A Vietnam Podcast: Stories of Vietnam

PodSwap | Vietnamese Boat People #5 Slumdog Brothers

December 26, 2022 Niall Mackay Season 9 Episode 31
A Vietnam Podcast: Stories of Vietnam
PodSwap | Vietnamese Boat People #5 Slumdog Brothers
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Show Notes Transcript

As we take a break right now between seasons, we're bringing you regularPodSwaps, where we bring you a podcast from one of our friends, which is related to Vietnam. In this episode, we share another touching episode from the Vietnamese Boat People podcast.

Tracey Nguyen Mang has been on A Vietnam Podcast before . So go back and check that episode out. Tracey has shared one of her episodes with us before, which was the very first episode of the Vietnamese boat people podcast. This is one of my favorite shows out there. So go and check it out.

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Welcome to a Vietnam podcast by 7 million bikes podcasts. I'm your host new MCI. As we take a break right now between season, we're bringing you regular pods swaps, where we bring to you a podcast from one of our friends, which is related to Vietnam. And this episode, we're going to share another touching episode from the Vietnamese boat people podcast. Jason when Mang has been on the podcast, it was so good. So go back and check that episode out. And she has shared one of her episodes with us before, which was the very first episode of the Vietnamese boat people podcast. This is one of my favorite shows out there. So go and check it out. It's everywhere. You can get podcasts, obviously. And the link is in the show notes. In this episode, it's episode five of the Vietnamese boat people podcast. Coats Slumdog brothers all about Tracy's family. Enjoy the episode. Cheers. They put me in jail like a month, you know, I was 13 years old. It's horrible because like the police would ask all kind of questions and they're using one of the stick to hit me, you know, because they want me to tell the truth. I know that my mom is a part of it, involved that, but I didn't tell them the truth using one of the stick, you know, to hit me, you know, so many time, even though I'm crying, but I'm not telling them, you know, what's going on. Hi, I'm Tracy Wyn and welcome to Stories of the Vietnamese Boat People. In episode four, I shared my family's story of how difficult life became after the Vietnam War. And under the communist rule, policies were enforced to create a classless society where citizens became laborers and the government owned, controlled, and distributed the fruits of that labor. Having heard rumors of how people were starting to flee the country, my parents began trying to escape when it became clear that there was no future for the. In 1979, my oldest brother, Steve, and my dad left. They were the first in the family. My mom was left with six kids to raise on her own. I sat down with mom and asked what happened after Dad and Steve left? Did neighbors start to notice? She said, A local authority who knew our family. Notice the very next day. And casually said to her, once they find out that your husband is missing, they will come and question you and raid the house and take any food or supplies you have as punishment. He was giving mom a tip. Mom immediately gathered the children to harvest all of our crops on the farm. Even if they weren't riped. She cut down all the rice stocks, picked whatever banana and mangoes had grown on the trees and ran to the neighbors asking them to hide it. In exchange, mom promised they could keep a portion of the food for their own families. Within three to four days after my dad had left, the authorities came searching the town. They first questioned the neighbors. Luckily, our town stood together and created a lie for us. They said that mom's husband had not been happy, that finally one day he just snapped and just took off and abandoned the family and that the family was so poor. Always begging everyone for. That they wouldn't have had the money for an. One of the neighbors got to my mom in time to tell her and said she needed to stick to the same story. So when they came ransacking our home on day five, mom lied just as they told her to. She said, as for my brother, Steve, he followed the wrong crowd. She broke down into tears and said she can't be bothered looking for either of. She has six children she needed to take care of. Of those six children, there were three boys, ages 15 to 10, and three girls, ages seven to two. I was the baby of the three boys. Mom said Chris felt the burden the most. This is what Chris remembers. I have like one younger brother and three youngest sister at that time, and the youngest one, uh, two, three years old. I had to take care. I feel like even though at that time I was like 13, but I still have to take care. My mom, she had to go out to go to work. She, she's not gonna come, come home until late at night, so I wanna make sure that I can, uh, cook, you know, take care of them. I am trying to learn how to, uh, fishing in a, as a small river, you know, nearby my house with a couple neighbor, you know, which is about same as my age. And then, uh, to cook and to, to feed all my sister and, and brother to take care of them. By 1979, Vietnam had isolated itself from the rest of the world. It was impoverished by the new reform. They control the, the, you know, the living, the way you living. They control everything. Especially, you know, they control like where you go and what you do and everything. And it's made your life difficult. At that time, no. Was everyone poor? Yeah. Not only. Majority, most of the people is they change the money, currency, the money. So what happened is they allow only each family, I'm give you a example. Each family allowed to change the money. A thousand dollars. Just give a example. So if you have more than a thousand dollars in the house, so you have to get to some other family so they can a chance for you because they allow only each house, only you know, a thousand dollars. And then you gotta give some money for them too, because they do it for you. The government changed the currency a few times. This was to wipe out any wealth in private businesses and to reset Vietnam into a classless society. This made it almost impossible for families to accrue any savings. People felt helpless. And hopeless. I feel like what I have to do. What I have to do. Yeah. I mean, I mean like with the situation with the country, it totally changing though. At that time, I'm only focused like how I'm gonna take care of my sister and brother. My mom said my brothers really stepped up as men, even if they were only boys at the time. My brother Rocky. Was only 15. He was responsible for the crops after dad left. Then there was Chris age 13. And Danny, age 10, they both headed into the city after school every day to sell cigarettes, tea and rice on the trains and in the city markets. I went to the, the train, my younger brother are like 10 or 11 to buy rice and we, we bring into a different city, which is we took my train. And we tried to make, I mean, we tried to save some money, so we didn't buy the ticket for the train. So before the train, get to the station, different city, we try to unload everything before we get into the station because one, we get to the station, they cut us, you know, every time the train, they get to the station, they all wear like slow down. They go slow down. So once they get into the gate to one of the Destin, So we try to, you know, jump down to get out, jump down, and, you know, to push all the stuff, all the rise back. Then we, we jump down. At that time, all I just focused is, you know, make some money and, and we just feel like we can't stand. We need to get out here. Don't have any money left to give each of us to try to escape outta country. In order to escape Vietnam, you had to either pay in advance or put a deposit down for a spot on a fishing boat. There were no refunds and no guarantees. It was a crapshoot that millions were willing to. If they could find the money, all of this was normally orchestrated through a middleman who would charge an uplift on the desperate people. Some would eventually say that the police were onto them and took all the money. You didn't know if they were lying or not. It was hard to know who to trust, but mom said even if you got scammed, no one would dare to go to the police to report such a thing because of the frequency of the currency change. Gold became the new stable currency. Mom said at that time, it cost about three ounces of gold per person to escape. To put that in perspective. Three ounces of gold today is almost 4,000 US dollars. That money was used to pay for a fishing boat to buy gasoline and some food for the journey, but also to bribe officials, gatekeepers, and coast guards on duty. To look the other way. My mom had made friends with a couple in the market where she sold goods, who had just lost one of their sons in the recent war with Vietnam and Cambodia. They were desperate to figure out how to get their other boys out of the country. They said they had the money. Mom made a deal. She said, if I arrange to have your kids escape in exchange, I need you to lend me money so my three boys can escape as well. The next day she decided to go down to the fishing harbors and hang out all day pretending to sell knick. But secretly ea dropping and observing the scene to see which boat owners might be planning an escape. Uh, somehow she met one of the owner of the boat that they want to fool the people together so they can, you know, to get outta country. He told my mom like, if you can find like people and try to ask Kevin Vietnam, gimme some, go. I think like the, the, the people in your family can go. Now, mom became the main orchestrator because it meant that her kids had a chance. So she went all over the country to Sagar, whoever had the money, if they wanted to, their kids from Vietnam. But paying for a spot on a boat was only the first step. Well, the first time, me and one of my older brother and the other younger brother, we, three of us, uh, we left at the, at the darkness is past midnight. So we have to, uh, pretend like we go into the, you know, swimming at the, the ocean. And we, with a whole bunch of people, we gotta separate. We're not gonna go like the whole crowd group though. So, and you know, we go, we separate like three people in one group. Three people in one group. Pretend like we, we going to the, uh, the beach and stuff like that. Uh, Got in the small boat, they coming in. So they pick us up, they pick us up and then they go out a little bit further and they got big boat waiting outside, you know, so that way they can pick up us later. But we went like two days and we, the owner say, could not make it cuz it raining thunderstorm. And the weather was so bad at that. So they decide to turn around and during turnaround we have to pray. You know, regardless if you are Catholic, Buddhist, whatever, we have to pray, you know, make sure that we can get back safely. So we got back like after, I believe like three o'clock in the morning. So everybody get off the boat. And, but we don't know where the heck we are at at that time. You know, we have no idea. Not even not even close So we say everybody get out and everybody have to find a way to go home. Before we escape, my mom always give us a little bit money. So just in case if we not make it, then we can turn around. At least we have my money, you know, to get home. Yes. And we went to one of the bus stations, so we all walk, we walk by like three, four miles, but uh, around three, four o'clock in the morning. And we call, we walk, but we walk like on the side because we are afraid that police, they may be saw us. So every time we see the, the car coming, so we have to hide into one of the, the tree, uh, bushes. So make sure that nobody can see us. So we wait until like, early in the morning. Once we get to the bus station, we go home from there. I'm not too sad or anything. I feel like, you know, thanks God. You know, we say that we, we come back now. Later, the next time my mom asked me if I want to escape again, I said, sure. At the second time, we went to one of the village that's nearby the beach. That's where the um, where the small boat, they're gonna come pick us up, you know, like around, over the midnight. But during that night, when we, we stay to, we stay at one of the village somehow at that night, I guess like, because like the, that village, they feel like something going on because a lot of people, stranger people in their village, so they kind of report to the. That night, the police, they was like, go to each of the house to check to make sure if you are resident address or if you come from somewhere, why didn't you report to the police that, uh, you know, you come here to visit me. So I was car during, you know, when I was, uh, sleeping. So they come in, you know, and they check all the unit paper, the Id say, who are you? Where do you live? And stuff like that. So they find out we all, the group of people try to escape from Vietnam. So I was caught them and I was in the, they put me in jail like a month. And what was jail like? I was stay with all the adult people there and we have all the like different type of the crime people living, stay in one room and it, it is horrible because in the morning, the bathroom only once a day. That's it. Okay. Regardless, only in the mornings. What about Ane and Ambe? Were they with you? No, at that time they're not with me. My mom said, my other brothers ran home and told her what had happened. She panicked that Chris was not with them. Not only was she scared for his safety, but she knew that the police was going to try to find out who was the orchestrator of the. She was afraid that Chris was going to review everything. After all, he was just a child. I didn't tell them the truth that my mom, I said I didn't know, you know, I didn't know anything cuz you know, my mom just told me to go into with these people and go into the SA, stuff like that. So I didn't tell the truth. So they tried to using one of the stick, you know, to hit me, you know, so many time, even though I'm crying, but I'm not telling them, you know, what's going on. So at that time, my mom know where I was kept, but uh, she afraid to go visit me because she afraid if I tell, you know, she part of it. So they may be kept her too. So she didn't want to, uh, to come to visit me. She, she, she was so scared cuz when I got home, I told mom, I said, how come you didn't come visit me? She say she was scared. She don't know what I'm telling the police at that time. And she not even living at home. She had to go to her friend to go somewhere to live because she. Tell the truth. The police, they go after her and go, go to the house and, and, and get her. Chris was in prison for a month. There was no trial or anything. One day they just decided to let him go. When they finally released him, he returned to school the next day and was expelled. So the school was kicked me because they say, you know, you know my family is a part of the South Vietnam. So you got kicked outta school? I got kicked outta school and I was try to go on the street to sell and you know, some stuff to make some money. My mom were asking. Three months later, she, she asked me if I'm afraid to, to try again. I say, no, I'm not afraid. Can try to escape again. I was, uh, with um, my younger brother and my oldest, my older brother with me and with another cousin too. I left run at the Ang one of the Alang. So I pretend like one of the fishing, you know, guy, you know, at that time. And they didn't pay attention cuz I watched like a little. So they don't truly like pay attention to me much. So I'm just pretending one of the fishing you guy on, on the boat because as soon as you go out, they, they check to make sure that we all like register, we all like have a license to fishing, stuff like that, whoever on the boat. But, uh, I was lucky cuz they, they didn't check my ID or they didn't ask me much, I guess because I was young at that time. So they. Pay attention. The oldest younger brother and my brother, they took a different route. We all took like separate direction, but at the end we gotta meet at one destination. So we try to go out and we wait until the sun go down again darker. And then we tried to go further, further outside, and then they have a small boat. Out there. So they go around to pick up people, you know, so they pick up us, us up, and then we go about like 15, 20 minutes later and they have a big boat further out there waiting for us. They, they told us like, oh, you gotta be there like two o'clock in the morning. So we all have to make sure that we have to meet at the big boat out there by two o'clock in the morning. If not, they gotta take. So we all like try to make it the owner of the boat, say, we don't know how long we gonna be on the ocean. So every day we only have a small, small board rice and a cup of water. That's it Once a day. And I take out like five days to get to a Philippines, uh, Manila. And the third time I make it, Chris and my brothers ended up in Pawan refugee camp in the Philippines where they waited for six months and was eventually reunited with my dad and brother Steve in America. As for the rest of us back in Vietnam, the authorities started searching for my mom. She had to leave my sisters and I with different relatives and went into hiding for almost a year. I wanted to let all the young generation, and if you happen to listen to this r I mean, you gotta remember where you're coming from, where your family, your grandmom, you know your grandfather, where they're coming from, don't from, don't forget your roots. Again, this is the, this land is an opportunity for you. It's a freedom country. So you know, you need to take this opportunity and to make your dream come. I am wen and thank you for listening and helping us preserve history. This episode concludes a story about my family coming up next season. In just a few weeks, we'll bring you stories of other families. Voices from our second generation and heartfelt memories from the humanitarians that stepped in to aid the Vietnamese boat people. Don't forget to subscribe to the show on your podcast platform and follow us on Instagram at Vietnamese boat people. And if you have a story to share, email us at stories vietnamese folk people.org.