Small Bamboo (12 page)

They were about to start searching her but Mum pulled out the small bag that Aunt Five had given her in the park at Long Xuyen. ‘This is all I have. If you want it, just take it.’

One of the men grabbed the bag and emptied its contents into his palm. They scoffed at the jade and pearls—all they wanted was gold and cash.

‘Why would you bring these with you? Ah, we don’t want them,’ and the man handed the bag back to her.

Mum, afraid they’d strip and search her, suddenly tightened up her pelvic area where she had hidden the three gold pieces. She also had her wedding ring in the sleeve of her shirt. She didn’t draw attention to it. She stared down the crew, and gave nothing away. They looked at Uncle Five, who was only wearing shorts and a shirt; there was nowhere to hide anything of much value.

Uncle Five had been brewing with anger and now he could no longer contain it. ‘This is ridiculous!’ he snapped. ‘I’m the only one who paid you a lot of money. I probably paid the most out of everybody on this bloody boat.’

Mum was scared the crew might retaliate but Uncle Five wasn’t afraid; he knew he had done more than enough for these people. My uncle has a commanding manner; he never yells but his tone and the words he uses can make adults feel as if they’re young children being scolded. Uncle Five may be a short man but he has the strength of a giant.

The crew cowered, Mum says, as Uncle Five continued to give them a piece of his mind. ‘I gave you money to buy the fishing boat, that useless fishing boat that wasn’t even strong enough to hold us all. You said it was sturdy enough but we could have drowned! Do you remember how much I paid you? I gave you thirty-two pieces of gold and five million dong!’

Five million dong was a lot of money in those days and, apart from the three pieces now hidden in Mum’s underwear, the gold was all he’d had. On other boats some escapees had paid crews only ten pieces per person; Uncle Five had not only paid for seventeen people and bought the fishing boat but he had also given more to the crew.

‘I paid all this money up front, a long time before this journey. You could have run off with it all. I trusted you people, and I paid in advance so you could trust me.’

The men started to hang their heads in shame. Uncle Five was on a roll. ‘How can you ask me for more? Isn’t that enough? If I didn’t buy that fishing boat, how could all these people be here on this tugboat right now, ha?!’

One of the men sheepishly replied, ‘You are right, Brother Five. We are so sorry for asking. I don’t know what came over us.’

Uncle Five just looked at them in disgust. ‘Greed, that’s what came over you people.’

‘We’ll call everyone to come on deck and we can discuss where we will go next,’ the crewman said.

Uncle Five kept his expression controlled and stern but deep down he was shaking with fear and anger, and also very relieved he was able to prevent the situation from becoming a disaster. It wouldn’t have been the first time that a boat crew had swindled their desperate passengers. Mum and Dad have heard stories of other groups of escapees who were strip searched and robbed of all their belongings. Some crewmen would resort to violence, even throwing innocent passengers overboard. People were so desperate for money. Most who escaped by boat carried nothing so the crew couldn’t take anything from them. Uncle Five and Mum turned their backs on the crew, hoping this wouldn’t happen again.

The crew now called all the passengers onto the deck. It was time to enjoy the moment they were finally out of Vietnamese waters. They couldn’t believe how calm and smooth the sea was, like a river. Then it hit them—they were on their way to freedom. But they still didn’t know their final destination. Uncle Five and the rest of the family thought they were going to Malaysia but the crew wanted to head to Singapore.

‘Why not Malaysia? We can see all the islands and it’s so close,’ said Uncle Five.

‘It’ll be easier in Singapore. Life will be better there.’

Uncle didn’t want to argue anymore. He was so exhausted from the journey and from haggling with the crew about money.

So they bypassed Malaysia and spent more days at sea, sailing closer and closer to Singapore. As they approached land, their tugboat was stopped by the Singapore navy. Some officers boarded the tugboat and chatted briefly with the crew but, after a quick look at the group, they left.

One of the crew walked over to Uncle Five. ‘We’ve been turned away. They say there are no refugee camps in Singapore. The officers have advised us to head back to Malaysia. Sorry, Brother Five.’

‘As long as we’ll be accepted in Malaysia.’ Uncle Five was becoming impatient. If only the crew had listened to him instead of wasting days at sea. At least they were safe, free to head back to Malaysia where, hopefully, they would be accepted.

By 1978, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese had fled to Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia. Refugee camps had been set up in remote areas of each country, or on tiny islands in the region. A few days later they reached the group of islands they had encountered when the boat first entered Malaysian waters. They all looked beautiful—tropical islands packed with palm trees, fringed with white sand and surrounded by pristine blue water. A true paradise. There were plenty of small commercial fishing boats about; some were older than others.

The crew decided to drop anchor for the night; they planned to sail on the next day to look for an island they could land on. It was a busy area for legitimate fishing boats and some of them started surrounding this lonely tugboat in the middle of the ocean. The fishermen knew exactly what kind of boat it was—a boat full of refugees from Vietnam.

Eventually one of the fishing boats pulled up alongside the tugboat. Luckily Uncle Five was able to converse with the fishermen, who only spoke Teochew, a Chinese dialect, and seemed happy to help this group of refugees. After a short conversation Uncle Five turned to the crew and his family.

‘I’m going with this fishing boat but I’ll be back later,’ he told them. ‘The men have offered to help me explore the islands so I can decide where we should land.’

By this time, some islands were so overcrowded with refugees that there was hardly any space on the beaches. Some island centres had run out of space so the refugees had to build their own homes out of wood and whatever else they could find. It was very basic living, but it was still better than they had expected. Some South Vietnamese were stranded there for years.

‘Are you sure?’ Aunt Five asked. She doubted these men were genuinely offering to help.

Uncle Five assured her that he would be fine and, as it turned out, the fishermen were very helpful, showing him around their island home and even buying him some noodles for dinner. It was the first time in almost a week Uncle Five had eaten a proper meal. He discovered that the fishermen also provided the refugees on the islands with food and other supplies on behalf of the United Nations, and they were trying to figure out which island had too many people by the amount of food they were delivering. After dinner the fishermen invited Uncle Five to stay the night at their home, promising to return him to the tugboat in the morning. He was so grateful for their generosity; under the circumstances, food and a bed for the night were an unexpected luxury.

Dad believes the fishermen were so kind to Uncle Five because of the way he spoke to them—with modesty and respect. Early the next morning, when the fishermen returned Uncle Five to the tugboat, for some reason they didn’t sail off straight away. Dad went over to Uncle Five, who was at the bow of the tugboat with the crew.

‘The fishermen know an island that isn’t too crowded, one that would be good for us,’ Uncle Five explained. ‘They know because they deliver food to refugees there. But they can only guide us and signal which island to head for—if they sail too close to us, they’ll get in serious trouble.’

He asked the crew if they thought it was worth trying, and they all agreed, so Uncle Five turned to the fishermen and nodded. The fishing boat sailed off, with the tugboat chugging far enough behind.

They sailed for hours, the crew and passengers of the tugboat keeping a lookout for a likely island. It seemed as if they had passed many options but still the fishermen kept going. Then, finally, after midday on 31 April, one of the fishermen waved. It was the agreed signal. Uncle Five waved in response, then placed his palms together and bowed gratefully to them.

They arrived at the island of Pulau Tengah, a small beach island located off the south-eastern coast of Malaysia, which became famous as a Vietnamese refugee transit camp before it was closed in the early 1980s. The UN Refugee Counsel camp, where the refugees waited to start their new lives in Europe, Australia, Canada or the United States, had been established a few months earlier. This island, with its white sand and calm waters, looked so fresh and welcoming to the refugees after the distressing week on board the tugboat.

But before they could land they were stopped by a United Nations boat. Several officials—some with the United Nations and some members of the Australian Committee, the organisation that decided who could resettle in Australia—boarded the tugboat and had a quick conversation with the crew. One man from the Australian Committee stepped forward and, with the aid of a Vietnamese interpreter, addressed the group.

‘Please don’t be alarmed. I would like to inform you that we, the Australian Committee, have given you all immediate approval to resettle in Australia. We will take you in.’

Uncle Five looked at Dad and the rest of the family. They were a little startled, unsure whether to believe it or not; they were still paranoid about being captured and taken back to Vietnam. Other refugees had waited for years for approval, yet here they were, able to go to Australia straight away. It didn’t make sense.

The man continued: ‘Please listen carefully. Yesterday a boat, similar to yours, decided to go straight to Australia. Please, do not do the same thing, we beg you. It is far too dangerous. They may arrive there safely but you may not. If all 121 of you want to go to Australia, we will take you. Please do not try to sail there on your own.’

The group couldn’t believe their luck.

‘But you must remain on this boat for one more night. We cannot take you now. Please stay here, and we will come and get you tomorrow.’

With that, the UN officials and the Australian Committee members disembarked and sailed back to the island. By this stage Australia had opened its doors to Vietnamese refugees. On 26 April 1976, the first boat carrying Vietnamese refugees arrived in Darwin harbour. Malcolm Fraser’s Coalition government argued that Australia had a moral responsibility to take refugees because of its involvement in the Vietnam War. Most were processed offshore in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia before being flown to Australia. The Fraser government accepted almost 250,000 Vietnamese as refugees and immigrants.

At the time Dad’s family arrived at Pulau Tengah, the Australian Committee was rejecting a lot of people. That’s why some groups of refugees decided to sail straight to Australia. They didn’t want to wait on an island for years. The Australian government, unhappy with how things were playing out, decided to automatically take in the next boat of refugees who arrived, so Mum and Dad’s group were very lucky. As it turned out, the other boat did arrive safely in Darwin a couple of weeks later, and some of those refugees are still friends with my parents. However, many boats failed in similar attempts, and still do. Many boat people had to face deadly storms, diseases, starvation and pirates. According to the United Nations, in the years after the war up to 400,000 Vietnamese civilians died at sea.