PEOPLE

Tke BWI &pk
and gds. There were woodcurten, watch rcpairtrs, acupuncturiso'
and mists. A thriving, though illegal, red estate market existeda No
one was officially permitted to sell a house, but many did when they
left the island. Prices could range from about $350 for properry in
a central location to $20 for a rudimentary shelter on the sides of,
the hill whm the climb was hard work and the distance for
water was long.
Bidong boasted several 'restaurants' and 'coffee houses'. One of
the mwt successful, the Via Du (The Vcntutc) was started by four
ex-army friends on borrowtd money. At night, pamons wm entertained
with taped and live music, and a constellation of vocalists
including nvo fcmalc movie stan popular in south Vietnam Mort
the communist uktover.
The black market was the single biggest source of businer
activity, The police winked at it (and refugees claimed they wen
paid to do so), The camp cornminee said the black market sappcd
community spirit, but was essential nonetheless. 'It pr0vides food
and other items that art n ~dcd and would not otherwise be avail-.
able,' one committee rnembtt said. Most of the trade was financed
by a group of the wealthiest Indo-Chinese on the island. One man
was reputed to have made the equivalent of $100 000 in black mark'
real =ate ~nd Ian and currency dealings. Australia, the United
States and other resettlement countries refused to ampt him: he,
retorted that he was happy to stay on Bidong.
n e black market worked like this: Malaysian fishermen
smuggled goods from the mainland at night to pre-amangad rendez- ,
vous pints at sea, up to several kilometres from the island, Vietnam-,
ese, pushing body-length homemade boats in front of them, swam
out, bargained and lugged their haul hornc for distribution to
retailers. It was a cut-throat business. Thirty-five people were listed
as missing from the camp and a subsmntial number were presumed
to be victims of this torrid trade,
Hawkers offered an array of consumer goods: nails, wire, fishing ,
tackle, map, hair shampoo, talcum powder, torches, kerosene, lamps,
jors sticks, pencils, ballpoints, aerograme, wtiting paper, stamps,
scissors, face washers, NeseafC, rice flour, curry powder, ciprtms,
canned soft drinks and many other items, even sewing machines.
78 I
The black market managed to produce mmt of the things a refuge
might need - if he could afford to pay.
'The Reverend Nguyen Xuan Bao spent most of his day on top
of a mky promontory known as 'religion hill'. When the fonncr
moderator of the Presbyttrian Church in Vietnam arrived in Bidong
in Novemkr 1978, there was no church on the island. Swcn months
later, in addition to his own Christian reformed church, therc was
a Catholic church next doot and a Buddhist pagoda nearby run by
Vietnamese monks. Thc Rev. Mr Bao had lots of idems for improving
life on Bidong and had applied some of them, His 'library' was the
cabin of a refugee boat positioned so that its balcony looked out over
the sea. From it, the chants of an English class conduaed by one
of his volunteer teachers could be heard: 'Take me to Kennedy
Square', 'Whm is the Haymarket?', 'Where is thc taxi?'
There wert some 1800 orphans and unaccompanied minors in the
camp. The Rev. Mr Bao wanted to see a home established for them.
Thcre were alm many widows with children and w& veterans who
lived in hardship and required help. He was thinking of starting
vcxationai cluses and a youth organization. Perhaps a school eventually.
* * *
Whatever the conditions in the camps, the boat people were very
happy to get there. The catalogue of horrors afflicdng boat refugees
from Vietnam wss seemingly endless. One of the most shocking inkdents
mrred in June 1979, when a boatload of ninety-the men,
women and children from Nha Trang, who were heading for the
Philippines, were driven by bad weather in the South China Saonta
one of the Spratty Islands controlled by Vietnamwe forces. Philippine
marines stetioned on P nearby island heard artilleiy, mom and
mchine-gun fire, On1 y eight refugees emrrgcd alive. They claimed
Victnamesc guns had accounted for nventy-three of their companions;
the other sixty-nvu drilwned hying to swim to safety. Of
rhe eighty-five victims, forty-five were id to be children. In the
ume month as the Spratly mavsam, on r boat jammed with 358
pssscngers, about twenty Chincse from soutllcrn Vicmarn died when
thc sheer weight of bodies on the roof of thc deckhouse caused it
to collapse.