I was only a baby when my family and I boarded the small leaky boat, bound for who knows where. That’s right, we were boat people, refugees, asylum seekers. Mum says that we paid the people smugglers our fare by weight, in gold jewellery. We were the opposite of wealthy, but 5 years prior my parents managed to hide a few valuables before everything was stripped by the Khmer Rouge guerrilla army. In Cambodia in 1975, the army had overthrown the government and forced everyone out of their homes and into hard labour in the countryside and jungle.
In full: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/melbourne/programs/drive/changing-tracks-2019-men/10954906
