THE ROAD TO FREEDOM III

About noon, April 30, 1975, To—my brother-in-law—and I went to Truong minh Giang Street to watch thousands of VC troops advancing to the center of Saigon from Tan son Nhat Airport. I felt bad, because from that day on, we would lose our limited freedom.

However, I had to console myself—anyway, the war was over. No more Vietnamese youth would lie down forever without a chance to marry his lover. No more would a husband take a thousand-year sleep, and never have a chance to wake up to hug his wife, or to kiss his children. No more would a young woman wait for her husband, never to see the day that he comes back. I hated the Communists, but in that situation, I had to make the best of it. I only hoped that they had changed their policy on their propaganda. Why didn’t I take the happiness of many other people for my own?

Another problem for me was the bag of money that Dad gave back to me during the Days Without the Sun, the money I was going to use to buy a house at Vung Tau, but the homeowner had changed his mind. I gave each member of my extended family an amount of money to survive during that hard period of time, and with the rest I bought some teals of 24k gold . When I sold my gold, the price was 80,000 piasters for one teal, but at the time I bought, it was 400,000 piasters a teal.

Half a month later, To was forced to go to a “Re-education Camp,” a beautiful name for prison. He was ordered to bring food for a month of “studying.” But he then stayed in those camps for 13 years. Mai had to replace her husband, in order to bring up their four children by selling gasoline and materiel.

One day, my sister Cam Ly came to reunite with us from Hanoi. That was the first time after 21 years of separation that our family had a chance to see each other. That was a very touching day for us. I also gave her a large sum of money.

Soon, Thang followed his brother-in-law to go to another Re-education Camp.

At the same time, I was ordered to go back to Cho Lach to register with the local government.

In June, all male teachers were ordered to congregate at the high school. One cadre led us to a room and asked us to stay there until further orders. Sitting on student benches, we all kept quiet and speculated about our futures. We did not know what would happen to us, Big questions for everyone were: “Will they eliminate us from the teaching staff? Must some of us go to a Re-education Camp? If they eliminate us, what could we do for a living?”

Half an hour later, an eleventh grader appeared at the door. He came into the class, then went to the teacher’s desk. I knew that boy; he was my student, very bad in math, and usually truant.

He stood at the desk and said, “When I call your name, you must say ‘yes’ or ‘present’. Understood?”

We had to say “Yes.”

He then started to take roll call of his teachers: “Tran chu Duc.”

“Yes.”

….

“Vo Hiep.”

“Yes.”

….

“Dinh hoai Long.”

….

It was ridiculous! He was now a teacher, and we were students.

After taking roll, he said, “You guys stay here and wait for our new policy.”

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