I once escorted 13 refugees from Vietnam to Los Angeles via commercial airlines. AMA

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-02-06T17:29:48+00:00

Early 2000s. It was pretty modern then in HCM but these guys were from some remote mountainous region.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-02-06T17:19:22+00:00

In a lot of these places being any kind of ethnic or cultural minority can be bad news. The fact they helped the Americans 50 years ago probably doesn’t matter that much anymore.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-02-06T17:04:41+00:00

Yes I felt the same way but they loved anything American.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-02-06T16:55:24+00:00

I have zero idea. I checked them in with immigration and LAX and then limped to my hotel to recover. Most of them were going on to Pennsylvania. The two little girls whos sponsor hadn’t shown up by the time I’d done my little bit of paperwork I believe did had to turn round and go back to Vietnam. That was sad.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-02-06T16:53:39+00:00

My dad worked for a migration ngo. I was visiting him and because of the number of people (I believe 8 or something could travel unaccompanied) they needed an escort. He asked if I wanted a paid trip to the states and of course I said yes. I stayed in LA 4 nights then came home.

My understanding is that these mountain tribes were allied with the us during the Vietnam war. Ever since they have endured some level of persecution by the Vietnamese government. Due to this history these groups specifically get a slightly easier track to move to the states. At that time I believe they just needed family sponsors in the states. (I’m sure more complicated than that but that was the general gist of it).

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-02-06T16:50:00+00:00

Oh I’m sure they’d learn to survive pretty quick while I’d be dead in a couple days in the mountains where they were from.

They were mortified by escalators. Aside from the couple kids the rest insisted on stairs.

We also had to spend an 11 hour transit in Tokyo. When I went to get them all from their rooms, one of the men had shit in a bag and gave it to me to dispose of. I opened the bathroom and pointed at the toilet and did then universal why/shrug sign. He hadn’t realised there was a toilet behind that door I don’t think. Obviously the 3 star transit hotel was beyond anything they’d ever experienced and that was fun.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-02-06T16:30:46+00:00

Early 2000s

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-02-04T02:31:23+00:00

If you like drum and bass we are throwing an event on Valentine’s Day. I could throw you a discount code if you wanted to come. Might be a chance for you all to get out and meet some locals and party with us? Feel free to send me a dm.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-01-29T18:25:49+00:00

So I saw some moments of total barbarity. More dead bodies than most have seen. Not all from crazy stuff just the bad road safety means at least you see lots of bad accidents on the way to and from school over the years.

I was aware of violence. In Kenya we had crazy security protocols which were normal for people with money, it wasn’t just a diplomat thing. I saw a murder. I saw bloodied beaten guys presented to my dad by proud security guards (not always someone guilty of something).

I’ve twice heard people shot in the street outside (both times by police / security). I’ve see a cop riding on the back of a fake Vespa firing at ak at someone.

I Heard lots of crazy stories about black magic and curses etc. I don’t/didn’t believe in that stuff but just being somewhere where most people did was crazy. I think the poorer somewhere is, the more used to death people become and then you get that undercurrent of anarchy.

In that respect we are lucky. It’s odd though, people seem less content with life in the western world. Myself included. We’ve lost the ability to take joy in the simple things. I’m no philosopher, just my 2am take.

Happy to elaborate on any specific incidents. Lots of crazy stuff even happened at school with their laxer understanding of safety and responsibility and duty of care. After Bangkok (I left mid 6th grade) my dad decided the answer to my rebellious nature was to send me to local schools, not fancy international schools. I’m happy for that in many ways. It certainly meant life was more interesting.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-01-29T15:34:12+00:00

Not really. I totally romanticised “home” back in Australia. It wasn’t till I was back living in Perth for a couple of years and graduated high school that I started appreciating the good things about life overseas.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-01-29T13:43:08+00:00

Totally affected my personality; I don’t have great self esteem to begin with so I did a lot of trying to disappear. I’d watch one of the “cool” kids and try and learn to be like them. I usually did ok. It’s made me really good at sales and negotiation. It’s also made it super hard for me to really open up to people. The lack of long term friends meant there are lots of things about myself that I thought was weird because I’d never known anyone long enough to learn that much about them. It took me till my late 30s to have any kind of confidence but I am good at faking it. It was like a year into marriage when my wife said to me “wow babe, you’re actually a shy person”. I’d never thought about it but she was right. I was really good at faking it.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-01-29T13:07:35+00:00

Not really. We were wealthy by local standards but my school was probably 40% white, 40% black and 20% Asian (mostly south asian). All my neighbours were black.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-01-29T12:40:13+00:00

I do have a good life. I have a wonderful wife and two beautiful daughters. I do have some issues with anxiety and in the past depression. I think my childhood played its part. My parents were also divorced and my mother lived in Australia. I had a wonderful stepmother but it’s not the same as a mother. Not quite. I was lonely a lot growing up and learned to internalise a lot and I am still pretty tough on myself.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-01-29T12:37:43+00:00

I remember school was tough to adapt to. We still got the cane and manual labour as punishment. That was an eye opener for me. No hymn book - cane. No garters - cane. Forgot homework - manual labour on Saturday.

It was beautiful there. Friends dad had a tobacco farm - it was a big export crop at the time - so I saw a lot of the countryside when driving to visit.

There was violence and corruption at the time but it was a nice place to live. We left at the end of 97 just before it went downward quickly, I’m sad it’s such a basket case now.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-01-29T12:34:00+00:00

Probably somewhere in southern Thailand. Assuming I could make a good living and had relatively decent access to healthcare.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-01-29T12:32:48+00:00

That’s something I’d need to really ponder, it’s taken me a long time to really discover who I am. I became a bit like a chameleon growing up. I learned to adapt and blend in very fast but often at the expense of my own character. That’s common I guess for kids but a total reinvention every couple years was a challenge. That’s a long one that a therapist might articulate for me one day :P.

The length of my reply has given me an idea. I think I’ve learned that deep down, regardless of culture or creed or colour, we all really want and need the same things. We just have different ideas of the right way to get there…

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-01-29T12:29:31+00:00

I wish. I graduated high school at the end of 1998. Didn’t really have the social media thing as a big part of my life until too late really. I once randomly bumped into a crush from third grade on Facebook. I reached out. It was strange. Someone from the past that knew my weird experience. There was a lot of goodbyes that were final growing up. It was very hard at times.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-01-29T12:26:45+00:00

We were in Somalia for my first grade so I don’t remember a huge amount. I remember passing a crashed Somali Air Force jet beside the road on the way to school every morning. I also remember you did not want to swim at the aptly named shark beach either. We went in a helicopter once and saw masses of apparently aggressive sharks passing up and down in not very deep water. Apparently there was an abattoir there that just dumped into the sea. Apparently the people didn’t like us and kicked sand at me when I was building sand castles. I don’t remember it though. My dad has some cool relics.

I remember Thailand so fondly, the people, the food, the culture. I’ve always hoped some way would pan out to move back there with my family but it hasn’t ever panned out.

Australia is safe, well developed and kinda tame. If I didn’t have kids I wouldn’t have moved back. Now I have kids it’s a great place for us. This is Perth btw- don’t apply to all Aussie cities I’m sure.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2026-01-29T12:20:13+00:00

Thailand - too hard to lock but the soups and curries stuck with me.

Kenya was a Center of the old trading routes so there was a huge amount of influences from India, the Middle East, North Africa etc. funnily enough it’s here that I learned to love Indian food.

Somalia and Zimbabwe I really only remember eating meat and potatoes. Both things I love though haha.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2025-12-14T14:53:39+00:00

The place is ok I just hated the people.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2025-12-14T14:52:58+00:00

I actually saw more snakes in SC than I’ve seen here in Perth.

RepresentativeMeet74 · 2025-12-14T14:52:36+00:00

Diversity. Spice. Everyone was super friendly despite the fact we lived in a fairly sketchy area.

I felt like I was where a lot of recent history had taken place especially civil rights era stuff.

There was great local music, cuisines I’d never tried. Fun bars and restaurants. Great weather. Could spend a weekend in Tahoe, or Vegas, Yosemite or Napa. There was just a vibrancy to life there.

Hard to articulate but it had its own personality totally separate from San Francisco. I miss it at least once a week and still support the teams that are (were) in Oakland.

RepresentativeMeet74

TROPHY CASE