Bali 9: The Untold Story by Madonna King, Cindy Wockner Page A
Authors: Madonna King, Cindy Wockner
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to check the age identification they are carrying, telling the two blokes who have discarded their shirts to dress, and hoping their presence keeps in check some of the exuberance that can challenge them on some nights.
Michael Czugaj, Scott Rush and their friends wouldn’t look out of place here on Friday night, or any other night—it’s young, it’s hip and it’s happening. Neither would Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, the baker from a family of bakers who lived across the other side of Brisbane.
Wellington Point is a newish area of Brisbane, one of those suburbs hugging a big capital city, where voters targeted by the Liberal government of John Howard in the mid-1990s are making their mark and moving up. This is mortgage-belt country, where the houses are mainly brick and new, and the boats in some of the driveways are testament to the suburb’s growing affluence. The average wage of those living here has been steadily growing, although it still only hovers above $40 000 a year—but many are young and only starting out.
Each year more than 3000 people move into Wellington Point and other suburbs in the local shire area, and the number of babies born in this one suburb in recent years is three times as many as the number of deaths recorded. Young children ride their bicycles toschool during the week and play with their friends in the manicured parks each weekend.
Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen’s family lives in a good street here, in a house like many of the others. The asking price for a house up the street was $417 000, and while it offered ducted air and split-system air conditioning, was much roomier, and boasted Smeg appliances, it was an indication that the Nguyen family had chosen a good street in a good suburb in which to to raise their young clan. They stuck pretty much to themselves, though, their understanding of English much better than their ability to speak it, but they looked the part, coming from and going to work, ferrying their children to school and doing the weekend chores. They just fitted in like the other families who had chosen Wellington Point as their home.
Their eldest son, Tan Duc Thanh, was helping out in the family business, his siblings still at school. Tan Duc Thanh’s car was his pride and joy. He had taken out a loan to buy it, but the flashy, blue Nissan 2000 SX was worth every cent he had, and took pride of place in the driveway of the family home. It was done up to within an inch of its life, and every six weeks or so the car would undergo further enhancement: new side panels, a big stereo, 19-inch wheels. Some of the neighbours wondered what else could be done to it.
That was the picture of the Nguyen family, from street level.
Close up, things were not quite so neat and tidy. The lawn didn’t always get mowed when it should have andthe local throwaways would often remain on the lawn for days; so would the odd cigarette butt. The back yard, too, was littered with children’s toys, and the house was often unkept and untidy. Appearances within the Nguyens’ Vietnamese community were of paramount importance; at home they were not such a high priority.
There were other incongruities in the Nguyen home. One neighbour noticed that a big plasma TV screen filled one wall inside the house, but it seemed out of place against the basic lounge and chairs it surveyed. It looked so new, and so much else looked so old; it was squeaky clean, in contrast to everything that lay around it. But none of that worried the neighbours, who found the Nguyens to be a quiet and courteous family. Their children, especially their well-spoken and respectful daughter, were a credit to their family and didn’t give anyone cause for concern.
As the busy little suburb went about its daily business, neighbours would say hello to each other, the Nguyens joining in the civility. Or sometimes they’d just raise a hand in acknowledgment. They fitted in here, in Wellington Point in Queensland, and, like the hard-working
Michael Czugaj, Scott Rush and their friends wouldn’t look out of place here on Friday night, or any other night—it’s young, it’s hip and it’s happening. Neither would Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, the baker from a family of bakers who lived across the other side of Brisbane.
Wellington Point is a newish area of Brisbane, one of those suburbs hugging a big capital city, where voters targeted by the Liberal government of John Howard in the mid-1990s are making their mark and moving up. This is mortgage-belt country, where the houses are mainly brick and new, and the boats in some of the driveways are testament to the suburb’s growing affluence. The average wage of those living here has been steadily growing, although it still only hovers above $40 000 a year—but many are young and only starting out.
Each year more than 3000 people move into Wellington Point and other suburbs in the local shire area, and the number of babies born in this one suburb in recent years is three times as many as the number of deaths recorded. Young children ride their bicycles toschool during the week and play with their friends in the manicured parks each weekend.
Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen’s family lives in a good street here, in a house like many of the others. The asking price for a house up the street was $417 000, and while it offered ducted air and split-system air conditioning, was much roomier, and boasted Smeg appliances, it was an indication that the Nguyen family had chosen a good street in a good suburb in which to to raise their young clan. They stuck pretty much to themselves, though, their understanding of English much better than their ability to speak it, but they looked the part, coming from and going to work, ferrying their children to school and doing the weekend chores. They just fitted in like the other families who had chosen Wellington Point as their home.
Their eldest son, Tan Duc Thanh, was helping out in the family business, his siblings still at school. Tan Duc Thanh’s car was his pride and joy. He had taken out a loan to buy it, but the flashy, blue Nissan 2000 SX was worth every cent he had, and took pride of place in the driveway of the family home. It was done up to within an inch of its life, and every six weeks or so the car would undergo further enhancement: new side panels, a big stereo, 19-inch wheels. Some of the neighbours wondered what else could be done to it.
That was the picture of the Nguyen family, from street level.
Close up, things were not quite so neat and tidy. The lawn didn’t always get mowed when it should have andthe local throwaways would often remain on the lawn for days; so would the odd cigarette butt. The back yard, too, was littered with children’s toys, and the house was often unkept and untidy. Appearances within the Nguyens’ Vietnamese community were of paramount importance; at home they were not such a high priority.
There were other incongruities in the Nguyen home. One neighbour noticed that a big plasma TV screen filled one wall inside the house, but it seemed out of place against the basic lounge and chairs it surveyed. It looked so new, and so much else looked so old; it was squeaky clean, in contrast to everything that lay around it. But none of that worried the neighbours, who found the Nguyens to be a quiet and courteous family. Their children, especially their well-spoken and respectful daughter, were a credit to their family and didn’t give anyone cause for concern.
As the busy little suburb went about its daily business, neighbours would say hello to each other, the Nguyens joining in the civility. Or sometimes they’d just raise a hand in acknowledgment. They fitted in here, in Wellington Point in Queensland, and, like the hard-working
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