Former Vietnamese Refugee Thankful for Japan after 45 Years

   Tokyo, April 30 (Jiji Press)--A 63-year-old man who fled Vietnam 45 years ago as part of the boat people thanks Japan for helping him survive and build his life without fear of a war.
   The native of now-defunct South Vietnam, whose Japanese name is Takashi Hashimoto, took a small bamboo boat crowded with 24 people in total including children on a beach in the central city of Da Nang in March 1980, after the Southeast Asian country was reunited by North Vietnam following the fall of Saigon, the then capital of the U.S.-backed South, to mark the end of Vietnam War on April 30, 1975.
   "My father was jailed (after the war) as a political criminal, and I couldn't go to school much," he recalls. "I had no human rights or freedom."
   Before Hashimoto left the beach, his mother gave him 30 U.S. dollars, half of his family's entire money, telling him to get by on it.
    The journey to seek refuge was extremely tough. Parched and starved, all people on the boat managed to survive by catching and eating birds.

(2025/04/30-19:29)