Prologue

Abstract

Some years ago I visited a transit camp for refugees from Vietnam in Hong Kong. To reach it we had driven through a raucous, lively area of that town which vibrates with vitality. Suddenly turning into a narrow dusty lane, we arrived in a different world. An old army barracks, cut off from the town by a wire fence topped with barbed wire, lay ahead. It was a massive four-storey, grey, rectangular building surrounded by a concrete pathway and divided along its length by fetid drains. 200 families lived here in primitive conditions, looked after by a tiny group of devoted but often helpless paid staff, and some voluntary workers. The Vietnamese waited patiently but often unrealistically for opportunities to enter countries which would give them the chance to work and make new lives for themselves and their children.