NAM

As much as The People’s Republic of Poland may seem a distant country hidden behind the Iron Curtain, it was an open and welcoming one... towards other socialist states. Student exchange programmes were one of the many ways of building international socialist partnerships. The Vietnam War was just ending when Hai ‘Nam’ Bui Ngoc had reached university. He was one of the few lucky ones given a chance to travel to the other side of the world to study ship building. After a few weeks spent travelling by train from Hanoi to Warsaw, he saw everything other than what he had imagined. But this was only the beginning of his incredible journey... Like our show? Sign up for our newsletter! Time stamps [01:08] What does Nam mean? [02:09] The end of the world: growing up during the Vietnam War [07:14] Moving to Poland to study shipbuilding [12:51] Vietnamese secret agents appear [13:51] Becoming a guru [15:21] Love [16:30] Escape [20:44] 'What saved me was a hand' [23:22] Asylum in France [24:13] Problems in heaven & a difficult return to Poland ​​​​​​​[25:36] Where home is Further reading & watching Nam’s martial arts school // official website June 1976 and the Workers’ Defence Committee // an article on the Workers Defence Committee on Poland.pl Polska PRL 1974 r // Polish news chronicle from 1974 on Youtube Polska 1975, Polska Kronika Filmowa // Polish news chronicle from 1975 on Youtube ( Life In Gdansk ) (1971) // British Pathé footage of Gdańsk in 1971 on Youtube Credits Written & produced by Monika Proba Edited by Wojciech Oleksiak & Adam Zulawski Hosted by Nitzan Reisner & Adam Zulawski Scoring & sound design by Wojciech Oleksiak

You can listen to NAM online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

NAM is an episode from Stories From The Eastern West by Culture.pl.

This episode is 00:28:20 long.

This episode was published on Sep 30, 2020.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Stories From The Eastern West when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.