{"id":8659,"date":"2024-08-23T08:43:38","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T08:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/its-not-every-day-you-meet-another-vietnam-orphan\/"},"modified":"2024-08-23T08:43:38","modified_gmt":"2024-08-23T08:43:38","slug":"its-not-every-day-you-meet-another-vietnam-orphan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/its-not-every-day-you-meet-another-vietnam-orphan\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It\u2019s not every day you meet another Vietnam orphan’"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Andy [left] and Barton [right] say they have formed a lifelong bond <\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Andy Yearley and Barton Williams grew up at opposite ends of the world – but when they met, they discovered a shared past. <\/p>\n

Both were “rescued” from Saigon orphanages after the US withdrew its troops from Vietnam in the early 1970s.<\/p>\n

Thousands of children were rehomed in the United States but Barton grew up in south Australia and Andy ended up on the Scottish island of Lewis.<\/p>\n

The pair met by chance in 2021 while Barton was starring in a surfing film set on the island. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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They had both grown up as Asian children in a predominantly white neighbourhoods, with no memory or knowledge of Vietnam.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s not every day you meet another Vietnam orphan,” Andy says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s like meeting a twin brother \u2013 a blood brother.<\/p>\n

“We just clicked straight away.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The bond between the two men has been brought to life on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe in Precious Cargo – a theatre performance telling the stories of the Vietnamese orphans.<\/p>\n

The show explores the individual experience of each person but also their shared feelings of displacement.<\/p>\n

“Andy has lived almost a repeat life to mine but in Scotland,” Barton says in his broad Australian accent.<\/p>\n

“He has grown up in a very predominant white middle-class environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe looks full Viet, but he doesn\u2019t sound like a Viet – just like me.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"RalphRalph Tonge<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A Fringe show, called Precious Cargo, explores the stories of the Vietnamese orphans <\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Andy was adopted by Eileen and Iain Yearley after he had been found in the Saigon orphanage by a friend of the family.<\/p>\n

According to Andy, the only flight he could be put on was to Orly airport in France.<\/p>\n

“My adopted mum had to travel there – apparently there was no-one with me,\u201d Andy says.<\/p>\n

“I was left alone as a baby in the airport.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was brought up in the village of Keose, about 12 miles from Stornoway, the main town on Lewis.<\/p>\n

He says he wore thick NHS glasses and had long black hair to protect his ears after they were damaged in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

“I was one of the only Asian people in the Western Isles, certainly the only Vietnamese,” he says.<\/p>\n

His parents never mentioned Vietnam, he says.<\/p>\n

“They were my parents and I was their child,” Andy says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Andy<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Andy is just one of 3,300 Vietnaemse war orphans taken from Vietnam<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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By early 1975, it was becoming clear that the war would end as South Vietnam strongholds fell to the communist forces of the Viet Cong. <\/p>\n

Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled by air and sea, including westerners and Vietnamese people who had supported the Americans.<\/p>\n

The US military had left the country two years prior but a feeling of concern and panic was building among the western public for the orphaned children left behind.<\/p>\n

Their cries were heard by President Gerald Ford, who ordered Operation Babylift, taking 2,000 South Vietnamese children from orphanages to the United States.<\/p>\n

The final flight filled with children and orphanage staff took to the skies as artillery fire came barrelling towards the runway.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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President Gerald Ford with Vietnamese children as they arrived in the United States<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

‘Playboy bunnies’ carried Vietnamese babies off Hugh Hefner’s private jet, who ordered it to travel to Vietnam to aid Operation Babylift <\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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“The Vietnam War and Operation Babylift is not something that many people – including myself – know an awful lot about,” Andy says.<\/p>\n

“Part of bringing the play to the Fringe is to raise awareness of the historical event”, Barton says.<\/p>\n

“People always say sorry when they find out you are adopted, and I always replied ‘Why? Don’t be sorry’.”<\/p>\n

The show was originally performed in London as a full-length play of Barton’s personal experience but in bringing the show to the Fringe the creative team decided to give it a more Scottish focus.<\/p>\n

Despite a life working with music, the play was Andy\u2019s first experience in the theatre industry. He wrote original compositions for the play, while Barton is the lead and sole actor.<\/p>\n

Andy and Barton were introduced to each other by a friend who was working on Barton’s surf film, Laura Cameron-Lewis, who became the play’s director. <\/p>\n

Her husband Andrew Eaton-Lewis, then joined the Precious Cargo project as a producer to develop the script and find other orphans.<\/p>\n

“I didn\u2019t want it to be narcissistic,” Barton says.<\/p>\n

“Now that it’s moulded with other orphans, it isn\u2019t just my story, it’s more than that.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The show features cardboard boxes – as they were predominantly used to transport Operation Babylift children<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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There are unanswered questions for many children taken from Vietnam.<\/p>\n

Andy and Barton travelled back at different points in their life to experience the culture of their birth country. <\/p>\n

Andy travelled to Ho Chi Minh City, the official name for Saigon, for a BBC2 documentary in 2004 to explore Vietnam for the first time.<\/p>\n

Andy, who works as a music teacher, played accordion for children at the orphanage where he had been found.<\/p>\n

He says his only link to his past was locating the street he was found on.<\/p>\n

Barton was unaware of any living blood relatives until he recently discovered a second cousin through an ancestry website.<\/p>\n

His search was aided by another Viet war orphan, Toni Angelique Harrison<\/a>, who is still searching for her own mother.<\/p>\n

Toni, who was raised in Bedfordshire in England, has her voice and story feature in the show and hopes the publicity could reunite her with her mother. <\/p>\n

She travelled to the US to meet her father in 2018, an American soldier who fell for her Vietnamese mother.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"ToniToni Angelique Harrison<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Toni is just one of many Vietnamese war orphans who feature in Precious Cargo, still searching for their blood family<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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\"ToniToni Angelique Harrison<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Baby Toni and her father, American soldier Lee Butler – who she met in 2018 through an online DNA test<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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For all the children of Operation Babylift, time is not on their side, the play’s producer says.<\/p>\n

With the 50th anniversary fast approaching, the tragic reality is that their parents might not be here for much longer.<\/p>\n

“Operation Babylift was seen as controversial at the time,” Mr Eaton-Lewis says.<\/p>\n

“Was it the right thing to do?<\/p>\n

He says: “The Americans exercising their guilt over Vietnam, it all seemed quiet colonialist \u2013 all these white families, adopting Vietnamese babies.<\/p>\n

“But talking to the various adoptees, they are all very positive about their experience.<\/p>\n

“They are aware it is a strange thing to grow up in these very white environments, and some of them did experience racism and it was very difficult.<\/p>\n

“But we have very much based this show on what these people have told us \u2013 and they were very grateful.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The plays producer Andrew Eaton-Lewis, introduced Barton to Andy along with his wife, Laura, who directed the play<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Despite the successful flights, Operation Babylift began in tragedy as an operational failure caused the first plane to crash, killing 138 people, including 78 children.<\/p>\n

In total, a huge humanitarian effort saw 3,300 Viet children – not all of them orphans – make it safely to western allies such as the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK and West Germany.<\/p>\n

Many of the children were orphaned by war, but some had just been separated from their parents in the chaos. <\/p>\n

But because of their coincidental meeting and work on the Fringe show, both men say it has brought their personal situation fresh in their mind.<\/p>\n

Almost 50 years on, many are still searching for their biological families. <\/p>\n

Precious Cargo is on Summerhall in Edinburgh until 26 August.<\/i><\/p>\n

Thanks to Oli Charbonneau, lecturer of American History, at the University of Glasgow. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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More on orphans affected by Operation Babylift<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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BBC Andy [left] and Barton [right] say they have formed a lifelong bond Andy Yearley and Barton Williams grew up at opposite ends of the world – but when they met, they discovered a shared past. Both were “rescued” from Saigon orphanages after the US withdrew its troops from Vietnam in the early 1970s. Thousands […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8661,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8659\/revisions\/8661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}