分類: Mrs. Thuyen-Anh (Ancy) Lee

The Vietnamese government had planned well ahead and prepared many makeshift-hut developments such as the one we were sent among all the villages and provinces.

Upon the confiscation of our family-cloth-business, there was an undercover policewoman stationed at our home for three weeks every day from 7:00 am till 6:00 pm. Our every move was scrutinized⋯⋯

Mom and dad ran a textile and cloth business for thirty years. Their humble street hawker beginning was never remote. Only through thrift living and hard work did mom and dad gradually expand their business and eventually proudly owned a retail shop in the middle of the vegetable markets.

Born in Vietnam, my siblings of six including myself, lived in a Chinese town called “Cholon”. Cantonese was the business dialect that even the native Vietnamese learned to speak. Many of the Vietnamese natives sent their children to Chinese schools.

When the communists took over Vietnam in 1975, my second eldest brother (David), I and my younger brother (Kevin) were studying in the “Same Heart” middle-and-elementary school in Cholon, Vietnam. Originally a private school, it was changed to a public school under the communist government.

My parents ran a textile and clothes retail shop from our home. Under the new communist government after the Vietnamese civil war, every home was eager to sew the new national flag. Therefore, all of a sudden our home business was thriving beyond our wildest imaginations.

In the May issue we mentioned the civil war between North and South Vietnam. It finally ended on the so-called “Liberation Date” on April 30, 1975. The North united the country into a communist country.

I was born in Vietnam with five siblings. I am a second generation immigrant. Therefore we were a busy household of eight. We lived in ChoLớn, South Vietnam. It is a city of Chinese immigrants.

In recent days, I entertained special nostalgia about several members of my family. Hereafter, allow me to share them.

For a few precious years, my father and grandfather have worked together in “Da Luo Tian Casino” and lived as roommates in the casino dormitory. The good time of supporting each other ended when grandpa insisted on leaving Vietnam to return to China to die in his hometown when he knew about his stomach cancer.