Anh Nguyen Austen

And I sent it to a colleague who happened to be a French professor at the University of Melbourne.

And then she connected with the French Vietnamese that were in Paris.

And immediately they recognized the doctor and they said, why don't you stop in in Paris?

and you can have a meeting with him.

So I met him, and I was just kind of quietly stunned to meet this man who had been a part of my childhood rescue.

Yes, so he, the doctor, had told me that there was this annual celebration in mass.

So it was later in 2019 that I decided to go and meet the others in the mass.

But at the time, like maybe years back, because we were very close family friends of a family in Paris, I had kind of met the other children that had grown up with me during that time.

So it was a little bit of a family reunion with our fellow boat people in Paris.

And that was how that kind of historical excavation came about.

I guess it sounds a bit gimmicky, but I think, you know, if you rise, you kind of bring people up with you.

I think about that kind of very existential moment about being saved and how arbitrary it was, my life versus, say, 200,000 to 500,000 other people that drowned.

So I feel a tremendous sense of obligation to others and hence their stories and working with refugees and asylum seekers.

But I want to do it on the side of joy and hope.

And that's what the cooking is about, you know, just sharing stories about food and what I loved and what I remembered about childhood in Vietnam and cooking with my family.

and then the traditions that my grandmother created through food and the livelihood that they created.

So it's a way of celebrating and honoring them.

And that work, when I got that work in Native Title,

That was kind of my way of really getting a sense of belonging in Australia.

So I was always kind of grateful for whatever opportunities came my way.