Popularly known to many Vietnamese through the video featuring her singing the Vietnamese song "Bui Phan” (Chalk Dust) on Vietnamese Teachers’ Day (November 20), on the occasion of the Lunar New Year 2022, Kate Bartlett and young Vietnamese performed a vè singing (a Vietnamese poetic and song form, most typical of northern Vietnam).
Kate said that she loves Vietnamese as well as Vietnamese culture.
Coming to Vietnam for the first time in 2017 as a tourist, Kate wanted to have the opportunity to return. Although she has only been to Vietnam for a short time and has been learning the Vietnamese language for six months, she is able to confidently talk and communicate with her local colleagues in Vietnamese.
Each province, each locality has its own special customs, art and cuisine. "I'm excited to be able to travel around the country and experience this diverse culture in the future," Kate said.
Kate said that she loves Vietnamese as well as Vietnamese culture. She wants to participate in many cultural activities so that she can understand more about the language as well as her lovely Vietnamese friends. She said that Vietnam is a country with diverse cultures and identities. Each province, each locality has its own special customs, art and cuisine. "I'm excited to be able to travel around the country and experience this diverse culture in the future," Kate said.
The US government is proud to partner with Vietnamese institutions in protecting and preserving that culture.
Kate shared: When I first came to Vietnam it was 2017, and I had a good fortune of coming during Tet time. It was a very interesting experience for me. I was able to go to the flower market and see all the beautiful colors and everyone was so active and full of life and it made me want to return to Vietnam, not as a tourist but as a diplomat.
Returning to Vietnam in a new role - US Cultural Attaché, Kate, her husband and two young children find that the longer they stay here, the more they love this country. I'm really glad we came.
Although she has only been to Vietnam for a short time and has been studying Vietnamese for six months, Kate has been able to confidently talk and communicate with her colleagues in Vietnamese. She said she is still studying: I have a teacher and we meet often and speak Vietnamese. Vietnamese is a very difficult language. So it's important to keep learning and keep practicing. In my life and career so far I’ve studied five different languages and I believe Vietnamese is the hardest, but it is definitely worth learning because it is a beautiful language; and the people here really appreciate when you speak Vietnamese to them, so I’m trying to learn.
My best advice for anyone learning Vietnamese or any language it’s just to immerse yourself and spend time speaking with native speakers. I try to speak with taxi drivers, I try to talk to somebody selling me Banh my, I try to speak it with my colleagues in the office, and just little by little become more comfortable. I think that’s the best way to learn a language. But these days we have an advantage with so much technology available. We can watch foreign language films online, we can listen to podcasts,...
Kate performed a Vietnamese song called "Chalk Dust" on the occasion of November 20, 2021 - Vietnamese Teachers' Day. When asked why she chose this song, Kate said: "I really didn't know much about Vietnamese Teachers' Day before coming to Vietnam. And when I came to my office, I was speaking with my colleagues and they explained to me how important the day is in Vietnam. So, we decided, ‘wow, we should really do something special for teachers, we should give them a small gift from us at the Embassy", and so we decided something emotional and nostalgic would be nice for teachers to show them that we care. So, we decided to choose this song".
First, I had to spend a lot of time reviewing this song and understanding the words, because as a foreigner I didn’t know the word for ‘chalk dust’ in Vietnamese, it’s not a common expression. So I sat with my teacher, she explained all of the different terms and she gave me the image of a teacher with chalk dust in their hair. It was a nice experience singing this song about teachers with my teacher. And then after that we went to a recording studio and I had my music teacher help me work through singing and how to find the rhythm because I’m not a professional singer. It took a couple weeks, and definitely a lot of time studying the words.
I would try to sing something and they would say "uhm... not like that’, so I would try again and again, and finally we could do it. I think everyone values their teachers around the world. I know the US government has a lot of free resources available for people who want to learn English, so I always encourage people to just look and you’ll find something great.
We want to show Vietnam that we believe that Vietnamese teachers are very special. In fact, we have a lot of programs that we try to run from the Embassy to support teachers, especially those involved in English language learning. For example, we have one program where we bring American teachers over to Vietnam to work directly with Vietnamese teachers and students in universities. This is, for many students, the first opportunity they’ll ever have to connect with a native speaker. And we do this programming in provinces across Vietnam.
As we all know, language learning is much easier when you’re younger, so we have another program called Access, which, since 2009, has trained more than 1000 Vietnamese high school students in English for two years and they end up being able to continue using English for the rest of their lives. Coming to Vietnam as a cultural attaché not long ago, Kate is quite knowledgeable about Vietnamese culture. Sharing about recent notable milestones of Vietnam - US cultural cooperation and plans to promote cultural ties in the near future, Kate said: In the past 25 years, Vietnam’s relationship with the United States has just continued to get stronger and deeper. I think cultural cooperation is no exception to that. We’re always finding new ways to cooperate with the Vietnamese government, non-governmental organizations, and with the people of Vietnam.
One initiative that we’re really proud of is the Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation, which, since 2001, has had more than 1.2 million USD worth of funding for 16 projects across Vietnam. The purpose of this initiative is to preserve Vietnamese culture: Vietnam has a very rich, diverse, and important culture and history.
The US government is proud to partner with Vietnamese institutions in protecting and preserving that culture. We’ve had projects like preserving a 14th century citadel from the Ho Dynasty in Thanh Hoa province. We’ve had projects preserving the traditional Then music in Cao Bang province. The projects have spanned across the whole country, and we’re hoping to do more in the future.
Speaking of the future, I think it’s also important to not just look behind us but look at what comes ahead. One area that we’re really excited to focus on for the next year is training, equipping, and encouraging the next generation of Vietnamese young people to participate in this increasingly globalized world.
At our American centers in Hanoi and HCM City, we have programs for STEM and robotics to prepare young people for careers in the fields of science. We have English programs for specific purposes: whether you’re wanting to be a doctor, or you’re wanting to be an entrepreneur, you can learn English tailored to those fields. We have programs to prepare people with job skills for job markets like public speaking. All of these programs are free and open to the public.