This piece was based on my Aunt Mai’s experience escaping Vietnam, in the hopes for freedom and a future. She left in 1988 by herself on a crowded boat with 75 people. The piece itself conveys her experience on the first two days at sea. There was a huge storm and she remembered looking out and seeing nothing but white waves crashing onto the boat. She explains that during that moment she felt fear and despite being non-religious, prayed to every god she knew in hopes of staying alive, hugging her friend for dear life. The very next day, the waters were calm and quiet; there was no sign of the storm to be seen. That night, she looked up to the full moon and felt safe, feeling as if her prayers were answered. At that moment, she remembered thinking that she would be able to survive, and that everyone on the boat would be able to make it to land alive.

After 5 days on the boat, she arrived to the Philippines safely and stayed at a refugee camp. She now lives in Federal Way (a suburb of Seattle) in Washington, USA where she currently works as a pediatric dentist, playing both the piano and violin during her spare time.

When thinking about creating a piece on the Boat People of Vietnam, I did not want to generalize the story; everyone had a different journey and different emotions tied to their experience. Throughout this piece, I wanted to communicate Mai’s experience leaving Vietnam. I wanted to convey the feeling of leaving the homeland and everything behind, the comfort she found in new friends who also left without their families, the intensity of the storm followed by the calmness of the full moon, and the search for hope and freedom.