Voyage to Freedom – The Secret of the Radio
Related topics
Published
A dangerous, desperate voyage to freedom!
In 1977, the refugee boat Tự do (Freedom) brought 31 people safely to Australia from Vietnam. The journey took months, and both fear and boredom were constant travelling companions for those who fled their homeland in small boats. You can learn more about this story here.
A rare source of entertainment!
What did the refugees do for entertainment? One of the few objects that survived this journey was this JVC Nivico radio and cassette player.
Space was limited and every item had to justify its place on the journey. The decision to bring a radio and cassette player speaks to the importance of music, but also the need to keep informed on the voyage. The music might also have brought a sense of home for those who would have to leave everything they knew behind.
When the Lu family thinks back to the voyage, the radio is there. Among those aboard who remember it was Dao Lu, who was four years old at the time of the voyage. Decades later, one memory has remained particularly vivid. She still recalls the sound of Vietnamese classical music drifting from the wheelhouse of the boat. It was a piece of normalcy on a voyage that was far from normal, a way of forgetting the dangers that loomed for a moment:
“I do have very fond memories of this radio because I suppose at that time being four, it was a very weird contraption and music used to emanate from it.”
Dao Lu
In Dao's recollection, the radio is inseparable from the experience of the journey itself. The music that played through the cassette player would have echoed across the confined space of the vessel, creating moments of familiarity in an unfamiliar and uncertain environment. For a young child, the music became part of the atmosphere of the voyage and one of the lasting impressions of a life-changing journey. It created a sense of normalcy in a voyage that was anything but normal.
Her mother used to sing on the boat as well, but sadly, Dao doesn’t remember the name of the songs, cassettes and radio stations of the journey. She was only four, after all!
The radio turned out to be a survivor. It made the voyage to Australia, and it continued on the journey the family made. It was brought into quarantine in Darwin, where the medical tests were undertaken and immigration asked endless questions about the background of the voyagers. It was brought into the migrant hostel when the family was sent to Wacol in Brisbane. When the family left government-supported lodgings, it continued on: to new homes in Brisbane, Lismore and beyond. In this way, it became woven into the family's life in Australia while also carrying memories of Vietnam and the journey that connected the two countries.
A closer look! Can you decipher the clues?
Use your mouse to rotate, zoom, and pan around the 3D model.
Here you can zoom in on the radio. You can see that some of the frequencies are marked! But what radio stations shared these frequencies? And are these markings from the time when it was in Vietnam, on the boat, or when it was used in Australia?
Sadly, the cassettes that the refugees used did not leave any trace!
Can you help us?
But maybe you, your family or someone you know can help us!
What we are specifically interested in is:
- Do you know any radio stations that used these frequencies between 1975 (when the boat was built) and the 1980s (when the family was still using it in Australia)?
- Dao remembers that the radio often played “Vietnamese classical music” – music that she now only hears in Vietnamese restaurants and community events. What music do you think this could have been?
Get in touch with our team by emailing us at migration@sea.museum
