The Terrifying Experience

In the 1970’s, the idea of going to the US wasa popular idea that everyone wanted to try out. People would do anything to just get on board of a rickety old ship, and sail away from the Communist who were occupying Vietnamese lands. People would trade their gold bars, their jaded bracelets, anyything  to just travel to the US. Often, when one is preparing to go on the journey, the word spreads very fast, but very quiet because if the Communist soldiers found out if you’re going to the US, you would not only lose your passage to the US, you would lose it for others too.

Sometimes, when word was leaked that there is about to be a ship departure of people going to the US, the police would come in and try to arrest everyone. Kim, a little girl, was on one of those ships when that happened. She ran through a muddy cemetery with other people to get away from the police. As people were running, gold and money scattered the area because money and gold were useless if you stayed in jail. Kim had many times wanted to go to the US because if one went to the US in the 1970s, there were so many opportunities to make almost any dream come true.

For those who did make it on the journey, they were not safe at sea.  There were vicious sea pirates and there were countless stories of how ruthless they could be. The men would get killed and thrown into the sea and the women would get raped and killed. Children would be killed but sometimes, they were left alive. The pirates would take all the money and food, and when they are done with their tasks, they lit a fire to burn the whole ship down. Sometimes, there would be some survivors hiding in that ship. If you travel far enough in the ocean today, it is rumored that you can sometimes hear the screams of agony from the past victims or imagine that you see a corpse in the sea of bodies where so many people had died.

Even if one had made it through the sea safely, there was still more obstacles. You would have to board a ship in the Thailand harbor, and wait for another ship tp get to the US. Sometimes, it cold take months for a ship to arrive and in those months, people had to find their own means of survival. Some people turned to prostitution, being beggars, or having a good stroke of luck of getting a decent job. But once they get on the boat that takes them to the US, all worries and fear vanished away and was replaced with the excitement of starting a  new and better life with the freedom that their home country couldn’t provided.

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Source:

Nguyen, Kim. Personal interview. 20 Jul 2006.