central vietnam :)

Going to Central Vietnam just confirmed that I made the right in choosing EAP VIETNAM!!! Best school year ever…tedious hours of traveling, train rides with new cockroach friends, excursions to tombs of dead emperors, snorkeling in salty-ass water and getting three shades darker, nothing can top this :)
If you read this Gerard, I think you should move the program to Da Nang because it is just that amazing although Hanoi is awesome <3 Darn Anh Cui for upgrading our hotel rooms from deluxe to luxury. But no seriously thank you for all your guidance. Mien Trung is awesome. Thank you Gerard, Anh Thai, Chi Moc, Anh Cui and Chi Mi Sao for making all this possible <3

I felt more at peace at Quy Ngon and Hue because there was less traffic, less noise and people spoke with a southern dialect which was easier to understand and people were just generally nicer.

One of the best parts of this trip was my experience at the nunnery. When we first arrived at the nunnery, I thought it was pretty cool. But after we went inside the house where we met some of the nuns and I felt weird and like I was out of place (I even told Mindy). I’m not too sure what made me feel that way but I know that it had nothing to do with my religious beliefs.

After we had lunch, some of the girls went to help do the dishes while the rest of us met with the head nun. She was so open to us about her life and answered everything that we asked. She grew up in a broken family where her parents were always fighting so she came to the temple to escape all of it. There, she found shelter and peace. She was only thirteen at the time. She wanted to live at the temple but they refused to take her in because she was too young. Ever since that day until she turned eighteen, she went to temple every day. During her stay at the temple, she learned that she needed to be the mediator between her mom and dad to stop them from arguing and help her family find peace while helping others as well. Her story was so inspirational and she is such a selfless person. I wish that I have the courage and stamina to do what she does in my daily life. After hearing all this, I no longer felt like I did not belong. Sitting there, watching and listening her speak reminded me of my Ba Noi.

When Gerard donated money to the temple, she did not want to take it and was like save it for the kids to buy snacks and candy. (At this I was tearing up and trying so hard not to cry). She is such a beautiful person with a beautiful heart that you just cant help to love by just being in her presence. To me it does not matter what god or who you believe in, and I truly admire everything that she has done for herself, the other nuns, the temples and every one she has reached out to.

Even though I bet I missed some cool stuff at the De-militarized Zone (DMZ), I’m glad that I decided to go to the nunnery.

Ethics

It's been over a week since I last volunteered at Sao Mai, I can only hope I don't forget everything that I wanted to say. There is often a misconception between ethics and feelings. They are two different things and it is often said that feelings often deviate from ethics. Furthermore, religion is does not share the same ideas as ethics although religion can set higher standards of ethics and values. Ethics and morals are crucial because I believe that they truly define a person. If a person doesn't have any ethics, then I'd rather not waste my time or his associating.

I understand that in a room with about fifteen toddlers, it's hard to give all the attention that they need. But a problem that I see is favoritism in the classroom. I've been in the classroom when one of the teacher's twelve-years- old daughter visited the class. I do not think that that teacher would appreciate someone who was caring for her daughter to favor another child over her. They have a tendency to do this when the child is a faster learner because this makes it easier on the teachers. In this case, I've seen that the teacher kind of give up hope on some particular child and would try and spend more time on one child for a longer period. In another case, I've also seen her feed one child more when the child is happy and can scoop his own food out of the bowl. Also, last week we got a new student in our class. I noticed that he is always crying and I think that being away from his parents and loud noises causes him frustration. Today, I saw him crying with his hands over his ears and before that he was sneakily trying to get his bag and kind of escape the room because he was observant and watching the teacher and only moving when she was not looking. The point of this is to bring up the fact that I do not know for sure if it is that the teachers purposefully ignore some of the needs of the children or innocently unaware of the kids behavior and their reaction toward them. Overall, I just believe that attention should be fair and addressed accordingly.

I believe that cultural differences also play a significant role in ethics. Like I have said before, I don't believe that creating fear in a child is the best way to teach them. In my family, neither my brother nor I have ever been hit. The other day one of the younger teacher was about to discipline a child by slapping the child’s hand but I looked at her and smiled at her and she didn’t hit the child. I think that there is another way to teach and discipline a child. I do think that it is ethically wrong to hit a child but I do understand that culture and society is different in Vietnam and that I am no longer in the United States. Thus each culture has a different way of teaching and raising children because this is not only reflective in the classroom but also in the home. I do condemn hitting a child, but I also have an open mind to understand why teachers resort to hitting. Part of service learning is to understand how they organization works. There’s a reason behind everything, especially an organization like Sao Mai which is so structured. An important part of this is to remember that we are there to learn, and part of that is understanding the operations of the organization and the ethics of both the teachers and organizations while also keeping in mind of what is right and what is wrong.

If I Can Be Half the Person My Mom Is

Saturday was my mom’s 30th year anniversary since she stepped foot onto American soil. My mom has encountered many hardships that I, myself, cannot imagine enduring and overcoming those obstacles. Born into a world without a father, my mom had to look elsewhere for a father-figure (my grandpa was captured during the war, to this day the whereabouts of his remain is unknown). At the age of sixteen, my mom began going to school for sewing. As the war continued, more and more people and neighbors attempted to escape and seek refuge outside of Vietnam. By seventeen, she decided that she wanted to leave to. Although my grandma was afraid for my mom’s safety, she let her go because one of the family-friend that my grandma knew was also leaving. So that night, my mom secretly hopped on a small boat and slipped away into the dark ocean. In the midst of fleeing Vietnam, her boat was raid by local pirates. (I cannot remember much about this encounter.) After a few weeks at sea, the boat drifted to an island, and she stayed there until my uncle was able to sponsor her to the States.

When my mom arrived to the United States, she enrolled in Bolsa Grande High School (the school that I was supposed to go to). Not too long after that she became friends with my uncle’s wife’s little sister. My mom decided to move out with the friend and live on the little government support she received since she didn’t get along with my uncle and his wife too well. At the time my uncle, his wife, my aunt’s little sister, three other uncles and my grandparents lived in the same household. My dad’s mom seeing that my mom needed a place to stay took my mom in. But not too long after that they moved to Texas and my mom went too. My dad had just got a divorce and it was in Texas that they met. (My mom told me that my dad would turn on the record and dance by himself while she hid and watched him. Lol.)

She came to the United States without any money, yet she made something out of her life. She got a job, met my dad, got married, had my BROTHER and I :) I truly admire my mom and if i can become half the person my mom is when I am a mom, I’ll be okay <3

If you ever read this mom, I LOVE YOU!!!

There a lot more of detail that I am ashamed to say that I have not uncovered but tune in next time and maybe you can hear my dad’s side of the story. hehehe

A New Side to Service-Learning - Tolerance & Acceptance

This week was Lan, Nancy and my first full week at Sao Mai due to our trip to Ha Long Bay and Vietnam’s Independence Day. On Monday, Nancy and I went to the Café located inside of Sao Mai. I talked to Chi Uyen about the shop and why it was there. She told me that it provided training for the kids who had autism. Those kids are sixteen and according to her they are not really capable of doing difficult work so she helps them with basic, household tasks such as wiping down the tables. While learning these practical skills, this also gives them an opportunity to talk to some of the customers or workers there. They know simple things like their name and how old they are. I believe that this type of training is a good skill for them to learn; however, I do not think that they system or infrastructure that is in place is very efficient. There are a total of 14 sixteen-year-old kids with autism. Every morning from 8 to 11am, there are two of them working at the coffee shop and every day they rotate so the next day there would be two different students. I think this is very inefficient in that it would be two weeks before the kids could work in the coffee shop again and during the meantime when they finished their turn and wait for the cycle to repeat, they’re pretty much are not learning any other skill which I believe could be really beneficial to them. At this time, I have not though of any ways that I can help these kids because whenever I come to volunteer at Sao Mai, these kids are already done with their shifts so maybe perhaps, sometime I can come in the morning this week or next to see if I can work with them. Also, I know that maintaining the store front of the coffee shop is important but I believe that our time was better used to help and interact with kids rather than sweeping and mopping the store while Chi Uyen plucked out the white hair of some older lady who worked there. Chi Uyen is really nice but I just didn’t really understand the point of that task except lending a hand (of which we did offer to help in the first place).

On Monday, Nancy and I worked in the kitchen for about 30 minutes. There we met Co Hieu. I talked to her for a while while I was washing the dishes. She asked me questions about my family and past and I told her and so I asked her about her past especially since I noticed that she had a southern accent, I was interested to hear why and how she was living the North. She asked me about my parent and I said that they escaped Vietnam during the war and she told me that she was not able to escape herself. Thus she fled to Russia for the past 18-20 years and recently moved back to Russia because she wanted her son to learn Vietnamese because of growing up in Russia, he learned Russian and never really had a connection to Vietnam besides his parents. IT was definitely interesting to hear her story and I want to perhaps sit down and have a deep conversation with her because we do not get to hear a lot of the story of people who were not able to escape and we don’t know much about their struggles.

The week before Chi Uyen went to the bus station and asked around for us which bus would take us directly back to Hanoi University. We found that the 22 saves us about the 13 minute walk on the street with floating with syringes. So after taking the 02 there, Nancy and I took the 22 back to campus (Lan was sick that day). On Friday, we tried taking the 22 to Sao Mai, got off at one stop too earlier and got lost in the hot sun for 45 minutes.

On my last blog, I wrote that someone (Miki) saw the teacher hit one of the kids with an object. This week was the first time that I’ve seen such action with my own eyes. It is really difficult to see a child get hit. What was even worst was that when Hien, the little girl, persistently kept crying and wandering out of her seat, one of the teachers grabbed her by the ear to sit her down. My brother and I were never hit or spanked in any way but we were still really discipline. I understand that culture is very different but I bet that the teachers would not spank a child in front of their parent so why even do it at all. All the teacher is doing is creating fear in the kids and that’s no way to grow up.

I think the more and more I come to Sao Mai, the teachers get more used to me being the classroom and treat the kids how they normally do when there isn’t more supervision in the room. On the first day, she seemed like a caring teacher and as time progressed I see more of these heinous actions.

The Story of Kieu

I could remember when VHS were still “in” like it was yesterday. My parents and I used to always rent cai luong from the local Vietnamese rentals store (it was my BLOCKBUSTER). We would watch it as a family (minus my brother because he was not into cai luong). We sat around the family room and watched it practically every day during the span between dinner and bedtime. After years of constantly watching cai luong, I was able to predict the actors’ next lines and sing along as young as I can remember.

Looking back, it was a great way to learn Vietnamese while exposing me to Vietnamese art and literature and spending quality time with my family. Sadly, the last time I watched cai luong was probably when I was in the sixth grade (more than eight years ago). I am ashamed to say this, but as the years have passed and the busier I get, I have lost a sense of traditional Vietnamese culture.

Fortunately for me, I was able to watch cai luong again for the first time in ages. I love Broadway and assumed that I would also love cai luong. However, do to the language barrier now because of my lack of using Vietnamese have made it harder for me to speak, read and write the language. If it was not for the play bill, I probably would not have understood what was going on in the story. Furthermore, this kind of theme was different than the usual cai luong stories that I used to watch. I thought this story was kind of scandalous because of all the kind of situations Kieu encountered were extreme. My stories included more traditional, rural Vietnamese peasants rather than warriors.

I recently I lost my relationship that I had with my dad when growing up. So watching cai luong again was kind of a happy moment but depressing at the same time. But overall, I think it was a great experience even though I could only understand 50% of what they say. I enjoyed how elaborate the costumes were and admire the actor’s talent in being able to carry out their voice for so long. Watching these kinds of performances/shows again always gives me goose-bumps because I get excited about it.

First of Day of Volunteering - Language and Communication

We finally arrived at Sao Mai after hopping on the bus and walking on the streets infested with syringes. Luckily when we arrived, Chi Phuong was coming back from lunch. Chi Phuong introduced us to a young lady who runs the coffee shop as an additional source of income for Sao Mai. We also met another woman who is in charge of the kitchen. After meeting the other staff at the organization, Chi Phuong took us up to the classroom. Since my name was first on the list, Chi Phuong stationed me at the first room which was a nursery for two-year-old toddlers. I was scared and skeptical at first because I am not used to dealing with kids on a daily or weekly basis so I wanted to switch rooms and work with kids who were a little bit older and can understand what I try to say or need to teach them. I love kids but I am hopeless when it comes to them crying or misbehaving. I reminded myself that I need to keep an open mind, have patiences and be willing to learn.

Surprisingly, I felt welcomed as I enter the classroom. A baby named Thành walked toward me, and wanted to be picked up (I later learned that he just wanted to get out of the pen because he saw that I had access into and out of the classroom). In the classroom that I was assigned to, there were four teachers: Cô Vinh, Chị Hoa, Chị Thủy and another young lady. They were all really nice and welcoming. I decided to tag along and help Cô Vinh with the toddlers because she seems like she was the most experienced and she had the most kids to take care of. They asked my questions about me and my background but of course there were still terms that I did not fully know or statements that I did not understand. Overall, I was able to make out most of the things that they say. In one instance, I asked Cô Vinh if one of the children was mixed and she said no and additionally, she told me that he was born with a heart condition but I did not know what she was saying at first but after asking her to explain it, I was able to understand. There is a language barrier that keeps me from asking all the questions or understanding what people say, but I think that the best way to learn is to utilize your mouth, ask questions and seek help. (As an elderly woman I met at the airport on my way to vietnam said: Your mouth is the answer to everything).

Another barrier that I faced during my first day volunteering was customs and ways of dealing with kids. I recall that one of the UC students saw a teacher discipline a child with a ruler. It is hard to hear that but luckily I did have any of that at my organization. My point is that different country and different culture have different ways of dealing with children and there was many laws that are upheld in the States that are not in Vietnam. A behavior that I saw was again Thành. He was crying because he wanted to be picked up, but I felt that if I picked him up I would be “rewarding his behavior” (positive reinforcement…psychology). In my head at that time and still now even, I don’t know if I should have done that, continue to give in to their wants or ignore them. I feel like if I didn’t pick him up and cradle him, the teachers would think I am neglegent, but when I did pick him up, I might have reverse all the work that the teachers were trying to do to teach him that crying doesn’t get you anywhere.

My communication with các cô is great and we get alone fine, but I am not sure how I could help other than making the kids stop cry, catch them when they try to run away because they want to play or don’t want to eat. I think that maybe I can help them while they teach the children more or help them find a way that was more effìcient in teaching because last time Thành was troublesome and that ruined the “20 minutes of learning” for himself and the other children.

Overall, it was a great way to see how the organization was ran. (Note: kids all pottied in a bucket and all ate from the same bowl). I think the experience in itself was culture barrier.