Too Young to Escape: A Vietnamese Girl Waits to be Reunited with Her Family

Van Ho was four-years-old when she awoke with a rooster’s predawn crowing on 19 May, 1981, in Ho Chi Minh City. She would gradually discover that this was not just any other day. During the night, her mother, two sisters and brother, in addition to a few other relatives living in the house, had slipped away in a dangerous bid to escape from Vietnam by boat. The previous year, Van’s father and oldest sister had escaped by boat and were eventually resettled in Canada. Van could barely remember her father and oldest sister. This time, she felt abandoned, but she still had her grandmother, her Bà Ngoąi, who remained her chief caregiver during the four and a half years that elapsed before they were reunited with their family in Canada.

Skrypuck and Tuan Ho, Van’s brother, together with painter Brian Deines, produced a beautiful picture book, Adrift at Sea: A Vietnamese Boy’s Story of Survival (Vol. XXIII, No. 6, October 14, 2016) that recalled Tuan’s memories of escaping Vietnam and being rescued at sea from a drifting fishing boat packed with 60 refugees. Van had been deemed too young by her mother for this dangerous escape. In her “Author’s Note” to Too Young to Escape, Skrypuch explains that this volume intends to answer the question that her young picture book audience kept asking: What happened to Van?

Van’s story is necessarily informed by Skrypuch’s research and imagination in addition to Van’s memories of her distant childhood as corroborated by other members of her family. The product, is an extremely engaging account of a childhood in challenging circumstances. Following the end of the Vietnam War, the Ho’s home was confiscated by the communist regime, and they ended up living with many others in the home of relatives. Van’s father had to flee early because his former work with the South Vietnamese army made him ineligible to work and a target for imprisonment. Everyone in the house had chores to do. Van spun yarn in the morning before school. She also had dusting and cleaning duties that she often performed with assistance from her sisters. Their absence meant more chores for Van and her grandmother.

Van’s story is a page-turner. Children will relate to her sense of injustice. They may share her fear of spiders. Descriptions of spiders hanging inside the outhouse provide cause for her reluctance to relieve herself until it is light enough to see them. Shy, conscious of her phlegmatic respiratory system, yet yearning for friendship, Van is a schoolyard loner until a new girl arrives at school. Trang and Van become best friends. It is impossible to escape the attention of the class bully. The narrative makes clear that adults too suffer at the hands of bullies in the form of corrupt officials who extort money and goods.

Packages begin to arrive from Canada, containing photographs of the Ho family in Canada, clothing for Van and others and promises of a flight for Van and her grandmother to Canada. When that day finally arrives, Van marvels at the modern toilets and sinks with running water that she encounters in the airplane and airports and finally at her new home near Toronto. First World comforts promise a more comfortable life, but it is family, all together for the first time in five years, that Van cherishes the most.

Too Young to Escape is a welcome reminder of the post-Vietnam War refugee crisis that saw Canada, France, the United States and Australia welcome strangers in need. Readers will appreciate hearing this personal story from a child’s perspective. The book will include an eight page colour insert of photographs of Van and her family as children plus a recent photo of Vanessa (formerly Van) with her spouse and children and a final image of Vanessa and her beloved Bà Ngoąi taken in 1997. Skrypuch includes very brief interviews with Van’s parents, Nam Ho and Phuoc Ho, that help to explain the context of the time including the reasons for their difficult decisions.

Readers may have wondered why the telephone or e-mail was not used by Van’s parents. The paucity of telephones in Vietnam in the early 1980s and censorship of physical mail by government officials are two more challenges that Van’s parents note in their interviews. Modern technology may make it easier to communicate over long distances today, but civil wars, state-sanctioned or state-sponsored discrimination and persecution are enduring reasons for normal people to be transformed into refugees in the twenty-first century. Van’s story and those of her family members remain timeless as well as time-specific.