Over the clang and clatter of the busy Duke of Duckworth on a summer evening, a group of childhood friends call out nicknames, debate the names of favourite treats from a long-closed bakery and banter about scholastic memories from a time when separate boys' and girls’ schools were common in St. John’s.
But it was more than the stuff of regular reunions.
It was a special homecoming for Trong Nguyen and his sister, Trang, who came to Newfoundland and Labrador with their parents and young aunt in the late 1970s as part of the phase of refugee immigration known as the Vietnamese boat people. In the 1980s, the family moved on to Toronto for better employment opportunities. Trong now lives in New Jersey and Trang in Silicon Valley, Calif.
They returned to Newfoundland and Labrador for the first time this week.
“I remember things were nice but touring for the last couple of days, it’s beautiful. I didn’t realize how beautiful it was … oh my God,” said Trong. “It’s a lot more beautiful than I remember it.”
“I appreciate it so much more now coming back,” said Trang, who was in Grade 8 when they left but has kept in steady touch with her best friends. “It’s just so amazing.”
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While St. John’s has gone through massive change since the early 1980s, Trong hadn’t noticed the scope of the city back then as the kids were busy enough trying to learn a new language, thrive in school and the parents worked hard to get ahead as new Canadians.
“What I do remember when I was here my world revolved around our little street and then if I really stretched it we might ride our bikes over to Bowring Park or something,” he said.
With old friends as tour guides Trang and Trong’s wife and children hiked Signal Hill and Cape Spear, as well as visited their old neighbourhoods in Kilbride and Sesame Park. The owner of the townhouse they once lived in invited them in for a tour and they had emotional reunions with friends, their friends’ parents and representatives of the Corpus Christi parish council that sponsored them.
When Trong arrived at the Duke, he declared some of his friends he had not yet seen on the trip look exactly the same.
He marveled at cars stopping for jaywalkers in St. John’s.
“In Toronto you have a 50/50 chance. In New York they will actually call 911 and say ‘I am going to hit somebody’ and then hit you,” Trong said.
Trang reminisced about the former Maggie’s Bakery near Corpus Christi Church. It was close to her school, St. Augustine’s and a regular stop for her and her pals.
“Long Johns” called out friends Andrea Power, Keleigh Leonard and Jeannie Reddy as Trang described the deliciousness of a chocolate éclair-like treat with the odd name that was popular there.
Friends like Leonard and Reddy have kept in touch with her throughout the years.
“I got a phone call and they said they were going (from St. John’s to Toronto). And then they left. I didn’t think I would see or talk to her again,” said Leonard, who went to Toronto to visit Trang in the 1990s and wrote letters before email and Facebook.
“Here we are, 30 years later.”
Trong recently found some of his old friends on Facebook, including Colleen Reid, who lived next door in Sesame Park.
“Buddy I loves ya. God bless his soul,” said schoolmate Stephen Brocklehurst as he hugged Trong.
The years spent in St. John’s were happy for the family and both Trang and Trong say assimilating to the Canadian culture in this province helped them soar in academically and in life.
They learned English by copying others, including characters on TV shows.
Trang said they readopted their Vietnamese culture when they moved to Toronto but blended the best of both.
But all the smiles and laughter have not diminished Trang’s memories of their harrowing departure from Vietnam.
According to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights’ website, refugees began fleeing Vietnam by boat in 1975 after the fall of Saigon, and communist North Vietnam’s victory in the Vietnam War.
Hundreds of thousands of people died at sea in storms and from diseases and starvation, the museum notes.
From 1975-92, more than 100,000 Vietnamese refugees were admitted to Canada.
Trong and Trang’s parents, Kimba and Duoc, decided to head out and try to make a better life for their three children and Kimba’s young sister. Duoc, who had served in the military, supported the losing U.S. side during the Vietnam War.
Trang said her parents woke them in the middle of the night in August 1979, and told them they were going to visit their grandfather. They boarded a row boat to travel down the river in Can Tho, towards the ocean where they were put aboard an overloaded vessel with 50 to 70 others, including professionals such as doctors, jewelers and engineers.
She remembers them being hidden under the floor as the Vietnamese military walked overhead, searching their boat. They set out on the ocean in a storm.
At sea, they were intercepted by one of the Thailand pirate ships known for raping women and girls and stealing from refugees. But they were spared the evil of rape and her mother’s hidden jewels were not found because she was holding her baby and so was not searched.
As they drifted on the ocean, they encountered a U.S. naval ship, which could not take them but gave them rice and oranges.
And then their engine broke. Finally, though, they landed in Malaysia, tried walking through the dense rainforest and set off along the shore to find a village days later and after crossing a river. Along the way they gathered coconuts, salvaged discarded flip flops and used sea salt to season their rice.
The Malaysia police put them in a refugee camp where the fear of rape was also a danger, Trang said. The family had a small space to share and managed to keep safe.
When their father was interviewed by Canadian embassy officials, they were among those chosen to come to Canada because of his language and labour skills.
Trang recalls they were handed a black plastic bag of clothes by embassy officials in Montreal, a bag that included long underwear for the cold temperatures.
And then they were off to St. John’s, where their path to a new life began with generosity from the community they will never forget, which brought Trong and Trang back to their former adopted home again this week.
Trong, who works for a business software company, ServiceNow, wanted to bring his wife and children to see where they started out. Trang then decided she wanted to join the reunion — she lives in the San Francisco Bay area where she is a benefits consultant with ABD Insurance.
“He just started talking about it within the last two years — maybe reconnecting on Facebook planted the seed,” said Trong’s wife, Natalie.
“We’ve had fun. I love it.”
