Mormon Missionaries Learn Vietnamese in Little Saigon
Nguoi Viet Daily , News Feature, Anh Do, Posted: Aug 27, 2005
WESTMINSTER, Calif. — Most everyone agrees that those coming to this country should learn English. When asked, many immigrants say they see the urgency, too.
The question is: Where can they find a class in which they feel comfortable?
Enter “Phát,” “Phú,” “Khai” and “Trí.”
They’re missionaries — and Mormons — who, in turn, are picking up another language as they teach the folks in Little Saigon another language as well.
These 20-somethings gather, one evening, at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They were surrounded by people trying to pronounce J-words. “Juh, juh, juh,” the students repeat. Jail. Jump. Jaw. Jealous.
Jealous? What does that mean, a man in a sweatshirt asks “Trí,” usually known as Robert Skanchy.
“Ghen ghét,” he replies in Vietnamese, having been trained in it for two months before moving here from Washington state. “I am jealous of Khai over there,” he points to the other side of the blackboard, “because he is thinner than me.”
Everyone laughs, and forming sentences continues.
Job. Journal. Judge. Jet. Joy. Jelly fish. They pause again, as “Khai,” aka Peter Watson, directs his partner to draw to better introduce the sea creature. Anything that someone doesn’t understand gets an illustration. The vocabulary list stretches.
This is the beginner’s group.
In the intermediate section, “Phú,” actually Bridger Larson, is taking his charges through their paces, letting them know what to do in emergency situations. “Hurry, there is a car crash!” he intones. “My friend is unconscious, help him!
“And — say it loud,” he reminds the crowd. The men and women are from a culture where it’s not polite to call attention to yourself. “People need to hear you.”
Earlier, they had read different real-life scenarios, tucking away new verbs and nouns: Fainted. Choking. Bleeding. Drowning. Falling.
Next they switch to disasters: Hurricane. Earthquake. Tornado. Flood.
They break into pairs, rehearsing some complex situations. They repeat dialogues, over and over. They role play, trying to get an ambulance to the rescue.
For days outside the complex, the rain pounded. Inside, nearly 300 parents, grandparents, assembly workers, tailors and waiters came week after week. Some are practicing English to advance themselves. Others prep for citizenship.
Dung Tran, from the California suburb of Santa Ana, is among them. “This is a really good program,” he says. “I’m going to take all the levels so I can interact with everybody in society. If we live here, we need to know the basics. But if we want to get around, we need to know more.”
For months, his teachers, who came to California last year, got to know the refugees, bicycling around the area.
These young men had never met Vietnamese people, never eaten Vietnamese food, never heard Vietnamese music, “never, never,” they emphasize.
“When I got the letter letting me know that, ‘You’re going to Anaheim, California, and that you’re assigned to the Vietnamese,’ I was like, huh? What in the world’s Viet Nam?” Phú recalled. “I had no clue.” “We only knew Asians, we didn’t know much of a difference,” “Phát,” born Cody Flexhaug, adds. Still, many of them nurtured, from their childhood, the belief that spreading the Gospel is what they want to do.
In their faith community, they are pushed to immerse themselves in a two-year missionary tour after high school. For girls, it’s often a year and a half. And it begins with lessons at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, near the campus of Brigham Young University. Before the troops leave for their locales — they study whatever they need to communicate — from Spanish to Korean to Portuguese to Vietnamese.
“It’s awesome, it’s cool, to have this chance and to interact like this,” Trí says.
The guys now bonding — initially strangers to each other — are pulling this off with little money, and little initial knowledge, at least when it comes to Viet Nam and its long history.
So they have soaked up local slang as well as local dishes — from hot vit lon, fertilized duck eggs, boiled, and slurped from the shell, to all types of noodles — while sharing their religion and English. When speaking to a person from Viet Nam, they can pinpoint whether his accent is from the North, the South or the central region of the tropical country.
“I think the Vietnamese are amazing,” Khai adds. “Their stories of coming to America, their bravery, also the fact that they started here without nothing, are inspiring.”
“Often, when Americans use something, they throw it away,” Trí points out. “The Vietnamese use it, they reuse it and find more uses for it. It’s ingenious.”
The bicultural setup, of course, works both ways — helping out the missionaries as well.
Phát, who grew up in Edmonton, Canada, smiles widely as he says his students tell him they understand him better since the program started.
Pupils invite the instructors home for home cooking, and the visitors share their backgrounds. They even show one another dance steps, as the quartet — after viewing videos and attending Tet celebrations — put their hands together to create a 16-pound papier-mache lion for the traditional Lunar New Year performance.
“Gosh, it was fun. But it was heavy,” Khai says.
The memories — and the ties — can be lasting.
“I really found I clicked with the community,” says Ben Hamatake, dubbed “Phuong,” who moved from Utah to California after finishing his stint. He now lives with a Vietnamese family and works as a liaison between the Vietnamese and Willmore Elementary in Westminster.
He is struck by the generosity of the immigrants.
“Many, many times, my companions and I were hungry, we were thirsty, and people came out of nowhere on a hot, summer day and invited us for dinner or gave us a drink. That’s part of the satisfaction of service."
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User Comments
Matthew Gerlach on Sep 18, 2005 at 07:28:34 said:
Thank you for your article on these wonderful young men. It is nice to read this kind of an article about friends from different backgrounds and languages coming together and sharing with each other.
R. Kirda on Sep 15, 2005 at 02:23:24 said:
This brings back many memories of teaching ESL to the wonderful Viet people while I served in Melbourne, Australia. While the memory of language fades, the memories of outstanding individuals will not.
Quince R. Hansen on Sep 06, 2005 at 01:40:55 said:
We love your article on the Elders learning the Vietnamese language. Sister Hansen and myself served our mission in Cambodia, and were assigned to the Vietnamese District. We have a deep love for the Vietnamese people, and are so envious of the Elders working with the Vietnamese people in our country.
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