Saigon and Hong Kong, circa 1975

I don't remember much about my childhood before the age of 5. But I remember hearing bombs explode while I was at school in Saigon in 1975. The teacher told us to hide under tables and desks. Then, what happened next was a flurry of furious events that were as confusing as they were surreal.

I am told by my parents that on April 30, 1975 we left Vietnam on the last boat leaving the country. A few hours later, the Viet Cong seized the presidential palace in Saigon, effectively taking over the country.

A few weeks later, after a perilous trip on the seas, I found myself sick to my stomach and alone in a hospital in Hong Kong. I was hungry and extremely weak. In fact, I was unconscious most of the time. The five-year-old boy that I was, did not fully understand the tragedy of the situation.

But he intuitively felt he lost everything. He lost his family, his brothers and sisters, his friends -- and worst of all for a little boy, he lost all his toys!

If the frail boy felt any anger, it was muted by his physical weakness which prevented him from feeling anything. He did not even feel alive. He felt he was in a state between life and death. That strange, mysterious state of being where one becomes aware, inexplicably, of the sudden presence of one's soul.

(to be continued)