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The History Lesson 

On October 3, 2015, I went to visit the Sriracha factory for my audit class. It was a class field trip and we were given the assignment – to go to the warehouse and understand the business operation, name the controls that they had in place and the controls that they were missing. However, I learned a lot more than a class lesson during the field trip, I learned about my family’s history.

My sister and I carpooled to the factory and after arriving and seeing how many families were at the factory we decided to call and invite our parents. When my sister and I arrived, we immediately took a photo with the founder David. He was a cute little old man who reminded me a lot of my grandpa. He didn’t speak at all, he just stood there taking photos with everyone. After taking the photo, my sister and I went on the tour with a couple of our friends and met up with my parents after they finished the tour. My parents were really excited and told us that they wanted to take a family photo with David. We told them that we already had, but we’d take one with them too. We headed over to where David was taking photos earlier on in the day, and we were told that he had left for lunch and that we could take a photo with his cardboard cutout. We did that, and left.

When we arrived home we showed our parents the picture and we learned that David Tran named the company Huy Fung Foods, Inc.  He named it after the refugee ship that brought him and 3,000 others out of Vietnam and that my dad and my dad’s family were also on that ship. My dad and my mom went on to tell us more about how they escaped Vietnam in a ship and how they had to pay 9 pieces of gold to the government in order to leave. My mom was not as wealthy as my dad so she and her family escaped in a small wooden boat of 200 that could’ve flipped over anytime. I always knew about my parent’s hardship when they came to America but I never thought about the hardship that they had to go through to leave Vietnam and at such a young age. Learning more about my family’s history was very interesting and eye opening. Overall, this day has made me appreciate and respect my parents even more and has taught me to appreciate everything in life because I realized how fortunate I am.