| Description | An interview with Nga Do, a married woman with one son, two daughters, who is a Voluntary community worker, born in Saigon, Vietnam and now living in Birmingham. Nga Do’s father was a Retired from army, born in Vietnam and her mother a Housewife born in Vietnam. In the interview, she talks about …
'NGA DO MS2255/2/114 Logged by Lorraine Blakemore
01
My birth date is 20th November, 1957…born in Saigon City, Vietnam…. Wealthy childhood. Father is a high ranking officer in the army fighting against the Communists. Life becomes difficult from 1975 when the troops from the North invade. Father interned in ‘re-education camp’ doing hard labour. Family suffered as a result.
3.25 Wants to enter law school, but is repeatedly and deliberately made to fail the exams.
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Gives details of how she was victimised.
2.03 Family do not want to leave the house and refuse to give it to the government.
2.39 Story about meeting her husband. Married in 1980.
4.25 First child born in 1981.
03
Restrictions on travel and daily life.
50” Husband is a teacher in High School.
1.10 In 1983 we decide to escape from our country….Gives an account of the escape.
04
Background to the escape and preparations made.
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Picked up by a British ship and sent to Hong Kong for 4 months. Arrive in England in December of 1983.
26” The first move into Birmingham is organised by The Ockendon Venture. They give us one house to live in….in Lozells….I just live there a few days….after I come back home my house is robbed…
1.37 House is not fully furnished. A neighbour helps them but there is a problem later. The man is a convicted criminal. Family suffers harassment from the man. Nga escapes an attempted rape.
06
I go to the Vietnamese Community Centre and say I need help and they ask the Housing Association to give me permission to leave but they want to keep me in the house….
59” Story about the police using Nga’s house to arrest the neighbour who has allegedly killed a man.
2.18 I live in Winson Green since 1985… Husband enters University of Warwick and graduates in 1990. Husband invited to work in USA but refuses. Now works in Coventry as an electronic engineer.
4.02 Has 3 chiildren. Gives details of their education.
4.45 Nga has worked at the Vietnamese Community Centre for 4 years.
07
I am very happy to help my people living in Birmingham because I have some very difficult times in the first time living here….just have a little bit of English and I don’t know anything to get help….
29” The Vietnamese Community Association existed when Nga first arrived but she didn’t feel that she should approach them. Now she feels differently.
2.02 Describes the work of the Vietnamese Community Centre.
2.55 Children are bi-lingual in English and Vietnamese. Nga was taught some basic English in Vietnam.
4.15 Attended Brasshouse Centre to learn English.
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First impressions on arriving in England.
1.40 Contrasts England and Vietnam. Gives examples.
2.52 I think the neighbours as well. In Vietnam, when we want to see each other we just come to knock the door….and have a drink and a chat as long as we want, but in here when you want to visit somebody you must phone them first and ask them permission….
09
Explains the Vietnamese family structure and custom.
53” Describes Lozells as an area to live.
2.44 Describes a kind neighbour in Winson Green.
4.28 The first years I don’t know about the weather in Birmingham…it comes to minus degrees….in the morning…I open the tap, there is no water at all….I’m very worried..and outside is white with the snow…it looks very horrible to me…I came to my next neighbour….he just laughing at me, oh my dear, you should open the tap at night and keep the water running….
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In the first years in Birmingham I have nothing to do with transport except bus and my legs. I would like to find out where we are….around the city….we stay on the number 11 bus to go around and around….We spend about a few hours on there…
1.05 Husband uses a bicycle at first, the Nga buys him a Honda 90cc motorbike. If I sometimes go to the supermarket, I want to buy the sack of rice and I come there by bus with my child and my husband comes there after…everything I buy I put on his motorbike and he brings home.
2.00 When husband attends university the family buys a second-hand car. Gives details of husband’s language skills and academic work.
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Children’s education.
Story about daughter being picked on at school.
1.51 Stresses the importance of good education for her children as a way of being accepted by the society.
4.47 Describes King Edward’s High School for Girls.
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Continues to comment on daughters’ education and interests.
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Family holidays to Europe.
Fear of water and ferries after her experience of leaving Vietnam.
2.02 Even though two of my children born here, they will always be the Vietnamese people. They can’t be English or anything else…Elaborates.
4.10 We can’t keep them in the Vietnamese traditional culture because they are born here, grown up here. We haven’t got a very big community….not like the Vietnamese people live in America….
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Continued.
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Describes procedure of buying a house from the Council.
2.17 Account of experiencing a mugging.
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Continued.
2.53 Handsworth Wood have a lot of people who can get the work….every day….Some elderly people live near me…I feel welcome compared with Winson Green….a lot of children not go to school…
4.30 Works as translator and interpreter. Enjoys reading in leisure time.
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I find in Central Library they have a lot of books for the Vietnamese people…The government takes care of the ethnic people….but we need some more new magazines, new video cassettes…
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If I live in Vietnam I can’t go out to get the work as I can in a society like this….In my role as a Vietnamese woman they must stay at home and look after the children…sometimes look after the whole of the husband’s family as well…..I think when I move here my husband is very open-minded…He is very happy to push me out of the family….to join with community….I can learn anything I want to….Gives examples.
3.04 A reason that a lot of Vietnamese women don’t speak English very well…Even the letter they don’t know….or telephone to the housing to repair something…
3.40 I think the government helps and protects a lot for the woman….for example domestic violence….or divorce….they can have priority…that is very important in changing the life for women.
20
Compared with 10-15 years ago when I first moved into Birmingham, it has changed a lot….I really like the plans for the convenient parking and the markets…The City council improves a lot….they do a lot of surveys…
ENDS. |