Life as a foreign exchange student: Chan Nguyen
Chấn Nguyễn speaks about Tiep Phan (co-author of To Distant Shores) and reminisces about his time as a foreign exchange student to the United States. The blog ends with him arriving in Utah by bus which is the event described in the chapter The Valley of Fog in To Distant Shores.
About Tiếp Phan
I'm Chan Nguyen. I am Huan's uncle. So my sister married to his dad in the in in, in the sixties. His dad is my brother-in-law, and I know him for a long time. He is talented and passionated about writing. Which make him famous as a writer in the Vietnamese community, both in Vietnam and here in the United States. Huan’s father was a Navy man. He served in the South Vietnamese navy for a long time, and he participate in combat as well as other activity in the Navy.
So he's very close to us. And the thing that I remember most about him, and I am always thankful to him, is that he took our family to the United States. Without him, life would be completely different. We would be miserable and living under the communist rule. Being the government servant, as most of us are, we'll be prosecuted. But thanks to him all our families is here. And because of that I think that we all prosper and become what we are today.
Experience as a foreign exchange student
Oh, okay. I graduate from the Vietnamese university with a degree in agriculture machinery. I think I'm 27 when I was working and I came to the United States when I was 29.
So at the time there was a Vietnamization program and the United States is trying to train the Vietnamese so that they can someday take over the role of the American advisor in Vietnam. And I was lucky to be selected. I think it start in 19 70, 71, 72. But I went to the United State in March the fifth 1973.
By the time I get to East Lansing A irport, there was an advisor asigned to me a nd I know his name. Dr. Esme. I think he passed away now because it was so long ago.
So I stay in Michigan State University for about '73 to 1976. So at my time in Michigan State the student are all against the war. There was a lot of demonstration and they said about the South Vietnamese government, like a trash, like a whole bunch of monkey or something. You don't know what's going on. So we are, we feel bad because we are from Vietnam. And there's demonstration everywhere. The anti-war movement was very strong at the time, but we just have to ignore it.
On the day the communist took over [April 1975]. The university gather all the Vietnamese into a room and they told us that there's no more South Vietnamese government and your scholarship will be terminated because there's no Vietnamese government to support anymore. So to pretty much, they told us, "You are on your own."
But the university and my department was very nice and they find me a job right away. And they said, Oh, Chan, you come to work in the lab for me. So I became like an assistant at the time. I got an assistantship that pay my tuition and give me a salary. So that I can survive. So what I did in the time was that the professor have classes and I prepare the class for him. And then sometimes he want me to do things in the lab, run the test for him. So that's how I get by until I graduate. My first, the degree in in Michigan State was a master degree in agricultural engineering.
I was very lucky too because on during, I think in December, 1975 there was a snowstorm. I couldn't go anywhere. I didn't have a car, so I was locked in my department because there was a basement for the student to stay and study. So I couldn't go anywhere. And then suddenly I got a call from from a manager in agriculture equipment, the manufacturer, Allis Chalmers. And h e asked me, "Would you like to come to work for us?"
So in December, 1975, after I know I got a job. And my mom was in San Diego. Your mother was in Utah. So then I, that's why I came to visit them. At the time there was a huge air strike. You can't fly. The only way I can go is by bus. So I took a bus from from La Port, Indiana to San Diego, but it go through Salt Lake City.
Chấn Nguyễn (2022)
