My father

As far as I remember, my father is a very determine person. To him, nothing is impossible. He has a strong mind and body. He does not believe in fate. He believes in what you work is what you get. Another word, he believes in himself. He loves to learn and picks up new skills very quickly. He didn’t like school at all. He could understand when I’ve got zero for my Vietnamese test when I was little. I used to have red-marked in my report cards and he looked at me with great understanding. His remark was “It is ok. I don’t like school too.” In most of his life, he has been working pretty hard for his family. He is not that sort of person who only knows how to work but does not know how to enjoy life.

I remember when we were in the Bedong Island Refugee Camp. We had no money for food and medicine. He was sick and was feeling very low. That did not stop him thinking about how to make his family’s life better. He kept wanderred around the island to look for things he could use. He asked me to join him to go to all the ship wrecks sites to look for tools. There were some sites that we could get something out from them. We got quite a fair bit of nails, timbers, iron board and machinery from the boats. He used timbers to make thongs, stools and shelves. He used iron boards to build his work shop. He undid the machines from the boats and used its parts as tools. He could turn junk into useful things. He got some brilliant ideas when he saw so many empty coca cola cans lying around. He opened them up and jointed them together into a big piece of iron sheets and used them to make trays, water barrels, suitcases for his friends, boxes and ovens for the bakery shops. He used coca cola bottles to make lamps. He curled up an iron rod and burnt it under a hot oven which he used mud to build it. He then used this hot iron rod to cut the top of a coca cola bottle into half. He then cut a can into 1/3 and used it as the lamp’s base. He used the top of big round petrol tank to make woks. I helped him once to hit a flat piece of metal into a wok. My hands were full of blisters and we could only sell that wok for 10 ringgit.

At the beginning of his business, every body around him said that no body would buy his products. We as his children, asked him to save some of his energy. He never listened to us. There was one sunny afternoon, he gave me a lesson. He asked “Will you give up something which you have not tried yet?” “I don’t know? I may not give up that easy.” I said. “Good! That’s my girl. Now you are going to help me to pick up all these junk and sell them in the market. We have to try to improve our life in here, especially your mother is very sick. We need money.” He said. So I listened to him. At the beginning, I could not sell any thing at all. I felt low and did not want to continue to help him. I was not as determine as him. I told him that I could not take it any longer. He said “Nothing is easy at the beginning.”  He laughed at me and he did it all by himself. Finally he succeeded and he was well known on the Island. There was nearly every household has one of his lamp. We sold for 1 ringgit per lamp. Every body was looking for him to make them something. He said “See,I only need to try hard and I have what I want.” I truly believed in him. I have learnt from his strength, persistent, perseverance and the way he believes in himself that I should not give up easily.

When we arrived in South Australia, we were poor. We had the Government’s help, but it was just enough for food and rental. We could only buy all the essential goods. We were all complaining about the life style we’ve got except him. There was one hot summer afternoon, I saw him was working hard outside the shed. I could see his grey hair was shinning through the hot summer sun. His wrinkly face was so concentrated to what he was working. He looked at me excitedly. He said “Hi girl, I have got an order.” That moment I wanted to cry. This man has been working so hard in his life just want to make his family live comfortably. I was moved. He never gives up any chance he had in his life. He was having trouble in English and he had not had a car. He did not know any body in here other than his friend - Bac Muoi. He was working for Bac Muoi at that time just earning as low as 3 dollars per hour and it was a part time job. Bac Muoi only paid for him whenever he felt like. He did not complain at all. Bac Muoi always criticized him that now he had no workers to help him to finish his tasks. (My father employed more than 10 workers in Vietnam who could do the work for him. He was someone’s boss back home.) He kept very quiet about that. I knew that he felt very low being lost all his business back home. He adapted to the environment as quickly as he could. He made a lot of friends. There was once he asked me to help him to implement one of his projects. That was a huge advertisement board. I went with him on his small mini in an early morning around 5am to avoid traffic. He needed to hang this board about 4 metres high. I insisted to do the climbing for him. He told me that he did not gain any profit for it. I asked him why he did it. He said that he would do anything to let people know his capability. He did not mind what people offered to him. He said that one day, people will recognize his work. Not long after that, he kept having orders from restaurants. He established his business slowly in his own way. He had no machine to help him to do his work. He asked my mum and I to help him to hold onto a big sheet of steel while he curled it and turned it into a roast duck oven. He is a very skillful person. If you show him something, he can reproduce the thing for you. He has been making so many, many things for people in Adelaide. He helps neighbors to fix their lawn movers and household things for nothing. In return they gave him eggs and home grows veggies. Now he has been retired but he has built up so many machinery and tools in his shed.  He now has machine to help him to curl these steel sheet. I don’t need to help him any more.

He is so determine that he thinks nothing is impossible. He gives me so many valuable lessons in life. He teaches me how to tackle problems and do not give up when problem or criticism has arise.

I remember far, far back when I was little. He normally spent his weekend with us. He would like me to pick a place to go and he would take us there. He was a serious father before I was born. My older sisters and brothers told me that he always had a straight face when they were little. He didn’t play with them at all unlike I could crawl all over him and demanded him for the things I want. I am the lucky one in the family whom he has given me most of his love.

My first school

I attended school at the age of seven years old. My first school was a tiny little complex attached to a Buddhist temple. Actually it was part of the temple. It had one or two classrooms. I was in year-1 when I began school. Throughout the time I spent during at school I was sick from day. Merely couple of months of school, my mother had decided that school was not suitable for me. She believed the cause of my sickness was because of the temple. The temple had a memorial hall which kept many dead people’s altars, like a cemetery. My mother believed that this made me sick or it was because of age that I was not appropriate for me to begin my education. As a result I was spared another year for schooling.

Introduction

I was born in a middle class family. I have two older brothers (Kong and Sing) and three older sisters (Yung, Fong and Hing). I was pretty happy living in a family like this. I always had what I wanted. When I was about ten years old, I had set my goal to finish high school and was happy if my parents arranged a marriage for me after that. I thought I would never need to work in my life other than help my father in his business. I thought my life was as simple as that but not quite.

Why I am here?

Half way through Anh Do’s memoir, I was thinking I can write my own memoir as well. Anh Do’s memoir has so many things in commons during his escape from Vietnam and stayed at the same island in Malaysia. His book gave me an inspiration to start my own memoir.  Actually I have already written so many short articles for my high school assignments back in 1980 and I have continue written more articles about my childhood, life in Australia and my discovery in Buddhism.

I told my children about writing my own memoir and they said why not mum. So how can I go about this? Should I start my own blog? Which website should I start my blog with? My girl suggested I should use blogger. So here I am.