1968

In 1968 there were two very interesting events which had happened. That Chinese New Year, we heard lots of fire crackers fired. We went outside to watch but found out they were real gunfire. We stood on the road curb and watched. My father had a telescope in his hand and watched the gunfire with dismay. An army official came and pointed a gun on my father’s head. He pushed my father low down on the ground and questioned him whether he was a Viet Cong. They took him on a police van and disappeared. My mother was worried like hell. She then used lots of money to get him out. It was a very scary event. My mother said it was lucky that Kong wanted the telescope and dad didn’t give it to him otherwise we would not see our brother Kong again.

The second interesting event happened in June 1968. It was few days after the Dragon Boat festival in the 5th month Luna calendar. My mother made lots of sticky rice dumpling wrapped with bamboo leaves. That afternoon my dad said, “Let’s evacuate the house and move to somewhere safe because the bombing and gunfire were too close.” It happened at the back of our house. We moved close to Saigon and stayed at a hotel. Our family of ten shared three rooms. One of the rooms could see the other room. It was a coincident that Kong’s Chinese teacher was at the back of our room. We peeped through the little window and found an interest in gazing at him. I was too short at that time and kept yelling at my brothers to push me up higher to see the teacher.

Staying at the hotel was fun. We had takeaway Chinese food for every single meal. My father took me down to the shop and got me some imported lollies. I love the mint flavoured cough lollies. There was one afternoon, my brother Kong stayed at the balcony from our room. He discovered something interesting. He yelled out: “Mum, come watch, there are lots of trucks full of something.” We rushed to the balcony and watched together. My mother said the trucks were full of dead bodies. Kong gave a sniff and vomited. The smell was foul and it was indescribable. We saw traces of legs tangled and lots of swollen bodies. Kong got right in side of our room and never stood by the balcony until we came back home.
We had pillow fights nearly every day. It was fun. Our neighbour also stayed at the same hotel. The hotel was just like a Disneyland for us. We ran around, yelled out loud, played chasey, hide and seek until we broke a teapot in our room. The hotel owner came and told us off. The cleaner also told us off every morning when she changed our bed linings. She commented that she had never seen anyone that dirty in her life. Just imagine there were more than 10 children running around in a four story hotel ranging from 6 to 17 year-old.

My third school Truong Phuoc Duc

Truong Phuoc Duc was a private school administered by Taiwanese teachers as well. They all spoke mandarin. It was a very strict Chinese school and it was not an easy school to get in. We were supposed to sit for tbe entrance test but my father donated a generous amount of moneys and we got accepted without any difficulty. I started my Year 1 again. Hing got into Year 3. My second sister Fong was in Year 8. I remembered there was a girl who liked to bully people. I sat next to her from Year 1 to Year 3. She drew a line on our shared desk, and if I went passed her line then she would use a sharp pencil and stab it on my arm. There was once when she held a sharp pencil and poked into my left eye. The mark still remains till this day on my left eye. The blood was smeared everywhere. My father told her off but she continued to bully me. I requested to sit with someone else but it failed. In the Vietnamese education system, students had barely any choice. I endured three years of being bullied. In Year 3, my sister was selected as a monitoring captain for Year 5. She had the power to penalise any children from Year 5 and below. She came to my class and told the bullier off and from then on she became a good friend of mine. Her name was Hua Sieu Kim. (许秀金) She was a clever, mischievous and very cunning girl. She was a group leader in the class. Her brother Hua Binh Huy (许柄辉) admired me very much but I didn’t pay too much attention on the opposite sex at that time.

My second school

My second school was Tai Ping Yang (太平洋) or Yao Han (耀漢) Chinese School. It was a private school. Most of the teachers at Yao Han was from Taiwan. My brother Sing was studying in high school at Tai Ping Yang. As Hing was two years older than me, so she was in Year 3. And I was enrolled into Year 1. It was a big school. On the first day I got allocated to sit next to my best friend Han Xiang (漢祥) who lived three houses away from mine. I remembered there was once I was sick. I coughed into a handkerchief and the teacher accused me of whispering to Han Xiang. She forced me to stand up and whacked a stick on my back. When she started her second whack, Han Xiang grasped that stick and explained to the teacher that I was sick. Unfortunately, he and I got detention after school. Han Xiang was a deeply protective towards me. I remembered there was a group of kids who often laughed at us. They made jokes about us being so close, labelling us the ‘married couple’. We ignored them until one day they cornered me and teased me about the ‘married couple’ act. I was so terrified. Han Xiang stepped in and got into a fight, whilst I was in the corner, crying like a baby. The yard teacher noticed us and got us (Han Xiang and I) detention after school again. The teacher punished us by writing ‘I-will-not-fight-with-others’ endlessly for a hundred times. We stood there laughing during our detention.

After school, my brother Sing walked us home. He often bribed us with ice blocks to walk faster to get home and carry his books for him. He kept his promised and got what we wanted.

I stayed at that school for about half of the year until my brother Sing got into a fight. The night before that fight, he met a group of boys from the same school on the street. They challenged him for a fight but somehow he got off from them. The group was a bunch of bullies from the same school that we went to. They came from wealthy families. The next day they met at the school ground and challenged Sing again, cornering him at the canteen. His two friends (Ying Kuan and Xi Lou) jumped in and helped my brother out. They got into a heavy fight. My brother got injured on one of his eyes and his friends also got injured. I saw blood everywhere. The whole group got called into the principal office. Soon after, some of the boys got expelled and my brother’s group voted to change school. So once again Hing and I moved to another school called Truong Phuoc Duc. Sing moved to another school.

Han Xiang, my childhood soul mate

As far as I remembered I knew Han Xiang (湯漢祥) since I started crawling. He was like my shadow. He was born a week after me. In the neighbourhood, people called him ‘Pig Intestine’ (豬大腸 Xiang sounds like intestine in Cantonese.) and they called me old crab shell. (老霞殼 Xia sounds like crab and I often wore a vest, so it looked like I wore a shell all the time.) We were good friends until I left Vietnam. We used to play a game – a queen and little pawn. I was the queen and he was the little pawn. He would bow to me and say: “My dear queen.” He then asked me to give him a kick. He was his guilty pleasure. We used to play husband and wife. I cooked and he ate. I had miniature cooking set which I could actually cook real food. I often pinched my mum’s food and charcoal to cook up a feast for him. It filled me with such enjoyment watching him eating my food. I was not sure if my food would cause him an upset stomach. When we played hid-and-seek with a large group of children, he never revealed where I was hiding. There was once when he found me, but he pushed my head down and walked passed to find another one. He was a very protective friend. Whenever people bullied me he would stand up for me. We spent many hours together after school playing roller skating. We played chasey on our roller skates. He often comforted me when I felt miserable. I told him almost everything, even my first love with Tran Sinh Duc. I think he got sick of me when I kept talking about Tran Sinh Duc. When there was a sunny day, we would take the long walk home. We walked passed a vegetable farm and he would pick some flowers for me. Whenever I eyed on someone’s toys, he would win them over for me. We often snuggled up in my parents’ bed and talked forever. I didn’t go to his house that much because his mother and brother often made fun of me and called me his little wife.

There was once after school, I waited outside Han Xiang’s school. (His school is about 10 metres away from mine.) There were three boys (Tong Tieng Hung, Chau Gia Cuong and Hua Binh Huy) followed me. I think they had followed me for a while to see what I was up to. When they saw me with him, they approached Han Xiang and asked about our relationship. Han Xiang replied that it was none of their business. He also told them to leave me alone otherwise he would do something. The three boys teased me next day saying he was my boyfriend. I told Han Xiang about this and he laughed without any objection.

The most priceless memory that I can never forget, was when he taught me how to whistle. He took many nights to teach me how to whistle, showing me how to form my lips and my tongue in the position to blow out a sound. I was a bit thick in this. He also taught me how to play table tennis.

When we were about 13 years old, he became very shy. He told me to walk home alone when we got close to our houses. He was conscious about what other people would say. To be honest, I think he reached puberty. I remembered one morning I noticed his voice had changed. I asked him if he had he caught a cold. His face turned as red as a tomato. Although he began to keep a distance away from me, he would let me jump in the queue whenever I had to queue up to buy food or stuff from the communist. He would pick the best piece of charcoal, fish, bread, rice or soft drink that I like for me before he could pick for himself.

On the night before my family escaped from Vietnam, my age group had a meeting in the local council. The intention of that meeting was to designate people to be watchdogs for those who wanted to sneak out of Vietnam. Han Xiang was assigned to watch our house. I was assigned to watch my next neighbour. During the meeting, I looked at him and wanted to tell him about my family’s escape plan, instead I swallowed all the words that I wanted to tell him. Next morning before I left our house, I saw him walking passed our home. I called out to him: “Hi, Pig Intestine.” “Yes?” he replied. We stood there and that moment just froze. I couldn’t speak; I was holding back my tears; I wanted to give him a hug and said goodbye but I didn’t. I put on a fake smile and said nothing. He gave me a deep worry look and walked pass me. That was it. That was my last time to see my best friend ever.

I reconnected back with him after I settled in Australia. I miss him very dearly. Whenever I walked from school back home, I missed my companion. I miss how he was so protective of me. I missed his jokes. I miss his unconditional love. I miss his warm smile. I miss my childhood soul mate.