George Miller – US Democrats Congressman – in Malaysia greeting children at a Vietnamese refugee camp.
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Monsoon fury – image credit Thejas Panarkandy
Monsoon – image credit 5particle.
22 Jun 1979, Kuantan Beach, Malaysia: Refugees aboard beached boat from Vietnam. – Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS
Pulau Bidong island.
Refugees transported to Pulau Bidong island walking on the jetty.
Refugees having picture taken for ID.
I have a duty to honourably commit myself to serve this country just like my father.
Comments about this post on ABC Open 500 words – Family trait.
Ten people were in the meeting room, plus seven others in offices around Australia hooked up to the room’s conference phone. It was a big meeting, with the attendance of section colleagues and business stakeholders, to review Monsieur Yuppie’s system specification document. But wait there’s more!
(Sonnet-Petrarchan-style poem)
When power frowns at the tight deadline claim,
And staff resource for demand is so low,
Yet future staff retrenchment is to grow,
The workplace chaos then becomes aflame! But wait there’s more!
I have come to accept racism in this country in exchange for freedom after escaping from the Vietnamese Communists.
Comments about this post on ABC Open DRUM – Casual Racism.
Arriving in Australia from a Malaysian refugee camp in April 1984, I stayed at a six-bedroom parish house in Burwood, Victoria together with thirteen other Vietnamese refugees. On Christmas Day that year, when I was alone in the house, the parish priest took me along to an Australian parishioner’s house and I had my very first Australian Christmas lunch there. It was a frosty lunch as no one spoke a word to me. More than thirty years later, I still wonder why those Australians were cold to me. But wait therre’s more!
(Ghazal-style poem)
Towards me, some people have no tolerance,
So in this country, I loathe my existence! But wait there’s more!
They were the faithful, the miserable, the immoral, the beautiful,…. I couldn’t forget my encounter with that poor and forlorn woman.
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I helped Mum preparing food for the quarterly visit to Dad’s communist prison (glossily named re-education camp) .
Six dozens boiled egg yolks were mashed and dried on an electric stove. Two sliced sandwich loaves were toasted and spread with butter mixed with sugar. But wait there’s more!
(Couplet-style poem)
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Tears in the night,
Flow for the plight,
Of the wives left to wait,
Lonely, contrite, dying, self-hate.
Image credit
by Smabs Sputzer.
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!
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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!
A refugee's journey - Vietnam to Australia 
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