Dana Lim

Story

Imagine you are in a world where you don’t speak the language, you don’t understand the culture and you don’t have anyone to turn to. The reason you are in this world is because you can’t go home. Forced to flee your home, you find a place that is safe and accommodating. However, just because you have a safe place to live, that doesn’t mean your experience is always a happy one. This is what most refugees face as they come to the shores of Australia in search of a new beginning. I was a refugee from Cambodia after escaping the Pol Pot regime. From 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge Communist movement murdered, worked or starved to death an estimated two million Cambodians; approximately a quarter of the Cambodian population.

I was born in 1969 in Kratie, the third youngest of three brothers and three sisters. We lost our birth certificates during the war and my mother doesn\’t remember any of our birth dates. My father was from China and left a wife and son to search for wealth in Cambodia, starting another family and never returning to his homeland. He was a businessman and built a three-story terrace house overlooking the Mekong River in Kratie, just a couple of years before the war started. He ran his business from the ground level and we lived upstairs.

In 1983 my Father and I escaped Cambodia with the help of an agent at the cost of 10 taels (about 380 grams) of gold. We paid 5 taels initially and the agent was to collect the remaining balance from a relative in Phnom Penh. The agent instructed us not to ask any questions and to keep our mouth shut on the bus trip to Sihanoukville. That night the agent took us to a small fishing boat and left us with another male passenger in his thirties. The three of us spent the entire journey squatting in the bilges of the boat, ankle deep in water and without enough room to lie or even sit down.

I don\’t know how many days and nights we squatted inside that boat. We were dropped off at a fishing village in Thailand around midday and the boat immediately disappeared. I remember I had difficulty opening my eyes after spending so long in the dark. We were still stretching our legs and had difficulty balancing on the rickety bamboo dock when we saw three Thai policemen with guns shouting and running towards us. They tried to question us but we didn\’t understand a word they said. They escorted us at gunpoint to their jeep and drove us to a police station. They tried many different languages and finally found that we understood Chinese. They interviewed my father and when they finished they drove us to a big stilt house, which we slept under – on the ground. There were other families already there and they gave us some stingray to eat.

After a week or so, we were transported in a big truck to the Sikhiu detention centre. My dad was subjected to more interviews and this was where we had our photo id taken. This initial processing took about a year and a half; some people were stuck there for five years or more. We were lucky that my mother was already in Australia and could act as sponsor for us. Once a week we would be given our ration of water, one bucket per person, and food and charcoal to cook with. We received 200 grams of fish per week and 4 pieces of charcoal. A compulsory wake up was broadcast at 6 every morning to do exercise. We slept on the ground with a corrugated iron roof. We were approved as refugees and sent to the Phanat Nikhom Transit Centre for further processing, health checks, paperwork and flight booking. This took about two months, then we were sent to the Suan Plu Detention Centre for a week before boarding the flight to Australia.

I arrived in Adelaide as a teenager with my father in 1985. We were transported to Pennington centre North Adelaide where we were served food so alien to us that we couldn\’t stomach the smell, let alone the taste. All we wanted was some rice and salt or soy sauce. We had our health checked and all the necessary injections done. Our life seemed to be happy and secure in Australia and learning English was my main problem. People in Australia led privileged childhoods with electric lighting, running water, food to buy in the shops and free education. After spending 3 months in a special English school, I was enrolled for third term in year 10 at a government high school. I experienced many difficulties, as I had to learn both the language and the subject matter. I studied hard as I believed that doing well at school would help me to become a success in the world. I believed Australia was land of opportunity and I understood I had to work harder than the other students did. I managed to get good scores for year 12 and was able to get into University. I graduated in 1990 with a Bachelor of Computer Science.

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