The City That I Left Was a Sleepy Town

At age 11, writer Andrew Lam fled Vietnam during the Fall of Saigon. Nearly 45 years later, he returned to a radically different city. He believes "you will be cursed with longing" if you continue to search for the feeling of home you had in the past.

At a time when more people have been forcibly displaced from their homes than at any other time in history, IDEAS explores what it means to return home years — or decades — later. *This is the first episode in our five-part series, The Idea of Home, which originally aired on June 13, 2022.