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Taking a stroll around Hoan Kiem lake in the middle of Hanoi one can meet all sorts of people.  Food vendors, international travelers, or Hanoi residents chatting on benches. I happened to be share my bench with a former Vietnamese resident who was kind enough to share his story with me.

Mr. Lee is 67 years old and has been living in Canada for the last 28.  Mr. Lee grew up in Southern Vietnam, and in 1976 when the North fully integrated with the South to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam life changed for him rapidly. 

He explained to me how there were no freedoms, how people were issued one shirt per year, all the same color. ”People were forced to live off of 3kg of rice a month, terrible.  Even if you wanted more there was no way to get it.” He told me how his brother, a former presidential pilot was forced to go to a “reeducation camp.”  He himself was spared because he was a water works engineer and was needed. He was put to work in one of the provinces of the South.  

With a tone of self disbelief he told me that in 1980 he and his brother took a boat from the southern coast of Vietnam to Thailand. He claims his brother’s navigational skills he used as a pilot allowed them to correctly make their way over the five day journey. The boat was 6 ft wide and 106 ft long. ”There were 103 people in it, and you could reach out and touch the water, 103 people!” They had to be very careful and skirt the international waters because there were Thai pirates known to seize the ships.  The boat had one single-block diesel engine and would not restart if it was ever shut off, he knew this because once they reached shore they tried to restart it but could not. ”I don’t know how we did it” Mr. Lee exclaimed.

Once in Thailand he made his way to Victoria Canada where he now resides.  He lives there with his whole family, and spoke fondly and often of his grandson who likes to kayak, camp, and wants to someday spend more time in Vietnam to better understand it. 

This is Mr. Lee’s second trip back to Vietnam and has been traveling for about one month now.  He was very interested to hear about our trip and thought it a wonderful idea. He thought it a great thing to do while young, he wishes he would have had the opportunity to do a similar thing at my age. “Now I have the money, but not the health” he told me.  He had wanted to do a motorbike ride from Saigon to Hanoi but could not find anyone to do it with him, so he is traveling by bus. 

Of Vietnam today Mr. Lee has a very different outlook than he did 20 years ago.  He thinks things are much better, as indeed for many they are, but still thinks people lack freedoms. He also told me that social mobility is a challenge and that for poor to become rich is very difficult.  He feels that people in Vietnam are eager to look forward and put much of the past behind them, and with Vietnam being one of the fastest growing economies in the world it is not surprising.

Mr. Lee for me was a great example of how change can happen in a relatively short period of time. From fleeing his country as a refugee he has returned as a tourist and was very eager to tell me of the beautiful places he had visited. I can only hope to have more genuine encounters like this one as we make our way towards Laos. 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 6:30 am and is filed under Adam's Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.