The growing migrant crisis in Europe reminds me of an earlier wave. In the early 80s I was a teacher at a local vocational college in central Wales and as part of the enrichment programme, had offered to set up a student newspaper. In amongst the make-up tips and rockband tributes, I was offered a very unusual contribution from a mature student, a Vietnamese man in his fifties, who was studying Information Technology at the college. He had been one of the infamous Vietnamese boat people who left Vietnam after the fall of the South in the mid-70s. The article was longer than normal and very different in tone but I felt it was important to include it. So we serialised it. I was reminded of the story when I found this link for a fabulous multimedia website that tells the story of another of those boat families and which I posted to the Absolutely Intercultural Facebook page. Another nudge was meeting my cousin a couple of weeks ago whose son has emigrated to Vietnam, where he is apparently very settled and in love with the country.
I will now let Khoa Duong tell his story, which I copied from my photocopies before they faded to white:
That day the intermediary came and let us know that we would go next week. Two of my children had already gone and were living in Britain. I would go with my second daughter, 11 years old.
My wife and I had decided to let our children escape from Vietnam for their future life and education. We couldn’t accept the Communist education for them for it aimed only at political propaganda and The boat would take us to the sea where we would be moved to another boat to leave Vietnam. It took us one day to reach the sea. Because the boat was so crowded we could not walk about and all had to sit down. Partly for this reason we all became completely exhausted during this trip. We were covered by a huge cloth, like goods. There was not enough food for so many people so some had nothing to eat. Moreover when we came near to the sea, water became salty so we did not have enough water either. During all this time we remained very frightened and when the boat came near to a police station on the riverbank we were told to keep absolute silence and the children were given drugs to make them sleep. When we came to a small loop in the river we were more frightened than ever. We heard shouting and cursing from above. The pilot was being told to avoid smashing against another boat. Suddenly we heard a big noise of broken wood, and after that a few shots from guns: it was because our boat smashed against a wooden house above the water, and the policemen shot to stop it, but we kept on going and fortunately nothing more happened.
We arrived at the sea at about 11pm and we moved onto another boat waiting for us there. When daylight came we could see that it was an old boat of 15m long and 4m wide, used only for travels on the rivers. In order to take more people another higher floor had been made and for those underneath it was like being in a cellar. There were over one hundred and fifty people here. They could not stand, only sit and they were suffocated-because of lack of air.
On the upper floor there were also about one hundred and fifty persons. Here we didn’t have enough rooa even to sit. We could not move, we were pressed so close together. There was such noise and quarrelling and it took the organizers about one hour to arrange the seating. About thirty people had no room even to sit and they were told to sit on the roof of the boat. Twenty of them refused to do so for fear of falling and agreed instead to go back home. The organizers were very cruel. In order to make money, they put over three hundred people on a boat which was really only big enough for one hundred. They gave us only one hundred litres of water and forbade us even to bring our bag of necessities on board so that the boat could carry more people. Because of their greed over forty died during the journey, some of hunger and thirst, some of suffocation and others by falling into the sea. When the organisers had gone away, the pilot started the engine ready to go, but the tide had come down and the boat couldn’t go. We were all afraid that when it was light we would be caught. We suggested that the young men should get down to push but it was no good as only ten of them got down so the boat would not move. Then some more people got down to push but it was no use. The pilot tried to start the engine again. After half an hour he succeeded and we all breathed freely again.
For the first two hours the sea was ca1m but in the cellar it was very hot and the people couldn’t breathe and then some young men climbed up on the upper floor but there were so many of them that we had to stop them for if they were all on the upper floor the boat would upset. There were quarrels, children crying and shouting everywhere. Then the sea became agitated. Big waves made the boat swing and many people vomitted into others and many times the boat was so tossed, about that we were very frightened. Sudden1y in the darkness we heard a very big noise made by broken wood. Everyone thought a big wave had broken the boat and we all waited to die. I held my daughter tightly and said, ‘we die together’. We heard a voice saying ‘Be quiet, the boat has not broken, only the upper floor. Most of the floor had fallen and many got wounded. Only a small part of the front of the floor remained. People slid to the centre of the boat and we were pressed together like fish in a canDuring the morning of the next day the sea became calmer but it was so hot, suffocation, thirst, so little water remained and the boat was too crowded to distribute the 1itt1e we had. One hundred hands were raised to snatch a cup of water when it was distributed. People pushed and quarrelled with each other and about three quarters of us had no water. By noon we were very tired and thirsty. We were in international waters and hoped to be rescued by a ship from another country but no ships were coming and we had run out of water.
Only a few people had their own water and we were desperate. After two hours we saw a ship in the far distance. Merrily we waved to it with a piece of red cloth and it arrived, but it was a fishing ship of the Vietnamese government. They threatened to take us back unless we gave them thirty pieces of gold (about 600 dollars per piece). We made a collection and finally we got twenty piecos with some money in US dollars. They ordered us to get on their ship to return to Vietnam but they only wanted to examine each of us, very carefully to look for gold – even inside the women’s clothes. They then let us continue our desperate journey giving us sixty litres of water and thanks to this ship we felt less tired. We had had thirty minutes to rest and to breathe fresh air and to drink some water. The new quantity of water was useful only to a few people. The majority of us get none and when evening came we were thirsty and exhausted again. Quarrels and fighting took place because some got water and some did not. The boat became very dirty and there was a very bad smell but gradually we got used to it though it did much harm to our health. In the morning of the next day we ran out of water again. We didn’t have enough air to breathe and several people had died because they had no water, and our bodies dried up like fish out of water. Every hour more and more people died and we had to throw their bodies into the sea. We had a terrible night when nearly twenty people died. We heard crying and shouting. One mother lost her two children and threw herself into the sea. One father lost his two sons and one small boy lost his brother. Three small children lost their parents. People begged for water but got none. Some men responsible for the order on the boat told us to put the children up into the cabin because there was fresh air there and some water for them and if they did not go up there they would die on the floor of the boat. I made all my efforts , to bring my daughter up into the cabin and she was fainting. Some lost consciousness and some had day-dreams. One young man stepped into the sea saying that he was going to get a taxi and return to Saigon and another said he was going to go and buy an iced drink and then stepped into the sea. I myself clearly saw pirates getting on board. One had long hair and a beard and was putting his head through the window but really there were no pirates there at all. From morning to noon the next day more people died. Around me there were four corpses and we were too weak and tired to carry them overboard into the sea. Many people now drank sea water and even urine but it was no good.
At 2pm we saw an aeroplane and we waved to it with a red cloth. It seemed it saw us and it made some rounds to guide us. We were delighted and felt stronger but then it flew off and we were disappointed. There was fighting between some of the younger men because water had been distributed unjustly. Some destroyed the pumping system of the engine and it stopped working. The pilot left the steering wheel and the boat got more and more tossed about by the waves. Everyone felt that death was near. Some young men took water from the sea to have a bath and poured some of it over others. We heard the noise made by the water on the floor of the boat. I was not afraid of death. It seemed evident but one hour later we saw a Thai fishing boat approaching. They tied our boat to theirs to pull us along. Some young men swam out to their boat (afterwards they told us they had been kept in the cellar of the Thai boat). We were very happy though we did not know where they would lead us. At 6pm as we were being pulled we saw an American ship approaching and we were so happy when it stopped near us. It was a war ship painted in the front with these words: DDG12 The ship stood aloft like a tall building and we saw many sailors standing on the deck, perhaps to look at our boat. We were now back in the world of mankind and not in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by death. We saw a light boat coming out of the ship towards us and when it got near I said to the sailors on it that we would surely die in two days because we had run out of water and food and the engine had broken down. One sailor got on the boat to examine it but on entering the cellar he withdrew immediately putting out a cry of disgust. The smell caused nausea for him but we had got used to it and couldn’t recognise it. I asked the sailors to make an arrangement with the Thai so that we could get on their boat. On board the Thai boat we had plenty of water to drink and nice food to eat. One friend gave me a cup of iced coffee and that was the best cup of coffee in my life. The American ship came near to the Thai boat and all of us were permitted to get on the ship. About thirty people who had lost consciousness were carried onto the ship. They were all cared for and given medical treatment and they recovered two days later. Only two could not escape death and were buried in the ocean. Altogether we lost forty people and two hundred and sixty two people were rescued. We were able to have a bath and change our clothes on the American ship. My feelings were now of extreme happiness and that day was December 12th, 1980. We considered it our second birthday. A few hours before we had lain near death, hopeless. Now a new horizon appeared. We came into the world of death to look for life and we had succeeded. Thinking of the people who had lost their lives I felt pity for them and for the other boat people who could not arrive to the shore of freedom.
On December 16th we were brought to Thailand where we waited to be resettled. On May 12th I came to England to be reunited with my two children and we are now resettled. We enjoy a happy life here where I am not ordered to do many things in the name of a certain doctrine as I used to be. My children are going to school and will get a good education which respects and develops human personality, very different from the one which aims at transforming children into slaves, a kind of tool to serve foolish intentions of ambitious men.
We thank you, the British people, for accepting and protecting us here, on this land which we would like to consider as our second country. Vietnam, our home country, we hope to see someday, though it is very far away.
Goodbye.
Khoa Duong
Credit for boat people image: By PH1 James Franzen, USN (uss blue ridge lcc-19) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons