The Ugly Daughter: A Thrilling Real Life Journey to Self Discovery, Riches and Spirituality Read online

  Julia Loan Legian with Dawn Burke

  The Ugly Daughter

  A thrilling real life journey to self discovery, riches and spirituality

  © 2014 Julia Loan Legian and Dawn Burke

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the prior written permission from the authors.

  Published by Julia Loan Legian and Dawn Burke

  PO Box 132, Lidcombe NSW 1825

  Email: [email protected]

  Website: www.theuglydaughter.com

  Editing by Tom Flood and C.S. Boag www.csboag.com

  Ebook created with calibre 1.23 by Kavid Goyal

  Some of the names and places have been changed to protect the privacy of the people in this book. All the stories are true but despite my best efforts the time line might not be accurate.

  About the Authors

  Julia Legian (aka Loan Thi Nguyen) was born in 1972, South Vietnam. Or was it 1971? Nobody really knows so she prefers to err on the young side. In the 80s her parents fled Vietnam as “boat people” and immigrated to Australia. For most of her adult life she has worked in real estate. She quits her job in 2002 and became a successful property investor. In 2004 she set up her own business as a buyer agent to help others follow her footsteps. She is now officially retired and concentrate full time on writing. She is happily married to Simion and has a wonderful, kind, and loving son, Jeremy.

  Dawn Burke is a creative writing teacher and editor. She has published books on writing and has written and published works of fiction. She has two beautiful daughters and nine grandchildren. In her view, working with Julia Legian has been an honour and a privilege. Helping Julia to recount the story of her struggle for survival against painful obstacles, has been a rewarding experience.

  I dedicate this book to my gracious Grandma, God, Quan Am, Quan Cong and to two wonderful and amazing men in my life, my son Jeremy Tang and my husband Simion Legian

  Acknowledgements

  I want to thank my parents because without them I would not be here. I love you and forgive you for everything.

  Thank you from the bottom of my heart to the following friends for all your love and support: Sharon Tea, Maji Yau, George and Joyce Prokopiou, Ma Ya, Mike and Leanne Tobin, Vanessa Tang, Peter Tang, Van Tran, Mrs Martin, Yoshiko Maezima, Chris Cometi, John and Sarah Hutchinson, Steve Ryan, Michael Scott, Barry D’Arcy, Thomas Lim, Jessica Carson-To, Marianna Patchett, Charles and Judith Boag and Dawn Burke.

  Thank you to all my sisters and brothers for their fighting spirits. A big thank you to my sisters Phuong and Hanh for helping me with some of the stories.

  Thank you to the following life teachers and mentors, that helped me find success, peace and my way back home: Jim Rohn, Tony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki, Mother Teresa, Dalai Lama, Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, Louise Hay, Nelson Mandela, Dr Phil, Father Chris Riley and Wayne Dwyer.

  The authors would also like to thank the Australian Property Investor Magazine for allowing us to use the cover picture and Tom Blasdale for the picture of the Bombay duck. Thanks to Jonah Jones of AnUnfairEdge for his Kindle ebooks tutorials.

  And thank you Jon Bon Jovi for your inspiring music that brought me hope and a will to live.

  Prologue

  I screamed, my voice ringing out like a shrew even to my own ears. "Grandma, Phuong, hurry, hurry, please come out!"

  Grandma and Phuong came running out of the house.

  My gaze returned to the water lapping along the shoreline. I trembled, pointing at the people floating in the ocean. "Look at all those bodies in the water!"

  Grandma chastised me for shouting. “Loan, don’t yell. How many times have I told you to speak softly like a lady?”

  I was frantic for her to understand my panic. “Look Grandma, there are hundreds of people out there. Something’s wrong. C’mon Phuong let's go!” I grabbed my eldest sister Phuong’s hand and we dashed to the bay. “Oh, my God Sis, they are all dead.” I sank down on my knees and started to cry.

  Phuong’s face reflected the horror on my face. “Look at the holes in their bodies,” she cried.

  My tears continued to fall. “They’re bullet holes, Sis. Someone must have shot them.”

  Moments later we were surrounded by thousands of strangers wanting to catch a glimpse of the dead, while we all watched in disbelief. Most of the grotesque, bloated corpses were women and children of all ages.

  Grandma finally caught up with us. “What happened to these poor people, does anyone know? Loan do you know anything? What happened to them?” Tears streamed down Grandma’s face. She looked around the unfamiliar faces desperately searching for answers but everyone shook their heads in silence.

  “Grandma please don’t cry. I’ll try to find out for you,” I said, but Grandma couldn’t stop the flow of her tears. She crouched down as she watched the bodies hitting against the shore.

  For many weeks a constant stream of bodies arrived on our shore. Bay Gia bay had become a floating graveyard with the smell of the terrible stench of rotting flesh. We were afraid to swim among the bodies and every night my dear Grandma stayed up late praying to God to stop the massacre. But God did not hear her.

  Chapter 1

  My clearest memory of Bay Gia was when I was six years old. I didn’t know where I was. Grandma had brought us here. I woke to the sound of a fight. A man’s guttural voice bounced off the walls followed by a woman’s high-pitched, unbalanced screaming. Those voices were forever burned into my psyche.

  “I want you dead! Dead, do you hear me?”

  I clapped my hands over my ears and rocked back and forth. Where was Grandma? I cowered against the wall of the hut and trembled at the two people trying to rip each other’s heads off and calling one another horrible names. The man was smashing the woman’s head against the wall, pulling her hair out by the roots and kicking her like he might kick a stray dog.

  I sat up and looked around for Grandma but she was nowhere to be found. Quiet as a mouse, I tried to slide off the bed so the strangers wouldn’t hear me, but the bed was high and I fell to the floor in my rush to find Grandma.

  I got up. A thin film of material separated our beds from the rest of the room. As I crept around the unfamiliar room in the dark, I stumbled and fell over the hammock that hung across the middle of the house. I bounced onto the rough floor, landing on my face. The floor was covered in dirt as if it had not been swept for years. I cried out for Grandma. Without any warning, a lady with a mean face stood over me.

  “What’s the matter with you? Stop crying, shut up and get back to bed. Otherwise I’ll give you a good reason to cry.”

  I pretended I didn’t hear her and called for Grandma. The woman grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to my bed, where she dropped me like a rock. My head slammed against the wooden log that served as a pillow. Pain shot through my head and I cried out from the force of the throbbing in my skull.

  Phuong pulled me to her. “Shhh,” she whispered. “Don’t make any noise or you’ll get us both in trouble.”

  I grumbled and held my head as the woman went back behind the curtain. “Where’s Grandma?” I asked Phuong.

  Phuong hugged me. “She’s gone. She promised she would come back for us.”

  “What do you mean, she’s gone? Where did she go?”

  Phuong sighed. “I don’t know, keep your voice down or you’ll be in trouble again.”

  “I don’t care, I want my Grandma.”

&nb
sp; “Shhh,” Phuong whispered. Frustrated and scared, she offered to share her log with me.

  I cried for a little longer while hugging my sister’s log and then we drifted back to sleep. We dozed fitfully while the two psychopaths fought until dawn.

  In the early morning light I could see that we lay on a rough wooden bed covered with palm leaves. I looked up and saw the morning sky through the many holes in the roof. I sat up, not knowing whether to get up or stay where I was just in case I might run into that nasty woman again.

  The lousy shack that posed as a house had been built with sticks from coconut and palm leaves. It leaned to one side, one wall held up only by a large timber post that pushed the wall in the opposite direction to keep it stable. It looked as if a strong wind could blow it away. A dirty torn cotton hammock hung right in the middle of the hovel and a filthy mud floor completed the picture.

  A hut similar to the one I woke up in

  The lady appeared in front of us. She was covered in bruises and her skin was black and blue. One eye was almost swollen shut and the other bloodshot and angry. “Get off the bed, go out to the backyard and get yourselves clean.” She pointed to an unlocked, broken bamboo door.

  I slowly got down off the bed, stretching my aching limbs. Pushing aside the grimy fabric room divider, I ducked under the hammock and made my way across the room. Another worn, thin curtain hung across the other side of the room. I poked my curious little head through to take a look in this room.

  Against the wall stood an old tired looking bed, covered with a torn bamboo sheet. A handful of unmatched clothes lay strewn on the floor but the man was not there.

  I dropped the curtain and continued on, stepping out into a small yard that was so tiny you couldn’t even swing a cat in the space. In one corner of the yard stood three large brown clay containers that dwarfed me by comparison. I stood on my toes to lift off the clay cover and discovered they held water. A faded Chinese plastic water scoop with some pink flowers and a half broken handle floated on top. As I picked the scoop up to get some water and wash my face, strange little black things surged toward the surface.

  “Oh my God!” I screamed and dropped the scoop on the ground and ran back to the hut as if I was being chased by a ghost.

  “What’s wrong with you?” the woman with the black and blue body asked.

  “There are some ugly wriggly things in the water,” I cried, shaking like a leaf.

  “Get back out there and wash your face.”

  I shook my head in protest.

  “Those are tadpoles. They won’t eat you. Get out there or I’ll smack you.”

  I hesitantly returned to the barrels, picked up the scoop from the ground and frantically splashed a few drops of water on my face, trying not to touch the creepy crawlies. I went back inside.

  “Where is the toilet? I have to do a number two.”

  The woman looked at me as if I was an insect and she was ready to squash me. “Get back out there, dig a hole and do it.”

  My jaw dropped. What? No toilet?

  I couldn’t hold on any longer so I ran back outside. I hid behind one of the water containers and did my business. Needing to wipe myself, I shouted out to anyone who could hear me. “I need some old newspaper. Can somebody please bring me some?”

  “Use the dry leaves or use your hands,” the woman shouted back.

  I shuffled around the yard with my pants half-down until I found some rough, dry foliage on the ground. With a grimace I wiped myself as best I could and I thanked God nobody was watching.

  Sneaking back past the woman to the bed, I re-joined Phuong and found two little girls sitting next to her.

  “Who are they?”

  “This frail, thin, spooky looking girl is Hanh. She was born after you and this cute little cherub is Tien. She is the youngest. They are our sisters and we are two years apart.”

  “How do you know they’re our sisters?”

  “Grandma told me before she left. Hanh is four and Tien is two,” Phuong said.

  “So does that mean I’m six and you are eight?”

  Phuong nodded and smiled. Hanh glared at us as if she intended to have us for dinner. We played with Tien while Hanh just sat and stared.

  The woman came inside carrying a small round clay cooking pot with steam spiralling out of it. “Go get some bowls from my room,” she ordered.

  Phuong and I searched the room.

  “There are no bowls here,” I called out.

  “Look again,” she yelled.

  We searched all over but couldn’t find anything except an old plastic rack with a few sad looking plastic spoons, several pairs of old chopsticks and some old, brown coconut shells.

  “There are only coconut shells,” I said to the woman.

  The woman gave us a death stare. “We use them as bowls, you idiot. Bring them here.”

  “Only beggars eat out of these yucky bowls,” I told Phuong.

  “Shut your big mouth,” Phuong whispered.

  The lady scooped some watery slop into the bowls.

  “There’s hardly any rice in here,” I complained.

  “What do you expect, your Royal Highness? Consider yourself lucky you got that to eat today. Tomorrow you might not get the same.” She turned away and walked out into the yard.

  “Who is the mean woman?” I asked.

  “She's our Mum,” Phuong replied.

  I zipped my lips and started eating, not daring to say another word. I waited and watched for Grandma to come however I didn’t know how long the wait would be. She would not have abandoned us. She would come, I knew she would. However I didn’t understand then the hell I would go through waiting for her to come back.

  Chapter 2

  For the next three miserable and chaotic years we had to call the sorry shack home. Gone was the beauty and peace of Grandma Tien. A daily ritual of two people fighting like wild unchained animals, shouting and calling each other unspeakable names became the normal thing.

  The wobbly hut with an uneven mud floor built right on the edge of the water, turned into a skating rink when it rained. The roof and walls leaked like a sieve. On rainy days or on days where the tide came in higher than usual, which happened weekly, we slept soaking wet with our teeth chattering from the cold. Sometimes in the mornings we’d have to wait until this woman who Phuong said was our mother, dragged buckets of black sand to pour on the slippery floor so that we didn’t slide all over the place.

  My Mum Be was a slender beautiful woman of around 5’3” (160 centimetres). My Dad Inh was a handsome man with short, black, wavy hair combed to one side and around 5’8” (173 centimetres) tall. Together my parents made a striking pair until they began to fight and then they turned into ugly monsters.

  Two agonising months went by and Grandma was still nowhere to be seen. Out of the blue Mum said we could go to school the next morning. I couldn’t wait to get away from the mad house. That night I tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

  The first trip to the school was a haunting experience and I still have nightmares nearly forty years on. On the ground along the way, human faeces littered the path.

  “Arggggghh, get away, get away from me! Phuong please keep those filthy fat flies away from me. Oh my God, look at them, they’ve laid maggots everywhere on those giant piles of human poop. Oh, my God. Look at those long white worms wrapping their bodies around the poo. This is so disgusting,” I yelled and covered my nose trying not to breathe in the odour.

  “Stop shouting, people are staring at us! Ignore the flies and be careful where you step. It’s not that hard to avoid stepping on the poop,” Phuong said.

  “Phuong! Can’t you see how awful and smelly this place is?”

  Phuong shrugged her shoulders at me as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  Mum ordered me to be quiet. “Just keep walking,” she shouted.

  I frowned and kept complaining in my head and took care with every step I made.

  A short whil
e later we stopped outside a half completed building and Mum introduced us to a petite lady with beautiful straight black hair that hung down to her waist. “Hello Mrs Mai, these are my girls.”

  Mrs Mai was friendly, patting us on the back and welcoming us.

  I frowned, confused. “I don’t see any school. Where is it Mum?”

  “This is it,” she replied.

  “This is a school? It doesn’t look anything like our big stone school with big gates in Cau Di. It has no windows, no doors and no walls. This is a broken house. Look Phuong, half of the tin covering on the ceiling is missing and the dirt floor looks just like our parents’ place.”

  Dozens of long rows of old desks and seats made from mangrove logs stored the children’s meagre belongings.

  The school was just an old abandoned house. Like many others that had belonged to the villagers who escaped the communists, this house had been stripped bare by looters.

  “Phuong, that bunch of kids, they look so poor, their clothes are torn and their hair is so messy and all tangled up, they look like they haven’t washed for years. Don’t they remind you of the street kids in Cau Di?”

  “Shhh, don’t be mean,” Phuong whispered.

  Mrs Mai introduced us to the kids; some Phuong’s age and some my age. I sat next to a girl named Nguyet. She was as tough as nails. For no reason we clicked right away and instantly became friends. Mrs Mai handed us a thin, rectangular piece of black metal about the size of a piece of a sheet of A4 paper. We were to use it as a writing slate and write on it with a thin white chalk stick. We had to return them both to her each day after class.

  Phuong and I were the only super rich kids, or so I thought; we were the only children who had books and pencils to write with, anyway - courtesy of Grandma who’d brought them with us when we left her house.

  During class we were separated into two groups - the young kids were in the front of the room, the older ones were at the back. Our group got to learn how to read and write while the others learned history, mathematics, and many other awesome things.