Vietnamese Boat People Monument in Adelaide a beacon of hope and recognition of the sacrifice for a better future

They crammed on wooden boats in the search for the unknown. Many never made it. But their sacrifice will be remembered.

Ngon Ha, 72 at the $500,000 Vietnamese Boat People Monument on the corner of Victoria Drive and Kintore Ave, Adelaide. Picture Dean Martin

Under the cloak of darkness, driven by adrenaline and the fear of a bullet in her back, Ngon Ha made for a small fishing boat.

It was 4am on an autumn night in Saigon and the paediatric nurse, her late husband Van Manh Nguyen and their two children Michelle, 8 and Tien, 6, were making a perilous but necessary choice – to escape Vietnam’s communist regime.

“The only memory living with me of this dangerous journey is the very fear, immense and dreadful, dominating me from that early morning, when I was heading to board that small boat,” Mrs Ha, 72, recalled of that 1983 night, through a translator. “I just wanted to run as fast as I could with a horribly breathless feeling of getting caught or shot from behind by the communist police or a border guerrilla.”

Family in the US had wired money to Mrs Ha – then aged 38 – to buy the boat which accommodated 48 men, women and children risking their lives to escape the humanitarian crisis sparked by the end of the Vietnam War.

“Many times I had the very thought that our tiny boat would sink and we all would disappear in the open sea. Even that, I would accept the destiny without any regret,” she said.

The fishing boat that took Ngon Ha her family and 44 others away from the downfall of Saigon and to safety in Indonesia and later a new life in South Australia. Picture: Ngon Ha

After five days and four nights the escapees, guided by a compass, reached remote Kuku Island, Indonesia.

Mrs Ha feared for her daughter who was suffering dehydration and was an “immobile, senseless corpse”.

“I prayed and as of a miracle, she could open her eyes four hours later,” she said.

Her “blessed little girl” is now a senior manager at Metro Trains, Melbourne.

The family spent six months in Galang Island Refugee Camp, Indonesia before resettlement in South Australia in 1984 and becoming part of a thriving Vietnamese diaspora in Australia.

The first boatload of Vietnamese refugees arrived in April 1976 with Australia taking in more than 15,000 refugees a year until 1983. In 2016 the national census showed that 219,355 people in Australia were born in Vietnam.

Between 200,000 and 300,000 refugees were estimated to have died at sea.

Tien Nguyen, 8, in foreground at the Galang Island Refugee Camp, Indonesia in 1984 with other Vietnamese refugees waiting for asylum. Picture: Ngon Ha

The struggle for freedom and a new future has been encapsulated in a Vietnamese Boat People Monument on the corner of Kintore Ave and Victoria Drive, Adelaide.

Mrs Ha and her family are among benefactors who donated money – and shared their stories of freedom, peace, hope and suffering – to shape the $500,000 sculpture.

It was the “journey marred with peril, yet fuelled by hope for a better future” that guided the design by Adelaide artists Ash Badios and Tony Rosella.

“That hope just outweighed anything else,” Badios said.

“It was heart-wrenching,” Rosella added. “That’s why we wanted to create an emotive work that struck a chord with people.”

The pair said the monument’s narrative is the journey seen through the eyes of two children.

The clay model and bronze cast of the boy featured in the Vietnamese Boat People Monument. Picture: Tung Ngo

A boy, watched by his sister, places a lotus flower on the boat-shaped vessel, the flower representing the start of treacherous journey taken by the Vietnamese boat people.

Ripples carved into the surface symbolise the treacherous seas that many encountered.

Another five flowers, arranged in the shape of the Southern Cross, float toward a granite beacon “a guiding light, a new beginning, shelter – home”.

“When darkness falls, its gentle beam of light streams upward – forever guiding the way to this place of freedom and opportunity,” the artist’s project brief says. “The beam is also symbolic of a light forever burning in remembrance of loved ones passed.”

The four-year project was spearheaded by Labor MLC and Vietnam refugee Tung Ngo to address the fact that Adelaide did not have its own monument for Vietnamese boat people.

After a six month search two huge granite blocks were cut from SA’s Black Hill quarry were shipped for carving in China in December 2019 just as the COVID pandemic dawned.

Mr Ngo said there was anxiety when the first block cracked.

“The second rock was perfect, if there was another crack we would’ve been stuffed,” he said.

He believes the monument will be a tourist attraction.

Ngon Ha, her late husband Van Manh Nguyen, and their children Michelle, Tien, David and Peter at Pooraka in April 1987. Source: Ngon Ha

Mrs Ha attended its unveiling last month with her family including physiotherapist son Tien Guyen, 44, and his pharmacist brother Peter Nguyen, 34.

Peter and another brother David, 36, were born in Australia and named after two Australian brothers who helped the family settle in Blair Athol then later Pooraka where Mrs Ha lives.

“We scrapped and scraped, working hard at any opportunity presented to us,” Peter said. “Although humble in resources, we truly embodied the Great Aussie way in having a fair dinkum go at anything and everything.”

What was once an “alien place, strange place” to Mrs Ha is now her “beloved South Australia”.

She said the monument was an important symbol to remember those who lost their lives, to thank those who “generously embraced” refugees and to educate future generations.

“We also see a symbol of recognition of us as Vietnamese refugees,” she said. “It recognises our tears, toil and sweat, continuously spent to contribute to this land …”

Mrs Ha and her husband established Tao Phung, the Indo-Chinese Elderly Association of SA.