Speaker: Doan Van Dieu

On Monday evening this week, we were fortunate enough to hear Dr. Doan Van Dieu, a professor from Ho Chi Minh City University of Pedagogy in Vietnam, speak with us. Dr. Van Dieu spent much of the time talking about education and culture within Vietnam. I thought it was really interesting to hear about how his culture differs from ours in the United States. One of the things that shocked me the most was the fact the large role of parents within their children’s education and their methods of parenting. There seems to be a large focus on working hard and for each student to perform to the best of his or her ability. All parents seem to want healthy kids, and they really stress being good students. Another thing that was quite interesting to me was when Dr. Van Dieu was talking about arranged marriages. Apparently this used to be very common in Vietnam, and is still prominent today. To many in the United States, I think this seems quite odd; however, he made an interesting argument that the way we choose our significant others is more similar to arranged marriages than we would initially think. For example, he showed us some research that shows how important it is to many individuals that their families approve of their significant other. Though many in this country are free to make our own decision of who we spend our life with, we definitely take our families into consideration, just as those in Vietnam do. Additionally, I thought it was interesting to hear about how their parenting style differed from the styles I have seen in the United States. He talked about how many parents do not praise their children because they want them to be humble and not become arrogant. Along the same lines, he stressed the importance of respecting one’s elders within Vietnam, as well as respect from elders to the young individuals. All in all, learning about the culture in Vietnam was very intriguing and seems to be one of modesty, humility, and full of hard-working individuals.

More information on Ho Chi Minh University of Pedagogy can be found at:
http://english.slu.cz/ho-chi-minh-city-university-of-pedagogy-vietnam