A story of despair, courage and compassion.

by John Doan.

My journey from Viet Nam to the US started in June, 1982 with 8 days and 7 nights spent on a small fresh water 30-foot fishing boat in the South China Sea with my family and fifty-nine other refugees. My family went through refugee camps in Pulau Bidong Island; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Manila, Philippines and completed pages upon pages of paper work along the way. A Catholic Church in Martinsville, Virginia sponsored my family’s move to southwest Virginia in May 1983 and many members of the congregation provided incredible support and assistance as we faced a new culture and new language.

This link will take you to the lyric of a Vietnamese song I translated. It has always reminded me of the day before departing the refugee camp for good. I will never forget such moment in life, so I just want to share the feeling through the song. It is sad, but it is beautiful and it expresses the feeling of a boat person.

Pictures can tell thousand words, so I just summarize a short version of what my family went through.

Arrows are pointing to the countries that helped those boat people. My boat left the Mekong river near Saigon and drifted for 8 days and 7 nights. Everyone was in a sitting position on a 30-foot fishing boat and was allowed with only one 1/4 cup of uncooked rice and one cup of water a day. Our food and water ran out after the third day at sea…praying, crying and sleeping were the last and only source for our physical and mental survival.

At the end, we made it to a tiny remote island in Malaysia where people had never been exposed to the modern world. I thought it was the end of day after surviving a long journey and had to be beaten and killed by those spears.

Luckily, we survived the ordeal and was rescued by a police officer who happened to visit the island from a big city on that judgment day.

This is not our boat, but it’s about the same size & shape
The boat got stuck when we arrived at the island.

We helped each other out of the boat.

This picture was taken one year before we left Viet Nam. My older and younger sisters and my two younger brothers.

Pulau Bidong & Sungei Besi, Malaysia (refugee camps for 6 months)

Bataan, Philippines (refugee camp for 6 months)

Here we met other refugees (boat people) just like us and here we spent the next 6 months to go through all the paperwork.

The refugee camp here in Pulau Bidong was put together by the boat people using scraps from anything they could find.

Even though it’s not the best desire living space, but it’s the sense of freedom that helped us survive and be strong. This two-mile island with over 15,000 refugees during 1982-1983, it was quite cozy and it was an everyday reminder of what we went through.

This very spot was where over 1,000 people watching over one small screen TV every night: “Little House on the Prairie” This very same place had opened my eyes to respect our human kinds and started my first volunteer work with the International Red Cross.

Bataan, Philippines was so much better because here is the transition for us before leaving for the United States.
This camp is only for those refugees who got accepted by official countries. We stayed here for another 6 months for
more paperwork before leaving for good.

What we left behind was other refugees just like us waiting for their names to be called on the loud speaker. What we
left behind was all the despair, courage and compassion while getting ready toward the unknown future!

The big day – leaving the refugee camp

The big day had arrived. We all headed to different directions and countries. The day of happiness, sadness and worry at the same time not knowing what the future may bring and when we can see each other again.

The two bags was all we had and they contained nothing more than just used clothes donated from various charity groups. We had no shoes, so we wore flip-flops instead and outdated clothes heading toward the uncertainty.

Arrived at Greensboro, NC. Happy, happy and very happy.

Life has changed forever starting from this point on…

Something to remember (in English, click on the picture)…

(in Vietnamese, click here)

Something to remember (in English, click on the picture)…

(in Vietnamese, click here)