LEAVE THE LAND YOU LOVE

Fifteen long months of anxious waiting in refugee camps were over. Boarding the early flight that morning to the country of choice my 5-member family has actually ended the five nightmarish years of being liberated in the native land we love so much. Seeing us off at the sumptuous Hong Kong’s Kaitak International Airport that morning, with so much attachment, friends from local refugee transit centers heartily embraced each of us to mumble their wishes of good luck and happiness in the new world. Sunk in deep thought during the long 12-hour flight I was mulling over many incredible incidents that had happened in the past series of tragic days. The appalling demise of our beloved homeland. The following years in which the loved ones in my own family and in the liberated society were destructively abused and persecuted. The hopeless vision into a no-future world the liberators repeatedly asserted. The life-and-dead escape and the perilous crossing through the turbulent ocean on a tiny wooden boat in search for freedom. In front of us, the flight was leading our family to the never-thought-of-before future with so many great promises and golden opportunities.