Aid Secretary in Saigon and Ivs Teacher in Hue Vietnam 1961
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AID SECRETARY IN SAIGON AND IVS TEACHER IN HUE VIETNAM 1961 - 1967 Marybeth Clark 36812B Control Code 36812B AID SECRETARY IN SAIGON AND IVS TEACHER IN HUE VIETNAM 1961 - 1967 Cont ent Surn..rnary Prefa c e o i Map o o . iii Recruitment and Preparat i on for Assignment 1 The i nterviewee had for a long time been interested i n Asia a n d t o ok t he oppo rtunity of going there as a secretary wi t h AID o Per haps bec ause o f her inter ests and background o f asso ciations with people who wer e highl y mot ivated in the s tudy of languages and cu l t ures 0 she fou nd the AID orientation program dis appointing o Thou gh she felt the FSI lectures were wor t hwhile 0 t here was lit tle response to them on the part o f t he AID per sonnel 0 or awareness of the im plications o " I didn ' t feel that there was mu ch real awareness on the part of anybody 0 either the orienters o r t he orient ees 0 about the problems of appreciating the att itudes and the felt needs of the people where we wer e going o" There was very little encouragement t o s tudy t he language o She also was critical of the b u reau cracy a nd exc essive paperworko She feels t he cultural sho ck for Americans is slight bec a u se i t is cu shioned by insulation. In her own case 0 what was crucial and affected her whole experience o f living i n Viet nam was that she didn't have any spec ific expectations• about things, "this lef t t h e d oo r open f o r a l l experiences t o be learning s itua t i onso" AID and the Educati o n Di•ision ••• 4 .A t the time she went to Vietnam 0 almost a ll AID per~ s onnel were stationed in Saig o n & with the advent of Rura l Affairs 0 AID moved more into the provinces . Her j ob was in the Educa t i on Division a s a s ecretary to two p rojects and in charge o f t he typing poo l . There were about 12 Vietnamese personnel ar:d t en Ameri can echnicians o n the two pro jects. The tu!'.'n over in American personnel was h igh. Mo st of the Vietnamese working f or AID were Northerners 0 probably because o f their i mmi9ra t i on to t he Soath a t the time the U. S . built u p its aid p rogram in South Vietnam a nd because o f he in-group feeling amo ng northerners. There is kick- back a nd pay-off amo ng Vietnamese. Observa ·ions o n Vie namese Culture 5 Many lietnamese h ad t heir educa t i on inte rrupted by the war with the French, s ome of these are trying now t o finish their educa t i on becau se education is very importa nt in Vietnamese s ociet y. Not all AID scho lar ship students up on t heir retu rn to Vietnam d o t he job for which they were trained i n the Uo S o This isn't s urprising in v iew o f the Vietnamese s ocial value t hat any person is obl iged to t ake any opportunity t o add t o t he f amily income. "A Vietnamese's first l oyalty is to his f amily." Mos t Vi etnamese people l i ve in extremely crowded and small living p l a ces . Even a ministry o fficial she visited lived in a crowded area in a passageway behind store fronts. An AID employee she visited lived in a much worse situation by a c a nal . There the sanitary conditio n a re deplorable . There is much sickness in Vietnamese people. Vietnamese s ociety places a very strong v alue on per~ s onal relationships . Every effo rt is made to maintain a relatio nship: e'1en the l a nguage reaffirms rel ation ships o A fundamen al d ifference in Ameri c an a nd Viet namese a t t itudes is t he v alu e placed on abstract prin- ciples v ersus p ersonal relationships. Vietnamese are p~agmatic a nd sentiment al and Americans are romantic and unsentimenta l. In spite of o ur blundering domination of their country, many Vietnamese seem to genuinely like Ame.ricanso though they resent being 11 bough t 11 and surely have frequent cause to laugh at the Americans . Vietnamese and America n Interpersonal Relationships • . 11 Few 0£ tbe American secretaries spent soc ial time with Vietnamese people and were often cond escending in t heir a ttitu des. In American offices 0 Hbecause of the high turnover o f American personnel a nd the constancy of the Vietnamese personnel 0 the Vietnamese often know much more of what is going on but the America n s are in the position o f running the show." Howeveru a close look shows the American to be top d og net by virtue of position but by virtue of being American 0 with 11 the insinuation that the Vietnamese were not as well educated 0 not as capable, and p robably not as intelligent,," and by putting the Vietnamese in the p o sition o f being yes-men and having to c ooperate with the Americans. "I t hink a great deal of American frustration is becau se of lack o f Vi etnamese initia tive ar..d action on America n. ideas and programs." Ameri cans rarely l e arn the l a nguage of the country they go to. An incident occurred in the Education o ffice i n which aspersions were cast on the honesty a nd integrity of the Vietnamese personnel. The Vietnamese responded with a letter expressing their feelings 0 but the let ter was treated in a very o ffhand manner by the Ameri cans0 showing little concern for the attitudes of the Vietna.mese employees o Even a t ATC there seems to be little interest in the attitudes of the Vietnamese s taff" Personal Ad justment. to Job o 18 Language • • • 14 Her motivation to s tudy Vie tnamese was very high and she was able to take Vietnamese language classes offered by the American Embassy o Hm·Jever 0 she learned most of her Vietnamese by practicing in the market, with her friends 0 and especially with her cyclo driver who drilled her from a Summer Instit ute of Linguistics phrase b o oko It is easy for Americ ans not to study another language and they t e nd to rationalize this by saying Vietnamese is not a u seful language and is too diffic ult to learno But a little effort goes a long way and is very rewardin·=r in terms of personal relationships. Relations with Vietnamese Personnel . 18 She spent most of her free time with Vietnamese friends, many of whom were fellow AID workers. Her friends liked to t each her abcut Vietnam. Relations with American Personnel 19 She got along well with most of the Americans in the office, but c o nflicts relating to her friend ship with the Vietnamese aro se between her a ~d her immediate supervis or and he arranged her transfer to another office. To do this 0 he obtained the 10 cooperat ion of a whole element of bureaucracy o On the basis o f a personal grudge 0 he got their cooperation in carrying out a procedure that was of no benefit to the agency and was detrimental to many personal and working relationshipso The real ization that this can and does happen far too often 11 in AID missions filled me with disgust 0 Also the administrators weren't "open:0 with her . The Pu blic Safety Divisi on was a very different environment from the Educa tion Di.vision and the discrepancy between the American personnel and the Vietnamese personnel was greater with the Vietnamese being more intellectu al than the police advisors 0 and ccthere was h a rdly any pretense in Public Safety of friendly relations between the Americans and the Vietnamese o ii She proceeded 0 h owever o in making friends with the Vietnamese in PSD o The Americans were distrustful of the Vietnamese and suspicious o f her friendship r finally 0 h er supervisor forbade h er to speak Vietnamese in the office o The atmos pher e in t hat office was gloomy a nd oppressive" and finally three o f t he Vietnamese translators resigned from USAID o She resigned from AID in 1964 to work for Inter nat ional Voluntary Serviceso AID - An Evalu ation o 24 Comparing AID with IVS 0 IVS puts more ~ emphasis o n the positive experiences of its volunteers 0 thus helping them to be more happy and effective workers than AID people o Our purposes f o r being in Vietnam somehow don't come off o The weakest aspect of AID is its recruiting policies o AID needs to be more concerned with ap plicants ' a ttitudes and to put more emphasis on wha t i t expe c t s o f its people o AID should cut down on its 01 goodies '1 0 they attract the wro ng kind of people .