In any case, it's interesting to see how the Vietnamese community struggles and thrives abroad. While we share similar experiences, there will always be something that is inherently different. For a Vietnamese Australian book, I recommend All That's Left Unsaid. Does anyone have Vietnamese recommendations from different diasporas? I'd love to read about similar experiences. We see Hong Kong refugee camps, residing besides a port or airport, administered by the UNHCR and having 10.000 residents.

Dr. Frank Linden has a life-size, anatomically correct medical dummy in his office which he calls "Pin". Via ventriloquism, Dr. Linden uses Pin to teach his children, Leon and Ursula about bodily functions and how the body works in a way the children can relate to without it being awkward. Dr. Linden's interactions with the children are otherwise cold and emotionally distant, and his ventriloquism act is the only sign of a more warm and playful side to his nature. Unknown to Dr. Linden, Leon is mentally ill and has come to believe that Pin is alive. Due in part to his mother, who discourages Leon from playing outdoors or bringing anyone home, Leon has no real friends and sees Pin as the closest analogue. Leon is further traumatized when he secretly witnesses his father's nurse use Pin as a masturbatory sex doll. From that day on, he hates women with large breasts or who engage in promiscuous behaviour. Pin’s prose is polished and lucid although it’s sometimes more practical than lyrical, rooted in careful research, down to the detailed descriptions of the refugee camps where people like Anh were held during the late 1970s and early 80s. From my perspective it’s not a great piece but it is an extremely promising first novel. There’s a sense of something deeply-felt driving Pin’s portrayal of Anh and her family’s fate, potent enough to sweep me up and carry me along in its wake. Nothing could prepare the siblings, Anh, Thanh, and Minh as they leave from Vietnam to Hong Kong. The siblings arrive safely in Hong Kong but their parents and younger siblings did not make it. They are left orphaned with Anh as their caretaker. Being orphaned so young, in a new place and nowhere to call home, they must cleave to each other as they carve out a life for themselves. While the US hosts a very large Vietnamese population, the UK's is much smaller. I won't get into Margaret Thatcher's politics. I'm not even fond of speaking on the US' quite similar views. Obviously, growing up in the US, I have met countless Vietnamese Americans. I have only encountered one Vietnamese British family. Even my ears perked up when I first heard their accents at a wedding.I didn't know that my culture had fashioned the shape of my mourning; I didn't know that my grief could be improper.

It is on one level a refugee tale but I think elevated in three respects – content, form and theme.If Anh's story attempts to nuance the difficulties of leading life as a refugee, threading her story with that of her daughter Jane allows the author to excise the intergenerational nature of trauma and the need to preserve history however overlooked it may be. A British citizen with a British name, Jane is nevertheless a custodian of her Vietnamese heritage, and tries desperately to piece together the shards of her mother's interminable silence and the history she is shielding them both from. Much of Jane's narrative is presented in the form of her journals and personal research, which makes space for highlighting the exploitation of the Vietnamese people and culture in general, from the American deployment of "Operation Wandering Souls" during the war to the rape of female refugees on Kho Kra island, the pointed racism of Margaret Thatcher, and all the "Ni Hao" and "Kung Flu" spewed more recently at the height of the pandemic. There’s a tradition in Vietnamese culture,’ he said. ‘They believe that you need to give your dead a proper burial in their hometown. If not, their souls are cursed to wander the earth aimlessly, as ghosts.’ He looked down at the bottom of his empty glass, his smile slowly fading from his face, a frown forming in its stead. ‘Their soldiers were dying. Every day, more dead than they could keep up with. Just like ours. They couldn’t afford to observe their burial rites. We thought we could take advantage of that. We wanted to scare those gooks, those Viet Congs, I should say. We thought if we played tapes that sounded like they’re dead comrades, they might get scared, or become demoralised.’