When he could not find food and was turned out, he cried every night until he fell asleep. His eyes were swollen from homesickness. Those words condensed fifty years of suffering in the life of Mr. Phan Thanh.
From a boy of seven, lost and alone in Saigon, to years of homelessness far from his family, he never gave up hope of returning to them one day. Thanh was only seven to ten years old when he lost contact with his biological family. Decades later, he could no longer remember his exact birth date, the names of his parents or siblings, or even his birthplace. The only thing he was certain of was his name, Thanh.
He believed his birthplace was near Tam Giang Lagoon in Thua Thien Hue Province, where his family lived in a rural house built on wooden stilts, surrounded by fishing boats. He remembered fishing with his mother and siblings, how she sold fish at the market while he played with his brothers and sisters and helped collect fresh water. His father had left the family and gone south, remarried, and worked as a cyclo driver. Around 1976, his father returned and took Thanh to Saigon to live with him and his stepmother, who had no children of her own.
Thanh’s mother had left him with his grandparents, so she did not know that her husband had taken their child away. Shortly afterward, Thanh was moved to a new economic zone, possibly in Bien Hoa, Long An, or Dong Nai, but life there was painful. His stepmother beat him often when his father went to work. After repeated attempts to run away and be brought back, Thanh finally left for good.
He ended up in Saigon, where he lived on the streets and begged for food. Around 1977 or 1978, a man found him sleeping outside and took him home. He and his wife became Thanh’s first foster family in District Five. The foster mother later told him that her husband had taken pity on him because he was dirty and disheveled.
At first, Thanh refused to speak, but he eventually adjusted to the family. He stayed with them for three years. He did not go to school, but he found food, clothes, and a place to sleep. Every night, though, he tried to remember his biological family.
At age eleven, Thanh began working around boats in District Eight. Later, he met a woman from Binh Tri who had lost a son during the war. She offered to take him in, and in early 1980, Thanh joined another foster family. He worked in sugarcane fields, learning to plant and process sugar in exchange for food.
Some people mocked him because he knew nothing about his parents. They said he was like Sun Wukong, as if he had sprung from a rock and did not know where he came from. But one memory never faded: his mother on a small fishing boat. He remembered only that she went fishing often on a small boat.
That was all he knew, but he did not know where to look for her. The painful childhood memories without parents still followed Thanh. When friends invited him to leave Vietnam, he decided to go. He crossed Cambodia and entered Thailand illegally.
After being arrested and spending three months in prison, he was transferred to a refugee camp. There, Thanh learned to read and write and studied English for the first time. In 1990, he was accepted to Australia as a refugee. He settled in Queensland and took whatever work he could find.
He did not know English, so he faced many difficulties communicating and finding employment. He had to do many hard jobs just to earn a living. Eventually, he built a stable life, but he never forgot his family. Many times in his dreams, he saw his parents and siblings, but they were drifting farther away.
He could never catch up to them. After six years in Australia, Thanh returned to Vietnam to search for his family. Without names or a specific birthplace, his search failed. Meanwhile, his father, Tran Lu, had never stopped looking for him.
For years, he worked as a cyclo driver and searched all over Saigon, but he could not find his son. Then, in February 2024, Thanh shared his childhood memories on the program Don Ve Ket Noi Yeu Thuong. Just two days later, Nguyen Thi Hong Sam watched his story. She believed Thanh might be her missing cousin.
During a video call, Sam told Thanh that her family had a brother named Thanh, whose parents were Nhuan, and he had disappeared decades ago. The whole family had believed that Thanh was dead. They had even set up an altar in his memory. Soon, Thanh spoke directly with Tran Lu.
When his father described living near a railway line in Saigon and working as a cyclo driver, Thanh recognized the memories immediately. It was true. This was his father. The family conducted a DNA test.
On April 18, 2024, the results confirmed that Tran Lu was Thanh’s biological father. Thanh had finally found the father who had spent his life searching for him, and he discovered that his father had been looking for him too. A month after the DNA results confirmed their relationship, Thanh returned to Vietnam with his wife and three children. On May 17, 2024, he finally reached Hue.
His father, Tran Lu, was waiting for him at the entrance to the alley. At eighty-one years old, Lu’s hair had turned completely white. He had spent decades wondering what had happened to the son he lost in childhood. When Thanh got out of the car, Lu could not hold back his tears.
Thanh looked at his father and said, Father, I have come home. He ran to him, and the two embraced. After fifty years of separation, father and son stood together at last. Neither could stop crying.
For Thanh, coming home also meant facing a part of his story that could never be changed. His mother had died before he could find her. Standing before her altar, he lit incense and spoke to her. Mother, I have come home.
I light this incense to ask your permission to place the incense bowl and the photograph you kept for me. He then shared some memories that still lingered in his mind about her with his younger brother. Whenever she was sad, she would sit and bite her nails. He still remembered the lullaby she used to sing to put the children to sleep.
Even though he did not remember it clearly, throughout his childhood with his foster parents, he always hummed that lullaby. His foster mother even praised his beautiful singing. The family also took Thanh to the place where he once lived as a child. The old steel house had disappeared.
Only the water remained. Thanh stood quietly, looking across the area where his childhood home once stood. The place had changed after five decades, but the memories he carried brought him back there. For most of his life, Thanh did not know where he came from.
Now he knew. He had a father, younger siblings, a homeland, and a family that had spent decades believing he was gone. Even after returning to Australia, Thanh stayed in regular contact with his father and siblings. They called each other, exchanged memories, and talked about the years they had missed.
Six months after the reunion, Thanh said he still sometimes felt as if everything that had happened was a dream. He feared waking up one day and returning to his former life, where he did not know who he was or where he came from. Then he described what finding his family meant to him. I was away for fifty years and lived alone for a long time, but now I am truly happy because I found my way home.
Today, Thanh continues to live in Australia, but he stays connected with his father and family in Vietnam. He often promises to return and spend more time with them. After fifty years of separation, they finally had the chance to continue their family story together.