By Megan Zirkle '06, photography by Dr. Stephen Emmanuel
In the summer of 2007, six students and two faculty members from Virginia Wesleyan experienced a journey of a lifetime when they traveled to Vietnam for a month-long trip to conduct research, record footage for a documentary and participate in humanitarian efforts. Along the way the group encountered new people, ate different food and had their personal views challenged.
A Fixed View That's Never Challenged 
It is a concern that Batten Professor of Philosophy Dr. Steven Emmanuel had more than a year ago about higher education. "Let's face it, there's only so much you can do in a classroom," said Emmanuel. "I had a concern that students are able to come through the doors with a fixed world view, and could survive for four years without having that view challenged."
A solution for his problem: take students outside of the classroom and into the world, literally. Not just a study abroad trip at a university, or somewhere tropical over spring break, but a trip exposing students to a culture unlike anything they had ever witnessed before.
After a solo trip to Vietnam in 2005, Emmanuel found that trip he was looking for and began to plan a trip for students with the help of Dr. Stu Minnis, associate professor of communications.
Emmanuel applied for a summer 2007 ASIANetwork Freeman Student- Faculty Award. He was one of 14 recipients to receive the prestigious grant that funded this trip for him and five students. The students came from all divisions of the liberal arts, but focused their research on one topic – humanitarian efforts aimed at helping children in the Central Highlands region of the country – an experience that changed them forever.
The exploration begins
It was hot, sticky and humid when the group of eight arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam, at midnight after traveling for more than 30 hours.
A fairly young country, Emmanuel described the Vietnamese as "friendly, welcoming and helpful." Most do not have a collective memory of the Vietnam War, said Emmanuel, and they are pragmatic people who do not live in the past.
Having experienced Vietnam before, Emmanuel knew the students needed time to adjust to the environment before two weeks of intense research would begin in Hue.
The first morning was a sight the students had never seen before – people were preparing food on the street, elderly ladies were carrying vegetables on their heads and cars were whizzing by in a chaotic mess like intertwining paths in a maze.
For the first five days, the group soaked in the sights, sounds and tastes of Hanoi, located north of Saigon. They rented motorcycles to get around the city and ate Pho, the classic Vietnamese soup for breakfast and lunch. They visited pagodas and practiced Vietnamese, something Emmanuel stressed from the beginning because "the more effort you put into it, the more the people appreciate it," he said.
The second full day in Vietnam included a trip to Friendship Village, a treatment center for children and veterans affected by Agent Orange. There, the transformation began.
"I could tell the students were deeply affected," said Emmanuel. "They talked about how fortunate they are to have what they have after seeing families living on cement slabs and working all day for one day's worth of rice. You can't go to a place like that and be exposed to the things they were exposed to and not be changed by it."
After five days in Hanoi, a 15-hour train ride was taken to reach phase two of the journey – Hue. Junior Lauren Perry said that train ride was an experience she'll never forget.
To make room for government officials, Perry and fellow student senior Julie Maggioncalda were moved from "soft-sleepers" into "hard-sleepers" in coach. Few caucasian people were in that section of the train, no dinner was served and the students' once soft beds turned into hard cement-like mattresses.
"At first our situation seemed rather frustrating," said Perry. But then, two elderly Vietnamese ladies in a bottom bunk befriended them – offering them corn, black coffee and lemon cookies. Lauren said the students climbed down "like spiders to join them on the bottom bunks, hunching over to sit with them and talking through sign language and smiles."
Before long, the rest of the students joined the tiny cabin, including sophomore Lan Tran, who was born in Vietnam and speaks Vietnamese. "At one point there were 14 people in the little room and multiple paths of conversations criss-crossing in the air," said Perry. "Our situation, once frustrating and uncomfortable, turned into an experience I wouldn't have traded for a comfortable bed on any night."
Taking it all in
Up at 6:30 a.m., the students spent 12 to 15 hours each day recording the people, sights and villages for the documentary. Each day, led by lead videographer Dr. Stu Minnis, the group went to a different location – some within the city and some remote areas of the country that consisted only of rice fields and tiny huts.
With the help of junior Matt Ryan, Emmanuel captured hours of video, documenting the lifestyle of Vietnamese who work and live on the river. The duo captured footage of Vietnamese living on boats and dredging sand, fishing or soliciting tourists to earn enough money for one day's food.
In such a dispersed country, the documenting was not easy, said Emmanuel. Many villages are undeveloped and not accessible by vehicle. Sometimes the team walked four to five kilometers (2.5-3.5 miles) with heavy equipment just to reach a village.
Perry said exposure to the rural areas of Vietnam was where she learned the most about herself and life.
"Walking three miles in temperature over 100 degrees and humidity of about 95 percent to see a little girl who needs a heart operation is something that you can read about, any day," she said. "But to actually be the person taking those steps, with a sweaty and aching back, to come to a house and receive such gratitude you can't even comprehend in the face of such hardships as these families go through, is what you can never really feel from words on a page or a screen."
The challenge of capturing this experience on screen is now before Emmanuel as he is faced with the daunting task of editing about 25 hours of footage into a feature-length documentary film.
"The main problem that we're going to have is letting the good stuff go," he said. "It's a good problem to have, though."
Emmanuel, Minnis and Ryan expect to complete the documentary in spring 2008, and it will be sent to local and national film festivals.
Connecting two cultures
Although individual research projects were the main focus of the trip, the students were also exposed to the interior life of Vietnam, another teaching tool in the eyes of Emmanuel. Students began to learn that the United States is just one small part in a sea of many different people and beliefs.
Even Tran, a native, who still has family in Vietnam, described the trip as "real and unimaginable."
"Several times throughout the month-long journey in Vietnam, I had to remind myself that the people on the streets were not in costume and the farmers in the fields were not pretending to work," she said. "I expected Vietnam today to be different from the one I knew over fourteen years ago, but I could not have thought up such a country with such sadness, beauty and promise."
Tran took this opportunity to rediscover Vietnam and reconnect with her family, taking a day to travel with her mom, sister and uncle to see her grandmother, who lives outside of Saigon.
Reflecting back on her first visit with her grandmother in 14 years, Tran said, "My grandmother came running when I arrived… she embraced me and we walked with our arms wrapped around each other." Tran also spent time with her great aunt and cousins. She recorded her visit, some of which may be featured in the documentary.
As part of the trip, the group raised $1,770 to support a heart surgery program in Vietnam. This money has already helped two young children from Hue. A life-changing experience, Emmanuel said that all of the students who traveled to Vietnam would like to go back. Emmanuel is in the process of planning a return trip during winter session in January 2008.
Additional photos of the trip are available on Emmanuel's Web site at http://facultystaff.vwc.edu/-semmanuel
Student Research
The following students received funding from the 2007 ASIANetwork Freeman Student-Faculty Award to conduct research in Vietnam.
Senior Julie Maggioncalda
Major: Women's and Gender Studies and Religious Studies Hometown: Cherry Hill, N.J. Examined what responsibility the local government assumes for the care of its people and how the religious community in Vietnam plays an interesting role in humanitarian work.
Junior Lauren Perry
Major: Journalism and Philosophy Hometown: Virginia Beach, Va. Investigated the impact of poverty and the lack of healthcare in two subcultures within Vietnam: the Montagnards of the Central Highlands and the families who live and work on boats along the Perfume River in Hue.
Junior Matt Ryan
Major: Liberal Arts Management Program and Communications Hometown: Chesapeake, Va. Involved in the Vietnam project in two ways, investigating how micro-loans are being used in Central Vietnam and as a video production assistant.
Sophomore Lan Tran
Major: Environmental Sciences and Chemistry Originally from Vietnam: Resides in Chesapeake, Va. Focused on how the Vietnamese are addressing the problem of persistent organic pollutants in the environment, specifically the problem of dioxin contamination and the effects of dioxin poisoning on the health of urban versus rural populations.
Senior Sarah Tytler
Major: International Relations Hometown: Cortland, N.Y. Focused on the political economy of Vietnam including how neo-liberalism, especially structural adjustment policy and development, affects the poor and rural areas of Vietnam.
A month to last a Lifetime
A personal reflection by Sarah Tytler '08
A month in Vietnam…We saw the sights, got lost, got found again and met some really great people.
I learned that nothing can prepare you for 99 percent humidity and over 100 degree temperatures. Sure, I expected outrageous heat and humidity, but I don’t think there was much that could have prepared me for a wall of heat that hits you as soon as you walk outside. Eventually, I accepted the fact that I was going to be sticky – all the time.
Despite the heat, everything in Vietnam is beautiful. The Long Tho pagoda has the most beautiful floating gardens I’ve ever seen. The mountainsides that still have trees are gorgeously luscious and wonderfully diverse shades of emerald and jade. The water is beautiful – made more so because it’s so hot – and the sky is so amazingly blue. The greens and blues all blend together, which I think is reflected in the fact that the word for “blue” and the word for “green” are the same in Vietnamese.
Hue, in central Vietnam, was the center of operations for our research. While we spent only two weeks in Hue, the experience will stay with me for a lifetime.
We
saw so many things. We went on five-kilometer treks through the rice paddies
to reach a family so that our parent organization, the Office for Genetic
Counseling for Disabled Children (OGCDC), could perform assessments on the
family’s income, citizenship status, and especially the children’s health.
We attended one of the health clinics that the OGCDC offers for disadvantaged
families to get medical care for their children. We saw so many children
– some with disabilities, some not – and saw so many cute smiles. We went
out to the mountains and met a family that lives under a glorified tarp
and works for rice – not money – every day. Most families earn less than
two dollars a day; some families earn less than one. It’s usually extended
families that live in the one- to two-room houses, and there’s always a
sense of love and acceptance. Hope, too.
After two intense weeks in Hue, we headed off to Da Nang, but everything after Hue was basically me thinking about Hue. I kept thinking about the families waiting to get heart surgeries for their children, or the families taking care of their children after the heart surgery, or the mother’s tears when we gave her children juice boxes.
I hope to continue my studies of Vietnamese in the States, but nothing beats total immersion, so I definitely want to go back. I only spent a month in Vietnam, but made enough friends and memories to last forever.