My journey to Da Nang is a trip across continents and a voyage across time.
As I reconcile what I see of the vibrant bustling city with what I know of its history, I weigh my memories as a teacher of desperate Vietnamese refugees against the promising future for new generations.
Now considered Vietnam’ s most livable city, Da Nang has undergone a remarkable transformation. Originally a fishing harbour, it is now an economically diverse city of one million set on a beautiful stretch of coastline between the Marble Mountains and the richly forested Son Tra Peninsula, formerly called Monkey Mountain. Thirty kilometres of beaches are separated from the commercial area by the Han River, spanned by five stylish bridges, including the dramatic Dragon Bridge. Nearby is Hoi An, a popular tourist destination with a UNESCO-recognized ancient town of preserved temples, guild halls and merchants’ homes, and chapels.
Da Nang is where the United States maintained its largest airbase during the devastating Vietnam War, a protracted conflict that claimed the lives of two million civilians and one million combatants on both sides. At the height of the war, Da Nang saw more than 2,500 air traffic operations daily. Monkey Mountain housed the biggest radar installations. Vietnamese soldiers used the caves of the Marble Mountains as hiding spots, supply routes, and secret hospitals.
When the Americans withdrew from the conflict and South Vietnamese cities fell to the North Vietnamese Viet Cong in 1975, life became precarious for those who had been on the“ wrong side.” Thousands fled the country on barely sea-worthy boats; victimized by pirates and swamped by storms, many of these“ boat people” did not survive. About 200,000 Vietnamese refugees came to Canada between 1975 and the 1990s. During my early career I worked with hundreds of Vietnamese students and observed, with awe, their extraordinary determination and fortitude.
One such student was Thao. Her father and uncles had served in the South Vietnamese army or government and had been incarcerated in prison or“ re-education” camps. One uncle fled on a cargo boat with three hundred people into the South China Sea, where they were rescued by a Dutch freighter and taken to Singapore. After a church group in Calgary sponsored Thao’ s father, he worked several menial jobs while learning English and pursuing a career in engineering technology. Thao is grateful for her father’ s sponsorship, which meant that she didn’ t have to work to support herself during school, like others in her cohort did.
Photo top left: American soldiers distributing supplies to Vietnamese children, 1967
Photo top right: South China Sea— Cargo ship USS Durham takes Vietnamese refugees from a small craft, April 1975
Historical photos public domain from US national archives SUMMER 2025 | 41