she gave birth alone amid the dawning realization that he was not going to come back. Born in Saigon in 1952, Mai-Tâm grew up in the twilight of the French Colonial era, which ended in 1954 with the defeat at Dien Bien Phu by the forces of Ho Chi Minh. A child of mixed race, she did not feel she belonged anywhere, and it was only within her Vietnamese family that she felt loved and protected. During her childhood, she was victim of the increasingly aggressive Vietnam War as well as the disruptive and unhappy relationship of her mother with her second French husband. Her parents sent her to the safety of France in July 1967, where they joined her one year later, after the Têt offensive in 1968. Ly who became Anna and Mai-Tâm who became Juliette demonstrate how strength of character and determination can overcome all adversities.