Someone Else's Story, Volume 1

Remember I posted a teaser earlier this week, whereby I will finally be writing down all of the interesting stories strangers tell me about their lives? These aren't people I know very well, although this first edition actually is someone I've come to know. These are stories I hear in passing.

I think there are a lot of people out there that just need someone to listen to them, someone to talk to. So if I find myself sitting next to someone for ten minutes, chances are, I've heard their story. Or at least part of their story. Now I'm going to share them with you, because that's what I do. I share. And because I have nothing else to write about tonight.

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P's Story

I've known P for a while, maybe even as long as five or six years? She does my nails at the salon I go to. I've always known she was Chinese, and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew she came to the States from Vietnam. It wasn't until recently that I asked how she came to live here, and she told me her incredible story of the journey she and her family took. As she sat and told me her story, my mouth gaped open.

P is a little older than me; I think she's 38. She comes from a big family of eight kids, and she falls near the top. Her parents are Chinese, but shortly after she was born the family moved to Vietnam to escape Chinese oppression.

Then the Vietnam War started, and things got really bad. Her parents and extended family had to make a decision, and they chose to try to come to the United States by way of a boat. Her dad bought the boat, and together with his immediate family of nine (wife and eight kids), he loaded up extended family and some strangers, basically anyone who wanted to pay for passage to the U.S.

They set off for freedom from poverty and war. I guess things were OK for a while, or at least as OK as they can be on a boat with a hundred people in the middle of the ocean.

Shortly into the trip, some people started to get sick. Her uncle, who was mentally retarded and had other health issues, died on board. P doesn't really remember why he died, she was just a kid, maybe nine years old? They had no doctor on board, no medicines other than over the counter things like aspirin. They were weeks, possibly months from shore. So they did what they had to do. They laid his body on the water and let him go. P says she remembers watching his body bob away on the waves, until she couldn't see it anymore.

Shortly after this, the boat started to leak and take on water. They sent out distress signals, flares, whatever it is they could do to get help.

The Indonesian Coast Guard (at least that's what my faulty memory remembers) came to the boat just as it was sinking and rescued the passengers, but because they were refugees of Vietnam and they were in international waters, they weren't allowed to go to Indonesia. Instead, they were taken to an island specifically designated for refugees. She said there were thousands of people there waiting for assylum from various different countries, living in filth, camping.

They lived on this refugee island with no running water, with tents as coverage from the elements, for a year. Finally, their application for visas to the United States came through. They were only able to obtain visas for their immediate family, P's parents and their children. So they left behind the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, who would eventually make it to freedom on their own.

From Indonesia they were flown to Atlanta, and that's where the family initially began their transformation into Americans. Hotlanta! Can you imagine? They lived in a one bedroom apartment, both parents taking whatever jobs they could find. P and her siblings learned to speak English by watching television. Some of her sisters still live there, although later on most of the family moved here.

P met and married a Vietnamese man whose family still lives there. She's an amazing woman. She speaks four languages - Chinese, Vietnamese, French and English. She is one of the hardest working people I know. She's pretty, smart, and talented and you'd never guess it by looking at her that she came to this country by way of a leaky boat out of Vietnam.

And I think I have struggles!?