Small Bamboo by Tracy Vo

Author:Tracy Vo
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: BIO026000, book
ISBN: 9781743437582
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2014-04-09T16:00:00+00:00

11

ENTERING THE REAL WORLD

Mum seemed a lot better when Dad returned from his three-week road trip around Australia. There was a constant influx of new refugees at the hostel, and eventually most of Mum and Dad’s group left for Sydney and Melbourne, where they thought it would be easier to find jobs in factories and farms. But my parents were very comfortable in laid-back Perth. They weren’t worried about their future. I guess it is part of the Vietnamese psyche. My parents are very resilient people and can take a battering if they need to. For Mum and Dad, leaving Vietnam was their main aim and now they were able to live a life they had once only dreamed of. Everything was going well at Graylands and Mum and Dad were settling into their new life. They had arrived with the intention to take each day as it comes. They appreciated every day in their new country and their new home. Their only concern was for their relatives in Melbourne and the United States and also back in Vietnam.

Anyone who knows my dad knows he loves a chat with anyone who encourages him. At the hostel, he enjoyed spending time with the staff in the kitchen and getting to know them. Some were Australians and others were from East Timor. There was one lady who worked in the kitchen and also conducted the head count in the dining room when the refugees came in for a meal. Dad said she was an older lady, a very happy woman. He said she could be his mum. She looked after everything in the dining room. Dad always joked around with her about how he wanted to work in the kitchen and how much fun it would be. ‘You think you can get me a job?’ he’d ask and laugh.

But one day she said, ‘Actually, the head chef does need another person. I’ll go and ask him straight away.’

She disappeared into the kitchen and came back a few minutes later with the head chef, a German. He pointed at Dad. ‘This man?’

The woman nodded and smiled at Dad encouragingly.

‘I need a kitchenhand and a dishwasher,’ the chef said. ‘Follow me.’ He led Dad into the kitchen and explained what the job involved. It was mostly washing large cooking pots and cleaning. ‘We’ll pay you $100 a week. Five days of work. You start tomorrow.’ The head chef shook my father’s hand.

Dad thought, ‘Wow, that was quick!’ He couldn’t believe the amount he was being paid. The Social Security payment was only $50 a fortnight. And while he was grateful to the Australian government for all it was providing, Dad had always planned to earn his own living, as he’d always done, so he was excited about having a job. He ran back to their unit to tell Mum, who was equally happy for him. As she was still learning English at this time she was unable to work.

Dad, however, already had a good command of English and was only having lessons to improve it.

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