Over the past forty centuries of Vietnamese history, there has not been anything like it. However bad the situation was, the Vietnamese people have always stayed home. The call of the country for the Vietnamese people is incredibly strong, and they have never been famous for travelling, especially across the ocean. Mythologically, the Vietnamese people believe they are the descendants of a fairy and a dragon – one residing in the mountain, and the other in the sea. For forty years, Vietnam was continually at war, yet there was never any exodus out of the country.
But in 1975, life became impossible for many following the fall of Saigon. Despite being scared to death of the sea, the exodus began. In spite of every fear - they fled in rickety, leaky, old fishing boats. Up to 2 million people may have fled.
According to actual UNHCR figures, only one in two made it alive. The risks were extreme – facing storms, piracy, a lack of food and water, engine failure, and being towed back out to sea. As an example of the risks involved, in a survey of only two Thai refugee camps in 1981, 77 percent of all the boats that had arrived that year had been attacked by pirates - causing the rape of 590 females and the deaths of another 355 persons through such means as shooting, stabbing and drowning by throwing the victims overboard. During this time, Thailand and Malaysia adopted a “pushback” policy, where boats were pushed back from the shores or towed back out to sea. A “shot on sight” policy was also introduced for anyone who resisted.
Yet, the Vietnamese people still fled. And they became known around the world as boat people. Today, there are “Vietnamese boat people” in all walks of Australian life, and in every field of endeavour. Ever since the first Vietnamese boat, the Kien Giang, arrived in Darwin in April 1976, theirs is a story that has become entwined into the historical fabric of Australian society. The story of the boat people is a story that needs to be told.