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Exploring the younger years and turning point moments of authentic, outstanding and inspiring people. See the world through the eyes of someone who may have grown up in an entirely different way to you.
Hello, and welcome to When I Was Young, the podcast that explores the formative years of authentic, outstanding, and inspiring people. In each episode, we explore the younger years and turning point moments that help people discover who they really are, the foundation of great things to come. I'm your host, Nina Fromhold. For the last six years, I've been making audio recordings of people's life stories as private podcasts for their families. This year, I'm launching When I Was Young to share some beautiful stories with you.
Nina:Joining me today is Vivian Nguyen. Viv is the commissioner of the Victorian Multicultural Commission and an authentic leader both in government and across diverse multicultural and multi faith communities here in Australia. Today, we are
Nina:going to delve into Viv's childhood, her teenage years, and the life changing moments that helped her become the person she is today. Thanks for sharing some of your story with us today, Viv. I understand you were born in Vietnam in the early nineteen seventies where you lived with your family until you were 11. For context, this was during the later part of the Vietnam War that waged from 1955 through to 1975. So, Viv, talk to me about the Vietnam you were born into and the path your parents adopted during those years?
Vivienne:I have very little recollection of the latter part of the Vietnam War. I was born in 1971, and I remember leading up to '75, there was one time when there was heavy bombing and we lived right on Highway Number 1, which is a very, very long highway that takes us, as I am told, from north to south. In that heavy bombing, my family and the neighbors went hiding underneath the tunnel of the bridge, and that was my recollection of it. The other recollection was just long lines of people on this highway going somewhere, and I didn't know where they were going. My thought of them was they were just lines of ants going somewhere. They were the two main recollections that I have about the war.
Nina:What else do you remember about your home in Vietnam at this time?
Vivienne:We did have a house. We did have a block of land. We weren't wealthy by anybody's standards, and our house was sort of the same standard like everybody else on the street. Life was okay. Mom worked really hard.
Vivienne:Dad was imprisoned for a few years, and before that, he went into hiding. We always had a lot to do. I always got told I had to do a number of chores, which I didn't like. But even though we weren't that wealthy, my mom also took in my dad's younger sister's family. So we all lived together on the weekdays where we didn't have school.
Vivienne:The house would be completely Jane locked, and we would be playing outside to look after the house, but not to come inside the house just in case we had burglaries or robbers or or things of that nature. It was okay. I think in those moments, looking back, I didn't think that we were in difficult situations, even though I did feel constrained that we couldn't do this, we couldn't do that. If we'd said that, you would be caught. If you sang this song, you would be in trouble or your parents would be in trouble.
Vivienne:Those things were always around us, like strict guidelines for fear of prosecution or being put in jail.
Nina:So why was it that your dad needed to go into hiding?
Vivienne:Dad was an interpreter for the American army troops, and he was suspected of being part of the espionage. And so when the war ended, the Vietnamese regime asked all of the people who were from the South Vietnamese Army to front up as brothers and sisters now that we are unified. And lo and behold, they all went to jail. I think dad didn't come for some reason. I don't know.
Vivienne:But he didn't come. But he went into hiding for about four years until 1979, 19 80, and he felt there was a lot of pressure put on mom to look after such a big family. And so he returned and faced the music for two years.
Nina:And do you remember what that was like for you when you were young?
Vivienne:Dad was always a big father figure, and he was always out and about. We didn't see him very much. The times that I remember of him in those years weren't really pleasant, I have to say. I used to wet the bed when I was younger, and I remember him hitting me during the night. He wasn't around.
Vivienne:I saw a lot of the hard work from mom, running around, sorting us out, and then working in a factory. But we all respected him because we knew that he was the person that would lead us, make decisions, and guide us in our lives. I have a lot of respect for him, even though we had this very not emotionally connected, but a strong respect for each other for his role, and as if for mine when I saw him many years later in Australia.
Nina:So when you think back now of your early childhood years, are there any particular memories that stand out to you?
Vivienne:There would be a couple. The first one would have been the sight of my mom. She worked in a factory, and they had, like, a company bus that would drive on the highway, number one, to pick up stuff along the way. And mom would be doing all of this housework and getting us to kinda keep out for the bus. And just as the bus was coming near, we would call out for mom so that she would run and catch the bus.
Vivienne:And there was one time I was too busy playing, and I called her too late that she missed the bus. She didn't scold me, and that was why I remembered. There were some other good memories going to school and having a group of friends and also other situations with my younger sister. We were born so close to each other. We always had some level of competition and things of that nature because we have these things that oldest child and youngest child always get the attention, and she got a lot more attention than me.
Vivienne:For example, we were going through a very bad famine in Vietnam, and we couldn't eat rice. We could only eat cakes made from flowers. And she got to eat rice, and I didn't. We always had this fight, and she remembered, and I remember as well. Even when we saw each other again in Australia some years later, we caught each other out as a sister.
Vivienne:Yeah. There was lots of those moments, Nina, that I recall.
Nina:So what changed for your parents, your siblings, and you when you were 11 years old?
Vivienne:So dad, at one dinner time, told us that we had to leave Vietnam. We would not have a future if we were to stay. I certainly didn't know what a future meant. I thought I was doing okay. I got good marks in primary and in the first year of high school.
Vivienne:And I said to dad that I don't want to go. I'm too scared of being eaten up by sharks. And in Vietnam in those days, that was a running rumor that if you go, if you escape, then you would be eaten up by sharks. But everybody else agreed that was the way to go. And because also my older brother and sister who completed year 12 and had sufficient marks but could not get to university because of dad's background.
Vivienne:So they were more keen to leave than I was, but I went along with them. And that was, I think, me, the decision that dad made changed all of our lives since.
Nina:So tell me about leaving Vietnam and where you arrived at next, but take us through what you needed to do to leave.
Vivienne:Because we lived in a place that isn't near the water. When we left, mom told the neighbors that we went on a trip in the South, because that's where the river and the waters are, to visit a family. So that was the reason for why Viv wasn't at school or my older sister wasn't at school and so on. Because the two of us would be most obvious. We were at school, and we weren't there.
Vivienne:So we went on this little river that took us about a day into what they called a hiding house Out in some of these little they're not islands. They're just little pockets around the river. And we lived in this sort of house for a few days. So we split up. So I lived with my older brother and his wife.
Vivienne:My two older sisters lived with another cousin, and then my older brother lives with another cousin. So we all split up in different places around that little area. And we weren't allowed to go out or anything because the villagers would pick up a stranger straight away. So we lived in this one room for five days, and we could only go out at nighttime to have a shower in the waters. And my only knowledge of day or night would be when you look at this hole up of the roof on the side, because the house is kind of made of straws bound together by something.
Vivienne:I don't even know, but it existed and we lived there for a few nights. I used to get so bored. I started to move the straws so I could see a hole. So when you lie in bed, you look at it, you could actually see your hole and see what people were doing outside, or you could look up on the side of the ceiling to see how the day was travelling. And it was so boring.
Vivienne:I missed my family, my mom. I missed my friends because I had nothing to do. It's just in that room for five days. Then one night, we got taken out onto a boat, and that boat took us onto the bigger boat, then eventually take us to the refugee camp. And I remember it was totally black dark.
Vivienne:Somebody throwing me onto the bigger boat, and me being a tomboy in in those days, I was like pushing everyone else and, no, this is my spot. I lie down, and that was my spot. I had to stay there. I didn't care who came on top of me or whatever items that was thrown. That was my spot.
Vivienne:I stood my ground. So that was how I got there, and then the boat left.
Nina:Do you know where the boat left from and where you arrived at?
Vivienne:I only got told this after. It left from a place called Gan Tho, which was in the South part of Vietnam, and I didn't know where it was destined to go until we actually got to Malaysia and the refugee camp in Pulau Bidong.
Nina:Tell me about arriving in Malaysia at the refugee camp. What do you remember seeing and experiencing?
Vivienne:As we were traveling, if you like, we got given extra oil because we tried to land onto a camp. For some reason, people didn't take us in. They gave us oil, and that part I remember. They talked to the captain, and then after that, we got told they gave us oil to go to the Malaysian refugee camp that was designated for Vietnamese refugees. We actually landed at an army barracks in Malaysia.
Vivienne:So when we got there, I couldn't walk because we stayed on the boat for so long. I couldn't actually walk onto the beach. My feet wouldn't go.
Nina:So how long were you on the boat?
Vivienne:It was five nights in four days. I could not walk at all. Somebody had to carry me over, and we stayed in that army barracks for one night. And I remember some of the Malaysian soldiers came and asked me in Vietnamese because they must have picked up quite a number of us like this over the course of the years. He asked me in Vietnamese, what is your name?
Vivienne:And I said, my name is Vee. And it was very hard for this soldier to pronounce. He had a go at it and everyone laughed because he wasn't anywhere close. So we stayed there for one night, and then we got taken to Pulau Bidong, which is an island set up by the United Nations to receive Vietnamese refugees. There, you asked me what my first impression was.
Vivienne:It looked to me like a poor place or a place for poor people because they weren't houses the refugees built for themselves. We thought we were going to Australia or America or somewhere. I certainly didn't know that we actually had to go to a refugee camp. So I was like, okay. So that was my reaction.
Nina:And so was it tents that you could see, or was it constructed houses of whatever materials were available, just hodgepodge?
Vivienne:It was like tents. There was some, but you had to go inside. First, on the outside looking in, you could see the church. You see the cross on the top of the island. And then you see the beach, and you see trees, and you see people running around.
Vivienne:And then behind the trees, I could see what looked like to me tents. They didn't look like well built houses that I could recall seeing in Vietnam.
Nina:How long were you in the refugee camp in Malaysia before you were able to come to Australia?
Vivienne:I was in Phu Lobby Dong for six months. When we were there, we went to the health checks, filling out forms and the like, and there were Vietnamese refugee volunteers who worked with the various delegations to help the translation amongst other things. We wanted to go to Australia, But because my elder sister was under 18, so we all came under one application form. And my older brother and his wife, they had a different application form because they didn't need a sponsor. So they got accepted by the Australian delegation, and we got rejected because they couldn't find a sponsor with four young teenagers.
Vivienne:So we applied for the American delegation, and we got accepted because of dad's involvement. So we were going to go this way, and then my brother got accepted, and then he left to Australia. Altogether, it took him, I think, less than six months, and then he, in return, was able to sponsor us. We got accepted by the American delegation, and then we moved to what's called a transit camp in the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. So whilst we were there, we got a letter from my brother to say that he was able to sponsor us because we didn't know whether he could straight away.
Vivienne:And then we went to the American delegation and said, look, we'd like to go to Australia and not America. Apparently, as part of the process, they had to freeze our application for a period of time. So we ended up spending six months in the refugee camp in Pulau Bidong and another six months in the transit camp in Kuala Lumpur. Usually when you're in a transit camp, you're only there for a couple of weeks because that's when you are scheduled to fly out to your third country. We ended up staying in KL for another six months before my brother's application for us was accepted.
Vivienne:He confirmed they were able to look after us and all of those things. And then we came to Australia altogether twelve months after I'd left Vietnam. So I was 12 when I came to Australia.
Nina:Tell me about arriving in Australia.
Vivienne:Well, we came on a Qantas flight, so that was nice. It was a very hot summer day on the 12/22/1983. When we got out of the airport, we had to line up and wait for certain processes and checks to be done. I just sat on the floor. It was too hard, too hot.
Vivienne:I wasn't the only one. There were many other people who did the same thing. Yeah. It felt strange. And then we got taken to the Midway hostel in Maribyrnong, which was the hostel that took in refugees.
Vivienne:I have to say, my first recollection was was hot, and I didn't know that I could sleep on a bed with white sheet covers. And I received my first pair of underpants here at the Midway hostel.
Nina:What other things were just strange at the hostel?
Vivienne:Food was strange. We saw these mashed potato, gravy, and beef, and we had to eat with a fork and a knife, and we had to eat on a plate as opposed to a little bowl, and you had to carry a tray and you take the tray to the table. That whole process was strange. Eating mashed potato, gravy, and beef was extremely strange. And learning to use a fork and a knife was hard.
Vivienne:And I'm left handed, so I always have to swap the cutleries around. And we all looked around asking for chopsticks. We didn't know what they were called, but there wasn't anything there. So we kind of learned, and I think we ended up using the spoon more than the fork of the knife.
Nina:So even though it was a refugee receiving center, there was no accommodations made to provide you with some of the things you were familiar with?
Vivienne:I certainly couldn't recall seeing any of those things. Through the bain-marie, you'd point to the things that you thought you could potentially eat, and some other times I was like, here it is, you know, a plate full of mashed potatoes and something. Okay. We'll have a go at this. We certainly weren't in the mindset where we could choose.
Vivienne:We're we're grateful that we got given this stuff. We couldn't have this in Vietnam, so you're lucky. Just eat it. That was our mindset and our thinking.
Nina:So it was okay even though it was strange?
Vivienne:Indeed.
Nina:Okay. Talk to me about your first year. Who helped you?
Vivienne:So we went straight to Brunswick High School. And so during the summer period, there wasn't anything to do, and there was no books or anything like that. But I ate a lot. That was the other thing that I remember when we got out to my brother's place. I went from twenty seven kilograms to thirty one.
Vivienne:I remember that because I waited when I started school. For some other students, they went to an English school centre. When their English became a bit proficient, they then joined a high school. For us, maybe because of where we were, Brunswick High School had English as a second language classes inside the school premises. So we went to Brunswick High.
Vivienne:We spent a lot of our time in a separate section of the school where they built portables for us to learn English. So I learned listening, reading comprehension in that area, and then you would go to the main places for maths and home economics. We had very good English as a second language teachers. They weren't just our teachers. They took us on excursions.
Vivienne:They showed us different things about Melbourne. They helped us fill out forms for the family allowance support, make sure that we receive all of the benefits financially that we were entitled to, all of those things. And because we spent so much time together, we built good relationship with the teachers and with other students from Cambodia, from Portugal, and some Korean, but not many. Mostly Vietnamese and Cambodians.
Nina:You got help at school from some good teachers. Yes. Were there anyone else around yourself and your family that was supporting you?
Vivienne:We had the Vietnamese church. We went to church every Sunday, so that helped because you could see the familiarity in the language, in the faces, and in the singing and things of that nature. So that was a huge comfort for us. Some of them who settled here a lot longer than us, they would grow certain herbs and vegetables in their gardens, and they would share or sell some of those.
Nina:Were they the familiar herbs for the cooking from home?
Vivienne:That's right. Onions, spring onions, and things like that. I don't think we bought any from there because we didn't have a lot of money. And only one brother was working. That was my oldest brother.
Nina:So how did you navigate the dual cultures of your family and the Vietnamese community and your new home and your school here in Melbourne?
Vivienne:I think the first few years was very, very Vietnamese. I went to school, but more than half of the day was spent with other Vietnamese students. On Saturday, I would go to Vietnamese language school in Collingwood, And then on Sunday, I would go to church and spend a couple of hours there. So my world for a long time was very Vietnamese oriented. And then a few years later, when we received the housing commission in Broadmeadows in 1985 or '86, we were absorbed into the Vietnamese community in the Northwestern Suburbs.
Vivienne:They ran language schools. They ran dance classes, and they organized the Lantern Festival. I was always active, so I took part in the dance classes. Up until university days, my life was very much Vietnamese.
Nina:And did you enjoy that? Was that something that you were happy to be part of, or were you feeling a sense of conflict living between cultures?
Vivienne:It was very much a single culture for life for me. We spoke Vietnamese entirely at home. The only time we actually spoke English would be in the class, even outside to recess and lunchtime. There was always other Vietnamese students to hang around with. So, yeah, I felt that up until then, was very much Vietnamese.
Vivienne:There was nothing Australian that came into my thinking or my consciousness at all. It only started to become clearer when I started university. And that was a real struggle for me the first couple of years at university. I found my language wasn't kind of up to speed, my English language. In the early nineties at Melbourne University, there was four Vietnamese students who did commerce, science, engineering, medicine, dentistry.
Vivienne:If you could get the scores, that was where people were heading. Business, teaching, it wasn't the thing.
Nina:And so what did you study?
Vivienne:I did economics and commerce. I wanted to be an economist.
Nina:Do you remember why?
Vivienne:Yes. I do. I did year eleven and twelve economics in high school, and I remember coming across the award wages, the accord, and Paul Keating, and what he did for Australia and the Australian economy. And also, the other big part was dad's influence. Dad always wanted me to be involved in business.
Vivienne:And I think in hindsight, and I'm sure my siblings would agree with me that dad wanted to be a businessman, and he tried that after he got out of jail and all of his business ventures went to custard. When we wrote to him about how we were traveling from Australia, it was almost like a report scorecard. And he always told us that he wanted at least one of the children to do business, and he thought I would be the best candidate, so to speak. So they were the main reason, poor Keating and dad. I just went straight into business and finance side of things.
Nina:So that makes a lot of sense because you'd come from a place where you've had to rebuild and start a whole new life in a new place. Talk to me about fear and courage and determination that was escalated for you in creating that financial stability.
Vivienne:When we were living in Broadmeadows in this housing commission, there was a factory nearby called Arnott's Biscuits, and they made biscuit trays for Arnott's. And for some reason, they found Vietnamese workers very hardworking. We had then my mother-in-law, my auntie, all of the Vietnamese women living in Broadmeadows all worked for Arnott's Biscuits. And the manager was very keen for us to work there because we always exceeded our production targets. So every summertime, we would put our name down to go and work there for some summer money.
Vivienne:And I found having that financial independence very powerful because, one, my eldest brother was too strict. Two, he probably didn't have money to give it to us. And three, for some reason, I just did not like asking. So I felt that financial independence was very strong for me to be able to look after myself and not be reliant. But also, as I started to connect with the Vietnamese community more broadly, and being at school, the teachers asked us to recount our escape experiences, let it out of our system, I started to realize that I was the lucky one, one of the lucky ones that actually made it and made it in the first attempt.
Vivienne:We then learned so many other people did not make it, and many made it after many attempts. So I felt that I needed to be out there to represent something, to stand up because I was the lucky one. I just felt that I wanted to understand, I wanted to participate, I wanted to have a say about something. So that I think was the main driver. And because my life, up until the end of high school, was entirely Vietnamese.
Vivienne:So those elements really stuck and resonated in my mind. And for better or worse, they formed the foundations for my involvement in the Vietnamese community and in the broader multicultural communities, and to some extent, shaped my modus operandi and what I strive for and what's important to me in this role.
Nina:You've mentioned that it was somewhat challenging starting university and adapting to a new space to be. Talk to me a little bit about your university years.
Vivienne:So I enrolled and got into the commerce degree, the Bachelor of Economics and Commerce. And I was part of what they call the affirmative action program, where I missed out on the actual cutoff score, but they took me in because I was in Australia for just under seven years. The first year was hard in the sense that you had to rely on yourself to turn up to the lectures, to do the tutors, and to do the homework, and how much of the research you wanted to do in order to complete your assignment was you. I didn't have to travel by public transport to university before that. So I found it physically tiring.
Vivienne:I found that self motivation a little bit hard because there wasn't a teacher or there wasn't a deadline to say, hey, Viv, you gotta do your assignment. You gotta turn up to the tutors, you gotta prepare and ask questions at the tutors. So the first year was hard in that respect and there was just so much reading to do. Even though you only really have twelve contact hours for each week, you actually had to do a lot of reading if you were a bit serious about the subjects. I didn't do well in the first year.
Vivienne:I found a couple of subjects. And so that was the wake up call for me after having seen a couple of f on my scorecards.
Nina:But on that point, was there anyone in your life who'd been there before and could have guided you through that, or were you literally working it all out yourself?
Vivienne:I think we were all literally working it out for ourselves because we didn't have anyone from our family going through that. There were other students, but we also had to get to know them. And some of them came from the same schools, and so they already knew each other beforehand. I was the only one from my high school doing commerce at Melbourne Uni. Friendship wise, connections wise, you had to start from scratch.
Vivienne:And no, we didn't have anyone to guide. All we had from my brother was get through high school. Good. Now you are on your own. Right?
Vivienne:The only thing that I wanna know is you pass and you graduate.
Nina:Yeah. It's very challenging when you're the first generation to go to university and break that new ground.
Vivienne:Yeah. I certainly got better in terms of my results, so that was a good thing. So the first year of university, we reunited with my mom, my dad, and my younger sister. And so that was another challenge in itself because we lived together. You know, there were certain expectations from dad coming in, not knowing the culture here, and he set certain standards and expectations, and I was like, not quite sure that I have a boyfriend, things like that.
Vivienne:And then we had a sewing business. Lots of Vietnamese people in those years had a sewing business. And so mom came, and she got straight into the sewing business with my brother. And so we had my older brother and his wife and his son, mom, dad, younger sister and me, and my other older sisters. Three or four different families are living together.
Vivienne:It was challenging, I had to say. We needed some space to do our homework, and my sister was not doing year 12. Yeah. And so it was a bit chaotic, the first year of uni. But I think we eventually worked through a bit of give and take.
Nina:So tell me about your last year at university. How were you going then?
Vivienne:I was happy that I graduated. I think that was just, yep, done. But the graduation ceremony, took place a while later, was a super proud moment. I was just looking at some of those photos the other day to celebrate my older sister's sixtieth, and we saw some of the photos we took at Merwin University with me and my mom and dad and the cousins from Adelaide, those people smuggler, was also here. So it was a very happy moment.
Vivienne:That's great. I'm sure that would have been a very proud moment for your whole family. Yes.
Nina:Were you the first to graduate in your whole family with a university degree?
Vivienne:My older sister and I, and then my younger sister after she completed year 12 and did her OTA course, yes. So three out of the six.
Nina:Talk to me about your experiences in the Vietnamese community here in Melbourne when you were in your twenties. How was it for you?
Vivienne:It was very emotionally raw for Australia and in Melbourne. Anyone who had connections with the American army would have gone to America. So a lot of the high ranking officials, if you like, all went there. In Australia, we had more people from the villages because they had access to boats and things of that nature. As a general rule, people say Vietnamese community in Australia is not as intellectual as the Vietnamese community in America.
Vivienne:And I learned that as I get involved with the Vietnamese community. And so many of them, the impact of the war was very raw. I remember there was a pre Vietnam political movement that had their volunteer members standing in various corners of Fuskray just with a box of donation. And people would walk past and put money in that box. So there was a very strong anti Vietnamese government movement in the Vietnamese community.
Vivienne:The yellow flag that was from the South Vietnam government was their symbol. It wasn't too bad for me because I only knew the Vietnamese community. For many of my peers my age who had a much greater exposure to the Australian society, they struggle with that. They struggle with understanding why we are so back there. In the early nineties, That was in my '20s.
Vivienne:That would have been when Vietnam decided to open up to economic reform and things of that nature, and people started to travel back to Vietnam, former refugees. It was a very emotional period for that community because many people who came to Australia at the age of 13, 14, 17, 18, they would have lived through a few years of peace and they would have seen a few messy years of the war. They were very strong, or at least their parents were. So that was hard in my twenties, trying to understand the Vietnamese identity. I understood more the political aspect of my Vietnamese identity, whereas before that, it was my cultural aspects of my Vietnamese identity, singing, dancing, and mucking around with people my age, boys and girls, and things of that nature.
Vivienne:Was a bit more fun. As I got to my twenties at university and then working with the Vietnamese community in some official capacity, that became more prominent and also challenging to navigate.
Nina:Talk to me about your expectations of love and marriage as a young woman. And did this differ from the expectations of your family and friends?
Vivienne:My Vietnamese friends, they all got married early. They all had kids early. And so many of them, their kids are now with university graduates. Mine's only completed year 11. Did I feel the pressure from there?
Vivienne:I felt that I was discovering my Australian part. So relatively comfortable with not getting married but having a boyfriend. I always wanted to have a partner and always in those days, a Vietnamese partner. So that, I think, was the Vietnamese thing, and love and marriage and expectations and the like. But I never felt rushed into getting married.
Nina:Are you happy to share the story of meeting your life partner?
Vivienne:Yeah, I'm happy to, but it's pretty boring. We know each other from church, from university, And our two families, for some reason, we say, are destined to be in laws. Who, my husband now, older sister, and my older brother were in a relationship. For some reason, it didn't work out. We all thought they would be married and that we would be in laws.
Vivienne:So that didn't happen. My older sister, the one that I escaped from Vietnam with, a year older than me, and whom's older brother also went out for a period of time. And we thought that there might be some future for them. That didn't work out. Hung and I, nobody thought that we would be a couple because we were very different.
Vivienne:I was more active. He was much less. And so when we started going out, that's weird. Is it going to last? And so on and so forth.
Vivienne:And we did end up getting married. So it was a very familiar family environment. We knew each other for a long time. He escaped with his uncle, not with his parents. They've landed in Singapore and then to The Netherlands because their boat was picked up by a Dutch navy ship.
Vivienne:So I met him when he was sponsored by his parents to live in Australia at 16. And so his family and his cousin, his dad's sister, and us always, we went to Vietnamese clan language classes together. We did all the singing and dancing and all together. So it was a very familiar territory, except the difference in our personality and our approach to life that no one expected us to walk down the aisle, and we did, whereas they expected the other two to walk down the aisle, and they didn't.
Nina:And so tell me, what is it about him that made him stand out?
Vivienne:For me, he was very anchored. He was very clear in his values. He's a very family oriented person. He valued education. He was much more grounded than me.
Vivienne:He knew what he wanted, whereas I had a job, oh, maybe this job isn't good enough. I look for another job. I was always doing that sort of thing, and I was involved in the Vietnamese community. I was out and about. Whereas he was much happier to be that background person, but the actual anchor.
Vivienne:So you get the clarity from him or I did when I am in a state of uncertainty or in the fog and not knowing where to go and what to do. This is what you do. And, oh, yeah. Why didn't I think of that?
Nina:That's beautiful. Talk to me about what changed your world when you were 30.
Vivienne:That would have been the time when we were going through some rough patches with our marriage. It would have been the time when my father-in-law passed away, and I think also the time I did the Williamson Community Leadership Program. And that was when my world, in my view, opened up. Because I spent time with 34 other Williamson participants, and no one was Vietnamese. Those major events happened in a very short space of time.
Vivienne:We had a lot of support from our family with respect to our relationship, and I got a broader perspective about life, that it isn't just about me. Even though I wanted to represent, I wanted to have a say on a matter that impact a bunch of people. But when it came to my personal matters, I was very me. Those events taking place around the same time really opened my eyes to the world. I really give credit to the Williamson Community Leadership Program, and dad's passing really brought us together and saw the importance of the family.
Nina:So when you look back across the breadth of experiences and influences and disruptions in your life, what are you grateful that you learned in your younger years that holds you in good stead today?
Vivienne:For me, the bit that I feel grateful for is that I actually survived.
Nina:What does that mean for you?
Vivienne:More of what goes on around the world. I've done a fair bit of advocacy for human rights and working with Amnesty International as a community advocate. You see far more injustice. You see far more unfortunate situations, not because of the person's fault, but because of where they actually live. So I'm grateful that my dad made that call for us to leave, and I'm grateful that I only had to do it once because I think if we didn't make it and we didn't die, I don't think I'll do it again because I was so, in my mind, scared that I would be eaten up by sharks.
Vivienne:And whilst things have been difficult, the ups and the downs, I have come across many good people who gave me the chances. Like, why did this manager at Arnaut's Biscuits kept taking us? We was 15, 16, every time. And when it was two weeks holiday, we would go in and we'd get a package of cash payment at the end of the week. So I think at the end of the day, I am grateful that I am here.
Vivienne:And I'm grateful that I have also been given some of the opportunities. Some you kind of have to fight for. And fortunately, sometimes you come out the other end on the positive side. I believe that we are here for a reason, or maybe some reasons, depending on where one is in one's life. But I think we are here to do something, whatever that is.
Vivienne:And it doesn't have to be a life changing something. It could be for myself. It could be for my sons, my husband, my family. Whatever it is, I feel that I'm grateful that I have the chance to do something.
Nina:What or who helps you on your hardest days?
Vivienne:There would have been many hard days. Some of the hard days that I can remember would have been the time when I learned of Fraser's diagnosis, a time when I made a decision to take the outplacement service at the ANZ to find another role without a role in hand. In all of those, the memories and faith really played a big role in those moments. I remember when we received the diagnosis for Fraser. I went home and put a blanket over my head.
Vivienne:God, I've been doing all these good things. I've volunteered. I've given money up. Why this? And I think for a period of time and it wasn't long in the sense of that grieving.
Vivienne:But in a while, especially when I started to see Fraser making some positive achievements And the level of joy I got out of that, I realized that he's here for a reason, and faith played a role in that. The happy moments keeps me, and I would imagine Hongwei as well, going with respect to Fraser. The second one with the decision at the bank, I remember that Friday afternoon holding Fraser in my arms on a hammock, and I said, I'm okay with this little guy in my arms.
Nina:So he was your strength in that moment? Was my strength.
Nina:When do you feel most content and peaceful now?
Vivienne:Because this current role in this current time is pretty challenging.
Nina:And you're talking about your role as as the commissioner?
Vivienne:That moment hasn't come as frequently as it was even during the pandemic. During the pandemic, we all worked together, government, departments, agencies, community leaders, faith leaders, anybody and everybody. We all had a common goal to work towards. And we were far willing to listen to each other, accommodating each other's needs and changing directions, doing things so that we get to the common goal. I haven't had too many of those moments in recent months.
Vivienne:But I draw strength from talking to the communities. I draw strength from seeing the family in some level of order, that we've got a house, they've got a room, they've got a computer to do their homework on, and they listen to me. They don't argue too often. The support I get from my extended family. I'm not a terrible cook.
Vivienne:So whenever something happened, my sisters, especially Jan, the older one, let me bring some food over and come over dinner and you just have to eat and go home. You don't have to hang around and chat to us or whatever. It will just take an hour. Just do that. They're some of the things that I draw strength and inspiration from.
Nina:That good practical support. Yep. You did touch on this briefly.
Nina:Do you believe in a life's purpose, and what does it mean for you and your life?
Vivienne:If I can point to something good or something positive that I've done for someone, that to me is purposeful enough. That my little family unit is happy, that to me is purposeful. Ultimately, if those critical foundations of a person's life are rock solid and the people involved in those foundations are happy, I think that's purposeful enough.
Nina:And one last question for you. If you could give both of your boys something in particular as a foundation for their life, what would you give them?
Vivienne:Family and education. There's two things. Education is very difficult to be separated for us. I'm not talking about university as a measure. I'm talking about that sense of wanting to know, wanting to learn.
Vivienne:You've got to do that, and you've got to have a strong family setting.
Nina:Thank you, Vivian Nguyen, for being my guest today and sharing insights into your world as a young child and a young woman. Your story is remarkable and beautiful, and I can very much see how it has shaped the person you are today. Your understanding of what it's like to be part of a new and emerging community within Australia gives you great compassion and strength, and I can see that in the work that you do now. May you have every happiness and success in the years ahead. You have been listening to When I Was Young, an exploration of the formative years of authentic, outstanding, and inspiring humans.
Nina:I'm your host, Nina Fromholt, and this is a Memory Lane Life Stories production proudly made in Naarm, Melbourne, Victoria on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people. We have new episodes and guests each month. If you have enjoyed this episode, please follow the show to hear more of the series and share the podcast. Leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us out.
Nina:Thank you for listening.