During my one year studying in Sydney, I often go to Cabramatta. There are many Vietnamese people here with various unique cultural identities, but something still feels unfamiliar.
"Xuan Que huong 2009" |
But here, there were traces of feud from the Vietnam War on the streets in Cabramatta. I would rather be silent than
let them know I am from the North, where people have been often thought of as
communists. The feud seems then to not be over.
But there should be something wrong from what I had seen, at least I
hope that.
In the New Year of 2009, during my filming trip in Sydney, I met Nguyen Van Nghia, a "boat person" who escaped Vietnam in 1979. He
is living in Chester Hill, near to, but separate from the Vietnamese community
in Cabramatta.
“Before coming to Australia, I and my wife had to live for 5 years in
a refugee camp in Hong Kong, where my first child was born. Floating on the sea
for months with diseases, pirates, looting, and your relatives’ death made you
more indignant. But it’s our choice to escape. I was just afraid of the
communism and the poor situation I might face under the communist regime and I
ran away. We missed out homeland, so we just keep our nostalgia inside”.
Nghia is one of those who came to Australia without experiencing great
loss in his journey. Perhaps that is the reason why he was easily talking about
his story in the past. “When I landed in Australia, I just thought “here is a
heaven”. But something was not as I expected. Australia was not a heaven. I and
my wife had to do everything, from the legal to illegal to survive. We were not
recognised as a community, just refugees. Cabramatta became a land for
Vietnamese gangs. I had three more children, and as they have grown, they
started asking me about Vietnam”, said the father.
![]() |
Nghia and his
daughter worshiping their ancestors in New Lunar Year (VTV) |
Nghia
has two sons and two daughters whose names are Viet, Nam, Ha and Thanh. ‘Viet
Nam’ is the homeland country, and ‘Ha Thanh’ is Hanoi where he was born. The
children have soon adapted to Australian society and gained many achievements
at school. “What would be happier for a parent seeing their children’s success
in a foreign land? The first thing I taught them is to remember their homeland
whenever they think of their name. They are from a country where people were
suffering pains and loss from the war and they had to try their best to
overcome such pains”.
Nghia and his family began to return to their homeland after Vietnam
started its reformation. Since then, he became a friend who connects Vietnamese
diplomatic representatives and people from his homeland with the Vietnamese
community in Sydney.
Like Nghia’s children and many other young people of the second
Vietnamese generation in Australia, Van Anh Nguyen – a piano talent in
Australia and the world – cannot speak Vietnamese well. She tried to talk with
me with her limited Vietnamese vocabulary. “Whenever I have a performance in
Vietnam, I like to wear ‘Ao dai’ (a
traditional long dress for Vietnamese women). It is something special and
emotional that is hard to explain. Even when performing in other countries, I’m
very happy when people see me in Ao dai
and tell me: You are Vietnamese”.
![]() |
Van Anh playing Dan bau (VTV) |
Our
talk was interrupted as she could not find more Vietnamese words to express her
feelings. She
suggested playing a Vietnamese folk song with Dan bau – a traditional monochord. What could I have expected than
such a very typical Vietnamese thing in Sydney? Dan bau is a symbol of our national soul, and it recalls nostalgia
for any Vietnamese who are far from home. This surprised me, as Van Anh was not
born in Vietnam. The artist is only 25 years old and what she has known about
Vietnam only through her mother’s memories and her own experience in her visits
to homeland. But that is true and the talk with Van Anh made me believe in what
seems ambiguous – a national identity that could connect Vietnamese people,
irrespective of pains from the past.
![]() |
Huong Thi with her husband (VTV) |
I came
to Huong Thi’s house, a calligraphist who got married with an Australian man.
In the backyard of her Australian house is a Vietnamese space with her paints.
“Whenever I start to paint, I think of my mother. She is still living in
Vietnam. My nostalgia subsides when I see these Vietnamese words in
calligraphy. I’m happy as my husband understands my feelings and likes my
paints. He often sits beside me when I’m painting”, said the artist.
There are no sign of pains from these young people who I talked with.
Instead, they are trying to keep their Vietnamese values in this multi-cultural
society. As Nghia told me, “living in a multi-cultural country does not mean
you could forget your origin, unless you want to fall into oblivion”. So what
could be an explanation for these things happening on the streets in
Cabramatta? “Of course, there are still pains, but it might be also a political
intention. Sometimes we are suggested to do that with money. What a foolish
thing. I am sure that many Vietnamese people want to forget the painful past.
They want to talk about Vietnam, want to return to visit their relatives. But
they don’t want to publicly discuss this, they want to avoid troubles”, said
the nearly 70 year-old man.
There is still a distance within the community. Nguyen Van Tuan, the
first Vietnamese medical professor in Australia said the Vietnamese community
in Australia has no strong attachment to each other. “It’s like every man for
himself. Instead of sharing a more meaningful view, many people are just
hovering within their feud of the past”. Interestingly, almost all people, who
feel free to talk with me, are living separately from Cabramatta, Bankstown and
Marrickville – the three biggest areas of the Vietnamese community in Sydney.
Hundreds of Vietnamese students come to Australia for studying every
year, but not many of them have assimilated into the Vietnamese community here,
because of political hesitancy. Ironically, even when I and a filming crew
wanted to make a report about the cultural life of the Vietnamese community in
Sydney, we were warned not to let the people know we are journalists from
governmental media organisations. A small camera should be used rather than an
official one with logos. We wanted to approach some shopkeepers in Cabramatta,
but they denied appearing on television. They did not want their business to be
in trouble. This is a wish for a cultural value in common, but why it has been
always acknowledged with political preconception.
A question is hovering in my mind: It took about 20 years for Vietnam
to be friends with its former enemy –
the United States – after the war ended. Why is it hard to close the painful
past between the countrymen, and when people, from our homeland to Sydney, are
welcome and feel free to enjoy cultural life in the Vietnamese community? The
answer, perhaps, is to learn how to leave the past behind, though this has
never been easy.
-MĐ-
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