Granger Whitelaw discusses Teachers Day In Vietnam with Dan Gray. Teachers are highly respected and Honored In Vietnam and contribute greatly to the economy of the country. Let’s celebrate them together.
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Granger: Good morning everybody. It’s Granger White law with Friday notes at The Lotus Talks. Hope everybody had a great week. I would like to introduce our guest host today, our contributing host today. Daniel.
Daniel: Good morning everyone.
Granger: Daniel Gray. Daniel what’s your middle name?
Daniel: It’s Sebastian.
Granger: Sebastian. Now I understand that, so many people may know you because you are the writer of our first, Lotus magazine edition of Sesto Vecchi.
Daniel: That’s right. Yes.
Granger: And you did a phenomenal job, writing that.
Daniel: Thanks very much. I hope people enjoyed it.
Granger: And I’ve had many people say, where is Dan? Where is that guy? We never have a chance to hear from him. So I’m glad that you joined us today.
Daniel: Yeah. Nice to be back.
Granger: Now you just wrote the one on Marco Civardi.
Daniel: Yeah, I just finished that last week.
Granger: It’s good to have you back writing . You’re a great writer.
Daniel: Wow, thanks very much.
Granger: So today we’re going to talk about teacher’s day. A Vietnamese teacher’s day was November 20th. Just well I guess two days ago. And you’re teacher.
Daniel: I am, yes. Been here for about seven years now t eaching.
Granger: So you’ve been here seven years in Vietnam. You should give the listeners a little background about yourself.
Daniel: Yeah, well like many people. I initially came out here for a kind of short time. I had a friend teaching out here after university and he was enjoying his life here. Said check it out and came for one year and stayed for seven and counting.
Daniel: So often t he story is right. You come for a year, you stay for 10.
Daniel: Well, it’s actually a bit of a funny backstory. He was in Hanoi and he invited me, but it was cheaper to fly to Ho Chi Minh City. I thought for the same price as a flight to Hanoi I could land here and travel up to Hanoi. And I got to the airport and had a quote from a taxi driver that I thought was too high. So I thought, I’ll get the bus down to town, I’ll stay one night in Saigon. And then I said two and then three, and then I’ll be a week late. And Hey, I’ve actually still never been to Hanoi. Rather shamefully,
Daniel: You’ve never been Hanoi?
Daniel: I’ve never been to Hanoi, no.
Granger: I mean you’ve been to Bali, you go to Thailand. I know you’ve gone on five or six trips this year.
Daniel: Yeah, I know. It’s terrible, right I have to make it .
Granger: Well you have to go to Hanoi it’s really beautiful. Yeah. Do you know that the Lotus, over 46% of our listeners in Vietnam are in Hanoi?
Daniel: Is that right? W ell, good afternoon, Hanoi.
Granger: Good morning. So, teachers’ day. So in Vietnam, the teacher’s day falls always on November 20th, and it’s a holiday that allows your students to express their respect for their teacher. Y ou know, that’s a big deal. Teachers are revered in this country.
Daniel: Yeah. I mean, it’s one of the reasons that I absolutely love living here and teaching here. You know, there’s a lot of respect for teachers. I t’s a lovely part of the culture, I think in our culture maybe the top soccer, football, basketball players, one of the most respected people.
Granger: In England? Where you’re from.
Daniel: You know, you might love LeBron James or kind of Beyonce or something.
Granger: Or the Queen.
Daniel: Oh, well of course the queen, can’t forget her, but here in Vietnam. The teacher’s very, very high up. The respect scale, it’s a nice thing.
Granger: It is. It’s beautiful. I mean, in the States, you know they like Kim Kardashians for some reason, I don’t know. Teachers are so underpaid and I, it really infuriates me how they’re treated in the United States. I must tell you, it’s one of my big, big pet peeves, but it’s wonderful to see here that probably after your parents, teachers are, are the most respected people in the country.
Daniel: Yeah. I think doctors as well are right up there, yeah, very, very positive.
Granger: Not lawyers though? So in 1946, FIS E, which is the Federation International Syndicate Enseignement was established in Paris and it became a, the charter organization for teachers that ended up becoming kind of, you know, Vietnam’s choice to follow and they chose, November 20th is their annual teacher day. So really cool. Kids have, you know, put on plays and they’ll put on a singing exhibitions and bring their teachers gifts. T hey really make a big deal of it. Now what did you do for it? You had a big party or something.
Daniel: Yeah. I work for one of the bigger language centers in the evening. A VUS listeners might know they’re also up in Hanoi for Hanoi listeners. W e have a big celebration and you get the kind of teachers of the year awards and best dressed, which I’m afraid I’m still waiting to win. But i t’s a massive celebration and it’s very happy time. A lso at my, daytime schools, you have some special parties on teacher’s day as well. You know, it’s just a lot of love. It’s very nice.
Granger: Absolutely. You know, it’s a business podcast, Lotus here, but it’s important to honor the teachers in this country. They are the ones that will teach your employees English. Many businesses hire teachers to tutor the Vietnamese employees English, which is now really becoming a second language. So I’d like to talk about that a little bit. It’s important to continually educate your employees. Right. So do you do tutoring as well for businesses?
Daniel: Yeah, I’ve worked at some businesses doing after hour teaching, maybe 10 or 15 members of staff who I want to improve their English.
Granger: Right. And the reason is because they are more proficient at their job. Right.
Daniel: Absolutely.
Granger: And again, from a business standpoint, if you continually educate your employees, if you set up a n environment for them to learn English, it will only benefit your business. It will make them more productive, actually make them more excited and they continually want to learn here. I find that about the Vietnamese that they want to learn. Do see that in your work?
Daniel: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, amazing. The energy of my students, especially the ones that work in the evening, you know, they’ve already had a hard day at work. A lot of people have got families to take care of afterwards and they’re still applying themselves late into the night. It’s really impressive.
Granger: Absolutely. It’s amazing. I find it that they’re still willing to put the extra effort in to learn something to better themselves. You know, the country’s growing so fast right now , and there’s so many FTIs coming from Europe and the United States, having a more proficiency in the English language is very, very important. And also in math and sciences as well. So for the teachers out there who are giving up their extra time, tutoring and helping out, all of us, I want to say thank you.
Daniel: Wow, Yeah. Thank you. And I’m happy to be here with t hese amazing Vietnamese students.
Granger: Okay. So e verybody I hope you guys have a great Friday. I hope you take a minute to think about the teachers that impacted your life. Certainly, I would highly recommend that if you do not already have access or have somebody involved with your organization on staff or as a consultant that is an English language teacher, I would highly recommend looking at that as well as a Vietnamese teacher because so few people learn the Vietnamese language. I know I am trying to learn Vietnamese language, but it is very difficult. I hear that often.
Daniel: Absolutely. Yeah.
Granger: But it will only improve your business, and the morale of the organization. So from The Lotus Talks, I highly recommend this to you. Dan, thanks so much for coming. You know, I would love for you to do a couple more of these with me. Would you join me next week?
Daniel: Absolutely. Yeah. Happy to be here.
Granger: Yeah, I think we’d have a lot of fun.
Daniel: That’s right.
Granger: All right man. Have a great weekend. And everybody this is Granger Whitelaw I’ll talk to you soon.
