The Motherland Is A Bunch Of Sweet Starfruits

Digging up traumatic memories is neither pleasant nor straightforward, and unearthing events long buried can plunge one back into the grief and pain of former years.

There are some events in our lives we will never forget. For me, it was the bombing of our family home when I was three years old. I was born in a small village called Tân Thành in South Vietnam. My family home was opposite the village market with a river behind it. The village was where my father met my mother when he had just arrived from China as a refugee. He was seventeen and from an unwanted ethnic minority called “Hakka” (guest). So, being a refugee was part of his heritage.

In 1963, the communist insurgency staged a surprise attack on the village. My house was randomly bombed in the crossfire, and the whole family fled with only the clothes on our backs. I remember looking back. The stark image of my family home in flames and the concrete bridge collapsing was seared deep into my memory.

After being uprooted from Tân Thành, the local Chinese Mutual Association provided a small place for our family to live, in a large building shared with other Chinese families. However, the building itself was a horrible place and was used to host Chinese communal functions, mainly funerals. To reach home after school, I would have to walk down a long, dark corridor past a room where coffins were placed before burial. It was always dark inside the room, with only some candles and incense burning. Sometimes, I saw people dressed in traditional white funeral clothing, all crying. I was sure there was a ghost inside watching me. My heart thumped and my knees turned to jelly as fear gripped me.

Several years later, my family moved into a new home. It was just opposite the local hospital. Not far from where we lived, beside a row of tamarind trees, was a vast estate over one hundred years old. It had been subdivided and rented out to ten different Vietnamese families, primarily labourers and servicemen, along with their children. Usually, I would go there after school to play, as I considered myself Vietnamese and one of them. However, the children saw me as a lone Chinese boy from a family full of girls, and they teamed up and bullied me.

The relationship between Vietnam and China had waxed and waned throughout their histories. Vietnam had been under Chinese rule for almost a millennium, so now resentment toward the Chinese was deep in the Vietnamese psyche. I realised that being true friends with these local boys was perhaps just a bridge too far. Yet I continued to hang around with them and put up with their bullying because I needed friends. My time living in the Chinese Mutual Association’s communal building had left mental scars, and I didn’t want to return to that time of loneliness and darkness.

Then, on Wednesday, 30th April 1975, once again, it was another devastating blow to my unhappy but peaceful life. As a fifteen-year-old boy, standing between childhood and adulthood, I was caught in the grip of a new fear, the uncertainty and insecurity of what living under communist rule might mean.

There were many unforgettable events that happened to my family during this period, but I will only relate the one that affected me most. I had a prized book collection. Each book was my treasure, my hope and gave me something to aspire to. I had read my few cherished books so often I grew up the characters. When the communist government began their political campaign to destroy all remnants of the old culture, I was forced to burn them with my own hands! An intense dislike for communism settled deep in my soul.

In 1978, I completed my secondary schooling. As the political struggle between Vietnam and China was tense, the government prohibited students of Chinese ethnicity from entering the university. This racist policy crushed me emotionally and psychologically. However, as I had a Vietnamese mother, I decided to hide my Chinese heritage to bypass the net. This choice to hide my heritage was to become a constant source of trauma for me during my university years. Anti-Chinese slogans were everywhere – in the streets, in theatrical plays and in public media. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the government failed to distinguish the difference between the country of China and their policies, and Chinese people living abroad.

The most hurtful and demeaning attack was by making “Chinese” synonymous with “unwanted” or “rejected”. I was careful not to show any sensitivity towards what I heard and stayed out of debates, even though the arguments put forward against the Chinese were laughable, childish, and often illogical. It was excruciating for an extrovert like me to bite my tongue and say nothing. Somehow, though, guilt for being Chinese wormed its way into my conscience. The government made sure it was heard loud and clear that there was no place for people like me in their society, even if I desperately wanted to belong.

At university, we all played the “Let’s Pretend” game. The professors pretended that what they said was the truth, and we students pretended to believe them. Each kept their real thoughts hidden inside, but outwardly energetically followed the Party line. Everyone had been sold a lie and promised a world that would never exist. Whatever I did or said was seen as stubbornness and an act not worthy of the glorious regime. I had become the black sheep of the class. “Self-criticism” sessions were run where I was forced to stand in front of the class and confess my “sins”. I was under constant pressure in that hostile environment, enduring unbelievable humiliation and compromising my integrity by confessing imaginary misconduct and begging for their forgiveness.

The government released relentless cultural purification campaigns against the past bourgeois lifestyles and vigorously promoted the socialist way of life. The crewcut hairstyle for men was heavily encouraged as a sign of being progressive. I grew my hair long in a passive act of defiance. It gave me a way of letting off steam and a relief valve for the pressure building in my worried mind. One day I was cornered and forced to cut my hair.

My anguish became worse as time went on. My life was one of tension, fear and anxiety. It was like standing on a loose rock on the very edge of a cliff, knowing that at any moment, I could fall into the abyss below. I wasn’t really living. For the first time, I began to think seriously about leaving Vietnam. I knew the penalties would be heavy if I was caught, but I began to think it was worth the risk.

Escaping Vietnam by boat was a dangerous business. Plans had to be made in secret, and if the plot was discovered by Public Security, all those involved would face lengthy jail terms or even a death sentence. Even if the boat escaped the relentless patrols, the escapees faced the threat of pirates, the lack of food and water, the risk of unseaworthy boats sinking, storms and being stranded in the middle of the ocean if no rescue ship picked them up.

Eventually, I told my father about my anguish and my plans. He understood and agreed to fund my escape to save my sanity. My focus now turned toward leaving. My brother helped me with the arrangements and, after two failed attempts, finally, the day came when all was ready.

In late May 1981, I travelled to a coastal hamlet near the port city of Vũng Tàu. Sometime after midnight, together with 45 other passengers, I climbed aboard an unseaworthy fishing boat, illegally built in a remote jungle, and headed out to sea under the blind eye of the bribed local officials. I was leaving Vietnam, there was no going back.

The boat was tiny and dangerously overloaded. We were ordered to overthrow all our belongings overboard to lighten the load and keep it stable. The engine broke down, the boat leaked and there was no food or extra water on board. Large ships passed us, but despite our frantic waving, they did not stop. Our compass stopped working, and we were lost at sea. Then during a storm at sea, our boat capsized. Fortunately, most of us were plucked out of the sea by workers on a nearby oil rig in Indonesian territory.

Standing on the rig platform, dripping wet but alive, I was overjoyed. I had crossed the bridge. I was unchained like a bird let out of its cage soaring high into the heavens. From now on, I would have no need to be ashamed of who I was, I could hold my head up proudly without fear of rejection and persecution.

After spending almost eight months in a refugee camp in Indonesia, I was accepted for resettlement in Australia. In January 1982, I arrived in Melbourne with great excitement and anticipation. Initially, there were huge issues with the language and cultural differences. But with determination, I found work in various factories and began to build a new life. Later, I returned to university to obtain tertiary qualifications. I then became a professional and worked for multi-national and large Australian corporations across various industries over the last 35 years. I have always been acknowledged by my employers for my passion, commitment, dependability, integrity, and responsibility.

My past wounds have been scarred over. I have emerged from under their weight. My old fear has been replaced by compassion, and forgiveness has given me freedom. Recently, at a work lunch, an older lady from a European background asked me, ‘Are you Vietnamese or Chinese?’ The old fear suddenly resurfaced, but she was smiling and meant no offence. I took a deep breath.

"What makes us who we are? Is it where we were born and grew up? Or what language do we speak? What clothes do we wear, or what food do we eat? I know who I am. I only think about my life in this country I love. Does it matter whether we are ethnically Chinese, Vietnamese, English, Greek or Italian, if we have the same life and the same experiences here?"

I paused, then resumed:

"There is a Vietnamese expression, “The motherland is a bunch of sweet starfruits”. I don’t know why starfruits were chosen, as they are rarely sweet and usually quite sour. Maybe the relationship between a person and their country is like a taste of starfruits. We are all Australians together sharing the good times and the bad."

Glancing at my workmates, I saw most of them nodding their heads in agreement. I smiled. My fears subsided.

“We are individuals, but we are also one”.

The lady who had asked me the question threw her arms around my shoulders and hugged me. A sense of belonging overwhelmed me. I was proud of my heritage, and everyone respected it.

Now, forty three years later, I am sitting here in the comfort of my home to write these words. The place overlooks a seemingly endless, faraway mountainous range. The sun is just above a tall gum tree in the paddock, and its rays light up the subtly different colours of the range, giving it an indescribable beauty. Everything around me is lush and green, and “I think to myself, what a wonderful world!” (Louis Armstrong).

Australia has been “the lucky country” for me. Like my father, I learned to never give up. However, unlike him, I have never felt that I was an outsider - a “Hakka”. Australian people have genuinely opened their arms to embrace me like a family member who had just returned from overseas.

In his famous song, My Way, Frank Sinatra sang:

"Regrets, I’ve had a few."

However, unlike the singer, I haven’t had any!

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In 1982, Van Pho arrived in Australia as a Vietnamese refugee and went on to build a distinguished career as a senior executive leading strategic transformations for multinational and Australian corporations. Beyond his professional life, he has long been active in community service, including serving as General Secretary for the Vietnamese community in Victoria and as a member of the Senior Victorian Advisory Committee. His first English-language book, A Bridge Too Far, is available on Amazon, alongside many of his short stories shared in both Vietnamese and English.

Connect with Van on LinkedIn.