Groupwork

I’ve never seen a group that can be effective as we were while the main means of communicating was email and cellphones. I really missed the time we spent outside schools on The Amazing race and Mapping. It’s like we were really close to each other. I wanted to have more groupwork meetings directly members in the team but personal businesses seemed not allow us.

However, I think that effective work allocation, online communication and attempts and responsibilities of each member contributed to our results. And we were quite satisfied with the interviews we did. We even finished 4 interviews in the first three weeks during the project which enabled us to go slow later on. Hanu students were more in charge of trancribing and translating and Ucers helped loads in editing and proofreading. It’s like we have small groups in our big teams and we did interviews ourselves without all gathering. I appreciate that everyone trusted confided in each other.

I love my project teams and I wish we had more time L

Nghe An

I was so excited about the trip to Nghe An and to be honest, I considered it a pleasant journey, in which deadlines and assignments are completely left at home. Indeed, Nghe An trip was quite relaxing. Other than moments of happiness among UCHANU folks, there were “awkward” times I shared with people there. Times I could hardly explained.

First impression, Vinh is a fine city. Looking at its road, buildings and space and hearing from the Vice President of People’s Committee, I felt that Vinh was on the way of “developping” and there’s little to worry about it. (Anyway, you can not believe a person like him when he deliver a speech of achievements, somehow those must have been exagerated). The only problem I might think about that time was that the rich would get richer and the poor would be poorer. Then I was so eager to see all the children we were going to, as thinking they were gradually left out of the “developping” society there in Vinh.

I was so surprised when we came to the schools. Teachers were wearing uniforms (seriously, that was never seen before in any big or small city I’ve been to). I wanted to ask them but I was afraid my cluminess would offend them. Maybe they were not as poor, or maybe those were Teacher’s day gifts. From whatver did they come, I felt a glimpse of joy to make my discovery. Those teachers actually deny discrepancies. They must have been different; they must have come from different contexts; some maybe richer, but they refused to show that. Uniforms mean that everyone’s equal, no one’s more imposing, no one’s inferior. That I have not been able to do in my life; I always wanted to be notice.

It was so so so happy giving jackets to children. Although the thought of not really giving right jackets to right children bothered me, I realized that everything would go around and no matter what, we‘ve contributed to wealth being; jackets would later be transfered to whoever need them. It was also joyful to put each and every single jacket on the kids, something filled up my stomach, still now it’s so hard to explain. The teacher kept making children to say how grateful they were and that these gifts we gave were godsend. I couldn’t stop her but in my mind, this was not a mercy action of mine to the kids, it was actually what calmed and pacified my heart. It was them that gave me happiness.

People there were so poor, I heard that everytime a group of UCHANUers came back from local houses. I went to one family that had only the son and his mother. The mother’s a cultivator for hire, and she had been away for 2 or 3 weeks, leaving his son on her own. He’s 10 years old. At ten, I was peacefully spending everyday in love of my parents. I avoided looking at him with hesitance and compassion, he needed stimulation and strength. When walking around with Lan, we noticed that houses there were all built out of wood; but most of people there managed to have a motorbike. Therefore, I assumed that landfield in Con Cuong was not suitable for building brick houses. A local citizen affirmed that they could not afford to build brick houses; woods were from the forest; they just had to pay a little in construction. Motorbikes were crucial now, they must borrow to buy one in stead of upgrading their accommodation. All must have been for the long term sake of lives there.

The South

UC folks just returned from HCM city, and I have been there several times. Since I’m going to work there in the next 2 or 3 years, I’d like to write about the city this week.

There is a fact people have concerned much about for a long time. Many northern citizens are moving to HCM city for job opportunities, I am included. These people, in the north, are always considered better than those in the south and generally speaking, there’s a widespread but inofficial belief among the Vietnamese that Northern people are smarter and they work better. This explains why most going to the South find a way to succeed. Even successful rate in HCM city is accounted by more of Northerners.

Northern people, in fact, are hardworking. Women are harder than men in their jobs. And they always have a heart for excelling. They always make efforts and sometimes they put work top priority rather than pleasure. So normally, they go out at weekends only; and they also come back home everyday before midnight, when most of whom in HCM city are spending time out enjoy nightlife. However, the business context in the North, as far as I know, has many problems. While workplace environment in HCM city is said to be very professional; people point out that it is more open and effective, employees understand fully their responsibilities and always take full charge of what they do, most of those in the North need observance and reminder all the time to finish work. I’ve experienced these characteristics when I had chance to work in some companies before. To be honest, I was really annoyed by the fact that my coworkers only care about themselves and they are not so ethical in minding others. Nepotism is what I really hate doing business in Hanoi or other Northern cities. Although some are much worse at their performance than others, they are covered by “ big shades” and remain still a liability in companies. This, in fact, rarely happens in the South. People are just more fair there; performance is the only benchmark for worker evaluation. Everyone has chance to espose themselves to equal opportunities. HCM city, seemingly, is more appealing and is talent magnet. Somehow, it’s not those who are Northerner are always better. It’s actually good workers that are mostly attracted to the South.

One more discrepancy which is quite interesting between HCM city and Hanoi is that HCM city attracts more tourists and investment because it is considered more “developed”(Vietnamese literal meaning). In reality, services in HCM city is way better than in Hanoi. Service providers there, pay a lot more attention to training their employees how to please customers. They show their clients that they need them. On the contrary, most services in the North keeps the perspective that customers come to them because they are in need, it’s customers who must find them; it’s not them who try to retain customers. Now that everyone is demanding more than they do in the past, bad service seems not to be a good “strategy”. I think I know two of the reasons that make difference: either Hanoi service players do not gain proper enough understanding of what is good or some of them think they are beyond good and don’t mind losing a number of consumers. In HCM city, infrastructure are better, people are more aware of their lives, at least they obey the rules while driving; those makes flow of everything in the place more effective and efficient.

Well, I may have complimented HCM city a bit too much, but this is also what Northerner like us should think about. Anyway, I’m going to work in HCM city and definitely I’m going back to Hanoi cause what I love is here. I hope to go back to a better place in the next few years.

It's been nearly a month since the 1000 anniversary of Thang Long - Hanoi but I'm still keeping parts of my thoughts for it. Maybe the fact that I can still see posters, band rolls of the ceremony everywhere, I am reminded of it once in a while.
It gave me lots of impression; however, not all of them were nice. I remember a huge amount of money being spent, more than 90 thousand billion VND, a tenth of our GDP. And to be honest, not all of that amount went to useful things. I appreciated that people built and widened roads, that they built a museum, that they had activities with purposes of telling stories of Hanoi a thousand year and there were so many things I felt grateful for. Like, constructions were pushed up, the capital looked so glorious and everyone was expecting. Although I was not from Hanoi, somehow I was proud that I lived here.
But a celebration like that was hold, seemingly, the true value of a thousand year standing had been misunderstood. A thousand year was only treated as a number and nothing more. It was like an old man celebrating his 100 birthday and no one cared what he had done his whole life. There was one man with an article I read somewhere just recently; he suggested that in stead of counting from a thousand to one till the anniversary, they should put the number of national debt there and count. Of course, should that happen, the whole country would be even more eager to see it gradually go to zero. Why until an event like this did people decorate, did people try to increase productivity. So what actually lay within. Was it truly for the sake of the whole country, or was it because it was a thousand year. Was it the heart and the soul or the face and the clothes.
While a lot of people in the central of Vietnam suffered from flood, even now they haven't recovered; some was asking what was in it for them, what was for them from The Thousand. It'a kinda sad to me through the celebration. The only joy was to see Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung abandon Hanoi and travel to flooded areas