On names and silly nostalgia :)

[koalathebear]

The recent discussion of the book VIETNAM, the cookbook/memories ' Secrets of the Red Lantern' and listening to Trinh Cong Son again made me feel vaguely nostalgic. :)

I've mentioned before that in the same building as our office, the A.P. Moller - Maersk Group, a has an office. Its global headquarters are in Copenhagen, Denmark. I did a revised

Comments

[misseri44]

It was good reading about this because i didn't know anything about what had happened in that time. I didn't know until now what your name was and the truth is that I thought it would be another name. Don't misunderstand me, is just that I thought that maybe you were named Mary or maybe a name with asian roots :)

[winterspel]

Wow. This isn't silly or boring at all (funny how you always describe the most interesting and touching things that way, when I'm sure that most of us think such posts are quite the opposite! *smile*). I have always found the story of your family's rescue at sea to be incredibly moving, and I agree that Papa Koala was amazing to fight so hard for his family's survival when the circumstances were so dire. Thinking about it always brings a lump to my throat, particularly when I consider (as I'm sure you and your family have done many times) how differently it could have gone.

I can't imagine how strange it must be to see these images of things that set the course of your life. Thank you so much for sharing a piece of your personal history. :) My mind is still boggling at the marching band - the world was definitely kinder then than it is now toward the plight of refugees.

[catku]

Wow that's neat! Cool that your English name came from the ship that rescued you. I can't imagine how simultaneously wonderful and daunting being that ship would have been.

One of my classmates in kindergarten and then again in high school was part of the exodus from Vietnam. She's our age, and doesn't remember most of it. I remember my mom telling me about it and I remember thinking "They stayed on a boat all the way to the US?" (I was 6 so of course the idea of repatriation was something that never would have occurred to me)

She never spoke about it openly, but I don't think she was asked openly about it. No one in our town ever saw them as anything other than Americans, but there were maybe 5 Asian families and they were all Vietnamese. We also had a single African American family.

Our tiny 10K populated town was mostly Caucasian and Hispanic (70/30).

[muridae_x]

I've always thought it fascinating that you were involved in that particular piece of history, since I was just old enough to remember the news reports of the first boats being rescued. How interesting to see and learn some of the details, especially about your "namesake".

[raynefangirl]

When hear how Clara Mærsk was a part of it, helping refugees, it makes me proud to say the ship was part of Denmark.