Cuc Lam's suitcase

WARREN BROWN:

Think about this. You're forced to leave your home forever and you can only take what you can carry with you. What would you choose? Have a few seconds to think about it. Well, I'm betting that most of you would have said family photo albums or precious jewellery. Well, in 1978, a Vietnamese woman called Cuc Lam was faced with that choice, and she did just that. But she was prepared to give up one of those precious pieces of jewellery to buy a cheap suitcase. So why is that simple piece of luggage now a National Treasure? The suitcase is here, at the Immigration Museum in Melbourne.

This is Cuc Lam's tiny red vinyl suitcase and it holds quite a story. The museum has allowed me to pick it up out of its display case, and I want to show you a few things. You can see it's a fairly nondescript vinyl travel suitcase. But it's got markings all over it, because Cuc didn't want to lose it on her voyage to Australia. And here's the original flight tag, because Cuc didn't arrive by boat, she was flown here, courtesy of the Australian Government. And it says, ‘Flight QF2, date 16/7/78, destination Melbourne, Victoria Hostel'. Now, these markings here indicate the boat number here. Now, this is the boat she escaped from Vietnam in. And it says, ‘Boat number CAT028, camp E, Pulau Tengah'. Now, that's in Malaysia. That's the refugee camp. ‘Go to Australia.'

Cuc was amongst a wave of boat people who fled her country in the turbulent years following the bloody Vietnam War.

CUC LAM:

My husband and I, we were escaped from Vietnam in 1978, as a refugee. And at that time, we were escaped by a river boat.

WARREN BROWN:

And you were disguised as fishermen, is that right?

CUC LAM:

That's right. Yes.

WARREN BROWN:

What happened then?

CUC LAM:

We was on the, um, international water for about eight days. And then we were rescued by the navy, Malaysian navy. So they took us to near the Pulau Tengah in Malaysia and left us there.

WARREN BROWN:

That's a refugee camp?

CUC LAM:

It's a refugee camp.

REPORTER:

The refugee island off the Malaysian coast in the South China Sea. There are still 11,000 people here, and in June, there were 2000 new arrivals. Those they feel sure will follow will live in better conditions.

WARREN BROWN:

In your time in the refugee camp, you had a little pouch with you, which is on display here in the museum. What was in the little pouch?

CUC LAM:

Yes, that little pouch is with me all the time and it's very precious to me. It contained my sister's watch, my mother's earrings and a photo of my parents.

WARREN BROWN:

There was something missing out of that pouch by the time you got to Australia. What was that?

CUC LAM:

Um, that was my wedding ring.

WARREN BROWN:

Right. And why didn't you have that anymore?

CUC LAM:

When we got accepted to go to Australia we decided to sell our wedding rings. The one important thing that we want to purchase is a suitcase.

WARREN BROWN:

Right. Why a suitcase? Why was that so important?

CUC LAM:

Just the suitcase that … is important because, I mean, two of us, we have nothing to bring with us, but coming to the new country, you just want to bring something with you that … it looks like that you've got something with you.

REPORTER:

For many of the Vietnamese who arrived in Sydney today, it was the first time that they'd seen any of their relatives for over four years. For them, it's an entirely new start.

WARREN BROWN:

Like many Vietnamese refugees, Cuc and Minh were flown here by the Australian Government. In three years, more than 12,000 were brought here from refugee camps in south-east Asia. Cuc and Minh have repaid Australia's kindness. Minh is a chiropractor and Cuc was a local councillor and is now a multicultural services officer with Centrelink. Her little red bag isn't worth much, but it tells a story you can't put a price on. It symbolises the end of one life and the beginning of another here in Australia, and that's what makes it a National Treasure.