Thiet Huynh
| First name | Thiet |
|---|---|
| Last name | Huynh |
| Country of Origin | Vietnam |
| Date of Birth | 12/12/1946 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1979 |
| Submitted by | Kim Huynh |
Story
THE HUYNH FAMILY\’S JOURNEY PART 1
BY THIET HUYNH 1980 TRANS. KIM HUYNH 2007
I was born in a village about 15km from Danang in central Vietnam. My early years were overshadowed by hardship, which helps explain why I live in Australia today and am so proud to call it my home.
In 1946 war broke out between the Vietnamese and French. My family escaped into the jungle and mountains to avoid the fighting and did not return to my village until 1947. My oldest brother died during that ordeal and my father was killed by Vietnamese revolutionaries who wrongly accused him of spying for the French. After that, my mother and sisters had to work very hard for us to survive.
I moved to Saigon to pursue my studies and in 1964 started work as a technician at the South Vietnam electricity authority. I met my wife, Van Tran, there and we married on 2 January 1971. It wasn\’t until 13 June 1975 that we had our first child, Thach. On 16 September 1977 we had a second boy whom we named Kim. We loved them very much and it was for them that we decided to embark on our perilous journey.
It was only after the North defeated the South in 1975 that the people saw how tyrannical the communist regime was. We did not have freedom and the economy plummeted day after day. Like many others, I strove to find a way to escape my homeland.
While visiting my wife\’s cousins during the New Year festival in 1979 I learnt that she had relatives who were organising a large boatload of people to leave the country. I decided to pay the money join them. During that anxious period before we left there were many nights that I did not sleep a wink. But the risk of dying in exile did not compare to living in fear for the rest of our lives.
We left my sister\’s house in Saigon for the coast at noon on the 19th of April 1978. I have only a vague recollection of that day. I was only thinking of whether or not we would make it. I climbed on to my scooter and left for the bus stop where we would be picked up. My mother placed Thach on to the scooter and dared not cry because there were communists next door. My wife followed me in a cyclo taxi with Kim. At 2pm we departed for the seaside town of Rach Gia on a chartered bus.
We were in Rach Gia for a week and during this time Kim suffered from dysentery. It was not until 25 April that we were called down to board the boat. It was 20m long and 4m wide but somehow, 508 people were packed in, mostly below in the stinking hold. After one night and day we collided with another boat. It was about 11pm and we were just outside of Vietnamese waters. There was a hole near our bow and water was coming in. I thought that we were going to die, but we managed to return to a Vietnamese island where the boat was fixed.
While we were on the island Kim\’s condition worsened. I was sure that he would not be able to continue, so I tried to convince some locals to take Kim back to his grandmother. They refused and so, after much deliberation, we decided to go on.
As we left Vietnamese waters again the wind and rain picked up. The waves were very strong, but somehow the boat held together. At around midday the next day we ran into Thai pirates and on each of the three days after that we were boarded and raided. They stole everything, but did not kill anybody. The final time they took our compass and the battery for the boat\’s motor. Thank heavens we were close to Malaysia and only had to keep the engine going. On 30 April we saw an island take shape in the distance and headed towards it. We were met by Malaysian soldiers and after negotiations, we were allowed to land. We hoped that our nightmare was over.
The UNHCR transferred us to a refugee camp on Bidong, which the refugees called ‘the island of death\’. The camp was less that 1km2, but almost 43,000 people lived there. Everyone was crammed in with rats, flies and mosquitoes. We lived in a tent made of branches and covered with plastic that measured 2X3m. At first we did not have any rice to eat, we only ate mixed beans that the United Nations had provided.
In these conditions, Thach and Kim became very sick. Luckily a Red Cross ship arrived on which there was a hospital. Thach and Kim were both admitted, but even the French doctors could not find out what was wrong with them: their temperatures rose and fell and they needed drips to survive. It was not until after 1 month that they began to recover and we were sent back to Bidong.