Berlin, Germany – In 1979, Kien Nghi Ha lived in Hanoi with his parents, who worked as electricians at a power plant, and his 12-year-old sister in a one-bedroom apartment.They shared the toilet and an outdoor kitchen area along with their neighbours. One of them, an elderly woman, would sometimes look after Ha, then seven years old, and his sister.
He remembers the cool, smooth tiled floor offering comfort during the blistering summer heat. He would lie on it listening to the lively street noise and occasional sound of a tram beyond a green steel entrance door.
Four years earlier, in 1975, North Vietnamese communist forces had defeated United States-aligned fighters in South Vietnam to take the whole country under a one-party system that remains in power today.
Ha was part of an ethnically Chinese mixed Hoa Kieu minority. Communities like his, especially in the early post-war years, felt vulnerable.
He remembers how children turned away from him after Vietnam invaded Cambodia, then an ally of China at that time in 1978, because of his heritage.
“Some even threw stones at me. This was very shocking, and I didn’t understand at that time what was going on,” he said.
Ha, then seven, pictured on the day he arrived with his family to West Berlin in 1979 after a trip via boat and plane [Courtesy: Kien Nghi Ha]
The family decided to leave. His parents sold their valuables and embarked o …
