The Happiest Refugee: A Memoir (46 page)

But the main reason why Uncle Nine stood out in my mind was that every time he saw us he would give us a present.

The first time we saw him, Uncle Nine was going through his stamp-collecting phase. After telling us that collecting stamps was the most noble hobby any man could have, he pulled two stamps out of his album with a flourish and gave me… a stamp from Lithuania and a stamp from Nairobi.

He said ‘Treasure these, these stamps are special!’

Hmm, a new computer game might have been nice, a new skateboard would have been better, even a couple of old footy cards would have done the trick, but no—two used and torn stamps from two countries I had never heard of… Gee, thanks Uncle Nine!

The second time we saw him, Uncle Nine was into his martial arts phase. He was learning kung fu, and he presented me with a ‘sword’ which was really just a plank of wood. He then demonstrated a few kung fu moves with the sword and told me to practice daily. He said, ‘If you practice every day, one day you will be as good as Chuck Norris.’

I stuck the sword in my pyjama drawer next to the stamps.

One day Mum walked into the kitchen and asked me, ‘Why is there an old plank of wood in your pyjama drawer?’

‘It’s a sword from Uncle Nine,’ I muttered into my No Frills rice bubbles.

‘Oh.’ Mum didn’t bat an eye. She’d been living with my Dad’s family for a long time.

Unfortunately, Uncle Nine was not with us forever. When I was twelve and Khoa was ten, he left Australia and went home to the United States. We were sad to see him go, as we only had one eccentric uncle who kept giving us strange gifts.

Fast forward eleven years and Khoa was twenty-one. He’d won a free trip to France to attend a film festival with a return stopover in the United States, and couldn’t believe his luck. As soon as he arrived at Los Angeles International Airport, he got on the phone and called Uncle Nine.

Uncle Nine came and picked Khoa up in his truck. He looked exactly the same as he had ten years earlier. As he was driving back to his house, Uncle Nine suddenly reached behind him and pulled out a brown container. He passed it to Khoa. ‘Here, for you!’

‘Thanks Uncle,’ he said. ‘What is this?’

‘It’s beef jerky! You’ll love it!’

Great. Beef jerky. Khoa opened up the container and took a big brown bite.

The trip from Los Angeles Airport to Uncle Nine’s house took about fifty minutes, but as they pulled into the driveway, Khoa was still chewing on that same mouthful of jerky. It was the hardest, toughest thing he had ever tried to eat in his life.

‘Delicious, isn’t it?’ Uncle Nine kept asking.

‘Yeah, it’s great.’ Khoa kept trying to down the stringy thing, but it wouldn’t dissolve.

‘You can’t get this in Australia—this is a hundred per cent American beef jerky, the real deal! You like it, don’t you?’

Khoa nodded and smiled a wonky mouth-full-of-jerky smile.

And then Uncle Nine said, ‘I’m glad you like it. Look!’ And he suddenly spun around and whipped off a tarpaulin to reveal eight huge boxes full of beef jerky containers.

They filled up the whole back of his truck.

Uncle Nine was now a beef jerky salesman. He would buy this stuff at wholesale prices from a farm, then he would drive all over Southern California trying to re-sell the jerky to any service station willing to stock it. He was earning a pittance in commission and would work from morning to evening every day to make ends meet.

Back at his place Uncle Nine introduced Khoa to his wife and two children. His wife was a Vietnamese girl he had met through Scouts. She was still studying at university while taking care of their kids, so the entire family was dependent on Uncle Nine’s wages selling beef jerky. It was very tough for them (no pun intended).

For the next few days, however, there was no more talk of jerky. Uncle Nine was so happy his nephew was in California, he wanted to make sure that Khoa saw everything…  Universal Studios, Little Saigon, even Las Vegas.

On the day before Khoa was due to fly back to Australia, Uncle Nine took him shopping. Knowing his financial situation, Khoa was very reluctant to let Uncle Nine buy him anything. But Uncle Nine said, ‘No, I don’t want to buy you anything, I want to buy something for your brother.’

So he took Khoa into a large department store called Macy’s and asked him to try on a suit.

‘A suit?’

‘Yes, I want to buy Anh a suit.’

Khoa told him I didn’t need a suit, that I was about to embark on a career as a comedian. But Uncle Nine was insistent. ‘No, I want to buy him a suit and I want you to try it on for me.’ He was so stubborn, Khoa caved in.

For the next half hour, Khoa tried on suits. Finally, there was a business suit that fitted him perfectly and Uncle Nine said, ‘Great. I want to buy that suit for your brother.’

‘No, Anh has a bigger bum than me,’ said Khoa. ‘We’ve got to get one with bigger pants.’

‘No,’ Uncle Nine said, ‘I like this one. It doesn’t matter about the bum, your mother can fix it.’

So he grabbed the suit, took it to the till and paid for it. It was 350 US dollars. Khoa had no idea how many containers of beef jerky he would have to sell to make $350. He wanted to tell our uncle to please spend that money on his wife or children instead, and not on his comedic nephew with the big bum. But Uncle Nine was insistent. He paid for the suit.

As they walked out of Macy’s, Uncle Nine turned to Khoa. ‘Khoa, you’re twenty-one now, you’re about to enter the workforce this year. Everyone who goes to work needs a suit. If I had told you I wanted to buy a suit for you, you would never have let me, so I pretended it was for your brother. But this suit I bought for you.’ He passed Khoa the suit.

Khoa tried to hold his emotions in check as he thanked Uncle Nine for the suit.

After all those years, our dear, eccentric, generous uncle had not changed.

Several years later, Khoa was nominated for a prestigious award in Australia. He looked at the invitation for the awards ceremony and saw that the dress code was black tie. He rummaged through his wardrobe, searching for anything that could pass as being ‘black tie’, but he couldn’t find anything. Not even close.

Except, of course, for the suit.

And so it was that when Khoa received the Young Australian of the Year Award from the Prime Minister of Australia and he walked onstage that evening, he was wearing the Macy’s suit Uncle Nine had pretended to buy for me. The one he paid for with his meagre earnings selling beef jerky at service stations.

How did he know that one day, in front of millions of Australians, Khoa would need that suit? We now treasure everything Uncle Nine has ever given us… even the torn stamp from Lithuania. 

I was shopping for some socks when my phone rang. This deep voice says to me, ‘Hello Anh, it’s Russell Crowe.’ My first thoughts were, ‘Nick off, Jonno! That’s the worst impersonation I’ve ever heard.’ Luckily, I didn’t say those words out loud, because it really was Russell Crowe.

The Oscar winner told me he’d got the book the day before, started reading it, and stayed up till 3 a.m. to finish it. We had a good chat and Russell has been encouraging me to turn the book into a screenplay.

So perhaps one day there will be a movie of
The Happiest Refugee
. I personally would love to play the role of my father in the film. Then all we’d have to do is cast a funny looking Vietnamese kid with a wobbly head to play me.

In July 2011 the shortlist was announced for the Australian Book Industry Awards. Suzie and I got all dressed up and went to this flashy evening at the Hilton Hotel in Melbourne to celebrate the night of nights for Australian books.

At the end of the event, it was time to read out the very last award of the evening… the Australian Book of The Year.

The MC gets up, clears his throat, and says:

‘The winner is… 
The Happiest Refugee
by Anh Do!’

Whoohoo!!!

As I walked up to accept the award, I kept thinking about my mum.

My mum, who used to take me to St Vinnies to buy second-hand books so that I could overcome my ‘Vietnamee’ English problems. My mum, who taught me that the toughest of times can be turned into something beautiful.

In my speech I dedicated the award to my mum, and I was overcome with gratitude to everyone who had taken the time to read my story.

So THANK YOU for reading my story.

Anh Do

August 2011

To the love of my life, Suzanne, who helped me to write many parts of this book. You are, and have always been, my one and only. To our three beautiful boys, Xavier, Luc and Leon—my best buddies in the whole world.

To my mother and father. Thank you both for your love, for your bravery, for being you. To Khoa and Tram, I love you guys, I hope I’ve told our story well.

For your expertise and brilliance, my publisher Jane Palfreyman, my editors Lauren Finger and Joanne Holliman, my publicist Kelly Fagan and everyone at Allen & Unwin. To my friend Michael Visontay, who taught me how to write a book and helped me with structure and form. To my friend Bruce Griffiths, who helped me with many of the humorous parts of the book. To my friend Marty Wilson, who encouraged me to write a book in the first place and helped me at every stage of the process. And to my mentors: Charles Tarbey, Mike Duff, Christopher Ride, Gerry McShane, Lynne Pearse, Lenny Kovner, Seth Godin, Dave Grant and my agent Lisa Mann. Thank you also to my fantastic manager, Andrew Laing, and everyone at A-List Entertainment.

To all my family and friends who helped at various stages during the writing of this book, especially my uncles Thanh, Huy and Tung, as well as Auntie Trang. Thank you for spending time with me to get the details right, and for being the amazing people that you are.

And finally to my two gorgeous grandmothers—I adore you.

Table of Contents

Cover

Praise

Title

Imprint

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 01

Chapter 02

Chapter 03

Chapter 04