The “Happiest Refugee” is the official autobiography of the Australian comedian Anh Do. The book is based around his life story starting in Vietnam and then becoming a fascinating story about his triumphs and darkest hours. Anh and his family went through many challenges as depicted in his text and these included the struggles Ahn faced at St Aloysius School, thereby depicting his social context. Ahn Do’s journey over to Australia was also conveyed through the use of descriptive and emotive language and depicted his social and historical context.
Another struggle was how survived by using some strong survival instincts, Ahn conveys this through the use of descriptive, characterisation by the use of thought and dialogue and the use of emotive language. It is depicted by it historical context. Another struggle Ahn and his family felt his the separation on form his father And how Ahn conveys this through technique of lexical choice and emotive language. It is depicted by its social context. Ahn Do journey through school was a tough and painful battle.
Firstly he never had the privilege to afford any equipment for the school such as books, laptop etc and never had enough money for excursions and camps. Ahn Do has used many powerful and moving techniques to tell the readier how he felt while going through his school. In the book he used language techniques to describe how he felt about St Aloysius. For example it states, ‘It was about halfway through Year 10 when I decided enough was enough. I told mum I hated St Aloysius, it was too far away, taking almost two hours of travel to and from Milsons Point each day.
I told her I wanted to attend the local public school. It was a total lie. At the time I was the student council representative, my marks were good and I loved my sport. Most of all I loved my mates. But none of this mattered when weighed up against the hardship my mum was going through and I would’ve happily given it all up to see her work a little bit less; to have her fall sick less frequently. ‘ From the word ‘hate’ it shows the technique of lexical choice to show us how he felt about St Aloysius and how he felt about his mother’s financial stress.
Other evidence showing how he felt at St Aloysius, and his mother financial struggle is, “St Aloysius was a great school but what is caused was a lots of discomfort for Khoa and I was the socio-economic mismatch of a private school expenses verses our single mums wages”. Through the comparison of an ‘economic mismatch versus our single mum’s wages, it shows that Ahn and his family found it hard to attend the school and to get the proper equipment for the school.
It also caused a lot of financial pressure on the family, and struggling on a single parent wage, since the father had left them, their mum was force to take three jobs in order to just get them to school. Ahn Do and his family were not sure that they were going to make it to Australia. All that keep them alive was the there strong survival instinct and their sense of hope that there is a future out there.
During the beginning of this book it tells the hard felt story of how Ahn Do and his family journeyed his way over here from Vietnam through the treacherous seas and pirates and nearly died by the sheer luck they were saved by the Germans. This depicts their historical context as they escaped out from Vietnam on a small fishing boat. While on the boat, they encountered pirates and one of them picked up the closest smallest baby to him and threaten to throw him over board. When this happened his father response was, ‘We must fight to the death to SAVE THE CHILD, Suddenly guns were lifted machetes were raised.
The robbery now turned into a full-blown standoff: nine men with weapons against thirty-seven starving refugees and a baby dangling over the sea” Form this piece of text it shows that Ahn used strong emotive language to convey his experiences when his father said that he would fight to the death to save the child. Another piece of evidence is when Ahn told the story of when they were saved by the Germans,’ On the fifth day Mum squinted at a distant shape. The boat grow bigger and bigger and bigger still. We saw a flag waving on its mast. It was a huge boat.
A ship, actually. Our boatload of beaten refugee stirred and stared-waiting, hoping, but terrified to hope too much. The ship came closer and suddenly a voice blared through a loudspeaker. It was incomprehensible, shocking in its loudness. These were no Thai pirates. They were Germans. Their fair faces smiled down at us, giving us benevolent looks that said, ‘You will be okay now’. From this piece of text it shows us that they had to uses the strong survival instincts to survive and their sense of hope that they were going to survive and they were going to have a a future.
This shows me that people all around the world now matter where you are, are willing to help people who are in need, and from this their helpfulness saved a lot of people. Families are very important in life and that the separation from Ahn’s father brought hardship and misery to him and his family. During this book Ahn has used language techniques to describe how he felt about his separation from his father. ‘One night! awoke to the awful sound of swearing, breaking furniture and bodies thumping against the wall.
I ran out to see my father and Uncle Three tangled in a bloody wrestle on the floor of our living room. They were trying to kill each other. My mum was screaming for them to stop, threatening to call the police and at the same trying to shoo away the kids from the appalling scene. Tran back into my room and tried my best to block out the dreadful noise. For the first time in my life I was genuinely afraid. ” Form this piece of text it show us Ahn used the technique of lexical to show us how he felt about the argument and break up with his father.
This is depicted by it social contexts when there father left them after the argument between there father Uncle Three and their mother. Another example that their father absent caused them hardship and misery to Ahn Do and his family is ‘One night my mum came into my bedroom. The terror on her face was obvious-she was pale as a sheet and had been crying. “Your father coming. ‘ locked up my little brother and sister in the toilet and answered the door.
A drunken man stood in front of me. ” Where’s your mum? ” “Inside” “Get her out her. “No” No, you stupid fool. You no longer have the right to order anyone around. And if you try and force your way in, I will kill you. My mum came running out. “What do you want? ” She asked him through tears. She pushed me back and even through her palpable terror she put herself in a position to defend me. I went back inside to get my knife. I returned to the door and find my father sobbing. I was shocked. I had never seen him like this before.
Ever. He turned and walked away, and I didn’t see him for the rest of my childhood. Form this piece of text it show us that it cause a lot of misery and heart ache when their father left them on Ahn do, his mother and his siblings. This shows me that many families have struggle with alcohol problem and that I as a young kid have faced this challenge once when my father once was drunk and got out of control and had a fight with my uncle and after this my father and uncle left me and my siblings alone because our my already left. In conclusion, Ahn has faced many tough and challenging battle in his life form the wars of Vietnam to the pirates of the sea to the break up of Ahn do’s parents.
He used many powerful and moving stories to tell us his experience and his point of view about what happened and how he felt while encountering these challenges. Ahn used strong language techniques to express the challenges he faced during these problems. The example of these are the technique of lexical choice descriptive and emotive language. Ahn is a strong and brave man that faced many hard and tough challenges in life and now living a wonderful well-off life like his mother wanted him to.