Winnipegger from Vietnam reflects on anniversary of Saigon's fall

Thursday marks the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon that brought an end to the Vietnam War, as troops from North Vietnam entered Saigon and united the fractured country under a communist government. 

Vinh Huynh was five years old in 1975 and he remembers being caught up in a "year of turmoil."

• CBC Digital Archives | Why they fled: The fall of Saigon
• The Vietnam War: Canada's Role, Part One

"As a five-year-old, I remember just looking out over the balcony and seeing the flux and the change," said Huynh, who now lives in Winnipeg.

He also remembers seeing guns. Lots of guns. 

Huynh and his family had been living in Bien Hoa, a city just northeast of Saigon, but they moved to the capital city before the end of the war in the hope they would find safety there. 

"Those closest in the family fought for the south side but the distant relatives fought for the north side, so there was the sadness of seeing brothers on brothers and sisters on sisters, waging a civil war," he told CBC's Up to Speed on Wednesday.

Huynh said things changed when the south lost, the communist government made it very difficult for people that had chosen the losing side.

New beginnings for the boat people

"We ended up here because we were the losers," he said.

"We lost the war but in the process we won something, which was a new life here."

• 'Boat People' share survival stories of coming to Canada

Huynh and his family weren't in the first round of refugees to leave Vietnam, but in 1979 his parents gave up everything they had to get on a boat, even though they didn't know where it would take them. 

Tens of thousands of people fled the country in the years following the end of the war. They became known as "boat people" since their only escape was by sea.  

For Huynh and his family, it meant being taken to a refugee camp, where he remembers being interviewed by different countries for a chance to come and restart their lives within their national borders.

Between 1975 and 1980 about 60,000 boat people from Vietnam landed in Canada, including Huynh's family.

Huynh joked that before coming to Winnipeg, he had seen many Russian films, and when he walked into the city he was struck by how much it looked like Siberia. 

Learning from Saigon

"There's always a sadness that comes with it because you can see your experience reflected in the next generation," Huynh said. 

"You would hope that in each generation it wouldn't happen, but it does happen. So the best that you can do is think about at a corporate level, at a individual level, at a community level, at a government level, at an international level — how can we provide a measured and compassionate response to it?"

Huynh is most concerned with the situation that surrounds Syria.

The United Nations says that conflict in Syria has precipitated four million refugees and has called it "the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era."

"So my question is how can we respond?" Huynh asked. 

• Syrian refugees and Canada: The lessons of the boat people

He said he chooses to live his life, letting his story be told through his actions and decisions. He gives back to the community as a Winnipeg inner-city school principal. 

"Forty years is a long time, right? It's a lot of silence, a lot of reflections and a lot of mindfulness and thinking about others," Huynh said.

"Thinking about others that made those sacrifices and those who continue to make those sacrifices so life can be better for our fellow citizens."