In the photo taken on their 20th marriage anniversary, my grandfather's gentle and delightful eyes shine through a pair of narrow, rectangular glasses and deep wrinkles line his kind face. He is a very good person. When you first look at him he looks like an ordinary elderly person, but when you know him well he is a very healthy and strong person, although when he walks he needs a stick with him due to a car accident. If you look closely you will see my grandfather is a very special man, so special that everyone around him respects him very much.

On a peaceful sunny day in 1911, my grandfather was born into a wealthy family in the beautiful city of Hanoi. He was the third child and was eventually to have eight brothers and sisters. During that time the country was in a state of disorder and people lived in poor conditions. However his father, my great grandfather, was a wealthy businessman who owned many houses and shops, therefore his family were able to survive these poor conditions. At the age of seven my grandfather started to learn how to speak French. Therefore when he had finished secondary education he could speak, read and write French fluently.

When my grandfather was in his early twenties he met my grandmother. They fell in love and two years later married. I once asked my grandfather how he met our grandmother and how did he win her heart? He said that he met my grandmother in a French class. He has loved her since the first time he met her. He started to talk to her and asked her out; she accepted and they got on well together. He said that my grandmother was the best woman he had ever met. She was nice, kind and always helped people who needed it.

The year they got married was the year when the Japanese wanted to lead the world. The Japanese fought Vietnam, occupied many large cities and killed thousands of innocent people, so my grandparents escaped to the next town that was safe from attack and settled there. The Japanese army surrendered and left Vietnam in 1945 when the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on two cities in Japan. Those atomic bombs killed millions of Japanese people and the Japanese government was very angry with this, but they couldn't do anything because the American army was very strong and powerful.

In 1955, the Vietnam war started. This was the war between the North and the South. This war separated our family, because my grandfather followed the North's government and my father followed the South's government. After 20 years the war ended and the North won the war. My grandparents went to the South to find my parents and soon they were reunited. They were very happy because they could live with each other again.

Once my grandfather was reunited with his family in the South, they tried to work very hard to make the family's life better. My grandfather worked as a French teacher in Saigon's University and he was paid really well for the job.

My grandfather wanted his children to have a good education, but all of his children could not go further than secondary school. This was due to the control of the Communist government. As soon as the communists had the power, they produced many strict rules which made people's life harder. If the children wanted to go to school they had to be able to pay the school fees, if they couldn't afford it it was their bad luck. The government was not going to help them.

My grandfather now has ten children, twenty-five grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren. My grandfather has always been a responsible, caring person in our family. My grandfather is the one that I respect the most.