7 days on the sea. 1 year in Phillipines. Dont remember much about that but who cares. I am a FOB.

Anyone else here?

err.....riiight haha

Whats so funny about that?

You must be old ugly man, my dad was on the sea for about that long and spent about a year in Phillipines

old? depends on who i talk to. I'm still in my 20s. My cousin was born in Phillipines and they named her Bidong because that was where we landed.

Ah ok, my dad is like 50 now

So you probably dont remember much :p

u are an illegal immgrant??

My fiancé was 4 when her family left on a small refugee boat in 1980. Luckily they were rescued by the coastguard and sent to Singapore. Two years after that they arrived in Seattle. She is almost 30 now. You are lucky to be alive there were a lot of boat people who did not make it.

refugee mate.

used to be. they made me legal.

What was the whole ordeal like?

Well my ordeal wasn't that bad considering i flew plane all the way to the Phillipine and to the U.S.Yes, i did had the privileges unlike some of my predecessor Vietnamese (Boat People) who had to go through thick and thin just to get this far.Some didn't make it but some did.Some live to see the daylight of a new era.Some didn't.

that's cool...how was it like in the sea??

are u over here in states?

maybe those vietnamese can learn some tips from the badajo ethnic tribe of the philippines who live off the ocean and became quite skilled at it.

If Vietnamese aren't skilled at the ocean and needs to learn from someone then I am speechless. hahaha.

My dad left in 1980 and so did my mom. His boat engine died within 14 hours and drifted 15 days with no food to Hainan where he met my mom .

wow.. ur mom is chinese?? ur dad so brave

No, she's Vietnamese too. The first sentence I said "My dad left in 1980 and so did my mom". They both landed in Hainan. My dad and all his buddies recently went back to Hainan and thank the people for thier generousity. Without them I would not be here. So I love them too

I'm another refugee baby, but I was too young to know anything. My mom had me in Indonesia in one of the refugee camps, so she was pregnant with me during the whole ordeal. Man, they're tough.

darn.. vietnamese have some really sad history

Are you from galang island refugee camp in riau province? you should visit this islnad again. it was empty island design only for vietnamese refugee now it become much develop island after there is bridge from galang island to industrial island batam. i encounter there a re a lot of vietnamese tourist visiting again this galang island. There are monument to remember the refugee and there is catolic church overthere built for these refugee still standing.

That's pretty cool, Nusantara. Specifically, I was on Galang II. Now that you mentioned it, I would very much like to visit it to see what it's like now.

if you bring your parent to visit back this island, i think your parent will surprised how the vietnamese village still standing there, the quan an tu monastery and also vietnamese temple built in 1984 stil exist.

galang now is part of batam island bcoz there is bridge connecting from batam to galang island. all together there are 6 bridges connecting batam to galang island via small island in the between.

to reach batam itself it is only take you 1/2 hour comfortable ferry/boat drive from singapore and from batam island around 1 hour drive (70 km) to galang island.

there are 3300 singaporean tourist visit batam island everyday. how big is batam island? it's about 3/4 of singapore and galang island + galang baru island about 1/4 of batam.
all this connected island they call it barelang (batam-rempang-galang).
it's modern, industrial and touristic island now.

find this picture:

my friend is also a boat person...he did leave Vietnam by boat too... and now he's here in the US and he's so nice...his wife is 1/2 vietnamese and 1/2 chinese...and theur kids are soo cute!!

3 months on the sea, 6 months in Hong Kong, been in California since 79...

^damn how old are u?

I am living in Germany since 1978. I was 3 1/2 when my parents fled with me on a ship with 300 other refugees. This is what I was told:

Pirates wanted to attack us, but they let us pass because we had fake guns (only one gun was real). One night our ship began to leak. The engine had to pump out the water all the time. If the engine had stopped our ship would have sunk. A German cargo ship (I forgot the name, it was something with "jacob") found us on the sea and drew our ship to Thailand. The Thai didn't want to let us into their country and forced the German ship to cut the ropes. But when the Thai left they turned around to search for us. After they found us they brought us somewhere else, they also communicated to international organizations to help us. After a few weeks only we could travel to Germany, together with several thousands of other boat people who where accepted by the Germans.

That is quite a story, most of us are pretty much in the same situation when we "VUOT BIEN". The ship I was in had around 120 people or so, the captian's plan was for only 2 weeks to get to Hong Kong from China (don't remember which part of China but it was really close to HK & should only take 2 wks on boat) but he got lost, didn't know his way around and that's why it took us 3 freaking months to get there!!! On the way there we ran out of fresh water and very short on food supplies so most of the men had to eat very little and save the food for women and children. There's a lot more to my story but I was very little and only remembered so much but I'm sure my parents remember a lot more than I do. Extremely hard times but hey, there's 50/50 chance, either you make it or you die at the sea so...

Older than you that's for sure...