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“Saigon to San Diego”
is the self-told story of a boy living in Việt Nam after the fall of Sài
Gòn 30 years ago, a story to which few people outside of those who were
in the country at that time can relate, a story that must be told
especially to younger generations, author Trình Đỗ said.
During a recent gathering at the University of California, Irvine, he
discussed his book, which started out as a memoir, relating portions of
his own struggle for survival when he was a preteen living under the new
communist regime.
The book, published by McFarland & Company, “has a very strong
relevance, a connection to the 30-year anniversary … those of us who are
older have strong memory of it,” but others have no idea of what really
happened, he told a group of primarily Vietnamese American students who
attended the event, sponsored by the Vietnamese American Coalition, the
Asian Pacific Student Association and the Vietnamese Student Association
at UCI.
Đỗ wrote “Saigon to San Diego” in English, he said, because “the people
of my generation and my parents’ generation lived through” the post-war
period. “It’s an old story for them. I wrote it for my daughters, who
are 10 and 6, and for younger generation (of Vietnamese). Many parents
experienced unspeakable horror and unspeakable suffering,” but their
children understand very little about what happened to them, he said.
What most people know about the Việt Nam War “are pieces of a large
jigsaw puzzle,” Đỗ said. “What happened after the last photographer and
American journalists were gone, after the Iron Curtain came down?” he
asked the students. “Many don’t know why we’re here. Why our parents are
here,” he asked rhetorically.
Born in South Việt Nam in 1964, Đỗ is the son of refugees from the
north, who had escaped southward 10 years earlier to flee North Việt Nam
after Hoà Chí Minh’s takeover of that part of the country. He escaped
his own homeland in 1978, traveling by boat along with hoards of other
people, after living under communist rule for three years.
Life under communism was markedly different for those who lived in the
south, Đỗ said. “The truth has many sides. When I was child growing up,
I learned about this mysterious figure, Hồ Chí Minh, from mother … He
was late leader of communist party,” and a man his parents said was bad,
he said, adding that at the time, he did not understand why.
After the communist takeover, government officials — calling themselves
the People’s Committee — gave each family in the south a large photo of
the hated man and were told to frame it and put it on a wall in their
homes, in plain sight should anyone from the committee drop in to check
up on them.
“Putting up picture was most repugnant idea to my mother,” he said. All
the while she framed and hung the picture, she continued to curse under
her breath, he said. “I never saw mother so angry before.”
In the meantime, Đỗ’s father, a soldier in the South Vietnamese Army,
had been taken to a reeducation camp where he stayed for seven years,
living under hardships that included having little food as well as no
toilet paper other than leaves off trees in the jungle, he said.
After the fall of Sài Gòn, most foreign analysts had predicted that a
bloodbath would occur in South Việt Nam, where soldiers and officials
would be shot in the streets, Đỗ said, “but that did not happen.”
Instead, a much “slower bloodbath (was) carried out in name of
reeducation camps where they were supposed to learn Marxism and Leninism
philosophy, to see light that communism is the only way.
“The reeducation camps were a method of revenge” by the communists
against their “enemies” in the south, he said, explaining that these
so-called foes primarily were those who worked in the South Vietnamese
government or were soldiers in its army, along with their families.
“Another method of revenge was people were stripped of property in
south. Overnight they became paupers (and their) children were denied
education. The only people who can advance are children with
revolutionary background, meaning children of communists,” he said.
The new regime also exacted its revenge by drafting into its army many
children of its southern enemies, giving them little training and then
sending them ahead of their regular soldiers to fight in Cambodia, which
Việt Nam invaded after the Khmer Rouge massacred many Vietnamese
civilians along with Cambodians in that country in 1978, he said.
The draftees “were sent ahead as suicide troops to pull out Khmer Rouge
… Strategy was to kill off second generation of their enemy,” he said.
With life becoming more and more unbearable for the South Vietnamese,
many escaped and many died in the South China Sea, among them, his
parents, Đỗ said, a cloud of sadness sweeping across his face.
Escaping, Đỗ’s perilous journey led him first to Malaysia, where he
spent six months in a refugee camp, after which he made his way to the
United States, ending up in San Diego.
After his arrival, he learned English at a San Diego high school and
later attended UCI, earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in
engineering, he said. Later, he obtained his MBA from Stanford
University and went into the marketing field.
It was at Stanford that his memoirs were hatched, prodded by many
questions from fellow students who wanted to know more about him.
Beginning in 1995, Đỗ worked in marketing for Proctor and Gamble, and
was sent to Việt Nam to start up its business operations there, he said.
As time passed and he saw the harsh conditions under which many people
in his homeland lived, Đỗ realized he needed to do something to help, so
he started raising money to build elementary schools, water wells,
bridges and the like.
While in the country, where Đỗ stopped writing his memoirs “for security
reasons,” he traveled to many rural areas and talked with numerous
children, including “one boy, with one arm, one leg, one eye … he
stepped on mine and father died instantly. After four months in
hospital, he was taken home. His mother couldn’t care for him because
she had no money. He wanted to commit suicide, to be no burden to his
mother,” Ñoã said.
The boy eventually managed to get himself to Sài Gòn, where he lived on
the streets for three years until “a kind Buddhist monk took him in. He
went to school and became a teacher,” Đỗ added.
“Whatever we fear at this university — an A or B — or we worry about the
job market … I was scared, when I was in school, but when I started
having perspective, you know, it is not that bad,” he said. “You see
what life under communism is about and see Vietnam through eyes of
Vietnamese child, mother …. See everything they cared for disintegrate.
No matter how bad midterm is … remember what your parents faced,” he
told the students.
Đỗ wrote his book as a tribute to his own parents, “whose sacrifices
gave me the chance to come to America and whose irrepressible spirit and
character were enduring inspirations that gave me the strength to face
my darkest hour,” he said.
The book also is “a tribute to my childhood friends who went through the
same hardships as I did but were not as lucky. Many are now dead or live
in poverty and despair in Việt Nam.”
He stressed that his story is not unique. “It is the story of millions
of people who made dangerous voyages to escape from Việt Nam. Many
succeeded, but many more perished silently in the cold depths of the
South China Sea. Others survived the sea but met unspeakable horrors at
the hands of pirates,” he said.
Before Đỗ’s escape, his father asked him to promise to return someday to
Việt Nam to help the less fortunate who could not escape, he said. Also,
“don’t forget who you are and where you came from. There is no future
for you in this country. Never give in to hate.
Now a product marketer in Northern California’s Silicon Valley, Đỗ not
only has heeded those words well, but also, very unlike most people who
have grown up with his same Confucian upbringing, who have trouble
baring the intimate details of their lives, he has done so with his
book.
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