Phan Giang Sang and To Kim Châu. “My secret to staying married is:if she wants something,you do it,” says Sang.Credit:Joshua Morris
Sang: The first day I saw Kim Châu,I knew I wanted to marry her. We met at a charity event for poor people;I was examining patients and Kim was dispensing the medicines. I couldn’t take my eyes off her,but she kept avoiding my gaze. She was a pharmacy student,so I thought we would make a good couple to help people in need. She was also very beautiful. We married in 1966.
During the Vietnam War,I was a medical officer for the South Vietnamese army. After the fall of Saigon in 1975,the communists sent me to a “re-education” camp. Luckily,I was released after eight months because they realised the country needed doctors,but I was kept under house arrest. We had three young children and it was Châu who,somehow,kept the family afloat.
We knew we couldn’t live under the communist regime,so in 1978,with much sadness,we decided we had to escape Vietnam. The owner of one of the boats carrying refugees wanted a doctor on board who could look after his pregnant daughter-in-law,but we still had to pay him 30 ounces of gold,all our savings of many years. Six hours after we left,the woman went into labour and I delivered the baby at sea.
We arrived at a Malaysian refugee camp with nothing but the clothes we stood in. I’d thought I could easily be a doctor elsewhere. Châu and I both spoke French and imagined we’d go to a French-speaking country,but Australian officials who interviewed us at the camp accepted us within a week.
Sang and Châu on their wedding day in 1965.Credit:Courtesy of Tri Phan
A few months after we settled in Brisbane,Châu developed viral meningitis. In Vietnam,if you get meningitis,there’s no way to recover,so I was very afraid I was going to lose her. If she died,I knew I wouldn’t be able to raise the children by myself. In the end,she recovered,but the infection left her permanently deaf in one ear.
I’d been successful in Vietnam,but here I struggled with English and was failing. We moved to Sydney in 1982 so I could sit the exams for medical school and start from the bottom again. Then I failed the fourth year and had to repeat. I was almost 58 by the time I graduated. I often fell into despair in those early years,but Châu always reminded me that my success or failure was not important:it was the children’s future that mattered. In the end,I opened a practice,wrote books about medicine and had a talkback show on SBS radio calledHealth is Gold.[In December,he published his memoir,From Vietnam to Australia:Sang’s Memoirs.]
“Châu always reminded me that my success or failure was not important:it was the children’s future that mattered.”
Phan Giang Sang