IN 2001, AS OUR NEPAL PROGRAMS GREW, I SET MY SIGHTS ON OPENING Room to Read in a second country. With so many nations facing staggering illiteracy problems, I wanted to think big and set a precedent of perpetual growth for the organization. I often visualized the places I had traveled that lacked schools, libraries, books, even simple thing like pencils.
Vietnam intrigued me. Ravaged my numerous wars, and for so long poor and isolated, the nation had every reason to be pessimistic and inward-looking. Yet their citizens had faith and optimism that education was the ticket out of poverty. The average person might earn only $1 per day, but people believed that they would soon make $2, then $3, if only they could educate their children.
But the main reason I wanted to help Vietnam to build its educational infrastructure was due not to economic statistics, but instead to a young man named Vu.
IN 1997, I HAD WALKED ONTO A SYDNEY HARBOUR FERRY, OVERSTUFFED backpack slung across my shoulders and a huge grin on my face. I was bound for a flight that would transport me to the start of a solo two-week trip through Vietnam. A business trip to Hanoi the previous year had piqued my interest, and during my frantic 48 hours there, I jealously eyed all the backpackers who were seeing the country at a slow pace. While I was running to meetings, they were sitting in cafés drinking strong Vietnamese coffee, slurping pho (noodle soup), and leafing through the Lonely Planet guide to plot their next destination. Sure, I was here in Vietnam on an expense account, seeing the country for free, but was I really experiencing it?
A year later I went back to see the country for real. With a backpack full of books and a blank journal, my goal was to travel from the south (Saigon) through the long, thin, banana-shaped Communist wonderland. I was relieved to have a break from Microsoft’s frantic pace. More important, I was eager to contemplate my future. Indeed, my intention was to fill the blank journal with ruminations on my life and what came next.
The days in Vietnam were quiet and uneventful. I started most mornings writing in my journal over a strong, piping hot cup of Vietnamese coffee with the viscosity of motor oil. In Hue, on day four, my morning ritual was interrupted by a Vietnamese teenager, about 17 years old, who asked if he could sit with me.
I made a universal “Please be seated” hand gesture. He immediately accepted. He had neatly cut jet-black hair and a kind face on which the troubles of the world had not yet drawn lines. He was dressed in blue cotton trousers, a crisp white short-sleeved shirt, and plastic sandals.
“My name is Nguyen Thai Vu. But call me Vu. That’s easier.”
“Nice to meet you, Vu. Please, please, sit. My name is John. I am from America.”
“Good, because I want to practice my English with you. Is that all right?”
“Certainly. But I am not sure how much practice you need, because your English is flawless.”
“Oh, no, it is not so good,” he said with genuine modesty. “You see, this is a small hotel, so there are not many guests, so I do not have as much practice as I would like.”
“You work here?”
“Yes, but perhaps you have not seen me because I work the night shift. But I see in the register that you will be here for three days, so perhaps you will be my friend and every morning we can practice my English.”
I was eager to help. But my idea of a vacation was to get away from meetings and commitments, and he was proposing a standing appointment each day of my stay. I quickly changed the subject by pointing to a worn, dog-eared book he had placed on the table entitled Learning Microsoft Excel and asked if he was studying computers in addition to English.
“Oh, yes, I study computers as much as I can. Computers are important for Vietnam to continue to develop and be linked to the rest of the world.”
“Do you know something, Vu? I actually work for Microsoft, and part of my responsibility is for sales of Microsoft Excel.”
His eyes lit up the way that American teenagers’ might had they met Britney Spears.
“Really? You work for Microsoft? Then you must be very smart. They are one of the greatest companies in the world.”
“Well, they are good, but there are certainly drawbacks to working there.”
“I have heard of Bill Gates. He is a very smart man. You must come see my computer school.”
“I would love to. Perhaps later today, or tomorrow,” I said, trying to preserve that precious morning time.
“No. Right now! You wait here, and I will be coming back very soon.”
He leaped into the air and exited, stage left, with no further explanation. I ordered another cup of coffee, but Vu arrived before it did, roaring onto the patio on a Honda scooter like a Vietnamese version of James Dean. He made an excited “Hop aboard” motion.
“You come, now. We go to my school.”
I commented that he had wasted no time getting his moto.
“Is not mine. Is my friends. I told him that you are an important visitor who needs to come to the computer school, so he makes us a loan. Come on, let’s go.”
Concerned that my Vietnamese waiter might wonder why I was “dining and dashing” on my coffee order, I laid 20,000 Vietnamese dong on the table and abandoned my original plan of a leisurely morning. I jumped on the back of the moto and felt the life going out of the springs. These bikes were obviously not designed for large American frames. Vu, busy revving the engine, did not notice. We roared off into traffic, and I decided not to contemplate whether Vu was actually old enough to be driving this thing.
WITH DUST FLYING, WE BRAKED TO A SHARP HALT IN FRONT OF THE Computer Academy five minutes later. The school was housed in a single room, with fifteen PCs lining three of the walls. The school was privately run by Professor Than, a kindly man in his early 50s who augmented his university salary by providing private lessons. Vu bragged to Professor Than that “my new friend John from Microsoft is going to teach me how to use Excel.” I did not know what to say, as in Vietnamese society the teachers are revered, and I did not want the professor to think I was some young hotshot who thought my lessons would be more valuable than his. But the professor smiled, grabbed my arm, and proudly led me to the best machine in the house. “Here, this one is the only one that can run Windows 95.” I winced at the thought that my company’s flagship product demanded so much computer memory that over 90 percent of the academy’s machines could not use it. I switched the focus of our conversation to Excel.
“Okay, Vu, to start I want to show you how to move a column of numbers from one section of the spreadsheet to another. You just click on the column that you want to move, hit Alt plus Edit plus Cut, then click on the section of the spreadsheet where you want the column to go, and click on Alt plus Enter plus Paste.”
“No, it’s easier this way,” Vu said. Grabbing control of the keyboard, he showed me a way to do the same operation in fewer steps, using “shortcut keys” that I did not know existed.
“Wow, you’re good at this, Vu. And Professor Than, you are obviously teaching your students well.”
“No, I am not that smart,” declared Vu. “You work at Microsoft, you are smarter than me.”
I decided that in a pathetic attempt to save face, I would show Vu a more complicated operation. But again, after I went through a multistep process, Vu showed me a shortcut. At this point, I suggested that we go back to English lessons, where there was perhaps a possibility that I had something to teach. We thanked Professor Than and walked out into the hot morning, with me unclear as to who was teacher and who was pupil.
Back on the bike, Vu asked if he could take me out for a coffee to replace the forfeited one. Interested in learning more about this brilliant young man, I immediately agreed. Before we had even sat down, I began peppering him with questions. Where had he gone to high school? Were his parents well educated? How much time did he have to practice his computer studies, given that he was working a full-time job? He seemed eager to share the details of his life:
“I grew up near Hue. Fifteen miles away, maybe. My parents, they are farmers, and they had no education. But they always told my younger brother—his name is Bang—and I that education is the most important thing. They encouraged us to study. They say ‘study English, study computers.’ One day I hope to go to college, but now I can’t afford, so I work at the hotel and I try to study a little English, a little bit of computers.”
I asked him about working at the hotel, and did this allow him enough time to study, and was he going to be able to save enough to afford college.
“I work at the hotel from six p.m. until seven a.m. I am here six days a week. Then I go to computer classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I know that I must study, or else I will never get a good job. Right now I learn Excel, but I also want to learn Microsoft Access. I like working at hotel because I can practice my English. Also working here means I can study at night while guests are sleeping and not making demands. I know I must study hard. After learning computers, I next want to become good at Japanese.”
I asked if there were a lot of Japanese tourists in Vietnam.
“Not today, but in the future it will be important. Japanese companies will invest here, so there will be jobs, and also then there will be tourists from Japan. But now my focus is on computers.”
“Can you afford school? Does the hotel pay you enough?”
“I make twenty-three dollars a month. My computer classes cost fifteen dollars each month. I give five dollars to my parents to help them because they are getting older and I am not there to help them on the farm. So I have three dollars left. For food, I eat two meals a day at the hotel.”
“Do you have to pay rent?”
“No, I sleep during the day on a cot in the back room of the hotel. I sleep four or five hours a day, no more. The rest of the time I study.”
“But, Vu, certainly three dollars a month does not go far. That’s ten cents a day. And you must need things like gas for your friend’s moto when you borrow it, and other expenses.”
“Yes, like taking my friends out for coffee.” He smiled as he yelled for the bill in Vietnamese.
“Vu, you are certainly not paying for this coffee.”
“Yes, I am,” he declared emphatically. “You are my friend. You are not allowed to say no. Besides, I speak Vietnamese and you don’t, so the woman will listen to me.”
“Okay, thanks. But tell me more. I want to know more about how much you practice on the computer. How did you get so good at Excel?”
“I practice as much as I can. But the academy charges us money for practicing. It costs about one thousand dong per hour. With the money I have left over, I can afford to practice about three hours a week. I wish I could do more.”
I did the math in my head several times because I kept arriving at a figure of ten cents per hour, and I simply could not imagine this small amount being the difference between receiving an education and not. So I confirmed the current exchange rate, and my math, with Vu. Yes, ten cents.
“Perhaps I could help you out by paying for some lessons.”
“No. If you do that, you are not my friend. Come on, let’s go now.”
I had hit a nerve. His pride would not allow him to accept a handout. This concerned me, because an amount that was pocket change for me could allow him much more practice time. But I was not about to give up. Vu was stubborn, but I’ve met few people in life who can match me in this department.
THAT NIGHT, AS I WALKED OUT TO DINNER, I STOPPED BY THE DESK TO leave my key. Vu was reading a guide to a Casio programmable calculator. “Oh, do you own one of those?” I asked.
“No, some guest left this here at the hotel, so I read it because I want to learn how electronics work. I have read it four times.”
My heart skipped a beat. Here was a kid who was so anxious to learn that he would read anything that came into his orbit, no matter how arcane. It made me realize how much I took for granted. I had just recently had to buy a new bookshelf to keep up with my flow of reading. If only Vu could have such “problems” in life.
The next morning on the way to coffee I stopped at the desk and asked Vu to join me as soon as his shift ended. When he sat down, I ordered for him in broken French from the friendly octogenarian running the café. By taking control of the order, I hoped to also take control of the bill. I told Vu that I had run out of books and asked if he knew of any bookstores that carried English books. Before his drink had arrived, he ran off to again borrow his friend’s moto.
My secret plan was to buy Vu enough technology books that he could continue his self-study. At the store, I kept one eye on the rather thin selection of English books I was perusing, and the other eye on Vu. Sure enough, one book rack over he was leafing through a modern, thick, state-of-the-art Excel guide.
Proud of my cunning, I approached to close the deal.
“That looks like a great study guide for Excel.”
Vu slammed the book back on the shelf. “Yes, is nice. Did you find anything in English?”
“No, I had no luck. But how about if we get this for you?” I suggested as I picked up the Excel book.
“No, if you do that, you are not my friend!” He stole the book back, and as one hand thunked it back onto the shelf, his other hand grabbed my arm to lead me out of the store.
How was I going to help him? I was thrilled that he was not begging and that he valued his independence. But I wanted him to achieve his dream of a full education, and he was not making it easy.
BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD. THAT NIGHT WAS MY LAST IN HUE; IT was crunch time. I went to my favorite restaurant, a small, family-run place with plastic furniture on the banks of the Perfume River. The sun had set, and the day’s heat was all-too-slowly dissipating. I was trying to write in my journal about Vu, but my mind was too busy racing with ideas on how I could best help him with his studies. As soon as I left town, my opportunity to assist would be lost. I ordered an ice-cold 333 beer and let my mind wander in the hope that a solution would come to me.
I recalled my first experience with computers, at the age of 17 as I started my senior year. Our high school had just acquired its first two Commodore PET computers, each with 64K of memory. Mr. Tidlow was also busy teaching calculus and physics but somehow managed to carve out time to allow a limited group of twenty students to begin programming in BASIC. Something in computer coding appealed to the part of me that likes logical structure and mathematical clarity. I became hooked and was soon writing programs to help my father’s company plan their investment strategy and to forecast their yields.
Here in Hue was a similarly young and enthusiastic student. For want of a small amount of money, his education was not complete. Maybe I could help him to find a scholarship. Did such things exist and how would I find out?
Suddenly it hit me. Eureka! I had no idea whether there were scholarship programs for Vietnamese students, but that did not matter. It was in my power to create this opportunity. The answer did not need to involve outsiders. I frantically ripped a page out of the journal and grabbed a pen.
Dear Nguyen Thai Vu:
As an employee of Microsoft, I have been financially empowered by Bill Gates to provide scholarship money for promising young students in Vietnam to learn computer science. You are a smart student, so we wish to support your education. Please accept the enclosed cash as a “study grant” that can be used for books and for practice time on computers.
Microsoft and I are proud to support you. The continued development of your country lies in education, and we hope that this grant will help you not only in your studies, but also in your quest to help Vietnam to engage with the rest of the world.
Best of luck to you. Please study hard, and please write to me with reports on your progress.
Smiling at my cunning, I signed my name and put a crisp $20 bill in an air-mail envelope. To celebrate, I ordered a second beer and a steamed fish with rice and contemplated how fun it would be to watch Vu’s reaction.
Upon my return to the hotel, I decided on a strategy that would have me several moves down the chessboard, and had Vu at checkmate. At the desk, he gave me the room key, and I handed him the envelope in return. “You have to do me a favor, okay? You’re my friend, and I expect you to honor what I am about to ask of you.” He nodded slowly, seriously, with a quizzical look. “You cannot open this until I am upstairs, and you are not allowed to talk to me about this until tomorrow morning, okay?” He looked perplexed, but agreed to the terms.
As I walked up the stairs, he said, “You will have coffee with me in the morning before you leave for Hoi An, right?” I agreed and set off to my room to pack.
Five minutes later, there was a knock on my door. There stood Vu. He walked into my room, still reading the certificate. I was worried that he was too proud to accept the scholarship money, until I noticed that he had tears in his eyes. “If you think I am smart, then I must be smart. If Microsoft thinks that I am a good student, then I will study even harder and be a better student. I will send you reports on how I am doing. I am so happy that I will now be able to study harder and spend more time on computers.”
With that he did a quick 180-degree turn, assured me that he would wake me up at 7 a.m. for a farewell coffee, and shut the door. At which point I collapsed on my bed and started crying with tears of joy, of hope, of optimism, for forming a connection that transcends words.
He woke me the next morning promptly at seven with a knock on the door, this being a cheap hotel that did not have phones. Vu walked in as though we were roommates and placed a bag on the bed.
“Here, this is for you.”
“Vu, what is this? Water? Why two liters? And why so much 7UP?”
“Yes, it is going to be hot today,” he announced, as though it were not hot in Vietnam every day.
“Vu, why did you do this?”
“Because today you have a long drive. Five or six hours. And you need water. And I know you like 7UP, because I always see you drinking it.”
“But, Vu, you are not allowed to spend your scholarship money on me. You have to spend it on your studies.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Vu, I am going to have to report you to Bill Gates for this.”
We laughed and headed downstairs for our farewell coffee. When I reached for my wallet, he informed me that he had prepaid the restaurant owner. Helpless, I shook his hand to seal the deal and sipped my farewell coffee. Vu then handed me a laminated photo of himself, standing ramrod straight next to the hotel’s front desk. He had gone to a photography shop the prior afternoon, so that “my friend John will remember what his friend Vu looks like.”
As we said good-bye, Vu made me promise that I would stay in touch, and that I would someday return to Hue. “You will be so proud of me. By then, I will be a teacher, and I will be helping Vietnam to develop through education.”
I agreed, promising him that I would write back, that I would return to Vietnam, and that we would stay friends throughout our lives. We had known each other for about 48 hours, but as I waved good bye to him, it felt as if I were parting with my younger brother.
ALTHOUGH I DID NOT KNOW IT AT THE TIME, A PIECE OF THE POST-MICROSOFT jigsaw puzzle had fallen into place. While I am not certain that the hopes and dreams of one person can represent those of an entire nation, I felt that Vu’s zeal for education made a strong argument for keeping on the lookout for other students to whom I could award scholarships.
Because of Vu, my strong preference was to make Vietnam the second country of operations for Room to Read. I had the inspiration, but I had little knowledge of the country. It’s naive for a person who has traveled in a foreign land for only a few weeks to assume he now understands its complexities. This is especially true for an American in Vietnam—we did not understand the country when we entered and fought in its civil war in the 1960s any better than we did as I contemplated expanding Room to Read there. So my first goal was to find a smart person with experience in the country who could develop an action plan for Room to Read Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of young Vus were waiting for us.
VU’S PROGRESS
Vu has made his parents and me proud by continuing his studies. In fact, he has not stopped since our initial meeting back in 1997.
For over a year after my initial Vietnam trip, he would send me reports on his grades at Professor Than’s private Computer Academy. A 92 in Word. A 99 on his last Excel exam. A 96 in Windows proficiency. “I promise you to study harder in Microsoft Word,” he wrote, as though a grade of 92 were something to be ashamed of.
By 1999, he was ready to tackle Microsoft Access. A friend of mine was visiting Vietnam, and I asked her to meet up with Vu in Hue and transfer some more scholarship money to him. During her first hour in Hue, as she walked along Le Loi Avenue looking for a place to eat lunch, she saw a young man in a T-shirt bearing the slogan WWW.MICROSOFT.COM.AU (this was a relic from my days running Microsoft’s Internet unit in Australia).
“Are you Vu?” she asked.
“No, but I know Vu. I can take you to his hotel.”
Five hours before their scheduled meet-up for dinner, she met him, heard all about his studies, and handed over the $50 I had sent to help Vu continue his studies.
Within a year, he was ready for college. In 2000, we were still exchanging letters by snail mail, as Internet access in Vietnam was sporadic and expensive by local standards. Vu wrote to me to say that he wanted to study English, French, and Japanese. I wrote back to tell him that I’d be willing to support some of his college education, but that he’d also have to pitch in. Next, I inquired about which order he planned to learn the languages in. I should not have been surprised, given his hunger for knowledge, when he replied that he would study all three languages simultaneously.
Upon graduation, Vu took a prestigious job with the Vietnamese National Railway. He trained railroad personnel on conversational French, English, and Japanese. Tourism has grown rapidly in Vietnam and is one of the biggest earners of foreign currency. Because of Vu’s studies, I believe that many thousands of travelers today have been pleasantly surprised when being greeted with a friendly “Bonjour, madame,” “Konichiwa,” or “Good morning” by the Vietnamese railways staff.
He is now married to Yen, a woman equally dedicated to education. She graduated from a local medical college and works as a nurse. Vu tells me that their five-year-old daughter, Thao, has learned how to say “Hello, John,” in eager anticipation of my next trip to Hue.
Vu’s computer skills continue to pay dividends. He authors a regular column for the Informatics newspaper and is now in touch with me weekly via his Gmail account. “I mainly write about the Windows and Office tips, as well as new softwares usage. I like this very well!” The additional $25 per month he makes is being saved for Thao’s education.
In the fall of 2005, Vu wrote to tell me that he had decided to pursue a graduate degree in software engineering at the Aptech school in Hue. The cost would run $650 per year. Could I help? His parents had already committed the lion’s share of their life savings, 3 million Vietnamese dong (about $200).
My author’s advance against royalties for this book was immediately tapped into, and via the miracle of Western Union Vu soon had tuition for both years of study. If you bought this book, you are now one of Vu’s benefactors. My dream is to continue to use these funds to help the millions of eager learners who, like Vu, will study so hard if we help them to gain the opportunity of the lifelong gift of education.