Memories of kindness from a time of upheaval

CHI Vu was six years old when she and her family arrived in Australia as refugees from Vietnam in 1979, and her enduring memories of the time are not of politics but of the kindness of strangers in her new homeland.

CHI Vu was six years old when she and her family arrived in Australia as refugees from Vietnam in 1979, and her enduring memories of the time are not of politics but of the kindness of strangers in her new homeland.

"People were really generous," Vu says.

"My experience of it was overall very positive, and even when I went to uni and read about what was happening in politics at the time, I think we were very lucky."

Go to our 1979 Cabinet papers special section.

The Melbourne-based writer and performance artist and her family fled Saigon in the night, unable to say goodbye to their family and friends, as the communist government clamped down on people's freedoms in 1978.

"We drove away from the family home to a coastal town and then we were on a very crowded boat for about four or five days," she says.

"We did come across a large ship and they gave us some water and biscuits and I remember just looking up and it was the equivalent of looking up at a high-rise in the middle of the ocean."

The boat landed at Pulau Bidong, a refugee island off the coast of Malaysia administered by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. On the island, they underwent interviews with the Australian government and after six months were granted refugee visas and flights to Melbourne via Sydney, where they arrived mid-winter 30 years ago.

The family was given accommodation in Maribyrnong outside Melbourne until they found their own home. "I think it was a huge adjustment for my family . . . but as with big changes in life, people just have to get on with it," Vu says.

"Obviously it was hard, but we had a lot of help."

Religious organisations donated furniture, clothing and toys to the family, farmers invited them to stay, while Italian and Greek immigrants helped Vu's father learn English.

Vu, now 36, is an accomplished writer with a story in the PEN Macquarie Anthology of Australian Literature and works performed at the Sydney Opera House.

Other young Vietnamese-Australians of her generation who fled the country by boat in the late 1970s include writer Nam Le, who won last year's Prime Minister's Literary Award, and filmmaker Khoa Do, the 2005 Young Australian of the Year.