Life has a strange way of unraveling its plans for you.
Back in 2010, I had the pleasure of meeting two wonderful womyn, Minhchau and Chi Thien-Nhien. Minhchau had reached out to me to join a panel for a United Vietnamese Student Associations (UVSA) of Northern California event called "Black April," where I was to join other speakers to talk about my experience as a Vietnamese-American, specifically regarding the effect of the fall of Saigon / reunification of Vietnam on my family. On this panel was a womyn named Thien-Nhien. Thien-Nhien is the executive director of Friends of Hue, an NGO in Vietnam that was created as a relief-based organization for the flood victims of Thua Thien Hue and nearby areas, and has expanded to assist in other areas such as education and economic self-sufficiency. I didn't know much about the organization other than that, but I remember feeling absolutely honored about sharing the panel with Chi Thien-Nhien, as her words about her experiences and her work spoke to my soul.
Fast forward to September 2012: upon realizing I was going to be placed in Hue, I reached out to Chi Thien-Nhien via e-mail about volunteering for Friends of Hue. The same night, I attended a going-away party with some of my Hue friends, and lo and behold, I run into the beautiful Minhchau herself, literally fresh-off-the-plane from America. She informed me that she was going to work with Friends of Hue in micro-finance, and we talked about our lives since that event and, since I met a couple of other folks who also worked at FoH (Linh and Binh), we eventually came around to talking about connecting with Chi Thien-Nhien about me volunteering with Friends of Hue. Given our brief and meaningful encounters at progressive Vietnamese events in the Bay Area, and our coincidental work opportunities in Hue, we ended our conversation with the belief that the stars had aligned for us to be together in Hue. =)
Thinking about my obligations with the university, it does seem like I have a handful of things to organize along with planning and teaching lessons. However, whenever I think about why I want to teach with FoH or volunteer any other services, I think about my conversation with my dear friend, Andre. When I found out I got into Fulbright, I called a couple people -- one including my housemate, Andre. I told him about my dilemma -- I had two good choices on my hands: 1) continue my life in San Jose, seal the deal with teaching at a small school that aligned with my professional goals, train for a faster half-marathon and marathon time, and stick with a stable set of awesome friends and family, or 2) uproot my life for a year to rediscover myself, dig deeper for my roots, and teach English -- as I had once wanted for myself before I moved to San Jose. Although he tried to remain as impartial as possible, he left off our conversation with this message: That English is valued by many in Vietnam, and that it is inaccessible to those in rural provinces. If I wanted to be in a position to empower others, teaching in Vietnam would be the ideal position to be in. (I think we all know what decision I made given the conversation.)
Teaching in my university has indeed proved to me that my students have not had much exposure to the English language outside school, and as they all aspire to be in positions that require fluent English-speaking (tourism, hotel management, English teaching), I have felt a strong responsibility to them to do my best in breaking down the language. However, in the past couple months, I have felt the need to also take part in community work and be around youth -- as I once had been able to do while I was in the Bay Area. So I reconnected with my friends in FoH, particularly Chi Thien-Nhien and Linh -- who was super boss about setting up a meeting for me, and the staff set up my schedule for me to teach secondary school students in their shelter on Wednesdays, and tutor one student on Thursdays.
I just started this week, and I can already see that I have a lot of work to do, especially if I only meet with each set of students once a week. They all were able to tell me their name and age in English with ease, but once I asked each of them questions about themselves that went beyond that, they stared at me with wide-eyes and shut-lips. However, being as understanding of their context as possible, I responded with a smile and continued by asking scaffolded questions to further gauge their English comprehension and speaking. Binh informed me last night that they have trouble retaining English knowledge because they have no opportunities to practice it outside of class, and English teaching has been less consistent at the shelter due to lack of volunteers. Albeit the challenge, I hope I can teach English in ways that are meaningful and easy enough for them to retain. I aim to learn more about them, their values and their interests so I can tie my lessons to them -- as I have before with my 5th graders.
Sidenote: Speaking of my teaching experience, I realized I've been less strict when teaching. I don't know if it's because I feel I should treat my college students more like my peers (maybe that's why they ran all over me during midterms), or because I feel like I'm teaching my little brothers and sisters. Hanh, a womyn who works at the shelter and used to live there herself, warned me today that I shouldn't get too close because siblings can't teach siblings. Her check reminded me that there as some qualities I should retain when I teach, and that being in Vietnam should be no different. I can be friendly, but we can't be friends. Duly noted.
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