Post Vietnam War - Tung Diep

My topic is post Vietnam War, and this is Ha T. Diep and he faced many challenges after the war ended. He is a civilian in South Vietnam and this is the interview of him of telling about his life in Vietnam after the war and what happenned when the Viet Cong came.

Interviewer: Tung Diep
Interviewee: Ha T. Diep
Topic: Postwar Vietnam

How old were you and where did you live?

I was 8 years old and I’m at Saigon, Vietnam.

So tell me what happened after the war ended to you?

I was still a student studying and stop when the war ended. One year later, I continued school. Books and notebooks were really hard to find and expensive. We had to search for old notebooks and looking for blank papers and take it out and make it into a notebook. Every day, I would walk five miles to school. We have no money and depended on the government to help us. They gave us hard bread, red rice, these rice were not perfectly made so it was hard to chew. If you lucky enough, you’ll see meat and vegetable on the market, but it way too expensive at that time. There was no petroleum gas back then, so we sometimes go fetch wood and burn them for fire. The government also distributed a different type of oil, but not a lot to each family only about 2 or 3 liters, not enough to use it every day like cook rice and lamp at night.

It was really hard to find job. Since I was a kid, I used to go to a noodle factory, and help out the people and in return they give me noodle to bring home to eat. Over time, I went for another seven years of school then quit helping with family business. At the age eighteen, I was forced by Viet Cong into go to labor and work there for about three and a half years. Then later came home to help with family business again for two years. Then started the family, and work normally.

What happened when Northern Vietnamese soldier came?

Whoever rich, they came into the house and steal every valuable they have, and then forced them back to their native home to live. Many people resisted to go were forced to go to jail. Go is difficult to survive alone, and if don’t go not only will you go to jail but also get beat up by them, and living in jail is not going to option in life so most people chose to leave. They were made to live in a jungle, people cut wood and make their houses out of that. But this is only temporary. We then planted potatoes, peanuts, and beans for food. Sadly enough, there weren’t enough fertilizer or farm-work materials for it to grow. Some died and grow into their small sizes because the field was very dry, there was not enough water in the soil. We usually take water from the well, and the water from there was dirty and we used that on crops not only it will contaminate the crops but whoever eat it, which we are because we are hungry, resulted in illness. Since we did make enough crops, we sneaked back to Saigon. The reason we can’t go back too soon was because the Viet Cong knew which families go and which didn’t. So I waited for everything in Vietnam to calm, then sneak back. Plus, there were no security or fences to prevent us to go back.

Half of my family went to the jungle and the other half stay and watch the house, because if no one watch it, Viet Cong might think that this house have no owner and take the house.