Like, you know, just like right there! Right at that wall. That close! In between the wall there would be a…what do you call it? It’s not a lake but they dug the line to let the water go through…yes, just like that. I can jump over that. What do you call it? That’s a lake or brook? And then I could go to the cemetery right there. And one night, no actually almost every night there were people escaping and they arrived in the middle of the night, or people who lived there for so long they did not have any family members to sponsor them. There were many different reasons they stayed there for quite long. Over a year or two years. So they started to find a way to make a living. And what they did was go fishing—to get fish and then sell it to make a living. And of course, they didn’t have proper equipment for fishing. So oftentimes, they get killed. They get sunk, and then killed. And then three days later the body floated up. And that’s when, at night, the coast guard guarding the area find those bodies, bring them up. In that case, they would call people who were in carpentry profession to come up to build coffins and bury them. The way they set up there was the people who have a special skill would be requested to dedicate their skill to serve the community.
So, in the middle of the night, when you here the paging system call so-and-so: “Please, someone [go] to the office.” And they called many times. Nobody dared to come up. The reason why? Because by the time they pulled the body in the body would look so horrible. I was so scared to see it. You know, either part of this gets eaten by fish, or an eye get pulled out. It’s too scary to face that! So they don’t dare to show up—until they say “One more time if you don’t come up we’re gonna call your name. And if you don’t show up, your name will be off the list to be qualified to go to third world country”. Right? This is the third country. The country we arrived was second country. The original country was from Viet Nam. At that time people had to report themselves. So that’s the kind of life that I lived for eight months.
And one time, one mother escaped with six children. Her husband was in the death camp. She knew that she could not wait for him to come home. She would not know when. Because the length in the death camp—they don’t tell you how long. But people sort of know, based on how you’re involved in military at that time—if you were holding a low rank, you very much have a hope that you can get out in [a] certain year. But if you hold like a high rank in military, God help you. So she realized that and she took her young children to escape with her. But she was raped so badly, that when she got to the camp, she died. And she left six children. The youngest one was so young. She needed a mother at night. So the baby would cry all night. [She] would say “Mother, where are you?” And nobody could speak. It pierced through your heart. And I lived like that for eight months.
My youngest daughter started to have like a pin worm because it was so unsanitized. The food was so terrible! It seemed like they gave bad food—overdue food or something like that. But of course nobody dares complain. We knew we just had to be patient and we won’t have to stay there forever. Just be patient and wait till the day that we get out. And the time came. We were able to come to the United States and that was August 25th, 1981. So we get to heaven.