AB EXERCISES EQUIPMENT

Chi Pham - the girl in white, centre: My Recollection of our Journey 30 years ago.


After the fall of Saigon in April 1975 my father was taken from our family on June 1975 to a re-education camp located the remote jungle of Northern Vietnam. He was a Captain in the Military Signal Corp for the South Vietnamese government. Our life was forever altered along with other millions of Vietnamese in the South. I was 11 years old at the time, the oldest of three girls. My sisters were 8 and 7 years old. Mom was playing the role of mother and father to us so she was very strict and protective of us. But she did such a good job that we didn't feel like our Dad was missing. Partly because we moved from Vung Tau (sometimes referred to its colonial name of Cap Saint Jacques, a beach city, 78 miles North of Saigon) to live with our maternal grand parents and aunts when Vung Tau was taken over by the communist a few months before Saigon. We received much love from grandma, grandpa and our aunts.

We missed our Dad when looking at family pictures or seeing other kids playing with their Dads but at that time so many families were separated from their loved ones that your loss was nothing compared to others who had lost their Dads forever to the war.

In October 1975, the communists started the "Communism Reform" throughout the country. Rich and middle income residents in Saigon and the urban cities were forced to migrate to forest or mountain areas that were collectively known as the "New Economic Development" zone. The intention was to force people with money to leave and forfeit all of their property without mercy. We were lucky to have the right connections to delay the process of going to the New Economic Development zone. Meanwhile, outside of the city the regime's policy of complete agricultural collectivization deprived peasants of their landholdings, except for tiny personal plots, and required them to work on collective farms.

The whole education system was reorganized to reflect communist ideology. I remembered every morning all the children from the age 6 to 18 years old were forced to be at the park at 6 am prior to school time to exercise in group and attended meeting after school learning about the life of uncle Ho or “Ho Chi Minh” and singing communist’s songs. We were trained to report our parent, relatives and neighbors to the authority if we hear them talked badly about the government or any plan of leaving the country or where the money were hired in the house because under the communist’s rule everyone is equal. They abolished all ranks and privileges based on heredity, position, wealth, or cultural standing.

By July 1976, the new communist regime banned opposition political activity and imprisoned opponents. The campaigns against private businesses in the South by forcing through our home anytime of the day to look for any suspicious activities, money or gold hidden in the house along with constant changing money to smaller denominator so our money became less value induced the flight of about 1 million Chinese and middle-class Vietnamese from their country between 1978–79 often by sea.

After three years living under the communist rules, life became more intolerable. We had no religious freedoms and no freedom to live as we had. Constantly being watched by neighbors we worried that we might be turned in to the local authorities for saying or doing the wrong thing. Our future was uncertain. We lived day by day not knowing what was going to happen to us next. Mom then decided that it was time to leave our country to find the freedom that we once had. Grandma and aunt Nghiem tried to escape a few times prior with no success. They got tricked and lost a lot of money. They were put away for months when they got caught just a few months earlier. Still they were luckier than many others. Some people were put away for years. Some died at sea because pirates killed them or they didn’t make it through stormy weather. Some didn't even make it to sea because their boat was sunk by shooting soldiers. Three of my cousins died from that a few months earlier. Knowing the risk that we may not ever return, mom was still determined to let three of her daughters escape the country with her mom and her two sisters. She took out all her savings and paid for the escape. She couldn't go with us because she wanted to stay back and wait for our father’s return someday.

Escape was very difficult, dangerous and the odds of failure were enormous. Despite the risk of ending up in prison or dying at sea, we did not give up or get weary. We kept trying until all means were exhausted. Freedom is priceless; people were ready to trade their life for it.

This time a trustworthy brother-in-law of aunt Nghiem’s good friend, who was one of the organizers, planned the escape for his entire family and friends. The process of planning the escape was very time consuming and it took years of planning. They had to sell a

W¬(jMba) = "horseback riding"
ŐŁĂČÍąhw(fittonesu kigu) = "fitness equipment"

The machine simulates the horse's motions. Staying on requires using one's stomach and back muscles.