Minh Tam Nguyen was born on 25 November, 1947. In 1968, he enlisted in the South Vietnamese Army in the war against the North Vietnamese. On 20 March 1975, he was captured in the Phubon jungle while fighting. It is a day Minh Tam Nguyen will never forget. He was taken to a re-education camp in central Vietnam and suffered six years of hard labour. He was a prisoner of war. Being a prisoner, there wasnt much to do. As a teenager, Minh Tam Nguyen had always had a love of music, so he invented an instrument similar to a guitar called the dan tre which was made from bamboo. Minh Tam Nguyen even taught a few of the other prisoners how to play! Minh Tam Nguyen was released from the camp in 1981 and fled to the Philippines by boat, with only his son. He had to leave his wife and three other children behind. Minh Tam Nguyens journey to Australia with his son was quite horrific as they had little to eat and wild storms almost caused the boat to sink twice. Minh Tam Nguyen and his son finally arrived in Australia in 1982, and to earn money Minh Tam Nguyen taught music in Brisbane. He began playing the dan tre in public as a way to share his story of how his life was changed by war. Finally in 1990, Minh Tam Nguyens wife and other children arrived in Australia. This made him very happy. In 1990, Minh Tam Nguyen donated the dan tre to the National Museum of Australia. Dn tre musical instrument