Where the Wind Leads: A Refugee Family's Miraculous Story of Loss, Rescue, and Redemption

by Vinh Chung, Tim Downs (With)

Overview

From the harrowing experiences of their journey across the South China Sea in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to the heartwarming account of their successful restaurant venture in America, the refugee story of Vinh Chung and his family is riveting. In a time where the current topics are immigration and human rights, this first-hand account reminds us to view events and people with a lens of compassion.

Just eight months after South Vietnam fell to the communists in 1975 Vinh Chung was born. His family was wealthy, controlling a rice-milling empire worth millions; but within months of the communist takeover, the Chungs lost everything and were reduced to abject poverty. Knowing that their children would have no future under the new government, the Chungs decided to flee the country. In 1979, they joined the legendary “boat people” and sailed into the South China Sea, despite knowing that an estimated two hundred thousand of their countrymen had already perished at the hands of brutal pirates and violent seas.

Narrating a multigenerational memoir, Vinh illustrates the compassionate side of humanitarian efforts and the life-changing moments that brought him to America as a child. With a sharp sense of humor he unravels ethnic hostility faced when they arrived in Fort Smith, Arkansas, the challenges and struggles of his family as they strove to achieve the American dream, and how he and his siblings went on to earn master degrees and doctorates from prestigious universities – all because his parents took a leap of faith and held on to the courage of building a new life.

Some of stories Vinh shares are:

• The family’s perilous journey through pirate attacks on a lawless sea
• The grueling life of being in a refugee camp in Malaysia before their rescue by World Vision
• Their miraculous rescue and a new home in the unlikely town of Fort Smith, Arkansas
• Vinh’s struggles against poverty, discrimination, and a bewildering language barrier
• His graduation from Harvard Medical School

Where the Wind Leads is Vinh’s tribute to the courage and sacrifice of his parents, a testimony to his family’s faith, and a reminder to people everywhere that the American dream, while still possible, carries with it a greater responsibility.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780718037499
Publisher:	Nelson, Thomas, Inc.
Publication date:	07/28/2015
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	226,228
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Vinh Chung graduated Harvard magna cum laude with a BA in biology and attended Harvard Medical School for his MD. Dr. Chung also studied at the University of Sydney as a Fulbright Scholar and completed a masters of pharmaceutical sciences. He completed his dermatology residency at Emory University, where he served as chief resident. He currently serves on World Vision's National Leadership Council. Dr. Chung and his wife Leisle have three children and run a successful private practice.

Tim Downs is the author of nine novels including the Christy Award-winning PlagueMaker and the highly acclaimed series of Bug Man novels. Tim lives in North Carolina with his wife Joy. They have three grown children.

Table of Contents

Foreword Richard Stearns xi

Part 1

1 The Story Begins 3

2 A World on the Edge 5

3 A Handful of Rice 13

4 Building an Empire 19

5 The Prince of Bac Lieu 27

6 Assisted Marriage 33

7 The Dragon Lady 43

8 Deception 53

9 A Nation Falls 63

10 The Farm 73

11 Gathering Storm 83

12 Why Me? 91

13 No Turning Back 99

Part 2

14 First Days at Sea 109

15 Pirates 117

16 One Man's Burden 125

17 Land at Last 133

18 Blood on the Sand 141

19 Sheltering Angels 149

20 The Beach 155

21 Betrayed 161

22 Seasweep Sets Sail 169

23 Endless Sea 175

24 The Prayer 183

25 Rescue 191

26 Singapore Bound 201

27 25 Hawkins Road 207

28 Across the Pacific 215

Part 3

29 Waking Up in America 225

30 Allied Gardens 231

31 Starting School 237

32 Grand Avenue 243

33 The Factory 249

34 The American Dream 255

35 Peer Pressures 261

36 The Restaurant 269

37 Ghosts of the Past 277

38 Flying Blind 283

39 Aiming for the Stars 291

40 Boy Meets Girl 299

41 Special Good Friend 307

42 Harvard 317

43 Love Story 325

44 Cap and Gown 333

45 Giving Back 339

Acknowledgments 349

About the Author 353

Editorial Reviews

03/10/2014
Memories of Communist Vietnam are often limited to the American side of the tension, and particularly the harrowing experiences that soldiers faced during the war. Chung, a dermatologist, offers a tripartite portrait: his family’s everyday life under the Communist regime, agonizing escape as refugees, and assimilation and integration into American society. Readers are given a glimpse into the dynamics that define the Chinese-Vietnamese family and how these intricate relationships and their elements, such as elder authority, influence interactions more broadly, within the community and, ultimately, American society. After his family’s near-death encounters in Vietnam and the South China Sea, Chung is given a life his parents could not have. He offers a conversational, unpretentious narrative of the young immigrant/refugee experience, with its unconscious social faux pas; growing awareness of American class, race, and gender relations; and ambition to not only attain the American Dream but to take back what was taken away from his parents’ generation: opportunity. This may remind those with immigrant/refugee experiences of their own lives; for others, Chung provides a humble story about coping with uprootedness, adversity, and assimilation into new social landscapes. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

2014-03-01
With assistance from Downs (Wonders Never Cease, 2010, etc.), dermatologist Chung chronicles his family's flight from communist rule in Vietnam to their subsequent life in America. The author describes his experiences beginning in 1978, when he was 3 and arrived in Arkansas, one of eight children in a destitute refugee family that "went to sleep in one world and woke up in another." In Vietnam, his father managed his family's merchant empire in the Mekong Delta. As ethnic Chinese, they maintained traditional Asian values. His parents, whose marriage had been arranged, lived with their extended family in a compound, and his widowed grandmother controlled the money with an iron fist. Despite their great wealth, his mother was consigned to a life little better than that of a servant, while his father maintained a mistress. After the revolution, Chung's parents and their children were part of the legendary exodus of the boat people. The author provides a harrowing account of their desperate escape and rescue at sea. Left adrift on the ocean by Malaysians who refused them refuge, the nearly 100 people on board were at the point of death by dehydration. Miraculously, they survived against the odds and were picked up by a boat on the lookout for boat people needing assistance. With the help of The World Vision National Leadership Council, the family received asylum in America. Chung tells of his father's uncomplaining struggle to support his family by working on a factory assembly line while raising his children in a culture whose ways and language were foreign to him. Like many children of immigrants, the author faced racism and discrimination, yet he achieved academic success at Harvard, pursued a distinguished career and "became more American than many who were born here." A worthy addition to the immigrant bookshelf. Though targeted at the Christian market, the book should have wider appeal.

Kirkus Reviews