The last UCHANU week's entry

"How can I integrate the experiences of the semester into my life, and in what concrete ways can I remain connected to UCHANU and Vietnam?"
In stead of writing this entry, I spend almost the whole night reading other UCHANUers' blogs. There were more thoughts shared from UCers than HANUers about the integration, and I think this is more about the UCers' part since the fact that they're back to the U.S is more like a change in the mindset, behavior, daily routine,... that they have to deal with if they still wanna get along with life in America. For me as a HANUer, I think it's not about the routine or classes, but the emotional changes I've been through was pretty much the thing that happened. I've gone through feelings of being excited to welcome new friends, then being shyly welcoming for the first moments (breaking the ice is quite hard for me, normally i kinda get difficulties at first moments, but after that it's quite okay, I keep getting more and more open), being playful with UCHANU buddies, being soaked up in interview and fundraising and voluntary work, being sad about the fact that we can't be together forever playing partying doing meaningful things and stuffs. I sometimes try to hide what i really think what my emotion is, I can't handle the moments of farewell quite well, but that's a part of the EAP program too so I guess if there's something i'm gonna learn from it, it might be to appreciate long-distance friendship and being true to myself's emotions. Besides, there are a few more things that I think I've learnt:


- Getting prouder of my Vietnamese identity (I remember Son's "Nói tiếng Việt như một đứa bé" line, how Nancy struggled to write a letter to her parents in English, how in Nancy's family, whenever her parents speak Vietnamese to her, she speaks English back, I hope now it's different :), they all developed their own part that is Vietnamese and their own love for Vietnam, so the Vietnamese community in California may have more and more Vietnam in it :D)
- Being a welcoming person: as far as I can remember, I always tried my best to help the UC kids with their Vietnamese or anything I know of (directions, computer stuffs, transportation,...) with a little xenophilia i mustsay :">. Hope that someday when I come to the US I can see them as welcoming people too :D (Sharon's couch might be a good idea)
- Getting as casual as possible: In Vietnam, when talking to people that are older than me, normally I have to show certain respect in words. In UCHANU, I can even call Gerard "Gerard" or "thầy" and hang out with the guys with out the need of using "dạ, thưa,..."
- Learn to realize the bad things about Hanoi, and Vietnam: As we're constantly reminded of the reality of Vietnam, I had the chance to know more about Hanoi in the uncomfortable experiences of the UC kids on their blogs. I'm still a big fan of Hanoi but now I try to look at it in a more realistic way.
- Socialize and make new friends: Sure I made a lot of friends and we had our crazy moments. Even thầy Gerard can be considered a friend haha


About how to remain connected to UCHANU and Vietnam, I guess I will support UCHANU's projects like One Heartland for as long as I can, and keep in touch with UCHANU friends via Facebook or Skype and emails sometimes, whenever they feel glad to (It's about them, not about me haha, I can be a real stalker reading their blogs all night long). I may try to go to America to see some of them (if not all) and experience the feeling of being away from the homeland.


So far I have put many smileys in this entry. Maybe it's the moment that I feel good about the time left. Hope that's okay when we all have to cry. 

Group work

"What have I learned about working in groups over the course of the semester, and about how I work with groups?"
It's been a semester of groupwork in UCHANU as I got to work in team "Vãi Chưởng" and One heartland VN. I think we did a good job as an interview team and a fundraising group. I've always been a collective person who likes to work in group so that was kinda what I wanted to do :)
With team Vãi chưởng, we did 4 interviews together, as for the rest we did in small group of 2 or individually. That was just conducting the interview, the transcribing and translating and posting of a single interview are always done by two out of four people in the group. We change the pair as one interview completes, Nancy and I, Mindy and Ngan, later on Nancy and Ngan, Mindy and I. We generally had no problems while carrying out the interviews, as everything was kinda organized and discussed thoroughly before we got to work. Ever since the very first mapping tasks, we have come up with the joyful way to do it. yeah, all the credit goes to Nancy and Mindy I think, cuz they were so curious about everything, especially the food (they're so cute when hungry), so we had to think of different kinds of food we'd have whenever we went together interviewing people. The routine was like, we went somewhere fun or somewhere that has good food, enjoy the food, then do the interview. I don't know if the most important part was to get good material or to get good food LOL. So what i learned from it was group work with some one with a different perspective can bring you a new interesting experience, and it's best to work with someone nice and cute and has the same interests as you do LOL.
As for One Heartland VN, it was so amazing an experience to me. We ALL poured out our efforts, got our skills into work and raised a lot of money for the kids. But at the beginning I don't think the first meetings worked, only when we figured out a way to overcome the challenge of place to have the High Roller Night, everything fell into places. 
I'm a fan of group work so as a group member, I find it very reassuring and comfortable cuz I know someone's got my back whenever I got difficulties and I am willing to support them as well. 
(Darn it, I'm so distracted by the entries of UCHANU friends that I enjoy so much. I think I suck at keeping track of my thoughts as I'm always leaping from one idea to another, from one inspiring entry to another)

"Cánh đồng bất tận", or "On the endless fields"

This one used to be a long post on the movie "Cánh đồng bất tận" which i've seen earlier until Yến used my computer and it messed up. That's it. I'm to depressed to type again from scratch.

The "development" of Aloha the show

That's a huge pity that i couldn't make it to neither the textile factory nor the Yamaha factory, at that time i was attending the grand meeting of the Hanu Youth Union. So i guess all I can do is to share some thoughts about "development" in any aspect I found relevant.
So this is about Aloha, the freshmen welcoming party that a typical FMT, FIS, or FIT student at Hanu goes to at least once in his or her student life. I went to 3 Alohas, and will go to as many Alohas as I can. The record is 6 (i suppose). I'm gonna beat that.
So, the thing about Aloha is that it's the foremost activity that FMT people do in a typical academic year (often in October), it's the FMT guys saying 'what's up?' to the FSD or FMT newcomers and the FSD or FMT newcomers saying 'so this is where I spend my time in the next years'. Unlike many other activities from other departments, FMT is not really a party as I put it, it's a show of music, dance, and funny clips, and it's free for all, except for the drink that you buy at the main hall door.
From my experience at 3 recent Alohas, it's safe to say that something didn't change at all. The flyers of Aloha would be handed out the day before it takes place, to many people's surprise. In the show, some hiphop crew (the same crew for every years) would show up and do what they'd been practicing for years in front of S-home. Some slideshow would be presenting the FMT to the new students, who they are, what they do, how the FMT students enjoy their life here. The price of the drink would be elevating by minutes. At the end the organizing team would go crazy and take their own time taking photos and hugging kissing each other, and spending a night out. After that would be days of fatigue and reflecting on the show.
And the 'development' part would be the way we do Aloha has changed alot from year to year. From the very first Alohas, It was really hard to find a camera and make some videos about Hanu and FMT, only until the 2 latest Alohas could we find some cameras to make some high quality funny clips (i mean the resolution). And the audience's reaction was quite encouraging. This year i even use green screen to make some special visual effects, and i'm pretty sure not many people can do that as non-professional students. And the thanks to the high quality camera we had the chance to record the whole show so that we can upload them clips to Youtube and get comments, as well as show those who couldn't come or didn't get the good view. The lighting and sound system get better every year, and we even have a very talented mixer to take advantage of as long as he's not graduated.
How bout the audience? They come more and more, which means their expectations have grown a lot. The sad thing is, this year the main hall seems extremely overload because of the increasing audience. Many newcomers just did many things that the old FMT guys never did. They ran just through the stage stomping their feet on the wooden steps, which annoyed many other people, and didn't react to the slightest appeal of the show. Many tables and chairs in the mainhall have been broken, which has never happened before, and freaked out the mainhall lady, because they just stood on those tables and chairs. When the show's about to end, many just rushed away through the door, ignoring the notice of collecting things that they have trashed. I know i can blame it on them but, first we should consider it an issue of changing audience.
Have we come up with any changes to react to the changes from the audience? Not really. And are we gonna keep up this way of show organizing? probably, cuz it's still a way to make it happen and many think we've organized the best shows in Hanu. But still there lies a problem.

Rice harvesting

Last Sunday (3/10/2010) we went to harvest rice in Dong Anh, Hanoi. It was the first time in my life that I cut rice plants. And I'm pretty sure it was the firsthand experience for the UC students too. We set out at 6:30, carrying some water and some hats, and some nem, which Nancy Mary John Sharon Jesse chị Mốc and mẹ chị Mốc had made the day before. The place looked like my hometown, and pretty much like near where i live. We came to chú Khôi's house, who is a farmer and was more than hospitable to have lent us the sickles (or knives, or scythes, or whatyoumaycallthem).
We then headed to the fields. It was quite windy and sunny when we spent the time there. The fields were like what i've seen in my hometown or near where i live, but to the UC kids it may have been a different impression. I was quite slow to get the sickles so when everybody were stepping into the mud there were only some đòn gánh for me to carry the rice to where they put the machine, the job of carrying was quite hard that I staggered a lot, sometimes i dropped some rice (so sorry). You never know what chú Khôi can carry, compared to how much i can, it's like 3 times as much (very heavy), and he didn't stagger at all.
After like 7 or 8 times (maybe more) of rice carry, i chose to grab a sickle and try cutting some rice. Man it's like nothing you've ever done, and my first time was quite bad. i stepped back and forth in the mud, trying to cut the plants in a way that is neat but ended up cutting them either to long or too short or let the rice fall on the mud. Such a shame. But when i started cutting, it's almost done so i didn't have much chance to mess up, after that we hold what we had cut in bushels and brought them back to the field's rim where they were carried to the machine. There's another part called "đi mót lúa" started by Gerard, in which we stayed in the field, searching thoroughly for rice that is left behind. "If the rice is not too muddy or not too wet, we can keep it" said Gerard. The lesson learned here is you can't afford to waste rice, and by collecting as much rice as we could  we show that we appreciated the labor of those who'd been working on the rice.
We went back to chú Khôi's house and had lunch there and some rượu that chú Khôi was so proud of. The field trip ended at 3 when we got back to Hanu and had some bia hoi afterwards. The feeling that still lingers is itch on my legs, aw it's itchy like crazy.

When they're in the Central

Well this is about what i did when the UC kids were away in the Central.
The most memorable thing was the trung thu fest, actually a few days before the trung thu fest. My friends and I went around near Hoan Kiem lake and bought some tai thỏ, that is, bunny ears so we can go around and intimidate little kids. Just kidding, it was really fun cuz everybody was doing the same thing, so the streets look like some kind of cosplay place, with fairies, bunnies, pirates, spider men, etc. We started at Hoan Kiem lake, then a series of "Hàng" streets, then streets for pedestrians only. There were many many many people (with bunny, ladybug or fairy hats), so many of them that you may feel like you're rubbing shoulders with a complete stranger like close friends. There were 6 of us that night, so we made "1 đoàn tàu nhỏ tí xíu" and made our way through the crowd. We tried to be cool but couldn't stop laughing at each other and other people. Some elder people looked disgusted (i guess) when they saw us bunnies on the streets posing and doing spontaneous things. But who cares haha.
On trung thu day i had to stay home with family and had mooncakes at home. It kinda sucked cuz i wanted to go out with my sister on the streets but my parents didn't let us go.
One more thing about last week is that the bands at Heresy they didn't entertain me anymore. I needed something heavier. :-<
Everything was like normal except for two delayed UCHANU classes that gave me pretty much free time. I asked some of my friends the questions that Peter asked me, the 2 chopsticks puzzle, and I was amazed at how quickly they came up with the answers, oh silly me.
The thing that takes most of my time now is the preparation for Aloha 2010, the freshmen welcoming party that i'm gonna be one of the people in charge.

week 2: mapping the development city

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Well this week is about some kind of KĐTMs. We went to KĐTM Trung Yên , which has changed a little bit since my high school with more offices and more cars parking along Trung Hòa Street (it is quite near my high school, so i used to go through it like everyday).
We started with trà đá and asked the trà đá-seller about the places where we can go for some phở bò, or badminton, etc. It turned out that we'd have a tough day finding things there.
So, the place was kinda airy with wide roads (almost all start with "Trung" like Trung Yên 1,2,9,10; Trung Hòa and Trung Kính, tall and big detached houses, a small park for people to jog, children to play and a tennis court for those who like to watch other people playing tennis LOL. Well the park was what i like the most about this place. Not having to walk on the street, too (cuz we have pavement). The worst part is we can't find any place to buy vegetable or pork or get a knife sharpened WITHIN the area of KĐTM Trung Yên, not until we went south to the lake near Trần Duy Hưng street.
Talking about the lake, there's a disturbing fact in the neighborhood is that near the lake there are some whatyoumaycallthem with a few dozens of gamers playing almost 24/7 (I know that because I was one of them, no not really, just played games a few times a month), and that's quite money-consuming and time-consuming to me. The kids in the area may get hooked on games and spend most of their time at those places.
Well I spent like 3 years biking around the place, doing crazy things with friends there so I would live there cuz I know my kids would grow up healthy in the area, without much exhaust from vehicles, and a place to play with other kids, not with other gamers. I have a lot of friends here so that's quite convenient to hang out with them. Well maybe it's the memories that would make the decision to stay in this area.