I feel more sorry for my two sons, now, because my elder son always says, I want to change my name. I want to change my name, because every time I tell somebody my name, they call me a Chinko. You see? I say, it’s OK, I said, but when you’re young you get angry. But to me, I’m so used to it, it’s nothing any more. But then again, I feel so sorry for them. -I don’t know, but then for my second son, walking down the street one day, somebody came and spit in his face. He turned around and hit him, and I think he got, -the police arrest him or something like that. And that night, a policeman came to the house and he said to me, I want to see your son. And I say,yes, sit down. And he asked my son, he says, what’s your name? Samuel. And he looked at him. What is your Chinese name. Samuel. No, I want your Chinese name. And he was furious. And he got the pen and whatever, notebook or something. I want your Chinese name, Chinese name, he kept emphasising. So finally I say, excuse me sir, excuse me sir, his mother is Irish. He doesn’t have a Chinese name. Then the next day, his CPN came. I told his CPN what happened, but his CPN is so good, his CPN said, don’t worry, don’t worry, I’m going down to the police station with him and I explain everything to them. And he sort out everything. -Even name you can have problems, you know! So just, -to me, this is so very hard.

I have two sons, both are bi-polar and have a bi-polar disorder. The first one happened when he was about 19 or 20, -then within, then the second one happened, he was only 16 and at first I do not understand what it is all about, because my first son always do something, and I would get annoyed and I would always think that he’s lied to me. You lie to me. You lie to me. Nothing wrong with him. Until, until one day the police pick him up and put him in the hospital. Then I realised it was a psychiatry hospital, you know, for mental patients. So I said, There’s nothing wrong with my son, why is he there? Then the psychiatrist, -make an appointment to see the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist told me my son has mental problem and, you know, I could not accept it because he was doing well in school. But his problem is the company he mixed up with. My first son, when he was about 16, he start going out with the wrong crowd and they used to have parties and all these things. Actually he was living with his mother. I only see him weekends. And every time I see him, you know, we always do something. Then when his mother threw him out, he came and lived with me. Then I realised all this happening, which was a shock to me. Then they told me he was on drugs, and I couldn’t believe it and because I only see him once a week, Saturday, Friday night, Saturday night he goes, -or Sunday night he goes back to his mother. And I have a talk to his mother. His mother says it’s common. Everybody in school is doing it. So when he was living with me, I move him from one school to another, he, every time he get suspended or he gets, you know, suspension and all this thing

Then the problem is always go back to the same group of friends. Yes but then again that’s not uncertain that- But then again, when they told me he’s mentally ill and the psychiatrist say to me, Partly due to drugs. So at the beginning I can’t believe it, you know. Then before you know, the second one was thrown out too, and they came to me, the second one came to me too. And he was no better, he was even worse, because he start to, he hear voices and he was saying things which I don’t, I can’t see. He was talking me about the spirit, the ghost, you know, somebody is following him and all these things. Before you know, he’ll end up in the same, the same hospital. Then they told me it’s very unusual for two brothers to be there. Then there’s no answer.

I went in. She’s not there. She’s in London, at a meeting in London, no, a parliament in London. She says, What’s your problem? And when I told her my problem, she says, You know something? Every day somebody is trying to kill themselves. I’ve got people they’re coming, cut themselves in front of me, and asking for help, and all this things. She says, It’s terrible, nothing can be done. So I was lucky the person who wrote the name of, everything, is on the carers letter there. And I show her the letter then. Then she looks, she says, Oh, from the carers. I say, Yeah, I go to carers. They told me to come here. Right away she took down the detail. Carer does help. You have some backing. You go yourself, nobody want to see you.

Community? If anybody heard that you have a sick son, they don’t want to know you. That’s the worst part. People still have the idea that, that -I still hear people saying to me, saying to somebody, You know, he has two sons, they are sick. And when people hear that, they don’t want their children to even come any nearer. Because they are afraid, you know, that your son might do something, or something. But then again, I don’t blame them either, because, because they do not have enough knowledge that not all sick people are violent, not all sick people are, are bad. They have a life. To me, it’s amazing’ People tell me, in Northern Ireland, one in four is mentally depressed, or something like that. You walk in the shopping centre, you see four of them, you say, which one? Therefore it’s, -because my two son has a lot of relatives here, must have 40, or 50 relatives here. Not one of them come near. Not one.

In Northern Ireland, even in Northern, everywhere, everywhere you go, the same. You don’t like it, go home. But then again, my answer is, it’s not only for me, because there’s a lot of Irish people are not well too, and they need to be, you know, concerned about this problem too. But then again for, it’s very hard for minority to express their views, because any time a minority express their views, and even my ex wife said to me a couple of times, if you don’t like it, what are you doing here? I say, it’s not only for me, it’s, I turn a blind eye, it’s not, it’s for the good of everybody here too. But they take it in a different way. Like I criticise the system and the National Health system is the best in the world, you say, where else you can get a National Health like that? And you’re running down the National Health, like I’m running down the people that treat me. The idea was completely different from my ideas. I don’t know, but six months after my second son, -I took him back here, because both my son always say to me, they call me Chinky, they call me this, they, I say, don’t worry, I say, I’ve been called names all over the world. Not only here. In America, I said prejudice in every race, not only the Irish, not only-. The Chinese are prejudiced too. Every country. In America you see the Italian, the Italian will not like the British always. Or the German and all. It’s common. Every country. Prejudice not only between the colour, between people, different, from different country. But that’s why I keep seeing my son annoyed. I say, if somebody call you name, just pretend you don’t speak English, just laugh. He has been called names. I just, yeah, yeah, yeah. I walk to shopping centre one day, one day somebody say, which Chinese restaurant you work? I didn’t say nothing and he say to me, chop chop, chop chop. And I thought, -I just laughed. I say, yeah, yeah, chop chop. I mean, by making fun that way you avoid confrontation.

In America, where I come from, you can go to a police station and say to the police, sir, I have a son who has a mental problem, his name is so and so, his address is so and so. And in case you see him in the stall, or something like that, he needs medical treatment. And the police would take down everything. The minute something happen, poom, the police will get the ambulance, right into the hospital instead of jail. But you don’t have that kind of system here. And the only, -another thing, the policemen are not trained to do all these things. Like my son, the policeman came, he was so rough on him, you know although he has mental problem. The police are not trained. The police don’t know what is mental health. The police does not know how sick he is. But, to me, if you, if every community would work with the law enforcement, hand in hand, things might get better, you know. American, some towns, not all, some towns, to me, they are very, very good. I can go the police station, and say to police, see my son, he’s mentally sick. And any trouble, send him to the hospital right away. But then again, here, you can’t, you can’t send them to hospital. You have to get your doctor. You’ve got to get psychiatrist. You’ve got the two policemen. You have to get nurses. You get all, six or seven people have to come before this thing. In America, -poom [claps hands], you go. They save a lot of trouble, you, -they will help the patient too.