Just like the famous Chinese Story of a Buddhist monk traveling to the west with his disciples encountering many obstacles.. Here is the story of my parents journey to the west and the hardships they faced...
North Vietnam
During the French rule of Vietnam between 1925 and 1933, nearly 600,000 Chinese emigrated to North Vietnam including my great grandparents and in the Second Sino-Japanese war that took place from 1937 to 1941, many Chinese left for South Vietnam but my great grandparents remained in the North.
1955
My Paternal Grandfather 杜甫世 was born on the 15th June 1927 in China, and my Paternal Grandmother 凌亞妹 11th October 1929 in China. My Great Grandparents and grandparents moved to North Vietnam during the French rule and purchased a modest size house in the densely Chinese populated part of city of Haiphong, North Vietnam and on the 7th February 1955 my father, their first child was born. My grandparents went on to give birth to 3 more sons and 1 daughter. Their house was the only house on the street with their own well inside; the other houses had to share a local well that was located a short distance a way.
Haiphong had a Chinese bilingual school system and a Vietnamese public school system. The schools went through to tenth grade. These schools functioned on a tuition basis, so a child could attend school as long as the family could afford the semester-by-semester tuition. Before 1954, families could choose schools that were taught in Chinese, but even then about one third of the school day instruction was taught in Vietnamese. The schools were in session all day. After 1954, the schools were cut to half a day, and the curriculum became heavily political. Parents who wanted their children to receive further education would send them to the public school rather than the private bilingual school. My Dad and his siblings all attended school so were all fluent in reading and writing in both Vietnamese and Chinese. Dad didn't go onto further education as he decided to start working early.
My grandma was selling vegetables at the outdoor fresh market and my grandfather worked at a local factory. Life was simple, with dad working as a rickshaw bike boy to earn extra pocket money and his siblings selling ice lollies on street corners where they would earn a decent margin.
The neighbours were friendly and close with each other but often fought over trivial things like sweeping rubbish onto their side of the front yard. There was little crime and all the neighbours would keep their front doors wide open and often ate outside the front door sharing dishes. Everyone knew every ones business.
Here are some photos of my granddads house when we visited on 23rd October 2019. The house looks the same from the outside, apart from the inside is now two stories with stairs. Back when my granddad owned the property they had to use a ladder.
1956
My Maternal grandparents 黃秀貴 born 1932 and 林瓊珍 born 28th July 1935 lived in the Village in Quang Ninh (Ha Long Bay area) where their first born, my mother was born on the 24th December 1956, then later giving birth to 5 more sons and 1 daughter.
Houses on the islands were primitive. With the neighbors' helps, a house could be erected in about one week by using mud bricks for the walls, coconut thatch for the roof, and packing the dirt for the floor. The one to three rooms houses had no electricity or plumbing. Oil lamps were used for lighting. The toilet was any convenient spot up the hill. Cooking was done inside the house over a wood fire. Water was drawn from a well. When it rained, the entire house might be covered with a sheet of plastic. People took sponge baths only occasionally. To wash the body, one had to collect a bucket full of water, drape a cloth around nearby trees, and inside, sponge off with water from the bucket.
Mum being the eldest she stopped going to school as soon as she was able to work so she could help support the family. Therefore mum was only able to read and write in Vietnamese and not Chinese.
Mum was working at a factory producing tiling where she would spend a couple hours cycling to and from everyday Bikes were the main transportation on these islands and only very few possessed them. My grandfather was heart broken to see how hard mum was working and wanted her to move to the city for a better life.
Photos of my mum when she was a teenager
Unfortunately mums village is deep under water due to flooding over the years so we were unable to visit during our family trip back in 2019.
1972
Living life during the Vietnam war was not easy, constantly ready to seek shelter at the sound of the air raid sirens, it was not the first time Haiphong was bombed.
Operation Linebacker II was an aerial bombing campaign conducted by U.S against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) during the final period of U.S involvement in the Vietnam War. The operation was conducted from 18 to 29 December 1972, which was known as "The December Raids" and "The Christmas Bombings".
In Vietnam, it is just simply called "12 days and nights" (12 ngày đêm) and "Operation Dien Bien Phu in the air" (Chiến dịch Điện Biên Phủ trên không) or just simply Dien Bien Phu in the air (Điện Biên Phủ trên không). The operation Linebacker II was designed to be a "maximum effort" bombing campaign to "destroy major target complexes in the Hanoi and Haiphong areas and so It saw the largest heavy bomber strikes launched by the U.S. Air Force since World War II.
My dad was 17, when he was on his way to Hanoi for work that Haiphong was hit with a bomb. My dads family were all okay but sadly Dad lost a good friend to the bombing.
Mum and Dad recall growing up scared of being bombed by the Americans. It's not a life any child should have to go through.
1976
My Maternal grandfather asked around to see if their were any eligible bachelors for mum to marry and that's when the word reached my Paternal grandfather and they agreed to meet. It was very common for arranged marriages to take place back then but both grandparents decided to let my parents meet and decide for themselves.
So my parents met and were instantly attracted to each other (..so my parents tell me) and so they dated a while and got married in 1977.
Here are some of the dating spots my parents used to date at which we revisited October 2019. Pogoda in the park, the lake outside dads house, cinema, the harbor port where mum would take the boat back to Quang Ninh which is now closed and replaced with a road bridge.
1977
On the 16th February 1977 my Dad a long with his best man got on their bicycles and cycled 4 hours to my mums village to "collect the bride".. yes 4 hours! Cars were not very reliable back then and often broke down so were not recommended for long drives.
They then stayed for the banquet and wedding ceremony with my mums side of the family.
The very next morning 17th February 1977 they CYCLED 4hours back to Haiphong (I'm not sure if they cycled in wedding attire though) where they held the wedding ceremony and banquet with my dads side of the family. Dad hired a wedding photographer for the day to take snaps of their big day.. They registered their marriage on the 29th April 1977.
Mum was 20 and Dad 22 on their wedding day
1978
Mums siblings often visited after she got married and my uncle still remembers how surprised he was when he learned that my dad had their own water well and toilets in the house. So they were always looking forward to visiting, they also tried ice lollies for the first time as that was what my dad's family were selling to make a living. My uncle told me these stories not long a go with a huge smile on his face.. "happy memories" he told me.
Life was simple but tensions between newly reunified Vietnam and China led to a mass exodus in 1978, where 150,000 ethnic Chinese fled Northern Vietnam for China due to fears of war, evidently due to widespread rumors of an imminent Chinese attack that would result in them being rounded up and jailed, or executed.
It was towards the end of April when my mothers side of the family packed up their bags and left Quang Ninh for Haiphong. They all stayed at my my Dads house in Haiphong for the night where they planned to leave for China the next day.
It was a sad evening not knowing what lies ahead they all went to bed early and woke up before the first light and only took with them some clothes and valuables. My grandfather locked the front door with a chain and padlock and then they all left for the journey to China with mum being 4 months pregnant. They left at dawn to avoid getting caught by the Vietnamese Police.
I am still unsure how they traveled to China, so will update this part when I find out more, but I know it was by land. My uncle told me that they still had family in Vietnam after they left and often protected the house from the locals that tried to claim the house. It was not long after that the local Vietnamese and government claimed back all the houses that were abandoned by the Chinese who fled. Over the last 10 years many of my uncles including ourselves have visited my Granddads old house, it was strange knowing that technically my grandad still owned the property, but it was seized by the government with new tenants. Never the less, the new tenants have always been very friendly and offered our family to go inside and have a look.
The Chinese government closed its border to Vietnam in July of 1978 after 150,000 who fled constituted about a half of the ethnic Chinese population of North Vietnam, and were valuable people in terms of skills and abilities.
My uncle's wife was still on the Vietnam side when the boarders closed and my granddad had to pay a huge sum for her to be brought over to the China side.
A huge number of Chinese including my family settled in Ningming on the Quyang State Farm and earned a living by planting pineapples which was a cash crop, set up for refugees in late 1978 and became self-sufficient within a year.
3rd September 1978 My parents first born, my brother Chin was born
At the Ningming Centre, they helped thousands of families locate their families abroad so they could be re-settled abroad. My Maternal grandmother located her brother in Taiwan who had been living their with his family and working as a high ranking general for the government. We didn't have any family in the west but during this time my uncle decided he wanted to move to Canada to start a new life so he took a 2 week boat journey to Hong Kong in December 1978.
Here are some photos of NingMing in the early 1980's.
Here are some photos of NingMing when my Dad and brother went back to visit in 1989
1979
3 months later March 1979 my uncle sent a letter to my parents to let them know he had arrived in Hong Kong safely and secured refugee status so by June 1978 when my brother was just 9 months old it was decided that he would become one of the "Boat People" with my parents to also find refuge in Hong Kong.
The journey was tough, hundreds of people crammed into a wooden boat where my parents and brother spent their next 2 weeks riding the rough seas, mum was 3 months pregnant at this time. Many passengers became severely sick. By the time my parents arrived in Hong Kong, my brother Chin was so sick he passed away in Hospital in June 1979 at the age of 9 months. My parents stayed at the Sham Shui Po refugee camp.
A woman who lost her husband is called a widow. A man who lost his wife is called a widower. A child who lost his parents is called an orphan. But there is no word for a parent who lost their child because there is no word to describe the pain
My parents were devastated and the handling of all refugee deaths were dealt with by the Hong Kong government at this time. So until this day I do not know if he was cremated, or buried. This was the last photo my dad took with my brother Chin in China before they left for Hong Kong.
They gained refugee status in Hong Kong, Dad found a job at a Chinese restaurant in Ap Liu Street and Mum secured a job at a local factory putting together children's dolls, but she was let go as she couldn't keep up to the speed of other workers, shortly after that my sister was born on 30th December 1979.
1980
Sham Shui Po Barracks was a British Army facility built in the 1920s in the Sham Shui Po area of Kowloon, Hong Kong and opened as a refugee camp in June 1979. So my parents were part of the first arrivals to this camp.
Mum spent most of her time inside the camp with my sister and aunt and only ventured out to the market for groceries so she wasn't very familiar with Hong Kong. Although everyone was friendly there was a curfew, and it felt like a prison keeping the refugees inside gated walls.
Dad with my big sister, Aunt with my cousin and mum with my big sister. Hong Kong 1980
I remember taking mum back to Hong Kong in 2008 but she couldn't remember where they used to live. It was only until we went back to Hong Kong in 2012 that Dad was able to take us back to where they used to live.
Here is a photo of mum and dad standing at the old site of the Sham Shui Po refugee centre, which is now Sham Shui Po Park, Hong Kong taken on 25th April 2012
1981
Sham Shui Po camp was due to close end of March 1981 so refugees were to be relocated to another camp so my uncles, aunts, parents immigrated across the globe, US, Canada, China and UK. My parents moved to Chepstow in Wales on February 19th 1981 and stayed at the St Annes Recreation Center which was a camp set up for refugees and run by a group of heart warming nuns. They helped mum and dad set up life in the UK, taught basic English and got their national insurance numbers.
My parents only had good things to say about their stay here.
Mum gave birth to my brother on 14th October 1981.
1982
Early 1982 Mum, Dad, big sister and brother moved to London and set roots in South East London.
London Zoo was one of their favourite attractions.
1983
Not knowing much English my Dad got a job at a Chinese Restaurant in China town. Now with a permanent address, and a secure job they were ready to sponsor my uncle Dau on my mums side and my uncle Suan on my dads side to move over from NingMing China.
1984
I was born and my two uncles finally made it over on a flight from Hong Kong. My two uncles moved in with us. But shortly after uncle Suan moved to Manchester for work where he stayed with my Great aunt and uncle.
Shortly after I was born, my mum fell ill and so I spent most of my first year with Dad until mum was well again.
1985
My mums uncle opened up a textile company and so my dad quit his job at the restaurant and started to work from home with mum sewing clothing for my great uncle. This way they could both spend more time with us kids.
My dad loved music and would always play his favourite records.
1986
Uncle Suan met his fiance in Manchester and they both moved back to my parents place and got married in May a few days after my second youngest sister was born. Shortly after the council had a property across the road for them to move into.
My parents not knowing how to read English often had to guess what items were in the supermarket, most of them being very obvious which helped.
1987
By November 1987 my parents gave birth to my youngest sister and all of our family memories have been nothing but happiness since then.
in 1991 Dad purchased a camcorder and became our cameraman for the next 10 years. There were times that my parents thought about opening their own take away but they saw how little our relatives were spending time with their children once they opened their business and my parents didn't want this so decided to continue to work for someone and have more time for the family.
The Next 30 years...
It wasn't easy bringing up 5 children. My parents worked all day until the early hours of the morning to make sure we were well fed, dressed and everything a child could wish for. On their day off they would make sure to spend time with us and to take us out to the park, zoo, seaside, visit friends etc.
Once we became capable adults we made sure to give back twice the love our parents gave us remembering the hardships they faced to get here and start a life here for us.
My parents took this time to also go to college and improve on their English and computer skills.
Dad was a big foodie and mum loved to travel so we made sure to go on regular family trips around the world and family dinners whenever possible. They were great sports and so much fun.
2018
Family x
2019
With the grandchildren x
2020
Mum and Dads Birthday xx
Like my parents a lot of others also went through this journey to the west to start a new life hoping that the west will be able to offer more to their children.
I will forever be grateful for my parents and grand parents and all my ancestors and they will forever be missed xxx
Families are like branches on a tree. We all grow in different directions but our roots remain as one. xxx
By Early 2020 we lost both sets of grandparents and...
Love ❤️