As many of you know, Eindhoven News aims to keep internationals living in the city of Eindhoven and surrounding area up to speed on local happenings. We also aim to be the voice of international Eindhoven, as well as a bridge to connect all cultures and nationalities.
EN wants to zoom in on some of the individuals with diverse backgrounds – refugees, expats, students, labour migrants – to find out what brought them here, what role languages play in their lives, and how they perceive differences in interaction that necessarily stem from intercultural exchange. Finally, we would like to find out how their presence has enriched the region and what the region has brought to them. The series is called ” Eindhoven, of all places…”.
Enter: Mme Liên Trì Ton Nu
Mme Ton Nu was a 26-year old teacher of French in a Vietnamese secondary school and living in coastal town Quy Nhon when the Vietnamese war ended with the fall of Saigon in 1975. Her parents were entrepreneurs. Two of her three brothers, as was customary for educated families in Vienam, were studying in France. Liên Trì, her sister and her younger brother stayed in Saigon, as Vietnamese eduction was also of a high standard. Although no longer a French colony, French was still used in education and the government of South Vietnam had many French educated officials.
With the fall of Saigon and the unification of North and South Vietnam, the Viet Cong were the new rulers, changing the name of the capital to Ho Chi Min City, and confiscating private property. Initially, Liên Trì was hoping that the Viet Cong would build up the country again, but what she experienced was humiliating repression.
New rules
She was no longer allowed to teach French, she was to teach English. Classes began with reciting the precepts of Ho Chi Minh. She had to submit a lesson plan accounting for every five minutes with her students and submit those to inspectors. There was never enough paper to administer tests so she had to buy paper on the black market. Among her students were several, comparable to the Hitler Jugend, trained to report any suspect teacher behaviour. Private life became impossible. Citizens were expected to leave their doors unlocked, and not be surprised when someone entered your kitchen to ask how you could afford the chicken you were cooking. Still angry, she says, “They intended to turn us into paupers”. She bore what amounted to constant harrassment for five years. Then something happened to make Liên Trì decide to try and get away.
The house where she lived had been built for her parents to live in when they retired. It had brick outer walls, a ground floor, and a wooden mezzanine – half of an upper floor, from which you could look down at the ground floor. The Viet Cong decided that Liên Trì was going to be joined by three strangers, as the house was now confiscated and had enough room for four people. With the help of a loyal carpenter, she pulled a daring stunt. Overnight, all the inner wooden divisions and floors were removed, leaving just the outer walls and the roof. Of course the Viet Cong could not take this lying down. They claimed she had destroyed party property and took Liên Trì to the police station where she was to sign an admission of guilt. “That must have been extremely intimidating and frightening”, I say.
A decisive moment
“No, I was not afraid”, says Liên Trì. “Students of mine with some of their parents realised the danger I was in and were keeping watch outside the police station. They brought food for me, so the police knew that whatever they were planning to do would not pass unnoticed. But I knew that I could no longer live under such repression and I wanted out”. The indignation she felt at the time and still feels today is clear from her tone. “My brothers had sent money to my parents who found an intermediary. This intermediary was part of a network of people who were helping refugees to leave the country by boat”. So, without her family, Liên Trì became one of the millions of “boat people’.
The group she travelled with first got on a small boat and later transferred to a bigger one. Initially 80 people, the group had swelled to 155. In this overcrowded boat, they were on the sea for three days and four nights when a Dutch Smit Lloyd vessel on its way to an oil rig in Borneo picked them up. “By then our boat was broken and we were in the water, so the help came none too soon”, Liên Trì remembers. “You must have been very frightened”, I say. “No, I was not. When you’re in the middle of it you have no time to be afraid”.
Singapore
Permission was sought from and given by the Rotterdam head office to take them on board. They were taken to Singapore, where many Vietnamese refugees were given temporary shelter. The Singapore authorities were strict. They were given a 90-day permit to stay and find a country that would accept them. Smit Lloyd were to stand guarantee, at a penalty of 10,000 dollar per refugee that was still in the city state when the term had expired, which means Smit Lloyd generously stood guarantee for a potentially staggering amount. In the Singapore camp they were given a bed and 70 cents a day for food. There was a camp store and a restaurant. “It was all very well organised”, Liên Trì remembers. “I was also lucky in that I got a pass to leave the camp and enter Singapore. Because I spoke English, I was given bus fares to travel to the embassy and the hospital and other places in the city where I acted as an interpreter”.
After 60 days in Singapore, with the help of the UNCR and her brothers in France as guarantors, Liên Trì had her papers and was ready to go to the airport to travel to France. Right on that very day her sister, who had also been picked up by a NedLloyd ship, arrived in the camp in Singapore, making Liên Trì reverse her decision to leave. As both had been picked up by Dutch vessels, they decided to go to The Netherlands. Their parents later travelled to France with permission to leave the country as they were too old to be considered productive.
The Netherlands
After a week in Leerdam where all the formalities were taken care of the two sisters went to a refugee centre in a monastery in Oud Gastel, where they stayed for six months. They were made to feel welcome and soon started to learn Dutch with the help of volunteers. The Ministery found an apartment for them in…
….Eindhoven, of all places.
They first got a one-bedroom flat and later a two-bedroom house in Achtse Barrier, where Liên Trì still lives. “The experience was good”, she says. “We were welcomed with open arms. A guest family helped us with the language, buy second hand bikes, helped us decorate the flat, we learnt about Dutch cuture and began to intergrate”.
Although we were both qualified, my sister as a geography teacher and I as a French teacher with a University degree, we experienced what many immigrants experience: our qualifications were not recognised by Nuffic, the organisation responsible for diploma evaluation. My course had been designed by the University of Reims, France, so I was highly surprised”. This meant, eventually, that Liên Trì had to do a full course of French at the University of Nijmegen. Which was not too bad, as unemployment figures in Dutch education were high at that time, so jobs were hard to find. Moreover, no one had told her that, despite being an experienced teacher in Vietnam, she was expected to get a paper proving she could teach, which meant an additional one-year course.
Finally more than fully qualified, Liên Trì found a job with the Alliance Française, and a six-week supply teacher post at Van Maerlant Lyceum, which she enjoyed tremendously. More supply teacher jobs followed, until she landed at the International Secondary School of Eindhoven where she felt very much at home until her retirement, as everyone there understood what it meant to have a home country and at least one new country.
Languages
A standard question for this series of interviews is the role of language in the interviewee’s life. In Liên Trì’s case, it is obvious. Growing up with two languages – her native Vietnamese and the language of the erstwhile colonisers – she had already developed a richness monolingual people lack. That she could switch effortlessless from being a French teacher to an English teacher and an interpreter in Singapore demonstrates the flexibility and opportunities multilingualism affords. Now a Dutch national, she feels equally at home in four languages. Being part of the Vietnames diaspora, it also means that languages can divide. “My nephews in The Netherlands speak Vietnamese and could therefore converse with their grandmother, and that was extremely valuable, especially towards the end of her life when she was sick and living with me and they came to visit”, Liên Trì says, “but my nephews living in France have married spouses of diverse nationalities and so the Vietnamese language and therefore sense of Vietnamese culture is watered down and may vanish, which makes me sad”.
The Vienamese language reflects the importance of family connections. Unlike in Dutch or English, the words for grandfather and grandmother express the relationship through the father or the mother, so there are four words for the grandparents instead of two. Similarly, the mother’s sister and the father’s siter do not go by the same word for aunt, and this also goes for aunts and uncles not related by blood. The word used for sister refelcts the age relationship: one word for an older sister and another for a younger sister.
The name for the father’s mother means something like ‘inside granny’, and the mother’s mother is the ‘outside granny’. This also reflects the lower status of women. “In Vietnam, a woman is always named in relation to her father, husband or son. On her own she is nothing. You only exist as the daughter of your father, the wife of your husband, or the mother of your son if your husband dies. It’s a patriarchy, expressed in what you are called. Ms father’s name, Ms husband’s name, Ms son’s name”.
Mixed feelings
After post-1975 Vietnam where a citizen could be faced with arbitrary demands based on arbitrary decisions, Liên Trì values the freedom she has in The Netherlands. “When I say no I do not owe anyone any justification for my decision. I can be my own woman. I do keep to myself, though. Although I am a Dutch national, I consider myself a guest in this country”. There is a Vietnamese society in Eindhoven, which organises a New Year’s party and an annual barbeque and children’s party combined , which attracts people from far and wide which LiênTrí helps organise.
In her home in Achtse Barrier, Mme Ton Nu spends her time cooking, gardening, and creating the most wonderful items of needlework: summer and winter quilts, tablecloths, and handmade presents for her family and friends. Her health s frail but that does not prevent her from cycling about Eindhoven.
When I ask her if she has ever been back in Vietnam, she sounds rueful. “How could I? I am not an expat, I am a refugee. The regime I escaped from is still in power. How could I go back? As a tourist?”
Eindhoven News is extremely grateful for Mme Ton Nu’s willingness to give her time and share her story.
Interview for EindhovenNews Greta Timmers, March 2025
