A refugee's story part 1 - Roots

I've been meaning to write a series of pieces, perhaps even a book one day about some events that happened some years back and came to shape my view of the world and my place in it. I was born in the UK, of Vietnamese boat people and grew up really not knowing much about my history and roots at all. Then the death of my mother and a trip to America changed all this.

It's been a long time coming and well I'll be honest I'm pretty scared about this undertaking, so please be gentle with me. I am hoping to write about how I discovered that I actually have roots and why it's so important to me to try to get to grips with them. A foreigner in my own skin, I want to try to come to terms with a history that seems to belong to a different place.

It's not going to be easy, but I carried out some interviews a while back that may help. As much of the story unfolds I will be changing names to protect identities. I never was any good at history either, being a physics teacher as I am so please bear with me if I make some historical gaffs, but I'll be doing my best to try to learn about Vietnam as I go.

It's a new set of stories to break up the flow but I'll try to throw in the odd story about shitting or monkeys in between just to keep it fresh huh!