![]() ![]() If you don’t want to accept me as a sister, just ignore this letter. I lost my mother, brother and sister on the sea so I am the only one left. I am your stepsister and my mother told me to contact you. You may not know me because we never met. Before we left Saigon, my mother made me memorize his address so I could try to contact him. His family had moved to America before I was born. I had written to my stepbrother, the child of my father’s second wife – in Vietnam polygamy was legal – who lived in New York City. ![]() ![]() I was being processed to go to Canada, though it wasn’t my first choice. If, for example, a person was found to have lung disease, the individual was kept in the camp till it was cured, up to two or three years, or until he or she died. You had to undergo a medical inspection to see if you were fit. Once you were tentatively accepted, you were taken from the ship and placed in a camp on shore. Some went to France, others to Canada, Denmark, Greece, Egypt or the U.S. France only wanted families, while Canada was taking single people. Right now, we refugees had been applying to be accepted for admittance to any country that would have us. My sleep was a chain of nightmares.Īlso I worried about my persistent cough. It seemed like every night I dreamed of drowning, then woke up, then drowsed off. Back on the ship, my fear of drowning was wrenching and arresting. I confess I am guilty of that, but my worries are not that deep. It means worrying too much about little things. Nowadays, Cantonese friends have called me “pa say,” that is, “afraid to die.” Not complementary and not to be taken literally. But I wondered whether another storm might appear out of nowhere and swamp us before we could get help. Before the storm, we were transferred from the freighter to a Philippine naval cruiser. ![]() There had already been one typhoon as we waited in that ship. Our ship was anchored about one mile out from Manila. If the boat capsized or became flooded, most everyone would drown trying to get up the stairs. We lay on big sacks of flour, except for a few people who had cadged straw ticking. It contained about 2,000 people, refugees. There was only one stairway leading up from the hold of the boat where I was sleeping. The space was huge, spreading out beyond my bed as if I were a mite in a giant shoebox floating on the waves. So I used to think in those days, in 1978. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |