My full name is Joseph Van Thong Nguyen. I was born in Vietnam, in a city 100 kilometers south of the capital. When I got to age 10, I moved to the capital, Hanoi, which was then the capital of the whole Vietnam. I went to elementary, secondary school and university in Hanoi. After Grade 12, I went to pedagogy training and become a teacher in North Vietnam.
I taught in school until 1954 when the first Vietnam War ended and the Geneva Agreement divided the country into 2 Vietnams: the north ruled by the communist; the south by the nationalist government. Because I started my teaching career with the nationalist government, I moved to the south and I got an assignment to teach there. After a few months, I got into the examination that selected candidates for the School of Administration. I passed the exam and I quit my teaching career and went to administration school. After 3 years, I graduated and started my new career as a government official. In the meantime, I got another degree, a law degree from University Of Saigon. So I had 2 degrees: Bachelor of Administration and Bachelor of Law.
After that, I became a high-ranking official in government working in different ministries. My last position was when the communists took South Vietnam. My career was finished and they threw me in a camp of re-education. We became political prisoners. There was no more work for us. They said to my face: “There is no room for you in this society”. I had to start prisoner life for 2 years but I was very fortunate; some of my colleagues spent 10 to 15 years in camp with no judgment, no verdict, nothing. Just jail time! By the grace of God, I was released because the Viet Cong found no trace that I was a CIA agent. They were very afraid about the CIA, that the Americans left its agents to spy on the Viet Cong.
I was jobless and told there was no room for me in that society. No jobs were available. I stayed at home to look after homework of the kids. My wife was a school teacher earning a meager salary to support the whole family. We had some savings that we lived on. Later they confiscated my home, my car, even our bank accounts. I had to have support from my son whom I sent to Australia in 1972 for overseas studies and who got a career as an engineer. He sent back support for our big family – 8 children. My son sent American dollars which were very precious for the Viet Cong. He sent $100 a month and we could survive on that -10 persons in the family - not luxury but enough. I started teaching English and French for people in the neighbourhood who expected to go out someday (that’s why they needed to learn French or English). No cheque; no salary; just volunteering to keep busy myself.
I tried twice to be “boat people” but I failed and was captured and put in jail for 3 months. All my savings were finished because you needed to contribute money to those who organized the trip. By the end of the road, I had no more money so I stayed home until I got sponsorship of my sister to come to Canada. Ten of us took the plane to Bangkok, Thailand then Vancouver, very unexpectedly because it was very difficult to get out.
When I came to Canada, I got the assignment from immigration to go to Manitoba. My sister was living in Winnipeg - very, very cold, the temperature was -40C. We could not believe it because when I was living in Saigon, the temperature was 25/26C. We moved to minus 40! No choice but our family was very happy to escape because there was no future at all there. Even my kids would not be allowed to go to university because they were children of an official of the South government.
I came to Winnipeg and went to immigration to look at job openings and everything. I could not do anything because the jobs were for factories and I was not a worker. I then came to St Boniface, a French-speaking area, and went to the school board to apply as a French teacher in the school. After some interviews, I was asked about my degree and they accepted it and classed me up in level 5. I got a salary of roughly $35,000 a year. Wow; it was like living in paradise! I used to survive on $100 a month in Vietnam for the whole family! I couldn’t imagine, I was so happy. But after two years, I quit because teaching was not very easy; not like Vietnam where students were very respectful to teachers. All my time in class I spent on keeping them quiet. I was a foreigner teacher so they did not care.
The last job I found was as a Canada Post Controller. I stayed in that job till I retired in 1995, my last job as I prepared to retire. It was a good job too.
I had one son who was a computer engineer and my youngest daughter, a pharmacist, working in Vancouver. My wife wanted to join them in 2002.
All my kids went to school and are university graduates and now they have good jobs. 8 kids are very successful and I have 17 grandchildren. 9 grandkids are in university. So I am very happy in immigrating. My settlement was very successful.
I moved to Vancouver to live my retirement life. In the meantime, I got involved in community work. First of all, I belong to the Catholic Church so I help in the parish. In Winnipeg, I had been president of the Vietnamese Seniors in Winnipeg for 10 years. I helped seniors who had no language skills at all and were very lonely at home. I spent my free time visiting them and organizing meetings and opportunities to entertain them, to get them together and let them speak Vietnamese to tell stories. I was elected 10 years as president with no interruption. When I came to Vancouver, I joined the seniors group here to spend my time. I met some friends who had worked with me in Vietnam. They knew me and said I was a good leader in government but I said I came here to relax, not to work because I worked so many occasions in my life already. Anyway, they elected me counselor, adviser. Now I am the current President of the Vietnamese Seniors Society of Vancouver. I have lots of experience in community work and also in Canada and now I know something so I can help them.
The big challenge right now is how I can help my folks to learn more English and have tools of communication so they can have conversations with Canadians. Like in Winnipeg, the majority of them have no English at all. Some have a few words for grocery shopping, but they cannot communicate further. There are English courses but they have no time to go.The women have to take care of their grandchildren and the whole time are at home speaking Vietnamese. You see them very rarely here. That’s the problem and my thoughts about how to help them.
I am grateful to Canada because of my good life for myself and my family and my folks too. The main worry is the political situation in my home country. There the Communists persecute the Catholic Church very severely. The Archbishop in Hanoi now is in house arrest. They confiscated the land of the archdiocese. People are gathering to pray and they persecute the congregation. 10,000 people go to the Church, the Cathedral and the area around and they pray. They send out police and dogs to disperse and injure lots of people. Now they threaten the archbishop that they will arrest him if he does not give orders to the faithful to disperse. I pray and follow news from Vietnam everyday. Some seniors who visit tell of how terrible things are and how people are getting poorer and poorer and the communists are getting richer and richer. It is not a good situation for the poor. My country is in deep trouble.
As I experienced in my own family and when I raised my children and looked after my grandchildren, I now advise my folks to look after the kids and keep their own language. I advise this for my community and for other communities as well. Keep the language to keep the culture. Canada is a multicultural country. We can live side by side, equal. And I appreciate those who speak their own language even if I don’t understand it. That’s my advice to the community of Canadians.