'I just needed a chance': from refugee to the heights of Australian medical research - Source: Guardian (Australia)

Dr, Nguyễn Văn Tuấn

Nguyen fled Vietnam by boat in 1981 as communist oppression, particularly of the educated classes (he was an engineering graduate) constricted freedoms in his homeland.

Months before, his older brother had boarded a boat with 20 others – none of whom were ever heard from again, presumed lost to the ocean, “so my brother and sister and I knew how dangerous our journey would be”.

“But we had no choice, we could not live in Vietnam.”

Their little boat spent four days and three nights at sea before washing up in a fishing village in southern Thailand, from where he was taken to a processing centre, where after an interview in which he said he wanted to go to Australia because he wanted to see a kangaroo, he was accepted for resettlement.

Nguyen was one of thousands accepted for resettlement as part of a global effort to assist displaced Vietnamese refugees, the forerunner to the US-led Orderly Departure Program which ultimately resettled more than 600,000 refugees in 40 countries over 17 years.

Arriving in a country he knew little about, and with all of $30 of settlement assistance in his pocket, Nguyen remembers the confusion of his first days in Australia.

But he also remembers – acutely still – the liberation of being able to travel freely without being monitored or questioned as to what books he was reading, to whom he was speaking or where he was going.

Nguyen had a bare few words of English – and his first efforts to learn were haphazard. He found a Dymocks bookstore in Sydney and tried to ask for an Oxford English Dictionary, but couldn’t pronounce the title.

Eventually – by writing down the name of the book he wanted – he got the dictionary and from it, taught himself his new language.

He says he’s been learning ever since. After several years holding down two jobs – “working day and night” – he went back to university, earning a masters degree in applied statistics from Macquarie University, followed by a PhD in medicine from UNSW.

And, after 27 years working on the Dubbo study, Nguyen is now a principal investigator. His new UNSW doctorate – the university’s highest academic honour – recognises his contribution to global efforts to understand and counter osteoporosis.

Nguyen was unable to return to Vietnam for nearly 18 years, but he is now a regular visitor and a contributor to that country’s medical research. He has established a research laboratory in Ton Duc Thang University and was a founder of the Vietnamese Osteoporosis Society.

“But here in Australia, this is my second home, and for my children their first home. Without Australia I don’t have a career. In Vietnam, I might be a buffalo guy – with my Republic of Vietnam background – if I could have stayed,  I might have a few fields and a buffalo.”