Love, Life and Opportunities
"Watching the unveiling of my portrait as I reminisced about the life of a thirteen-year-old girl was interrupted by its brilliant artist, Madhu Kumar. This moment brought back memories of how hope, determination and hard work helped me to overcome many obstacles throughout my transition to a new country. Follow your heart and dreams no matter what life presents. You can achieve anything in life if you set your mind to it."
“Knowledge is power and no one can ever take it away from you.” To this day, I can still hear my father’s voice, who taught me the importance of education when I was a teenager. My father sacrificed and risked everything that he had for his children. He stayed behind in Vietnam and lived under the communist regime while sending eight of his young children in small, crowded boats into the vast China Sea to an unknown fate.
The adjustment to a new country was difficult. The language barrier, culture shock, bullying, harassment, and trying to fit in made it even harder. Racist and negative comments such as “Jinky, go back to where you belong” or “Don’t take our jobs away” were made in the school yard, supermarket, and other public places. Like countless other immigrants, I faced discrimination and racism when coming to live in a new country. It was disheartening and scary, but eventually, I learned to adjust, ignore, and forgive those that were ignorant.
Remembering the teachings from my father and the reasons why I risked my life to leave Vietnam helped me to become more determined and empowered. I had overcome many obstacles despite the nightmares, anxiety, flashbacks, and post-traumatic stress that I occasionally experienced. How did I do it? This question I sometimes asked myself while recalling memories of swimming in the vast ocean and empty horizon surrounded by baby sharks, while not even knowing how to swim. The desperation of not having water or food for five days and nights on a small fishing boat and the unknown future that lied ahead of us.
Could we get help from an oil rig off the Gulf of Thailand or die on the boat? The power of the human mind gave me the courage to cool myself from the heat, ignore the overcrowded boat, and do what I had to do in order to survive. The fear and nightmares of the Thai pirates that would come to refugee camps to take girls and women; and the sight and sound of large rats scuttling around the bamboo hut where we lived for six months while waiting to be granted a visa to live in England. All of these experiences are still in my memories, even after all of these years.
Having gone through all these difficulties, a near death experience and starvation, I have learned to become more optimistic, live life to the fullest, and embrace and treasure every learning opportunity. I am forever grateful to England and the captain of the British oil rig who not only saved the 82 people on my boat, but gave us a new life, opportunity, and hope. My second home in Nottingham, England gave my siblings and I a safer environment to grow up in. I excelled in school and was granted a scholarship to university where I obtained my honours degree in biochemistry. After meeting my husband in London, England, once again, I moved across the continent and made Regina, Canada my third and current home. I had mixed feelings of happiness, excitement, and worry for going back to school as both a mature student and mother of two young sons to become a registered nurse.
Now, as an educator in the healthcare field, the personal experiences and challenges I faced created my mindset to inspire the patients and students I work with, as well as my children. It is true that attitude is everything and life is a continuous learning experience. Embrace every opportunity that life brings forward.
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