The Beautiful Country

Binh:
How long you blind?

Steve:
A long time. I worked in a storage facility in Saigon. I thought it was a crate of beer. Turned out to be explosives.

Binh:
You're still alive...

Steve:
Yeah, that's what they said. One minute I'm in Saigon, the next I'm in a hospital in Maryland, and six months had passed. Woke up, couldn't see, didn't know where I was. Some a**holes tell me I'm lucky.

Steve:
[about his long lost wife] I never saw someone so beautiful before - in all that ugliness.

Steve:
We had a boy. He was just a baby. He had the eyes of an old man, even at 2 months. Maybe they all do, we didn't know.

Binh:
Why you no go back?

Steve:
Go back? See the old sights? No, I left her to take care of the child alone. I didn't think she needed a blind man to look after.

Binh:
My mother is very beautiful. Like cranes flying at sunset.

Steve:
Binh, why are you here?

Binh:
This place?

Steve:
No, America.

Binh:
America beautiful.

Steve:
How's that?

Binh:
[no response]

Steve:
Did you come by boat?

Binh:
Yes.

Steve:
Hard?

Binh:
Not so hard.

Steve:
Like cranes flying at sunset.

Steve:
[last lines - as Binh is cutting his hair] Now just a trim, Binh.

Binh:
Yes.

Steve:
What do they call those sticky sweet cakes?

Binh:
There a lot of sticky sweet cakes...

Steve:
Well I think they're made out of rice.

Binh:
[chuckling] They all made of rice.

Steve:
Oh. Can you make 'em?

Binh:
Yes.

Steve:
I'll cut your hair next time.

Binh:
[belly chuckle now] Yes...

Captain Oh:
[to Binh] I offer you a new life; you choose an old dream.