Customer Reviews

Where the Sea Takes Us - A Vietnamese -Australian Story

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Where the Sea Takes Us ticks a lot of boxes. First and foremost, it is a touching and inspiring story about the author's parents. Thiet and Van grew up in French occupied Vietnam: Thiet in the countryside; and Van in the city (Saigon). Their early years are marked by discrimination, displacement and hunger, but also significant joys and victories. Ever present, is conflict. Thiet and Van's families are pursued by the French, the Viet Minh, the Americans, and soldiers from the North and the South. The story culminates with a detailed and horrifying account of the family's exile from their homeland. This book took me to a different time and exotic places. However I was always struck by the common human values and everyday tribulations that it encapsulated so beautifully.

Where the Sea Takes Us is also the story of a country and a people. As a politics lecturer (note the chapters entitled 'nationalism', 'feminism', 'totalitarianism'), Huynh weaves into his family history details about Vietnam's struggle to stand up for itself in the twentieth century. There are some wonderful accounts of Vietnamese culture and the story is punctuated with poems, proverbs, folktales and songs. Make sure you read the author's diary entries after the endnotes telling of his return to Vietnam and living with his relatives, they are hilarious.

I bought Where the Sea Takes Us as a travel book before going on vacation to Vietnam. It certainly served its purpose in that regard, but this book offers so much more.

Kim Huynh and his family left Vietnam in 1979, by boat, when Kim was only two years old. Kim, his brother and their parents settled in Canberra, Australia.

This gently written memoir is about Kim's heritage: about the difficult decisions his parents made to leave Vietnam and most of their family in order to make a better life for themselves and their sons.

For Kim himself, this has been a journey of discovery. In writing this memoir, he has explored a past that his parents left behind and that he himself was too young to remember. In his Author's Note, Kim states that 'Mum and Dad's stories are intriguing and memorable, but do not tell of unusual heroism or adversity.' This may be true, but heroism and adversity are relative and many of us who will read this book can only imagine the turmoil that drives people to leave all that is familiar in search of an uncertain future.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

I have just finished reading this book and am glad to find it on Amazon so that I can buy it for my friends and family overseas. I married a Vietnamese guy and Where the Sea Takes Us has really helped me understand where he comes from and who he is. When my husband gets around to reading it, I'm sure he will learn a lot from it too. The book gives you an insight into the Vietnam War that played such an important role in our lives (in the West) from the perspective of ordinary Vietnamese people. By `ordinary' I mean that that the main characters are not famous, but this only makes them more inspirational and likeable. The book is not all about doom and gloom, there are happy and humorous tales that form a part of every life. Each chapter starts with contemporary exchanges (sometimes heated, always touching) between Kim and his parents, which I've read to my husband. I'm sure that many overseas Vietnamese, both young and old and including my in-laws, will be able to relate to these conversations and experiences. The writing is sharp and evocative. My only criticism is that I wanted to know more about how the family settled in Australia (probably held back for a sequel).