“Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.” With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.  Desiderata by Max Ehrmann ©1927 I’ve decided to repost this every year on my birthday. Amazingly but maybe not surprisingly, it’s the most-read post on my blog. If you “Google” “do not regret growing older” and “it is a privilege denied to many,” you’ll see that it’s the first result for both. The former has 47.8 million search results and the latter 32.1 million. It’s worth reflecting on with the passing of each year. Wishing you many mor ..read more

Source: International Criminal Court Bar Association (ICCBA) I do my best to be a responsible environmental citizen but I’m also an unwilling participant in a system that must change from below and above. On the bright side, this includes: Not littering Gently admonishing people for littering Picking up other people’s trash Using my own cloth bag whenever I go shopping and saying “no need” whenever the cashier pulls out a plastic bag, which is always Limiting my use of water Turning off lights and electrical appliances when I’m not using them and insisting that my staff do the same i ..read more

And now, a word from my employer… Capstone Education/Recruit in Viet Nam is pleased to announce that Dr. Mark Ashwill, managing director and co-founder, will speak at an unofficial, pre-conference Vietnam student recruitment seminar from 3-5 p.m. on Monday, May 27, 2024, at the University of New Orleans. The Vietnam Recruitment Seminar consists of a comprehensive overview of current market conditions, recruitment tools and techniques, and different types of recruitment strategies.  These are challenging times for international student recruitment, including in Vietna ..read more

Spring 2024 Update Source: Chào Hanoi These countries host over 90% of all Vietnamese studying abroad, 58% of whom are close to home in East Asia. Australia is now the leading English-speaking destination, a place it frequently trades with the US. I occasionally see reports with outdated statistics in the Vietnamese and English language media. For example, a recent Acumen report was widely inaccurate stating that ” Vietnam had by far the largest number of outbound students, 132,000″ among Southeast Asian countries and getting it wrong across the board, e.g., 14,100 Vietnamese student ..read more

Screenshot Last month, there were 26,919 Vietnamese students in the US, mostly in higher education, according to the SEVIS Data Mapping Tool. Here’s the breakdown in descending numerical order: Four-year colleges and universities: 13,345 (49.5%) Community colleges: 3,630 (13.5%) Master’s: 3,238 (12%) Secondary: 2,408 (8.9%) Ph.D.: 2,083 (7.7%) Language Training: 1,383 (5.1%) Other: 689 (2.6%) Four-year institutions continue to attract the most Vietnamese students for the same reasons: there are more of them than ever actively recruiting in Vietnam with lower price points than ever. The shift t ..read more

Photo by MAA I saw this and other imprisoned birds at a phở restaurant near Hanoi. Full disclosure: I was once one of them. No, not the birds – at least in a literal sense – but their owners. As a teenager, I had a small parrot who spent most of his time in a cage with occasional bursts of freedom, at least in the living room. He would excitedly fly from his cage to a lampshade to my hand. For a long time, it has made me sad to see caged birds, something that’s popular in Vietnam. They sing but only to other birds they have no contact with and can only see through the bars of their tiny prison ..read more

LinkedIn Screenshot Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now. -Aaron Bushnell, on the morning of 25 February 2024 From the moment I learned of Aaron’s self-immolation I have been thinking of him and his act of self-sacrifice. While I wish he had chosen another route, it was his life to give on behalf of a noble cause. Whenever I see the references to mental health and the hotlines for those consider ..read more

Photo by Leonardo Cendamo/Getty Images Pity the nation whose people are sheep And whose shepherds mislead them Pity the nation whose leaders are liars Whose sages are silenced And whose bigots haunt the airwaves Pity the nation that raises not its voice Except to praise conquerors And acclaim the bully as hero And aims to rule the world By force and by torture Pity the nation that knows No other language but its own And no other culture but its own Pity the nation whose breath is money And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed Pity the nation oh pity the people who allow their rights to erode a ..read more

Merle Ratner (Photo: VNA) It is with great shock and sadness that I learned of the death of Merle Ratner, who was hit by a tow truck in New York City on the evening of Monday, February 5th, in the days leading up to the Lunar New Year (Tết) celebration. Several articles about her death and life appeared in the Vietnamese media, including this one. Merle was a faithful reader of this blog and would occasionally chime in with comments here or via email. I always looked forward to hearing from her. We never had the pleasure of meeting in person. Here’s a July 2017 interview with Merle conducted b ..read more

This is a guest post by Mike Hastie, a veteran of the US war in Vietnam whose tagline is “I was born in America, but my heart is Vietnamese.” Erasing Human Rights Erasing Human Beings Erasing Hospitals Erasing Medical Supplies Erasing Oxygen Erasing Doctors and Nurses Erasing Ambulances Erasing Food and Water Erasing Electricity Erasing Communication to the Outside World Erasing Pregnancy Erasing Children By The Thousands Erasing These Words: ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ But you can’t erase this: If Anne Frank at age 15 were to reappear, she w ..read more