David W Christner

Bui-Doi David W Christner

"Bui-doi: The Dust of Life" is the third play of a Vietnam War trilogy which includes "American Pies, Happy Lives, Blue Skies and Other Lies" and "The Wall." Thirty years after getting out of the Vietnam War, more or less in one piece, mystery writer Taylor Munroe is confronted by a young Amerasian who claims to be his son. Dissident Hong Kong publisher Wei Chan, with his mother in tow, flees Hong Kong when China seizes control of the British Crown Colony in 1998. Bound for San Francisco, Wei's intention is to arrange a marriage between his mother and his absentee father. Taylor knows nothing of Wei's existence although he remembers a blissful time he spent in the arms of a Chinese bargirl just prior to the TET offensive exploding across Vietnam in 1968. Wei is an example of what the Vietnamese refer to as bui-doi: the dust of life. These are the children sired by soldiers in a foreign country and left behind after the war. Wei's unexpected intrusion into Taylor's troubled existence forces both father and son to reconcile an unconnected past with an uncertain future.