Dr. G
15 June 2016 04:00:35
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#36
62 posts
Saigon
A simple message: Many Vietnamese people (adults) are like children. When in most situations that I speak Vietnamese, adults laugh at me - at my, sometimes, inaccurate mispronunciations. I have seldom observed Westerners within Vietnam laugh at Vietnamese people trying to speak English but making many sound/grammar mistakes. As well, I have seldom, if at all, observed foreign-speaking visitors to Australia or to the USA, being laughed at by native English-speaking people when attempting to speak English (ESL).
So what does this all mean, well it might suggest how uncomfortable it may be for many foreigners who live here longer to, more easily, adapt to the social climate among Vietnamese people while, even, trying to learn the language.
My experiences are different with you, I had lived in US for 30+ years, graduated with two Ph. D., and had taught at universities for 15+ years. When one of my student asked me to help his group in designing ........ I ended up working for the company he was working for at that time, what I experienced there and other places were an eyes opening for me in dealing with human. There were highly educated employees (Ph.D. & engineers) complained that they did not understand my English and because of that they were not able to do the works I assigned to them, when I was told that excuses, I tried to motivate them and spent a lot of times to explain the task and what need to do to them. They often told me "it is a piece of cake" or "no problem". When I followed up to check on their progress, there were no=progress. They complained that they could not do their job because "I look over their shoulder" .. etc......... I realized that I had a bigger problems and worked out a plan with the HR manager, then I called for a meeting with each individual employee along with the HR manager, I made up a story combining technical jargons and normal daily English, each of the employee challenged everything word-by-word and calling me a liar and I said "yes, I lied to prove that you had been using the excuse that you could not understand my English and not doing your jobs" then I asked each of the employees "If you didn't understand your tasks why did you tell me "it is a piece of cake or no problem?" and why didn't you ask me? ........ to make it short the HR manager fired most of them. There are more and I have met and seen at most of the 120+ countries that I have been to. One of the experiences I learned out of my travel is the poor people often more honors than the well to do people. In Ha-Noi I missed taken gave 1,500,000 VND instead of 500,000 VND to an old lady selling fruits in front of Dong-Xuan market, she found and gave me 1,000,000 VND when I was about two blocks away, I tried to give her 500,000 VND but she would not accept it even with other people near by telling her to take it. After several attempted to put the money in her pocket she only took 200,000 VND to get rid of me. In Saigon a boy and an old South Viet-Nam vet. selling news paper refused to take money from me and told me that "I am selling news paper not begging", I had to tell them that "Please take the money and give the news paper to those that not well to do and tell them that we like to give them a smile", as the same times I was cheated by hotel and restaurant owners, real estate brokers, dentist ....etc........... it seems me some of the well to do were much more dishonors and greedier than the poor. Well, happy traveling and don't let little buggers bother you.
