AS boat people who fled war torn Vietnam, Dinh Nguyen and his wife Phien survived dangers at sea, and started from scratch as refugees in a new land – yet their long life together is filled with joy as they celebrate their platinum, 70th wedding anniversary.
Ask what has sustained their marriage all these years and they answer in simple unison: “God”.
And their blessings together? Their children’s happiness, living close to family and the freedom they enjoy in Australia.
More than four decades after arriving in Brisbane the Nguyens maintain a close-knit Catholic family, they pray together, attend the Vietnamese Mass at St Mark’s Church in Inala, and continue to be amazed as they watch their family grow.
Six of their eight children live in Brisbane, (one lives in Canberra and one in New Jersey) and they can count 16 grandchildren, 19 great grandchildren and 15 in-laws.
The Nguyen family is well-known for their charity efforts over many years – helping Vietnamese families settle in Brisbane and also providing aid to people in their homeland.
Official recognition of Dinh and Phien’s platinum anniversary has come from the Queensland Governor and Premier, Australia’s Governor General and Prime Minister, and Queen Elizabeth II.
92-year-old Dinh has never learnt English, and 89-year-old Phien prefers to speak Vietnamese, so it is left to daughter Kim Nguyen to interpret their story of a life of courage and adventure together.
Phien grew up on a 250 hectare coffee plantation outside the central highlands city of Ban Me Thuot, Vietnam.
As a 20-year-old, Dinh, a carpenter, moved from the country’s north to work there.
He lived in a boarding house across the road from Phien’s family home – and that’s how they met.
They were married in October 1951, stayed in Ban Me Thuot for two decades and started a family as the war between North and South Vietnam escalated.
“I remember the bombs and rockets,” Kim said, recalling some difficult childhood memories.
“In ‘68 a lot of people were staying in the church to avoid the fighting.”
Victory for the communist North made life desperate for landowners, especially Catholics.
In 1975, the well-respected Nguyen family used their savings to buy a boat and escape – Phien’s parents, her brothers and sisters, and all their children.
Secretly, more than 40 family members boarded a small timber boat and set out into the unknown waters of the South China Sea.
On the first night they were hit by a fierce storm. Kim’s older brother Doan remembers using a bucket to bail water after the vessel was swamped by waves.
“We prayed to Mary to calm the angry sea,” Kim said. She was just 13 at the time.
“On the front of the boat we placed a framed picture of Mary . There was a crucifix there too.”
“My grandfather said ‘we carry the Cross to the end’. That’s what we believed – God will look after us, especially when there is a storm.”
For two days and two nights the family prayed and sang together. As well as a raging sea the family was afraid pirates might attack.
On the second night lights on board were spotted by a Malaysian navy boat and their vessel was guided safely to an island set up as a refugee camp.
The family chose to go to Australia and it was accepted by officials.
From Singapore they were among 300 Vietnamese to board the first refugee flight to Brisbane.
Kim remembers the day vividly – touching down in Brisbane and then a bus ride to the Wacol Migrant Hostel.
“We arrived on August 9, 1975. At 11am,” she said.
“When I looked out of the bus the sky was so blue and beautiful. We didn’t have that in Asia.
“It was just freedom, I guess, and that is always in our mind. We never forgot the first day.”
Dinh and Phien had many mixed feelings as their family settled into Brisbane life. They were torn between cultures.
“The first year they cried and cried and cried. They faced many challenges,” Kim said.
“They missed home where they had been very comfortable. The family was well-known and did a lot of charity work. To leave all that and walk away with nothing…”
Kim said her mother sold her wedding ring while in the refugee camp in Malaysia, just to buy extra food for the family.
“They came here and worked really hard… 12 hours a day, seven days a week… just for the family,” she said.
“It wasn’t easy because of language, because of culture – but it was good.”
For the first few years the Nguyen family squeezed into a two-bedroom housing commission home in Inala.
Dinh and Phien missed their rice, vegetable and fish sauce dishes, and chuckle now as they remember first impressions of porridge and sandwiches spread thick with vegemite.
Dinh’s first job was at the Alma Park Zoo feeding animals, cleaning cages and planting trees.
A year later most of the family moved to Lakeland Downs in Far North Queensland to farm peanuts, hoping to use their knowledge acquired from growing coffee, but the venture failed.
“The soil was rocky and the weeds took over the peanuts,” Kim said.
“It was my granddad’s dream to work on the land, but it didn’t happen.”
Back in Brisbane, Dinh worked on the nightshift in a factory anodising aluminium, alongside some of his relatives. He worked there until he retired.
Dinh and Phien’s home in Richlands remains a gathering point for the whole extended family.
The front room is their family shrine, crowded with photos, flowers and fruit. In one corner is a statue of St Agnes Le Thi Thanh – born in 1781, and the only woman among 117 Vietnamese martyrs canonised by St Pope John Paul II in 1988.
Dinh and Phien pray to St Agnes daily.
“We pray for good health for the family, happiness and also for angels to spread the Holy Spirit all over the world, for peace, ” Phien said.
