PEOPLE

The Boat Psople
esc, Shc left Haiphong in northern Vietnam towards the end of
March 1979 with her husband, their small brby, three other young
childten, her mother, sn older brother, a younger sister a d about
a hundred other passengers in I twenty-metre sailing junk. In mmmunist
Vietnam she used to work for hemelf selling traditional
Chinese medicine and made 'quite a lot' of money. Her husband was
a factory worker.
Interviewed in a Hong Kong amp, Mrs Chi wal dressed in typical
northern attire, She wore a pale blue working shirt of thick cotton
and r pair of baggy black troum. She was lively and humorou%
rccaHing the voyage as though it were an adventure.
We had just been at stp for n day or w when we met I big s m . That scared
us. We dropped anchor and wniwd for it to go. We all at below deck until
it finished. Some of the old ladia were crying with fear, Whm the starm
tndtd I day later, we grricd on. But we were very slow. The pcoplc in charge
of h t knew how to m w it. But nobody lrnew exactly where Hong Kong
was. We were always getting lost1
We wm at scs for over a month, but spent rwo wteh in diffwnt place6
in China, repairing thc kt. It wea always laking. Once the mag broke. I
don't how where we werc in China. I didn't really pay any attention - I
don't speak much Chine~e. We mked our food together. When the supplia
rnn out, bough, csch family bwght more at the places we stoppd. If we
werc near a caastal town on thc Chinese mainland, pmple wwld come out
and pffer us food. When we went into harbour, people wwld bring thinp
right up to the bolt to sell to us.
Payment was made in gold Id, jewtllcry, wrist watchm or anything
else of value the Chinese villagers were prepared to accept.
MR Chi said no one was seriously ill on the voyage, 'but we were
wadck all the rim for the first couple d weeks'. Her expcricnm
were fairly typical of the refugees sailing to Hong Kong from northem
Vietnam, Chinese authorities generally allowed boats from Vietnam
heading for Hong Kong to stop for rs tong as necessav to makc
repairs or to take on urgent supplies. In m e cases the Chinese
htlptd with the repiw and gave food and watcr free of charge.
Of the 68 675 refugecs from Vietnam who arrived in Hong Kong
between 1 January and 15 August 1979, 56 per cenl wtre ethnic
Chinese from nonhern Vietnum and 26 per cent Chinest from
Amada
Vietnam, Those from the north, like Mn Chi, say they
were expelled. Few Chinese from eidrer the north or the south had
to escape secretly, They say they were driven out by the Vietnamese
authorities.
Miss Ly Thi Oanh is a fourteen-year-old Chinese girl who lcft
Vung Tau, in southern Vietnam, in mid-April 1979, with her
mother, father, brother aged four, and a lot of other ethnic Chinese,
Several bo~ts were moored side by side as they boolrded in dre rain.
Headlights shone from a car and men walked about with lamps.
We had to form a long line. My father and mother were each carrying NO
suitcases and I had to hold onto my brother. Mother kept on raying 'Keep
hold of him1 Hold on to him!' and I kept hold of his hnd. When we got
near the plank that went up onto the k t there were two men in uniform
who started asking my Cajler questions and we stopped moving forward.
They made my mother find father open the suitcaws in thc rain, and they
started going through everyjling inside.
Somebody picked up my brother and carried him up the plank. I still kept
hold of him and went up onto the boar. Looking back, I could see my parents
pleading with the two men. My mother was kneeling on the stones in front
uf them. I kept on calling to her bcuuse I knew she thought we wtre still
with hcr and didn't know we werc on the bout.
The boat left without the parents. The rwo children arrived in
Hong Kong believing they would never see the parents again. But
six days later another small boat brought their mother and father to
the British territory and they were eventually reunited.
Tran Van lhytn is a cocky fisherman's son who thinks he is eighteen
but doesn't know his birthday. His family is still in Hoi An, mn
attractive old town on the coast of central Vietnam not far from Da
Nang. He arrived in Hong Kong in August 1979, with his ten-yearold
nephew and five other Vietnamese friends and acquaintances.
The family fishing boat was taken over by the state eight months
earlier, though he and his mother continued to fish in it, selling the
catch to the government for what Tuyen considered a scandalously
low price. So one night, while the three soldiers supposed to be
guarding the harbour were having dinner, Tuyen and his group
sneaked aboard and took off. They reached Hong Kong about a week
later.