Summer is light and joyful, but many things can happen under the sun. Some are less light, but are also essential to know, essential to History and Memory. It might take a while, but things do get lighter and sunnier when you begin to write them down. hiMe, from the blog A Refugee’s Journey, shares all that…
via Interview: hiMe printed the book of her story as a Refugee — Blookup Blog
We “Asians” are not all the same.
Till today I feel a sense of failure, guilt and grief that I had lost a friendship and that I was insensitive enough to ask my friend about her dream. (Picture of Thai pirate’s boats – after being radioed by the others – attacked a Vietnamese refugee boat)
Comments about this post on ABC Open 500 words – Failure.
Arriving from Terengganu, I spent three months on Pulau Bidong Island before moving to Sungei Besi Transit Camp, Kuala Lumpur.
On the island, survivors of traumatic sea journeys were pointed out to me on two occasions. But wait there’s more!
(Villanelle-style poem)
Comments about this post on ABC Open 500 words – Failure.
My friends were lost at sea,
While in their lively years,
On their fateful journey. But wait there’s more!
<<Story related to the information>>
Photos of Thai pirates attacked Vietnamese refugee boats.
1.THAI PIRATES CONTINUING BRUTAL ATTACKS ON VIETNAMESE BOAT PEOPLE by BARBARA CROSSETTE, Special to the New York Times – Published: January 11, 1982
“WASHINGTON, Jan. 10— Nguyen Tien Hoa says he escaped from Vietnam in mid-November aboard a 50-foot boat that carried about 75 refugees, more than half of them women and children.
By the end of the month, Mr. Hoa, 31 years old, wounded, distraught and alone in a disabled vessel with his 10-year-old brother, drifted ashore in Malaysia, where the boy died of shock and untended injuries. But wait there’s more!
Love for my family gave me more courage to live.
(People in picture: Mum, Dad, Mum’s two younger sisters, 11-year-old hiMe, hiMe’s 9-year-old and 7-year-old sisters. Picture taken in 1973 at Tan Son Nhat airport, Saigon when Dad was to fly to New Jersey, USA to attend the one-year study of the Communications Electronics Engineer Course.)
Comments about this post on ABC Open 500 words – Things we do for love.
I wish I could turn back the time so that,
I would then push my Dad to quickly flee.
“Run, Dad, and save your life no matter what!
The Communists won’t spare you, let hear me!
Commander’s duty – you fulfilled at last,
We don’t want you killed – let hear us all plea!
You’re not safe but we are, so let’s run fast!”
(Terza-Rima-style poem) But wait there’s more!
I didn’t protest against the maltreatment the communists gave my family in particular and the families of pre-1975-Saigon’s high-ranking military men in general. Instead I voted with my feet and left the country.
Comments about this post on ABC Open 500 words – An act of rebellion.
In 1979, as a high-ranking military man, Dad had been in jail for four years and we didn’t know when or if he’d be released.
Our family faced the daily threat of having our assets taken and being sent to undeveloped land of new economic zones. But wait there’s more!
(Vietnamese song-that-luc-bat-style poem)
Comments about this post on ABC Open 500 words – An act of rebellion.
In the darkness, there she sat,
Broken-self and flat-presence.
The shame begat silence,
To tell the violence ‘gainst her. But wait there’s more!
There were many scary moments that I can still vividly remember: the “Tet Offensive” in 1968 when VCs exchanging fires with GIs in front of my house, the dying moment of Saigon when rockets were raining indiscriminately onto the districts, ….
Comments regarding this post on ABC Open 500 words – A scary moment.
When she was six, in nineteen sixty-eight,
VCs attacked on Chinese New Year date.
Gunfire between the VCs and GIs,
Hiding in the house, she saw with own eyes. But wait there’s more!
A refugee's journey - Vietnam to Australia 
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