Khoi-Lai
BORn
Nam-Dinh, Vietnam
year of birth
1947
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I arrived to the UK as a refugee from Vietnam. The political situation in Vietnam was getting more and more violent towards the ethnic Chinese and overnight I found myself redundant. Over a long time, we were being pushed out of the country and we were left with no choice but to flee Vietnam as a family with three kids as boat people.
After spending a month sailing to Hong Kong, this was the first photograph that was taken of me when I first got off with my family. We’ve nicknamed them ‘prisoner’s photographs’. In my whole life, I was born to a wealthy family and had a good education and had a good job as a teacher. I've never been treated poorly. At that time of the photo, I thought, wow, they really treat like me like a prisoner. At least, thank god, we didn't die in the sea, we are alive now.
I can guarantee you, if you ask one hundred Vietnamese families, I suppose one hundred percent will say, no sorry we didn't keep those refugee pictures. They didn't see it as valuable. Some even ask, why bother to in keeping these photos, it’s a very bloody memory and we don't want to keep them. Even though these photos are from a difficult time, I feel that it's a part of world wide history and for me, it’s important to remember.
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我是從越南來英國的難民。越南的政治環境對華人越來越暴力。一夜之間，我發現我變得毫無用處了。很長一段時間，我們在越南被排擠，只得選擇和三個孩子一起坐小船逃離越南。
經過一個月的航行到達香港，這是我和家人上岸後拍的第一張我的個人照。我們給它起名叫「囚照」。我出生在一個富裕家庭，接受良好教育，擁有一份良好的教師職業。我從來沒有被如此糟糕地對待過。照這張像片的時候，我真的覺得他們把我當犯人對待。謝天謝地，至少我們沒死在海上。我們活了下來。
我可以向你保證，如果你問100個越南家庭，她們會告訴你不好意思，我們沒有保留逃難時候的照片。他們不覺得這有價值。有些人還會反問，「幹嘛要保存這些照片。這是一段很傷心的回憶，我們不想留著」。雖然這些照片代表了另一個時代，我仍然覺得它代表了世界史的一部分。對我而言，它也很重要，需要銘記。