Gold & Silver : Journey : Kim & Vinh Nguyen

Listen

Vinh Nguyen talks about
their journey

Journey
- Kim & Vinh Nguyen -

Vinh: We first came here to study, my wife and I. We came to Australia to study, through AUSAID to do the postgraduate diploma in TESOL at the University of Canberra. We planned to go back, to help our people, our young people there. We stayed, but then we also love Australia, don't get me wrong, we love Australia because of the way people treat people over here too.

Kim: Very friendly and generous.

Vinh: Very friendly, and freedoms, and peacefulness and after a year of studying at the University of Canberra, we got to know a lot of Australians and we can see how people think, how people treat people and we love it you know? So you choose a place to live, and we choose Sydney.

Vinh: We moved from Canberra to Sydney because of survival. There's not much work there [in Canberra].

"For about nearly eighteen years, we all live around here in Fairfield..."

Kim: Also, it's cold; always the weather conditions are harder than in Sydney. In winter it is colder and in summer it is hotter and drier there, so very, very dry! When we visited Sydney we found it much better for our health, so we decided to stay here. For about nearly eighteen years, we all live around here in Fairfield, so we live around the river here.

Vinh: It was Autumn, [in Canberra] when I was standing outside hanging clothes to dry and looked up and saw beautiful blue skies, not a cloud, it's all blue, true blue they call it, that beautiful colour in the sky! You don't worry about dirtiness, and you can lay back (on the grass), enjoy the fresh air, look at the sky, it's so high and so clear. The environment here is good!

"Like most of the families only one person could go, then they support the rest of the family."

Vinh: Like most of the families only one person could go, then they support the rest of the family. It was tough, very hard for us, for the first few years, really hard, then after the family reunion it was much easier.

Kim: In our family when we sponsored the older kids [the 2 older boys] from Vietnam to come here, at first they didn't want to stay, they asked us to send them back to Vietnam. And after a few months we asked them "you want to go back or stay here" : "I'll stay here!".