July 6, 2013

Learning Lessons from Cambodia for a Better World


“Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” – Oscar Wilde.

Art is undoubtedly the most subtle way of understanding life, world and most importantly, the self. Art is the phenomenal tool that easily unearths the different layers of inhibitions that bind people and help in breaking down the shackles that restrict men on the basis of culture, religion, region and color. Art is the best teacher as it allows the learners to think beyond the realms of hatred with which their minds have been impregnated from centuries of never-ending wars.


War has weakened up the very moral fabric of the society. The gruesome atrocities, hedonistic acts of sadisms, and the millions of lost and bruised souls have dwarfed humanity. It is our responsibility as teachers to inspire the young minds by channelizing their energies to more productive facets of arts so that they have something positive to think about.

Imagine schools all over the US initiate educational travel programs to visit the nations that have seen the horrors of wars. Here art can play a huge role in healing, while at the same time creating bonds between different cultures, sowing seeds of friendship and mutual respect, love and acceptance.

The horrors of Khmer Rouge can still be seen in Cambodia. Before the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia was known as the arts and culture capital of the South East Asia. The country which boasted of a diverse and abundant arts and culture, suffered greatly at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-1979 had devastating impact on the art as artists were targeted as threats and exterminated. What followed is a chaotic society where nearly 2 million skilled artisans in Cambodia were either executed, or died due to overwork and starvation.

The advocates of the radical Marxist ideology, Khmer Rouge planned to convert Cambodia into a classless society where there were no distinctions between the rich and the poor and no exploitation. In order to bring about the change, the Khmer Rouge evacuated millions of citizens and forced them into agriculture. They abolished the money and private property, schools, arts, and communications were all banished. People were not allowed to hold discussions publicly and artists were not allowed to pursue any type of art. The country suffered highly and almost became a monarchy with agriculture as the main profession.

The hardships done by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia are still etched on the soul of the nation. To offer a ray of hope to the millions of Cambodians, Arn Chorn-Pond, one of the sufferers during the rule of the Khmer Rouge, started the Cambodia Living Arts program. The main agenda of the Cambodia Living Arts (CLA) program is to revive the lost art and traditions, which was once the trademark of the country and its rich culture. Today, the CLA in collaboration with various non-profit organizations is the beacon of hope to inspire people to leave behind the hardships of the Khmer Rouge and evolve once again as the nation that was a shining star in the field of arts and culture.

Cambodia still remains one of the most valuable cultural learning lessons for the children. There are myriad lessons which are imprinted in the Cambodian art and culture that we teachers can teach our students. Educational travel tours to Cambodia, akin to those offered by Friendship Tours World Travel can bridge a gap between the cultures and instill the students to honor other cultures and especially those which have been subdued for so long. Foreign exchange programs for high school students can help in constructing ideologies to challenge the messengers of dictatorship so that we do not have another Khmer Rouge anywhere in the world.

Photo Credit: http://www.cambodianlivingarts.org/

July 2, 2013

Experiential Learning: Vietnam in Southern California

Southern California Teachers: Want a nice complement to your inter-cultural studies? Vietnam War unit? Human Geography field work? Here’s a fun educational field trip destination with activities in Little Saigon, an established Vietnamese community easily accessible off the 405 freeway.

Preparations needed: Bus transportation for students and chaperones: 3-5 hours during late morning to early afternoon. $10.00 for lunch, $5.00 for market activity. Vietnamese phrases hand-outs. “Interview a local” Worksheet. Students need to bring a notebook and pencil.

Plan to spend the late morning and early afternoon in Little Saigon. On the bus ride, distribute basic shopping phrases in Vietnamese, and practice saying them out loud with the students (See Wiki Travel Phrasebook:  ). Tell the students that you will walk together through the neighborhoods, visit key areas of local commerce (Post office, pharmacy, markets, etc) and then eat an authentic lunch. At lunch, the students are to identify one ingredient in their meals – an herb, vegetable, spice, root – anything unique. They must ask the wait-staff (or other diners) the English and Vietnamese name for this ingredient. The next challenge (after lunch) will be to break into pairs and bargain for this ingredient ---using as much Vietnamese as possible—in the local marketplace. They must find a way to purchase as much of this ingredient as they can get for $5.00. Upon meeting at the designated time / place following the activity, students will share stories of their experiences with a quick-write in their notebooks: What did they observe? How do these markets differ from those where they usually shop? Teachers may choose to collect all the ingredients for a follow-up Vietnamese food cooking project at school or donate the produce during the next activity: personal interview with a local merchant. People here are friendly and enjoy talking to visitors. Break students into groups of four, give each of them a destination from your earlier walk (post office, pharmacy, etc) and a “Interview a Local” worksheet. Students should be encouraged to brainstorm additional interview questions to ask local proprietors, and be respectful with their journalists’ task. The goal is to understand the way these Vietnamese people live and do business as naturalized Americans. Follow-up with sharing of answers and group discussion on the bus-ride home and in the classroom.

Assign as pre-or post -reading: The LA Times cover story, June 18, 2013, honors the 25 year anniversary of Little Saigon. Inextricably linked to the mass migrations following the end of the Vietnam War, the rise of Little Saigon has much to teach us about the Vietnamese culture, their family networks and what cultural gems are possible when hard-working people live in a state of peace, instead of war.

Photo-essay: http://framework.latimes.com/2013/06/18/little-saigon/#/0

Nghien Tran, 113, prays during a Mass being said at St. Barbara's Parish in Santa Ana. Tran has been a member of the church since 1980 when she moved from southern Vietnam to the United States. She has 10 children, 55 grandchildren and 80 great-grandchildren.

In 1988, an off-ramp sign on the Garden Grove Freeway marked the official birth of Little Saigon in Orange County. Now, as Vietnamese Americans toast 25 years of an enclave once sprinkled with orange groves and strawberry fields, the immigrant community spans beyond Westminster into Santa Ana, Fountain Valley and other neighboring cities.

As Little Saigon turns 25, family and heritage mark the path ahead,



In a conservative Orange County town, where the strawberry fields were still plentiful and the population solidly white, Danh's Pharmacy stood out when it opened its doors after the Vietnam War came to an end.

Yet the business was just the beginning in a small Orange County city that would quickly balloon into a bustling immigrant community.

When Danh N. Quach chose to set up shop in 1978 in Westminster, he knew just one Vietnamese doctor — the same man who agreed to co-sign a loan for him.

PHOTOS: Little Saigon turns 25

Now, as Little Saigon celebrates its 25th anniversary — a date marked not by the arrival of refugees, but by the state erecting a freeway offramp sign — Quach's shop stands as a landmark in the largest Vietnamese cultural district outside the country itself.

The streets bustle with noodle houses, produce markets, jewelry shops and bakeries. The enclave sprawls into neighboring cities. Local government is dominated by Vietnamese American politicians, and senators and presidential candidates swoop by during election seasons, looking for votes. More than 300,000 people of Vietnamese descent live in the county, according to area officials.

The second generation has dutifully stepped in to run many of the pioneering businesses in the area, growing them with the principles and practices they learned in American schools. But there's uncertainty whether the trend will hold and whether — as the decades pass — Little Saigon will remain Little Saigon.

As with many other first-wave immigrants, Quach set a path that his children followed. His eldest son's medical offices are next door to his business, his daughter owns a pharmacy nearby, and his youngest just graduated from medical school and probably will be expected to practice in Little Saigon. Even his wife manages her own pharmacy across the street from her husband.

"Papa saved a piece for me," said obstetrician Thomas Tri Quach, 47. "The question is, how will we attract the next generation to Little Saigon? Will they want to work as close to their family as I do?"

Danh Quach had been a pharmacist in Saigon until war brought him to America as a refugee. When he opened shop on Bolsa Avenue in Westminster, he dispensed medicine, tobacco, shampoo, boomboxes, fabric — items that new immigrants in the community sought out to mail to loved ones left in Vietnam.

He sold care packages for $100 to $300, and Air France stopped by twice a week to pick up the shipments through a government program that allowed refugees to send "humanitarian aid" to family members.

In the early years, Quach worked seven-day weeks. He typed prescription labels in Vietnamese, delivered orders until 10 p.m. because not many of his customers owned cars and then stayed to hear about their lives.

He learned to keep careful records, in contrast to Vietnam's system where patient information was not often saved, and laws were so lax that cashiers were permitted to sell drugs. When Orange County health workers began testing for tuberculosis, his business spiked as customers poured in for medication.

At the time, real estate in central Orange County was going for 50 cents a square foot, a fraction of today's cost. Quach and partner Frank Jao, the man frequently credited with developing much of Little Saigon, began buying space in strip malls, including the center where thousands staged nightly demonstrations in 1999 after a video shop owner put up a photo display of Communist leader Ho Chi Minh.

Quach now owns about 300,000 square feet of retail space through real estate partnerships in Little Saigon, a mecca luring Vietnamese expatriates from around the world.

"At first, we thought Little Saigon might last 20, 25 years. We were wrong," Quach said. "I think Little Saigon is here to stay. Mom and Dad might be the tenants, and when they retire, they will pass it on to their children."

Tam Nguyen, who heads the 1,500-member Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce of Orange County, said it's become a trend for children to take over and expand the businesses of Little Saigon. He and his sister inherited their parents' successful Advance Beauty College in Garden Grove, which started in the '80s.

"We in the younger generation are mainstreaming it — looking for customers outside the normal pool and using practices picked up in MBA school and adapting it with older traditions," Nguyen said. "The goal is to improve so we can continue what our elders gave us."

Growth

Vietnamese population growth, U.S., 1980-2010

Source: Census Bureau

Data analysis by Ben Welsh

For Quach, his entire family is in the pharmacy or medical business, and all but his younger son, who is completing his residency in Los Angeles, live in the same housing tract not far from where his original store stands.

"No pressure for my brother," Thomas Tri Quach said, laughing. "Papa is still open-minded."

The family patriarch, now 74, said he's driven by a basic belief: "If you focus on one thing — that's service to your community — then that community can sustain. It will always be there."

His daughter, pharmacist Thuy-Linh Nguyen, agreed.

"I think of Little Saigon like a child," she said. "She needs our unity, love, dedication. What we've tried to do is put less of the 'I' and more of the 'we' in the picture. The young people can make it better with teamwork."

Danh Quach remembers bringing ramen to eat at work in the early days — "I didn't have restaurants to choose from." No longer.

"I walk out my door and the whole of our Vietnamese world is waiting. Little Saigon does not lack for anything."


By Anh Do

Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ff-little-saigon-birthday-20130619,0,4912996.story