~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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Mistress of Hon Nom Island

The news that Sau Anh, nicknamed "Lord of Hon Nom Island," had decided to return to community after 44 years living in the remote island surprised many local residents of the Nam Du archipelagoes. Their surprise became intense when they knew that Sau Anh left his eldest daughter, Vuong Ngoc Tham, on the island. Sau Anh was no longer the "lord" as Hon Nom Island then had a new master.

Four decades ago, Sau Anh, born Vuong Ngoc Anh, was brought by his father Vuong Van Kieu to live on Hon Nom Island. A desert island, Hon Nom is one of the 21 islands of the Nam Du archipelagos, some 100km offshore the coast of Kien Giang Province in southern Vietnam. Discouraged and fed up with the hustle and bustle of life on the mainland, Kieu took his family-including his wife, Sau Anh, then a six- year-old boy, and his elder sister-to the remote island.

To support their life on the desert island, the boy helped his father build the family's house and reclaim land. When Sau Anh's sister grew up she abandoned the island to return to the mainland. Sau Anh was then married by his father to a fisherman's daughter. The man now had his own family, and the Sau Anhs later gave birth to six girls and four boys. Surprisingly, it was the girls who were known as the sailors commanding the best seamanship in the Nam Du archipelagos. The girls were nicknamed "sea wolves" by local fishermen. Before Vuong Van Kieu breathed his last, he asked Sau Anh to come near and said, "I suppose you are my only child. The day I brought our family to this desert island, I vowed to sacrifice my first child to the sea. You must try your best to keep our island."

More than ten years ago, Hon Nom Island hosted its second house following the marriage of Vuong Ngoc Tham, Sau Anh's eldest child. Then 22, Tham was not only an excellent pilot but also a first-rate technician who could repair Yanmar 10 or 24 boat motors at sea. Tham and her younger sisters knew the Nam Du archipelagos and its vicinity like the back of their hands. By the end of 1995, after years of leading the life of a veteran fisherman and diver, Sau Anh suffered from serious illness. One night he said to Tham, "My family has to move to Hon Ngang Island where there are a lot of people and where my illness can be cured. Although you are a woman, you are my first child. You should stay here to keep our island."

Tham burst out into tears when seeing her parents and brothers and sisters off. She was not alone, though, as her husband and son stayed with her. In her hands were rows of coconut trees, and productive longan and guava orchards on Hon Nom.

A couple of years after Sau Anh had left Hon Nom, the Nam Du archipelagos, like the area in general, were devastated by Storm No. 5 which claimed the lives of many local fishermen and ruined most of Tham's assets. Sau Anh's wife had to order Loan, Tham's sister, to come back to Hon Nom to assist Tham. Giau, the youngest brother, also came to Hon Nom where he raised pigs and chickens.

With the sister and brother close by, Tham has felt less lonely. But she says she is bearing more responsibilities, as she has to support her extended family.

Truc, Tham's first son, is now 15 years old. Fond of sea faring, the boy now accompanies his father on their fishing boat. "It's a fate," says Tham. "He's my first child. Like the vow by the Vuong family-the first child should be sacrificed to the sea." Tho, Truc's 11-year-old brother, is living and studying on the mainland. Part of the income earned by Tham and her family on Hon Nom Island has been sent back to the mainland to support her parents and Tho. "It's also a fate that I have to live here on this island," Tham once told her fellow fishermen.

The life of Tham and her father is just like fairy tale, the fishermen say.

By Binh Nguyen - Tuoi tre - January 25, 2003.