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 SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Jennifer Tran stood before the crowd of nearly 500, gathered at the city's convention center, with a message for her parents.
"I was asked to share my thoughts on the Vietnamese Parents' Day. I hesitated because I don't know what to say," said Tran, a sociology student at the University of California, Los Angeles.
"It seems that we have stopped 'talking' for a long time about things that are deep in our hearts. I buy you a gift and come home for dinner on Mother's Day and Father's Day, and then we go our separate ways.
"I help you do things such as make inquiries, take you to the doctor, take care of the bills and paperwork, but we can't talk beyond that. I don't know how to fix the situation. My friends are experiencing the same problems with their families as well."
If there was a moment that captivated the unsuspecting audience, one that spoke directly to the elders in unsentimental terms, one that brought tears to the eyes of the college coeds, that moment came when Tran took the stage.
But she spoke only the truth.
The organizers of Sunday's Vu Lan ceremony - the equivalent of a Parent Appreciation Day - know that's there a serious communication gap between parents and their offspring.
They hoped to help bridge that divide with their event, a three-hour celebration blending Buddhist teachings, popular entertainment and personal testimony, planned by the Rev. Thich Phap Chon, abbot of Lieu Quan Pagoda in San Jose; and Quyen Ngoc Vuong, executive director of International Children Assistance Network (ICAN).
 On the surface, language is increasingly problematic between Vietnamese American children and their parents.
Beneath the surface, however, lie deeper barriers - barriers such as living in a society that pits the values of two generations against each other, organizers said.
Tran agrees.
"This fast-paced, stressful life does not allow us to care for our parents the way we want to," she said, citing the example of a cousin forced to put "her bedridden mother in a nursing home because both she and her husband have to work in order to make ends meet. I know that cousin Hoa is not happy about it.
"The guilt is eating her alive," Tran shared. "She cries every night after visiting her mother, especially when she hears her mother complain about being abandoned by uncaring children.
"If I have to leave you in a nursing home," Tran said, facing her family in the audience, "would you understand the heartache and torment inside me? Would it become an issue of my life vs. your life? Or can we work out an arrangement for our lives together?"
The tradition
The Vu Lan ceremony came from the Ullambana rite in Buddhism, which involves paying homage to - and praying for - one's parents and ancestors during the seventh month of the lunar calendar.
The tradition started about 25 centuries ago when Maudgalyayana (Muc Kieu Lien in Vietnamese) failed to free his mother from after-life sufferings caused by the evil deeds she had committed while on earth.
For help, he turned to the Buddha, and was told to take advantage of the full moon on the seventh month, when all the monks, nuns and their community gather at sum-mer's end for prayers.
United, he asked them to pray for his mother. Thus evolved the ceremony.
And at the modern-day ceremony this past weekend, the Venerable Thich Phap Chon included in his prayers the deceased from the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the victims of September 11.
Family matters
Pham Van Do, born in 1938, who lost his eyesight in an accident, was introduced to the crowd as an example of filial piety. He emigrated to the United States in 1986 with his elderly mother and a teen-age son.
Soon after, the woman became ill and gradually lost her voice, then her memory. Though he could not see, Do tended to his mother's every need for 10 years.
"I was exhausted. I had to guess what she was thinking," he remembered. "But I realized how hard it was for my mother to take care of me when I was little and did nothing but cry. And I appreciate her even more."
 Do's case is somewhat atypical. His blindness allowed him to stay close to his mother. By contrast, taking care of elderly parents has become a struggle for adult children in this society. The numbers tell the story.
In the year 1900, the average life expectancy for Americans was 50 years old. By 2000, it had jumped to 75. Consequently, senior communities and nursing homes are now some of America's fastest-growing industries.
In this type of atmosphere, middle-aged Vietnamese Americans - many who waited years to be reunited with their parents - constantly struggle with their duties.
They try to balance them, yet often, are not able to devote the time necessary to be with their elderly parents as they know they should. Still, they cannot consider sending them back to Vietnam, to other relatives or to a seniors home.
On top of all that, there's their own children to nurture, children who may be in college or just starting out with a career and who still seek guidance.
The event organizers - along with co-sponsors Kim Son Meditation Center, Reach Out, the United Vietnamese Student Association and the United Vietnamese Americans - seem to be aware of the enormity of their "bridging" task and set their sights on a more achievable goal: promoting the dialogue between children, parents and grandparents.
It's a dialogue that Tran, the student, had little trouble opening. Even though she had some tough words, at times, directed to her parents, she also made her point: Family matters. Despite its constant pulls.
"We are encouraged to succeed in this society, and in order to do that, we are taught to be independent, assertive and aggressive.
"At home, we are expected to be obedient, to take orders and not talk back," she said. "We are taught to put high priority on family and relationships for nothing else matters.
"With the melting, merging of two cultures in me, I feel like going through the birthing process again," she continued. "I don't know how I will come out at the other end.
"One thing I do know is that I love you, Mom and Dad, and I do hope that you will try to understand me, accept me, and love me - unconditionally - no matter how I turn out to be."
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