How Hard I Had To Fight For Education?

Every time I walk out of my house with the car key, Oliver (my grandson) says: “Grandpa is going to school”. His statement makes me happy because I want him to learn that education is very important. He is 28 months old now and will be attending pre-school in two more months. On his birthday, his uncles and aunt had opened a bank account reserved for his future school expenses. His educational road is well prepared and wide open for him to walk on.

Quite different than what are prepared for Oliver, I spent my preschool year under the French colonial rural education system. In this system, all children (regardless of age differences) were put in one classroom, run by an unqualified teacher. The teachers are unprepared for their job and unfamiliar with the social-cultural environment (Cogan, 1982). Many times I had to take my teacher’s role to assist other students after the teacher had spent fifteen minutes in class. As the teachers began to become more effective after some experience and practice, they are moved to the cities and placed in the urban schooling system where they can find more money and prestige (Cogan, 1982).

At four years old I begun to expose to the urban schooling system in the orphanages, taught by the nuns who were poorly trained. When I return home with my mother, I was eight years old and still being placed at the bottom level of elementary classes of the French colonial system (equivalent to our first grade). Two years later and with the division of my native country I followed my mother to move to the South. During the first two years in the South, I could not go to school because of the political and military struggling between the newly formed government and the colonial France.

The struggle ended in 1956 with the termination of French involvement in Vietnam and the conquering of the new government over several groups who wanted to remain the relationship with the colony. The new educational system, nevertheless, was still heavily linked to the colonial past: Most children went only to primary school, if they go to school at all. Admission to secondary schools is reserved for those who either do very well at the primary level or have relationship to the educational authorities (Cogan, 1982).

With these interruptions, I could not finish my elementary school until I became twelve years old. At this level and because I belong to a poor family, I wasn’t accepted into public high school nor did I have money to pay for tuition at the private school. Luckily I was recruited by a priest who tried to find children who wanted to learn to be a monk in a monastery. I spent four years there, in the jungle learning mostly French and Latin (four hours a day) and very little literature, math, social studies. At seventeen I returned to the city and still being a ninth grader.

After this year, I was adopted by a blind man who was the landlord of my rental house. He took me to a newly opened government school and claimed that I’m his son. He begged the officials for my admission. I skipped tenth grades was jammed in a 190 students eleventh class. The school was six miles away from my home. My only transportation was an old bicycle which was flattened after every mile. I had to use hand pump to inflate the tube. At the end of that year I was one of the nine students who passed the very difficult examination which determines the eligibility to be accepted into the twelve grades. Eleventh grade was the highest class that this school could provide. I had no choice but to look for a private school where I ran out of money for tuition after 3 months. I was kicked out of the class and had to sit at the door listening to the instructions. This did not last long and I was chased away. Luckily, one of the class-mate whose father was transferred to the central region needs a place to stay. I asked him to share my place with condition that he would repeat to me what he learned in class. The result was that, at the end of the school year, I passed the most difficult examination of the entire high school program (my friend failed). With this passage I could register at any college and my life was promised a brighter future.


Unfortunately, after six months in college, I had to cease my education and started to work so I could support my family. Later I was drafted to the Vietnamese marines and was participating in the war. When I migrated to the United States, I’d tried several times but wasn’t able to finish my dreamed education due to the burden of work. Now that I’m retired I want to continue my dream, not for my career but for building up my knowledge in order to be able to help children who are walking on the same road that I’ve gone through.

Citation:

Cogan, J. J. (1982). Education and development in the third world. Educational Leadership, 39(6), 430. Retrieved on April 28, 2011from EBSCOhost.

Have You Visited An Orphanage?

My wife and I are babysitting our grandson, Oliver while his mother (my daughter) is running our family bridal business and his father works as a nurse at St. Mary’s hospital. Oliver is an extremely lucky boy. He is covered with love and he is well taken care of: After the positive pregnancy test, his mother had been following doctor’s advice for the nutrition program; she attended the mother-to-be training sessions and strictly applied the guidance that she was given. As a result, Oliver was born with perfect health and was well greeted by my entire family (uncles and aunt). He was fed with his mother’s milk for the whole first year that was gradually replaced by organic formula and baby food. He is now 28 months and is a very intelligent boy. He is speaking both English and Vietnamese and is ready for pre-school which will take place when he turns 30 months old.

Many times when I’m watching Oliver growing up with complete provisions from his and my family, I cannot avoid comparing the love and care he is provided with that of my experiences during my infancy and toddler years. I was born and grew up without knowing my father. I survived only by the intervention of my grandmother and by the milk of many other women who were unrelated and unknown to me. A few years after my birth, as a toddler, I was put in numerous orphanages.
Orphanages are rarely used in the United States, although they are more frequently used abroad. These are the institutions that house children who are orphaned, abandoned, or whose parents are unable to care for them. You may have seen pictures or read stories about orphanages in Vietnam in recent years or during the American involvement in that war. These images and stories can only represent part of what I’d gone through during my four years of toddlerhood. There was only one orphanage serving the entire North of Vietnam. This orphanage was founded by a French priest and run by Catholic nuns. There were always more than 200 orphans at a time and they were divided into different groups according to age. Except for few who were referred by other authorities from rural areas, most of the orphans were from the suburbs of Hanoi (Uguak, 2010). When being accepted into the institution, orphans were provided with food which was donated by rich people, either from the colony or from the mother country: France. Younger orphans started their pre-school while older were placed in the technical training. A vast majority of these technically trained orphans became successful and useful for the later independence of Vietnam (Uguak, 2010). Social activities such as sports, tours to visit various interesting spots around Hanoi were provided. In general, orphans were well taken care physically and socially. Emotionally and passionately, nevertheless, orphans were always in profound need of love. Psychologically the war between the Vietnamese nationalists and the colonists and the second world war have been identified as a major cause in casualties that has led to massive displacement of children. The scale of this displacement has been compounded by famine and widespread food shortages (Uguak, 2010).
Occasionally, my mother paid a visit and that was my happiest time; or sometimes there were visitors or groups of visitors that stirred up the spirit of the orphans.

Though the nuns devoted their services to take care of orphans, often they ran out of patience and applied unreasonable physical punishments to children. My case was a great example: one winter night I accidentally wet my bed; the next morning a nun dunked me in the cold pond in the back yard. Luckily my brain wasn’t damaged. I spent four years in the orphanages and at the age of eight, I returned to my mother’s house.
The desire for love is always deep and permanent in the children of the orphanage. My personal experience during the time I spent in the orphanage can be described by the expression in the children’s eyes on the second image: they are hungry and hoped for visitors. I urge you, when possible, pay a visit to an orphanage. You will realize how lucky you are! You will be happy that you can share your love to those who are in profound need: the orphans.

Citation:
Adoption glossary. (n.d.) Adoption.com. Retrieved April 18, 2011, from http://glossary.adoption.com.

Uguak, U. (2010). The importance of psychological needs for the post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and displaced children in schools. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 37(4), 340. . Retrieved April twenty fourth, 2011 from Academic Search Complete Database.

Have You Experienced Starvation?

Recently, my friend Robert (whom I met in one of my classes) told me that he has been living off the food that he picks up from trash bins. At first I could not believe that this was true. After his description and explanation about the trips he makes early every morning to pick up food that the supermarkets throw away, I found out that we Americans have wasted too much food while many young people around the world are suffering from starvation. I'm citing my case as a good example of the condition of starvation in a country as rich as the United States.

I understand the condition of starvation. I was born in Vietnam in 1944. When I opened my eyes for the first time, many Vietnamese people were starving to death. Among 50 infants in my village that were born at the same time, I’m the sole survivor. The reason for their deaths was that their parents could not find food; hence they did not have milk to feed the babies. At that time there weren’t formulas or any other source of milk other than that of the mothers. The famine which started at the beginning of 1944 and extended through the year of 1945 killed around 2 million people. I do not know how I survived because my mom became a widow at the age of 16, two month before my birth. According to our Asian culture, we were the responsibility of my father’s family. They did not have enough food for themselves, let alone extra relations. We too became the victims of starvation and famine. When I became so weak and on the verge of death, I was rescued by my mom’s mother. She took us in and fed us. I survived by her food; and later, by the milk of different women who were nursing and had extra milk (after the famine was over) (Dung, 1995).

You may question: what were reasons that contributed to this terrible ordeal?

There were several reasons contributed to this famine. We can categorize into the following areas:
Political: The effects of World War II on French Indochina. Involvements of France, Japan, and the United States in Vietnam caused detrimental effects to the economic activities of the Vietnamese; the fight for independence from French colony which begun in 1930’s by several groups of nationalists; the invasion of Japan who was trying to form a Greater East Asia War.

Economic: the French and Japanese policies to distribute agriculture products from Vietnam. After the colonial French was knocked out by Japanese force in 1940, Japan applied the rip-off policy which took most of the agricultural products from the North Vietnam to feed their soldiers and to transport to their homes (Dung,1995). While Vietnam was occupied by Japan, the Allies, especially the United States, often bombed roads, making the transport of rice from the South to the North extremely hard. Both France and Japan forcibly hoarded food from farmers to feed their troops, while the French administration was broken and unable to supply and distribute the food. The inadequate food supply caused the famine, appearing in the beginning of 1944. The decrease of land set aside for growing staple crops such as maize and potatoes to make land for growing cotton, jute, and other industrial plants. Because of the decreased land available for growing, harvests of staple crops decreased considerably.

Natural disasters: In Northern Vietnam, a drought coupled with pests caused the winter-spring harvest of 1944 to decrease by 20%. After that there was a flood during the harvest season causing the crisis to occur (Dung,1995).

Under these conditions, my life was jeopardized if I did not receive miracles. Miracle came, first and foremost from God, from my grandmother, and from people that I can never recall. The God blessing and help from others did not stop at the beginning aspect of my life, but will be continuing in my whole life.


Citation:
Dung, B. (1995). Japan's role in Vietnamese starvation of 1944-45. Modern Asian Studies, 29(3), 573. Retrieved March 30, 2011, from the Academic Search Complete Database.

This article focuses on the Vietnamese famine of 1944-45 and points out the Japanese responsibility in the Vietnamese starvation. Causes of starvation; Japan's procurement of general resources and rice; demonstration and implementation of Japanese policy; logistic dimension of Japanese policy, and its impact on the starvation.

Introduction

Hello, I am Tap Van Kieu, originally from Vietnam.  I have had a very rough life, from my birth throughout 67 years. I want to describe to you how hard and how I could I survive and become a success. The truth is, beside my effort, I received much graces from God, the help from people that I never met. I hope my story can be an example and a motivation for those who are building up their lives.