Hoach. Le
Professor Adrienne Oliver
ENGL 1A
07 December 2019
Migration Story Excerpt
When the Migration 1954 took place, my father-in-law was 10 years old. He lived with his family in Haiphong. His name is Quang Anh Chu and his father’s name is Ngoc Anh Chu. The port city has become the last stage for hundreds of thousands of North Vietnamese to migrate to the South instead of staying under the rule Viet Minh's inhuman harshness. The Geneva Agreement was signed on July 20, 1954, dividing Vietnam in two, the North ruled by Viet Minh, the South then becoming a new country. People in the two regions have 300 days to choose where they want to live. Ngoc Anh Chu has no intention of emigrating to the South. He decided to send his of oldest son and his wife and their first daughter only a few months back to live in the countryside. Went with eldest brother and his wife had sixth brother, my father-in-law and ninth young brother, they lived in the countryside for a few months at the end of summer and early autumn, his fifth sister was only fourteen years old, but she was brave and intrepid. Grandpa trusted her for the work to transfer money and information between Haiphong and countryside. One day she informed that the grandfather wanted they all had to return to Haiphong to migrate to go to the South. In order to avoid being suspected by the Viet Minh they intended to flee to the south and being able to be surrounded and detained. When they arrived in Hanoi, at that time, it was also taken over. My father-in-law and his siblings had to pretend to live there by renting a room that was originally a classroom in a nunnery and a school where most of the personnel had migrated, located on Hai Ba Trung Street, stayed for a few weeks. Sixth brother and ninth young brother followed fifth sister to Haiphong first, while my father-in-law stayed with eldest brother 's family to help take care of her baby. To make the performance seem more realistic, my father-in-law was also enrolled in third or fourth grade at a public school here .Of course, because he was a child, he was not allowed to tell about those tactics of an adult. When they were about to go to Haiphong, my father-in-law was told by an adult that if anyone asked what to do in Haiphong, they would say that they would visit family members who were going to the South to advise them to stay, do not go to the South anymore because the country is independent and free. In addition, he was assigned one more task, that was when the Viet Minh officials came, eldest brother's wife who was holding the baby, he had to find a way ... pinching her thigh so hard that she had to cry and then eldest brother's wife will give the baby to him to carry out. But it was this that made the office women even more suspicious, grabbed the baby and took off two shoes on the feet of the baby , pulled out and confiscated two bags-new Indochina banknotes. However, eldest brother's family and my father-in-law were later allowed to board the bus to Haiphong, with only the money to stay. At that time my father-in-law was completely unaware of the tragic scenes of how to escape the pitiful journeys of thousands of people who wanted to find their way to Haiphong, a dying city but still a place that gave them hope. Different from the number of 1954 immigrants by the US ship, my father-in-law was evacuated by aircraft provided by France. It was one day in March 1955, and it was the first time he was on a plane, so he got nervous, threw up and vomited, sat on the GMC bus from Tan Son Nhat airport to his uncle's house on the road Phan Đình Phùng was a temporary shelter, he was still vomiting. He and his siblings had just settled in a wooden house without a separate toilet and rented in Khanhhoi a short time before his grandpa letter said he had decided to stay. Tell they were in the South take care of themself. My father-in-law cried his eyes out, thinking that from now on he would no longer see his parents and other siblings, especially eighth younger sister, who two years younger than him but they were very close to each other from childhood. At the age of 15, fifth sister had to make a two-year-old declaration to apply for a job after she got a typing degree, and then went to work and study English at the same time. Oldest brother hired a passenger taxi, while his wife traded clothes from Cho Lon and then sold at smaller market. The sixth brother and my father-in-law were child 12 and 10 years old so they went to school. Quang Anh Chu was familiar with the life of a new land called Saigon, which was strange to see. A few details that he found funny, saying the permissive and friendly character of the South: Go shopping for five coins, or 50 cents, give the paper a dollar, the clerk casually tore the note split the halves, giving him half back. Quang Anh Chu liked the way of making bread in the South, full of creativity: in addition to cold meat or pate, there were pickles, cilantro and cucumber, which in America we now call Vietnamese sandwich. But what he likes most of the South is a myriad of comic books, a kind of book not found in the North, and rental houses, replacing public libraries that don't exist in Saigon in particular and Vietnam Generally speaking. The South, since then, opens up so many opportunities, compared to the North after the day the bamboo curtain falls. Quang Anh Chu will always be grateful to his grandparents for choosing the South as a place for his siblings to grow up, in a relatively free atmosphere.
Essay II Excerpt
Most of the people who migrated to the South
from 1954 -1955, who had stuck relatives like relatives or cousins even
parents, spouses or children in the North for various reasons. So, after living
in free atmosphere and prosperous life in the South, they all want to share and
inform their remaining relatives to know and let them make the decision to
choose to live and defending the government of the Viet Minh in the North or
the government of the Republic in the South Unfortunately, every letter they
send does not reach the hands of their loved ones. And in return, their
remaining relatives also wrote letters to tell about the difficult life and
lack of food and clothing or to complain about their unfair treatment under
Viet Minh's rule. The people in the North felt the society at that time even
more harsh and unfair than the feudal period and the period of French colonial
rule. Those letters never reached to the hands of the people in the South. The
reason that those letters were never sent to the right place is because they
are always tightly censored by elite Communist Party members. Any letter with
unfavourable information to the Communist Party will be destroyed or changed in
content such as praising the Communist Party, praising the independent and free
life of people in the North. It took twenty years later, everything was
gradually being unravelled. That was when the Republican government in the
South completely collapsed and the Communist Party came to power to unify the
South and the North. The soldiers of the Communist Party fought bravely to
liberate the South. At that time, they really realized that they had ruined the
beautiful, free and happy life that they longed for. At this point they
suddenly realized that they had chosen the wrong way and the wrong government
let they serve. Moreover, they had lost their youth to a meaningless war. A
typical example is the writer Duong Thu Huong. She is an elite member of the
Communist Party. She was the one who had followed the Communist Party from the
days of land reform until it came to prosecute the landlords. She sacrificed
her youth to fight American invaders in the South, helping the people in the
South to regain their independence and freedom. But the day of victory is also
the day she entered the city of Saigon. Saigon is the central city of the
South. Instead of being happy about the victory, she felt extremely confused.
She sank down on the sidewalk and hugged her face like her father had just
died. Until now day, while she was living as a refugee in France, she still
feels deeply regretful about her wrong choice back then. The challenge here is
not because of the silence of the migration, or that the migrants have chosen
to be silent and do not want to share about their post-migration life. The
challenge here is that the lives of people in the two regions are hidden,
distorted by the authoritarian rule of the communist regime. This has directly
affected people's awareness of cultural, economic, and political life. Its
influence not only directly affected the people living at that time but it also
affected many generations of their descendants.
Saigon city in1954
Community Call to Action
Until now, when the media has been
extremely developed, in Vietnam, the Communist Party's distorting information
or hiding the truth is still going on, but most people do not dare to protest.
It sounds absurd, but the truth is. There are many reasons make they must
choose to remain silent. But besides that, there are many young people like
Vietnamese musician Viet Khang, being imprisoned for producing music, speaks of
patriotism. Viet Khang is a young man born after 1975. He dared to write to
express his desire for the freedom of speech for all of people. Viet Khang is a
very brave person, a good example for all the young people living in Vietnam.
Using the music to convey the wishes of the people is the most effective means
of communication. It is
the responsibility of the younger generation of us to call on the world to
intervene in the Vietnamese government, asking them to return freedom of speech
to the people of Vietnam.
Based on the actual situation to objectively
comment, most migrants have a better life than where they were. Like my
husband's family and so many other people I know or the writer Reyna’s family ,
so human migration is a very natural phenomenon, the proverb has the saying ‘’ the land is good, then the birds will land.’’
Protesters
for freedom in the Vietnam
Vietnamese protesters in the Japan
Vietnamese
in the US protested in front of
Vietnam's embassy buildings in the United
States
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