concepts Exploring of sustainability through teaching English and international environmental issues to farmer-students in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam
A paper by Yingshan Lau, Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies (Sustainability), Australian National University, 26 April 2009.
With staff members and class K1A students of FFS_HEPA
Contents
page title i. ii. iii. Introduction and purpose of visit The approach, and the methodology Teaching topics and activities a. Activities b. Difficulties encountered iv. Findings about sustainability from interviews with students and staff a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. v. Benefits a. For the students 29 1 The Intergenerational Sustainabilist Ben Vung The Bubble Sustainabilist The Judicious Sustainabilist The Decision Fabric The Spiritual Sustainabilist The Ecological Sustainabilist The Binary Sustainabilist 19 20 22 23 24 25 26 27 12 17 number 3 5
b. Personal vi. Looking forward a. Personal vision for HEPA b. Continuity vii. viii. Acknowledgements Appendix a. Sample course schedule b. Interview transcripts 1. Interview with Cuong, 7 June 2008 2. Interview with Coi, 10 June 2008 3. Interview with Luu, 11 June 2008 4. Interview with Vin, 12 June 2008
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ii.
Introduction and purpose of visit
What do Vietnamese like to talk about in their daily conversations?
Love! And what do Singaporeans like to talk about in their daily conversations?
Er Food?
That is a worse topic to talk about than love!
And so the memorable cross-cultural comparison between Singapore, my home, and Vietnam, where I was teaching at as a visitor-volunteer, was made during the two weeks I spent teaching at Farmers Field School (Human Ecology Preservation Area) in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam, from 2-12 June 2008. This cross-cultural comparison underlined the most fundamental feature of our society what we view as important ultimately manifests the most in our daily conversations. The hesitation before my reply to suggest that food was conversational fodder in Singapore also underscores the fact that although I was born and bred in the little island-country of Singapore, I am, uncannily, not the most connected to my home country. Having spent one and a half years at the Australian National University in Australia and a half year on exchange at the University of Virginia in the USA, I had then quite forgotten what Singaporean identity is. Certainly, being vegetarian did not help me feel extremely connected to the food, our cultural icon, in Singapore.
Nonetheless, the fact that Vietnamese discussed love so much meant that I was embroiled in two weeks of lovey-dovey talk during my teaching stint at the Field School. From a romance across the Viet-Lao border to the speculation of whether someone would ever find his sweetheart, the conversation topics in the Farmers Field School (Human Ecology Preservation Area), or better know as FFS_HEPA, reflected the kind, warm, and loving nature of the Vietnamese. Located in the rural highlands not far away from the Viet-Lao border, FFS_HEPA is a field school site dedicated to training young and aspiring farmers in ecologically-friendly farming practices, for example, through intensive courses on permaculture and ecological landscaping using human ecology concepts. It is established and run by a local non-governmental organisation, the Social Policy Ecology Research Institute (SPERI). 1
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SPERI was formed around 2003 from the merger of three sister organisations: Towards Ethnic Women (TEW; formed 1989), Centre for Human Ecology Studies of Highlands (CHESH; formed in 1999), and Centre for Indigenous Knowledge Research and Development (CIRD; formed around 1997).
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My friend, Kien, a Vietnamese whom I had met in university in Australia, had invited me to teach at FFS_HEPA, where she now works at. My job was to teach English and some global environmental issues to a group of newly selected students constituting class K1A, thereby exposing them to international environmental perspectives, during a two-week intensive course. The majority of my students were from various rural indigenous minority groups in Vietnam. Two students were from Laos, and another two, children of the FFS_HEPA driver who were invited to join the course, belonged to the Kinh majority in Vietnam. I planned most of the syllabus, while the formidable task of being my translator, and of managing the students and the logistics, was given to Kien. Through this experience, I hoped to increase my own personal exposure, and to find out about understandings of sustainability in rural contexts. I have since abandoned my initial purpose of writing a paper on increasing understandings of sustainability, as I feel that would be a too egotistic take on the Western concept of sustainability. When I was there, too, I realised that it was equally important to look for ways to ensure the continuity of such an intensive course taught by a foreign visitor, given its numerous benefits for the students. Another purpose at that point in time, with a less immediate practical nature, was to suggest ways to transform a normally supply-driven field school to a demand-driven one. This could be done by devising ways to create demand for the Field School, such as via its good name and reputation, and with students going home to spread awareness about FFS via word of mouth. This could only be done with the increased quality and popularity of the Field School, and its graduates would be the evidence of its quality.
Having forgone my original intentions, this paper now describes some of the experiences and findings from my time at FFS_HEPA. Some of them are trivial; others which touch on sustainability concepts and sustainability education are infinitely more important. Of academic interest would be the section on sustainability concepts, which comments on how they differ between urban and rural environments. Nevertheless, I hope this paper provides a colourful and interesting insight into teaching at FFS_HEPA. The interviews which I conducted with certain staff and students are thematically very rich, and I am happy to provide them to anyone interested in following them up for their own research. I am also happy to hear your critique of any section in this paper. Most importantly, I hope you, the reader, will consider the possibility of embarking on a similar initiative to enrich and empower the lives of rural farmers.
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iii.
The approach, and the methodology
Because I could not speak Vietnamese, my role was mainly that of the course planner. I was primarily in charge of designing the course schedule and thinking up activities and exercises for the students to do. Kien, meanwhile, acted as the facilitator, the coordinator, and the translator. She also played a strong role in making sure that the students understood the course content, and served as the link between the students and me. Because I could not understand Vietnamese, Kien also had to gauge the students coping abilities, while mediating my expectations. Although Kien possessed the same skills as I had, and was as capable of conducting the course by herself without my physical presence, it turned out that presence of a foreigner made a bigger impact on the students. This is because I, as the foreigner, embodied the other, and hence would command more respect and attention from both the students and staff at FFS_HEPA. I had, after all, travelled across kilometres from an urban city to rural Ha Tinh to experience their living conditions. Therefore, the students took the course more seriously than if Kien had just facilitated the course without the presence of a foreigner.
Kien was quite concerned about finding a suitable location for the classes to be conducted. In the end, we decided on the dining hall, which had a rattan benches and tables. A visual projector and a whiteboard served as teaching equipment. The rationale behind choosing this location was that, firstly, it was near the kitchen, which therefore allowed students to have easy access to refreshments, and secondly and more importantly, it was open-air, allowing the students to feel close to the outdoors, which Kien argued the students were used to. Had we chosen a different location, for example, the brick building which served as the library in FFS_HEPA, the students would feel claustrophobic, uncomfortable, and bored. It is one of the underlying principles of FFS_HEPA to provide a homely feel in its learning environment. Even student accommodation, for example, was designed as stilt houses which resemble their home environments. Student and staff interaction is friendly and unimposing. This homely feel motivated Coi, a female student of Hmong ethnicity in the class K1A, to join FFS_HEPA. Kien said of Coi: and Coi started to, because the talking, the interaction, was pretty familiar to her own house, her own home, so Coi doesnt feel too strange. 5
The teaching location: Open-air and near to the kitchen for easy access to refreshments.
Kien and I discovered that in order to pique the interest of the students, attention to teaching methodology was very important. Since these students grew up in the outdoors, making them sit down for long hours, in the Vietnamese summer heat, to listen to a lecture was pedagogically ineffective. We had to devise means to keep the students moving, for example, by doing a dance and exercise in the middle of a lecture, and by conducting English vocabulary classes in the outdoors, where the students could see, touch and smell the things they were learning about. Furthermore, there were team exercises and experiments which were devised for the students to learn about the world and about global warming. More than just getting them active and being in the outdoors, these exercises utilised the kinaesthetic mode of learning, in order to facilitate better reflection and hence understanding of the concepts underlying the activities. These activities also promoted enjoyment in learning, which was foreign to the students given the conventional Vietnamese manner of teaching in high schools. Vin, a student from the Tay minority group, comments:
Taking an exercise break for self-rejuvenation. Learning the English names of the physical environment where the students learn best: the outdoors.
Given [Kiens and Yingshans] method, I like best is probably, erm, the practical side. Interesting to see songs being integrated, fun. Good fun. And easy to understood, to remember, but the practical side would be much more easier to understand.
Coi, a female student of Hmong ethnicity, said that what had attracted her to FFS_HEPA was its emphasis on more practice and less theory. From interviews with Coi and Vin, it seems that the traditional teaching system in schools adopts the rout learning method. In that method, the students are given something to learn in a day, and then expected to remember it by the next day for a test. Furthermore, very few practical connections were drawn. Vin explains the style of teaching in his high school: 6
the teacher talk, and other students to remember, and by the next day, students are asked to have a test. And they deal with a lot of theoretical frame, theories, lack a lot in practice.
FFS_HEPA, however, had promised 80% hands-on and 20% theory, and this appealed to Coi. The students appreciated the different learning method. To Cuong, the FFS_HEPA cook, bringing students to the field to teach by showing was the most effective and the most practical. Even though Coi felt that my course was instead 20% hands-on and 80% theory, she said that the caring and relaxed learning environment and the interesting topics and modes of delivery made the course definitely useful and knowledgeable. Things which were to her initially inconceivable, like global stuff and solar stuff, so beyond their understanding, but [the students grasped] the concept in a very easy way to get it, like to, to realise it, so breaking down to, erm, the ground.
Moreover, in terms of learning English, they were taught the vocabulary of objects in their immediate surroundings, which they could immediately relate to. This was in contrast to the way of teaching in their schools, where grammar was emphasised as it was seen to be more than useful vocabulary. In this way, what was taught could be put to use, and hence registered. Coi says:
in the mainstream school, they focus so much on grammar, but here, its much only about vocab. Its a different method, linking what you were saying into the reality, with the surroundings, so pretty much I find it interesting, and useful, definitely.
For example, the students were brought out to the field on a sunny day to learn vocabulary about farming and gardening. They were also made to greet each other in English. A song called Stop and Go was also used to facilitate the learning of movements, by encouraging the students to dance and to act out the vocabulary in the song together. They had to sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star as teams, thereby improving their confidence. They also started some days with conventional English greetings, shaking hands with one another to greet their classmates.
Even though Kien was rather stern as a teacher and a marker, she did not emphasise the final grades, but on the learning process. For example, I had initially wanted to break the students up into teams to make them compete for the best team, thereby stimulating them to do better in their group work, but Kien objected to this as she 7
felt that it would cultivate wayward learning attitudes, such as being over-competitive and hence compromising mutual learning. Instead, she made sure to go through the same point over and over again until all the students understood it, however time-consuming the process was. When the students were learning to interpret a graph of projected global temperature rise in the next century, Kien made sure that all of them had the opportunity to go up to the whiteboard to mark out what the predicted temperature in a certain year would be, so as to make sure that everyone understood how to read it. In this manner, the topic of global warming was not merely introduced, but the students had some kinaesthetic understanding of an otherwise theoretical concept.
Kien also wanted them to do a learning journal, so that they could cultivate the skills of self-reflection. Kien and I believe that the skill of self-reflection is a crucial first step to cultivating critical thinking skills. This is also why introducing international perspectives and having a foreigner like myself assume the role of a teacher, is important: by realising the existence of the other, the students will be able to become more cognitively detached and, metaphorically, see their lives in a mirror. The learning journal was assigned during the start of the course. However, due to logistical problems, only two out of the thirteen students had arrived when the explanation on doing learning journals was given. Thus, it was difficult for all the students to have the same understanding about this assignment. Coi and Vin, who were
One example of reflection as learning: A students reflection on climate change, after learning about its effects.
the two students present when the explanation was given, did some reflection in their notebooks, which was good to see. In the end, however, this expectation was reduced to Kien assigning the students
reflection tasks during class time. Nonetheless, the students still had an encounter with the cognitive skill of reflection. We hope to build on this to progress to skills of critical thinking in the future.
With this emphasis on understanding, registering and reflecting, the course was definitely more effective than simply being exposed to global issues through watching television. There was a television in the classroomcum-dining hall on which the staff and students watched the news, drama, and commercials during lunch and dinner. One could argue that the international environmental perspectives course is rather redundant since the students could be made aware of them through watching television. However, this argument is moot. Firstly, television does not provide a realistic feel of the other. Secondly, although television provides interesting content, if the students are not made to contemplate on the content, it would be fruitless learning. Furthermore, as the staff and students mostly only watch the news, they only receive a broad overview of global issues. There 8
is simply no space to delve into specific environmental issues, such as to understand the mechanics creating the environmental problems. As Cuong comments on his own television-watching:
The time that normally people open up TV is actually on the news and the changes around the world. World politics and Vietnam policy responding to the world in all aspects, social, economic, and environment. I rarely spend time, even other colleagues, rarely spend time to watch other things, so, erm, if specifically specify into environmental issues may not be a real answer, but I think I follow almost news, politics, and Vietnams response in different aspects of the world.
In contrast, the course ensures that the concepts are registered. Cuong nicely summarises the impact of our teaching methodology:
the good thing is to make sure that everyone even understand a bit, but people start to not only understand, but realising it, like it goes into their minds, therefore its work more than, erm, maybe maybe one day working here can worth even one week in other education because lack of caring attitude from teachers, so he still very happy with strict attitude, and having practice.
Both Luu, the FFS_HEPA administrator, and Cuong commented also that teaching English and environmental issues simultaneously, and using one to aid in the teaching of the other and vice versa, was a novel way of teaching. Credit must be given to Kien for this innovation. Luu explains:
Just like Geoff Lawton [expert on landscape design from Australia] said, we need to take up stacking functions, like multi-purpose. So by two weeks block, you can actually do two purpose, not only learning English, but also learning international environmental issues, or vice versa, maybe through learning international environmental issues, you can learn English. So being exposed to different culture as well. I havent found this is other courses [conducted at FFS_HEPA], but definitely I see the interest here.
In general, the teaching methodology employed created much interest amongst both staff and students. Visual and kinaesthetic learning methods were generally uncommon. Luu elaborates: 9
I find that learning English through songs and, learning English through songs and also, remember when you were playing the currency game, mapping out the world, that was very interesting, very new to all of us, and very attractive way of getting peoples attention. Learning environmental issues have been through a lot of graphs and pictures, things that are visually easy to understand, I think thats also a new method of doing, I just find it very useful.
With this approach to teaching, the international seemed less foreign to the staff and students, who had little conception of being abroad before. 2 Connections were drawn such that, in Cois words:
I find quite familiar, between what is so-called international, and then local here. But definitely the method has been carried out in such, in a manner that is more scientifically-based, so things are logically and things are very scientific, er, sound. 3
Cuong further comments on the bridging of the international and the local to break down the urban-rural divide:
And people really write down the sort of, ok, thats international perspective, but make sense. Its not something that is a barrier or a wall we created between socalled local knowledge and then what is so out there, unfamiliar to them.
Despite the general popularity of our teaching methodology, there was one aspect which could have been improved on. Kien says in her translation of the interview with Coi:
But with the poster [on recycling from Singapore], I think she has quite a critical view that, erm, we might think to break it down to more pictures that is more real, rather than drawing [cartoon-like] faces, and things that on the bin, remember, thats what she dislikes.
The students were familiar with the idea of going into Laos, for example, since the Viet-Lao border was so close to FFS_HEPA. Even so, because there was no clearly defined border in the rural highlands, and since their social networks traverse politically-defined borders, the concept of a border posed no significance to them. Therefore, comprehending the notion of someone coming from as far away as Singapore, Australia, or the United States, and bringing in her own perspectives, would be a challenge to the students. 3 To the moral relativist, I would contend that the fact that Coi found the Western concepts comprehensible because they were logical shows that there is something common amongst human beings, whether from urban or rural environments, from Western or Oriental cultures, that unites the foundation of our understanding of the physical world. This commonality is our ability to use our logical and rational faculties.
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The posters in question were information posters on recycling obtained from the National Environment Agency in Singapore. I had expected them to be received quite popularly by the students, since they provided a succinct summary of recycling, and were quite popularly received for environmental education in Singapore. Cois comments therefore surprised me. Perhaps her dislike of oversimplification could be a reflection of her learning attitudes. Perhaps it highlights that rural twenty year olds are intellectually more matured than urban twenty year olds. Given that they are adults already, they would perhaps conceive of these posters as condescending. Alternatively, perhaps the reductionist approach dominant in Western modes of learning conflicts with the more complex, systemsoriented worldview in eastern cultures. This feedback from Coi is something that has to be considered in the teaching methodologies of future courses.
Kien holds up one of several recycling posters from Singapore. Coi dislikes the way the recycling process is simplified here.
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iii. Teaching topics and activities a. Activities
A sample of the teaching schedule is included in the Appendix. Generally, the course content can be divided into three categories, with the activities in each overlapping into the others. They are: (a) English-learning activities, (b) environment-related lectures, and (c) exercises to build up environmental sciences skills and other generic skills. Although initially intended as an English course, Kien and I decided to put more emphasis on environmental issues as we realised that emphasising too much on English would have less value-addedness for the students. English was seen more as a way to get them exposed to other cultures, just as my presence made them aware of the presence of a foreigner. While Kien took the time to translate almost every environmentrelated English term in the first few days, we gradually reduced the extent of translation to just the main points. However, I led all the environment-related lectures, the students continued to be exposed to English.
The English-learning activities included learning English songs, using simple English phrases to greet one another, and learning vocabulary describing the parts of the house, movements and the physical landscape. The students were also introduced to the Gregorian calendar, and learnt the English names for the months in the year and the days of the week. Among the English songs selected were The Alphabet Song, Ten Crunchy Carrots, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, and Stop and Go, because these songs contained some of the most simple English vocabulary or were famous English songs. The students began almost every day with a song in order to revise the vocabulary. They were sometimes broken into groups so that they could practise projecting and enunciating the English words clearly. At other
Kham Phai, a Laotian student, singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star under Kiens encouragement. Students singing English songs to start off the day.
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times, they had to read out the lyrics individually. Stop and Go was particularly enjoyable for the students because they could dance to the song.
Learning the vocabulary of the parts of the house, movement and the physical landscape was suitable as they were immediately relevant to the students. 4 Once, Kien and I brought the students, who each had a crossword puzzle of the physical landscape as a learning aide, for a walk along the river, and pointed out the English names of what they saw. This made for effective learning, as they could immediately relate to their surrounding while filling in the crossword puzzle. They also went into the field to learn about vocabulary relating to farming.
Learning about movement though dancing out the song Stop and Go.
The environment-related lectures consisted of topics on global warming, waste recycling, the water cycle and urban water supply and treatment, and the effects of DDT. An introductory lecture on the solar system, followed by an exercise on reading the world map, was necessary before the global warming lecture in order for the students to be able to see the world on a much smaller scale, so that they can comprehend the meaning of global. A DVD on global warming, called Six degrees could change the world, produced by the National Geographic, was shown to the students as an engaging teaching tool. This was followed by a lecture outlining both anthropogenic and natural causes of global warming, in order for the students to understand the context for the complex debates surrounding the causes of global
Coi reading out the names of different countries and their respective currencies. Students learning about the planets in the solar system.
In contrast, one of the difficulties which the song Ten Crunchy Carrots presented was that it contained some vocabulary which, although deeply representative of American culture, was hard to connect to. We had a hard time explaining words like vampire and Bigfoot.
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warming today.
In the lecture on waste recycling, examples from Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, and Canberra, Australia, were given. The students were also given recycling posters produced by the National Environment Agency, Singapore, to analyse. They were particularly attracted by the idea of organic waste recycling. This is perhaps because they, as farmers, could relate to it the most. Moreover, there is a banana-tree ring on FFS_HEPA which breaks down the organic waste produced by the kitchen. On the other hand, the students were less enthusiastic about the waste collection systems in urban settings.
Students watching the National Geographic DVD Six degrees could change the world, to learn about the anthropogenic causes and environmental effects of global warming.
The lecture on the water cycle and urban water supply and treatment was more scientific, but was also harder to explain. The global water crisis was explained, highlighting to the students that the strain on natural resources was extensive. I had a difficult time explaining water treatment, and an even more difficult one explaining reverse osmosis, the technology that Singapore has adopted to recycle its blackwater. Nonetheless, these examples illustrate that clean water,
Kien showing Thanh how to properly read the temperature rise projection graph.
even in urban environments, comes with good management and effective utilisation of technology.
The students were quite engaged by the lecture on the effects of DDT. This lecture was presented at the end of the course, and included perspectives from as far back as World War Two, Rachel Carson in the USA, to the controversy about using DDT as a means to control malaria in Africa today. The dilemma about saving lives by preventing the breeding of mosquitoes using DDT, and about long-term environmental sustainability, was touched upon. It served as a nice finish to the course, as it again highlighted the tensions between organic and chemical farming methods, an issue which is, and will continue to be, close to the hearts of these farmerstudents.
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The exercises to build up environment-related skills and other generic skills were designed to be fun and engaging. They also served mainly as a kinaesthetic complement to the course content, which the students can reflect upon in the future. The first exercise, the currency game, saw the students trying to put monies of different currencies correctly into anonymous bowls that were meant to spatially represent countries on a
The currency game: Bowls are set up such that each bowl represents a country on the world map. The game begins with monies of different currencies in the largest bowl, Vietnam. The students, using a world map for reference, had to put the currencies from the first bowl into the bowls representing the corresponding country. The game saw different strategies employed between the two groups.
world map. The students took longer than expected to complete the game, showing that it challenged their thinking skills.
Because they were needed more training at reading graphs, they were asked to go up to the whiteboard during the lecture on global warming to answer questions relating to a graph on the projected temperature rise in the next one hundred years. Kien emphasised this in order for them to register the potentiality of the Earth warming. We also assigned them to draw a graph based on data we gave them, so that they could practise what they learnt.
Exercises that focussed on observational skills comprised a cloud-observing exercise and an
The currency game: one group was more organised and labelled the bowls with the names of the corresponding countries on pieces of paper.
experiment comparing candles under inverted drinking glasses in the shade and under the sun. The students had to photograph the clouds they saw, and had to take
notes on the structure of the clouds observed. In the candle-in-glass experiment, they were even more challenged as they had to innovate a way to establish the experimental set-up without the candle dying out under the glass. One group used bricks, while another used stones, as support for the inverted glass. They also had to come up with theories explaining the differences in their observations. The most memorable theory was one hypothesising that the Earth released more heat when under the Sun. Therefore, the set-up which was placed under the Sun had more convective motion within the glass, enabling the candle to continue being 15
lighted. I will not comment on the theorys scientific accuracy, but for students who lack exposure to scientific experimentation, this is indeed a very good hypothesis.
The students enthusiasm about experiments was at such a high level that they wanted to set up their own vegetable test plots after the lecture on organic waste recycling. The students wanted to see for themselves the differences between organic and chemical farming, instead of merely being told. Hence, we spent a couple of hours in the field building two test plots. In the design, they noted that the test plots should not be located one above another on the river bank, but instead beside each other. This was so as to preserve the experimental independence of the two test plots.
Students doing a cloud-observation exercise, a lead-in to learning about the Western scientific names of clouds.
It so happened that one of the days during the course was also the day dedicated to spring cleaning in the Vietnamese calendar. Kien got the students to clean up the school, and at the same time divide the waste that they saw into organic recyclables and inorganic nonrecyclables. 5 The fact that the students divided the waste was significant. By doing so, they observed the type of waste they produce, and hence would be able to develop sensitivity to their personal production of waste. Similarly, they were assigned to conduct their own personal water audit for a day. This was to sensitise them to their consumption of natural resources. The students had to record down an approximate volume of the water consumed per activity in a day, and had to total the various amounts. An interesting outcome was the observation that, among the various ethnic groups represented by the students, certain ethnic groups consumed significantly less water than others.
A set-up of the candle-in-glass experiment. Students were given few materials, and had to be innovative with their set-up.
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In the rural context, there is no infrastructure for recycling plastics or metals. Unless one suiting rural contexts is invented and implemented, inorganics would fall into the category of non-recyclables. Even organics like paper are merely reusable for combustion to generate heat or for other purposes. It is just convenient to dichotomise organics as recyclables and inorganics as nonrecyclables.
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b. Difficulties encountered
While the greater part of the course was very inspiring, it cannot be denied that certain difficulties were experienced. Firstly, most of the students arrived a few days late for the course. This was because many of them had to travel from their villages to FFS_HEPA after their high school graduation. On Day 1 of the course, only two students and about four staff members constituted the class. Although this made for cosy class interaction, and although the temporary attendance of staff members reflected their positive learning attitudes and enabled the course to carry on, it also meant that the students who arrived later had to play catch-up and were altogether learning at a different pace. Hence we could not place the same expectations on them. Assignments such as the learning journal, for example, had to be compromised because they had missed the explanation on what they had to do. Better coordination in scheduling between the FFS_HEPA and the volunteer teachers would have allowed the course to run more smoothly and more to plan.
A students explanation of observations in the candle-inglass experiment. Students are asked to go up to the whiteboard to point out countries on the political world map.
Students clean up FFS_HEPA and gather the recyclable and non-recyclable trash.
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Another pedagogical difficulty I experienced was the language barrier. Kien was the only person in the school to whom I could speak English freely. Some staff members, like Luu and Khoi, understood some English, but it was still difficult to communicate with them. Doubtlessly, Kien was busy coordinating and organising the class, so it would be unrealistic to expect her to translate every sentence to me. This, however, was what I had wanted, because I wanted to gauge the vibes amongst the students and the staff members, especially during class time. However, almost everything that I learnt at FFS_HEPA was through the Kien-veil. It was epistemologically disturbing to me, but I had no other choice. Moreover, because Kien wanted to ensure that the concepts were registered by the students, she took a longer time to explain these concepts longer than, for example, the one English sentence which I used to express the concept. Many a time, I found myself waiting by the side, and because I felt I had nothing to do, I ended up devising more things for the students to do. On hindsight, it is also amusing that when I asked for a translation of what was delivered to the students for the past five minutes, Kien would only say, Yeah, okay, move on. I had to be patient in this regard, because Kien was the one who best understands the students level of comprehension, and who, during the course, acted as an excellent bridge between my and the students levels of
A students record of the cloudobservation exercise.
understanding, thereby making sure that I was not talking over the students heads.
In addition, I had higher expectations of the students skills in some respects. I had designed the course assuming that, for example, the skill of graph-reading was universal. It therefore surprised me very much when Kien spent a lot of time teaching them how to interpret the graph of projected temperature rise due to global warming. As a result, more time was spent on that particular module, and we had to push other modules backwards while cancelling the more trivial ones. Furthermore, I was surprised to find that some students were very careless in their addition and subtraction. When they had to report their water consumption in their own personal audit, some mistakes in adding the individual components of consumption were made, leading to an inaccurate total. On the one hand, it was challenging for me to have to mediate my expectations, and to understand why the differences exist. For example, as farmers, they did not need to be as mathematically precise as physicists or economists. On the other hand, it was interesting to observe the dichotomy between my expectations and their skills, as it highlighted some of the basic skills that could be further developed in future courses.
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iv.
Findings about sustainability from interviews with students and staff
Students of the course were asked to compare their understandings of sustainability, or ben vung, before joining FFS_HEPA, and after joining FFS_HEPA. From their written responses, it was evident that they had a deeper understanding of sustainability. Prior to joining FFS_HEPA, many of them said that they had heard about the concept being mentioned on television and in the newspapers, but they had never grasped its meaning, nor had they taken it seriously. Only one student, Ha Van Viet, had a better understanding of the concept because his home village was a pilot satellite project of the non-governmental organisation Towards Ethnic Women (TEW), one of the three forebears of SPERI.
On the other hand, the students could name several aspects of sustainability which they learnt about after joining FFS_HEPA. Their responses included, among others, ideas of future generations, ecological agriculture, systems thinking, and understanding natural laws. Examples of sustainability cited included the Australian Geoff Lawtons permaculture and landscape design course, composting using banana-tree rings, and organic farming, while examples of threats to sustainability included climate change, the use of excessive chemicals in agriculture, and the lack of waste classification and material reuse.
From the students responses, and from my subsequent involvement in the Intensive Programme on Sustainability 6 , eight interpretations or features of sustainability could be extracted. These interpretations do not exist exclusively, but could overlap with each other. They are elaborated on below:
a. The Intergenerational Sustainabilist
This view of sustainability ties in very closely to that in Western academia. Arguments for sustainability in the United Nations, for example, draw on the intergenerational component. Essentially, sustainability is about using natural and cultural resources without compromising on future generations ability to use them. In the student responses, the intergenerational concept was mentioned more as being concerned for the needs of future generations, and less of embodying the concept of justice that is present in the concept of intergenerational justice in academic discourse.
Organised by the University of Tokyo and the Asian Institute of Technology, the Intensive Programme on Sustainability (IPoS) is a series of two intensive workshops aimed at encouraging students from around the world to think about sustainability issues in the Asian context. The latter workshop, better known as the Nissan Workshop, is sponsored by the Nissan Science Foundation is Japan. I was fortunate enough to attend the 2008 session of IPoS in Thailand and Japan respectively.
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It is my view that this intergenerational view does not hold very strongly with the farmer-students. Firstly, only one student mentioned future generations in his written response. Secondly, through my interactions with the staff and students of HEPA, it struck me that only certain staff drew on the intergenerational concept as an illustration of sustainability. These were the staff members who have been trained by other foreign visitors. Thirdly, the Vietnamese translation of sustainability, ben vung, literally does not contain a temporal element to it. It refers instead to a solid foundation accompanied by patience. Thus it is more a virtue than an empirical fact that is to be judged. Fourthly, the students, as farmers, do not really need a picture of the world 50 years into the future in order to find justification for sustainability. To them, evidence of sustainability is all around them, in the form of the fertility of the soil and the taste of their produce. Since nature is all around them, they get an immediate feedback from nature. What they need, instead, are ways and methods to understand why some practices are detrimental to sustainability. For example, not classifying waste leads to the inefficient use of material and enlarges the resource loop.
Why, then, is the intergenerational argument for sustainability needed? I think it highlights our disconnection from nature. Since we live in an urban environment, we are not sensitised to changes in nature. Nor do we feel the dependence on nature as a provider as much as the students in HEPA. Any understanding of sustainability has to come from what we can connect with, and in our case, it loops back to ourselves, our culture, and our civilisation. What matters to us, as urban residents, is not natures ability to provide for us, but the preservation of or the betterment of our achievements. It is understandable, given that, indeed, vast knowledge and intellect supports the infrastructure of the concrete jungles we live it. The intergenerational argument for sustainability appeals to our egotistic side, especially in people disconnected from nature. One could retort that I am perhaps too harsh; however, it is admittedly quite inconceivable for people to feel concern and a sense of justice for another group of people existing more than three generations later. 7
b. The Bubble Sustainabilist
The view that the bubble sustainabilist would advocate is that sustainability is the long-term independence of the outside world. This view is espoused by Ha Van Viet, one of the students in FFS_HEPA, who wrote in his response that sustainability is about long-term and no dependence upon outside. Images of isolated yet self7
Attfield, R., 1998. Environmental Ethics and Intergenerational Equity, Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 41(2),
pp. 207-22; Beckerman, W., 1997. Debate: Intergenerational Equity and the Environment, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 5(4), pp. 392-405.
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sufficient communities come to mind. These communities are shielded from the outside world, because they do not need to depend on it for resources. They may be exposed to influences from the outside, but they do not possess the need to adopt them, since their economy is already self-sufficient and they do not have desires to emulate outside influences. On a larger scale, this bubble concept can be compared to Thailands approach of Sufficiency Economy, a philosophy advocated by the Thai king to reduce dependence on the external economy in order to ensure national sustainability. 8
In contrast to other views of sustainability, this bubble view holds the underlying assumption that external influences are, firstly, negative, and secondly, not trustworthy. Because they are negative, they might result in local practices that are unsustainable. Because they are not trustworthy, relying too much on them might nurture a relationship of dependence which, when that relationship is severed, leaves the local community helpless. Indeed, there are many examples of dependent communities that fare worse once the entity they rely on leaves. On the simplest level, many rural villages that rely on external development aid break down when the aid-giver departs.
My view is that only self-sufficient rural communities can fully achieve bubble status. In urban contexts and in modern cities, the bubble view of sustainability cannot be held. Firstly, cities are themselves extremely dependent entities, relying on their hinterland for natural resources. Even if they can depend on their own countries natural resources for their needs, in this globalised epoch, the members of the cities would be unsatisfied without interactions with other foreign cities. One of the ways such interactions are manifested is in the form of foreign migrants, who bring with them their culture, their connections to their homeland, and subsequently imports from their homeland. Secondly the modern-day city person sees economical and cultural benefits in the specialisation of work. Aided by well-developed communications infrastructure, there are advantages in one city specialising in one economical aspect, while exchanging services with another city that specialises in another. For example, Chicago is an industrial city, while New York City is a financial city. These two cities rely on each other for their economic growth, and it is only with such uber-specialisation that each can get ultra-efficient in its services. A bubble concept might be appealing in the sense that it promotes resilience; however, one may view it as an obstacle to progress and improvement. In other cases, it might be unfeasible to adopt the bubble approach. Singapore, for example, would not exist as a thriving city if it were to choose to go down the road of self-sufficiency.
Furthermore, although the bubble approach increases self-security, it might not be what people, as human beings and social creatures, really want, unless they already hold a cynical view of external influences. It is an
8
Intensive Programme on Sustainability, August 2008, Rayong, Thailand.
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accepted view in FFS_HEPA, because people there associate urban city life with numerous social evils and with pollution. However, coming from a fairly well-managed city, I was unable to share this connotation, and hence found it difficult to accept the bubble view.
c. Ben Vung
In the Vietnamese language, ben vung literally means strength, or having a solid foundation. There is a connotation of patient waiting and nurturing too. Since this is the Vietnamese translation of sustainability, the Vietnamese persons immediate interpretation of sustainability therefore inherently contains these concepts. Unlike the English interpretation, there is, immediately, no temporal element in ben vung. It is not seen as a vision for the long-term. Instead, it is immediately more like a virtue, where being ben vung is good for the well-being of oneself and for society. In addition, it is quite clear from the connotation of patient waiting and nurturing that action comes from the self. Furthermore, the requirements for ben vung are inherent in its meaning already that is, building a solid foundation today. On the other hand, what one is required to do for sustainability is less obvious: one needs to envision what sort of future he or she wants, and form a working plan for today based on that future. Ironically, this complicates the task, since the kinds of future that we want are already so diverse and therefore, unspecific.
My point is that because ben vung comes across more as a virtue, it is much easier for people to practise it. Sustainability, on the other hand, has not gained the status of a virtue, nor has much of the general population started to recognise it as a virtue. Competing interpretations of what we deem as a sustainable future and meeting present needs blur the classification of sustainability as a virtue. More importantly, even though sustainability may already be regarded as a virtue by some, it is not a virtue ethic. While a virtue is something good for the well-being of the individual or for society, an ethic is the way of practising it. Ben vung already tells us how it is to be practised by building a solid foundation, and with patience but sustainability does not.
Admittedly, because ben vung, unlike sustainability, does not require that we contemplate a desired future, which therefore calls for backcasting, there could arise questions on what exactly constitutes a solid foundation. Where then could one learn, independently, about what makes a solid foundation? In FFS_HEPA, besides instructors telling the students directly how to achieve ben vung, it was through case studies of failures. Instances where people were too impatient and too rash, too economically-oriented and too greedy, also appeared as instances where people reaped large harvests at the expense of the soils health and the tastiness of the crop. In the interview, Coi said that she could distinguish produce that were organically grown from produce 22
that were chemically grown: organic produce taste sweeter, even though they are smaller. Moreover, when students wrote about agricultural problems in their home villages, soil degradation due to the use of chemicals featured quite prominently as an obstacle to the future productivity of the land.
Even though no particular future is set as a goal, the ethic of patient nurturing, it is hoped, will eventually build that solid foundation, and lead to a right future. This ethic applies not only to environmental sustainability, but to many aspects of life too. Sceptically, I doubt that many city people will be able to comprehend this ethic, because they are frequently trapped in the economic machine. Only the city planners and the more privileged would be able to take a step back and try to apply ben vung to it. In this sense, they would also have a sense of detachment from daily routine. 9 Therefore, sustainability is more useful to us urbanites as it comes loaded with specific targets within the framework of the city, albeit set by the city planners and promoted by the academics.
d. The Judicious Sustainabilist
The judicious sustainabilist is judicious in the sense that she has to judiciously balance multiple interests from the economic, social and environmental sectors. This view of sustainability as a balance of interests was purported during the Intensive Programme on Sustainability (August 2008) in Rayong, Thailand. Unlike other models of sustainability, it does not place the environment as the foundation of economic and social considerations. It recognises that human interests and human rights are fundamental, and so would not compromise them solely for the sake of the environment.
This view of sustainability is rather anthropocentric, but it does have some merits to it. Firstly, I would acknowledge that human survival and hence interests plays a large role in any understanding of sustainability, and this view does not deny it. In contrast, other models that place the environment as foundational do so based on the underlying assumption that human interests depend on the environment to be fulfilled in the long run. Therefore, the judicious sustainability view is the overarching way of thinking about sustainability, while other models with the environment as foundational advocate prioritising the environment as a means of achieving that judicious sustainability. Secondly, it would gain the most favour and support in the context of urban cities, since the role of the environment in supporting cities is often masked from the population. Therefore, city people do not immediately associate the environment with their survival other factors, such as
9
The concept of detachment is espoused by the faculty of the University of Tokyo during the Intensive Programme on Sustainability as a means to think about sustainability. In their definition, however, sustainability is defined not as specifically environmental sustainability, but as the balance of social, economic, and environmental interests.
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education and financial health, instead are more crucial for individual survival in a city. Therefore, having a judicious view would prevent the sustainability movement from being accused of radicalism, and instead, from the fact that the environment is featured as one of the factors on par with the economy and society to be balanced, would indirectly encourage city people to think about environmental considerations.
However, for rural environments like FFS_HEPA, where firstly the people are removed from the backbreaking competition in cities, and where secondly people rely on the environment more directly and immediately for survival, this view might come across as rather irrelevant. Instead, the view of the environment as foundational might be more obvious to them, and, perhaps, for the sake of reducing further exploitation of the environment by people who want to keep up with the Joneses, it should be kept that way.
e. The Decision Fabric
Coi held the view that sustainability is about all components within a system [being] linked, supportive, and complementary of each other. There is an element of give and take, and of weighing pro and cons, of certain outcomes over others. Unlike the judicious sustainabilist, which tries to balance economic, social, and environmental interests, the system in question in the decision fabric view is Natures system. Nature is therefore the fabric that we are working in, and we are interested in applying the understanding of Natures laws in order to maximise outcomes in the face of limits. One can perhaps picture Nature as the fabric with which we must sew something from. The properties of the fabric are the limiting factor, but if we make use of them wisely, the very same properties can empower us. The type of product that we get is determined by how we use the fabric to suit our desired outcomes. The more linked, supportive and complementary the components and properties of the fabric are, the more impressive a product we can produce.
An important distinction between this view and that of the judicious sustainabilist is that while the judicious sustainabilist views the social, economic and environmental spheres are intersecting spheres of equal significance, the environment is central in the decision fabric view. Whereas it may be possible for the judicious sustainabilist to incur some environmental damages for the sake of the economy, for example, it is not so in the decision fabric view. Under this view, one would be told to reframe his economic expectations so that environmental costs would not be incurred. This conforms more to human ecology. Even so, there is no reason why an urbanite cannot adopt this decision fabric analytical approach.
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However, both the judicious sutainabilist view and the decision fabric view are different from the other worldviews in that they not only offer an analytical approach, but are somewhat similar in their emphases on thinking broadly, or, systems thinking. It is interesting that analytical approaches to any conception of sustainability involves systems thinking and the practice of weighing the pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages, of any act and its associated outcomes. Could sustainability perhaps then be compared to extended economics?
f. The Spiritual Sustainabilist
The spiritual sustainabilist recognises his dependence on Nature, hence respects Nature. As Vin described, the spiritual sustainabilist listens to and feels Nature. In Vins words, Nature is not more and not less (khong thua, khong thieu) it is just perfect, and always in a fine balance and this is why we should behave in a sustainable manner. This is an act of nurturing the nature in two senses: nurturing an individual human beings inborn nature of communicating with Nature, and nurturing Nature by being sensitive and responsive to what it needs. Recognising ones dependence on Nature is a view adopted by the human ecologist, and listening to Nature also entails an element of patient nurturing, therefore tying this approach to ben vung.
In FFS_HEPA and rural countries, it is quite easy for the individual to listen to Nature, since Nature is all around. It is also quite easy to recognise that Nature is khong thua, khong thieu, and that it is this fine balance of Nature that provides us with just what we need. Perhaps this act is a necessary survival response to the recognition that one is dependent on Nature. As Vin said, we all depend on nature for all different types and a variety of needs, no matter what we breathe, what we drink, we eat, erm, its part of nature having sacrificed in serving our needs. This is why, in the fine khong thua, khong thieu balance, we have to look after Nature in return. In urban environments though, where many metaphorical layers are enmeshed between the individual and Nature, this dependence is not so easily recognised.
Furthermore, rural cultures tend to have already an inherently more spiritual connection to Nature. For example, Tree Spirits, the Tiger God, and the Sky God exist in several cultures. This anthropomorphism of Nature reflects how these cultures negotiate their relationship with the environment around them, but it nonetheless shows that these cultures have some form of environmentality. 10 On the other hand, in a society where Western science dominates, such environmentality scarce dominates. Therefore, the spiritual connection is weakened.
10
In this paper, I interpret the concept of environmentality as having both sensitivity to and consciousness of the environment. Applied environmentality is, then, putting this consciousness into practice.
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This is, however, not to suggest that all cultures with anthropomorphised versions of Nature necessarily encompass the spiritual connection, nor does it suggest that the anthropomorphism of Nature is necessary to cultivate that spirituality. In response to the former, some cultures have retained their anthropomorphised versions of Nature over many generations, without educating the next generation the significance of the god. Thus, the next generation merely takes on the god for granted without understanding the underlying environmental rationales. In response to the latter, some people who come from a culture dominated by Western science, but who understand Nature very well albeit through the lenses of Western science, may actually possess a spiritual connection to Nature that is stronger than some others been brought up in a culture of Nature gods but who have not been sensitised to Nature.
g. The Ecological Sustainabilist
The ecological sustainabilist sees the ecological system as key in shaping what sustainability is. To her, farming is the root of sustainability. Farmers are integral in the sustainability movement, since farmers are the ones who negotiate with the land and with nature for one of our very basic needs, food. The type of farming which they prefer is more than just organic farming it is ecological farming. Whereas organic farming simply requires that synthetic chemicals are not used, ecological farming requires also that the farming activity is done in accordance with the balance of nature. Cuong, the cook, describes it as a balance in human and nature relationship. It requires also that the resource loop be smaller and closed, and that whatever we take away from nature, we must return to nature. We, as human beings, are negotiating with nature, but we also realise that nature cannot be pushed over. This view encompasses the Decision Fabric approach, and is more quantitative and scientific than the spiritual sustainabilist view.
To both Cuong, the cook, and Luu, the administrator of FFS_HEPA, sustainability was compared to the conservation of energy, wherein inputs to the system had to balance outputs of the system. Their similar viewpoints can perhaps be traced back to Geoff Lawton, an Australian permaculture expert who taught at FFS_HEPA. This conservation of energy viewpoint is reminiscent of fundamental principles in physics. However, instead of assuming the Universe to be the system that we are interested in, the system of interest is downscaled to the natural environment. Since it is the natural environment on Earth, and not the Universe, that we depend on for our most basic and immediate needs, the ecological sustainabilist viewpoint is perhaps a more practical application of obvious physical laws in our Universe. It is interesting that the principles framing mankinds cosmological pursuits are also applicable to the most basic and practical practices.
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Why, then, are farmers the most integral to the ecological sustainabilist movement? Because, again, they are the ones who negotiate with the land and with nature. By being on the land, they are the ones who decide on what goes into the soil, and what can come out of the soil. Therefore, the empowerment and education of farmers is very important in the sustainability movement. They are the ones, also, who could potentially have the bargaining power over the types of crops they produce, if they could be removed from positions of economic and socio-political subjectivity. Urban dwellers, however, are too far up the resource chain to be in a position to negotiate with the land. Nor do most of them understand what is required to strike the fine balance with nature. Most of them would have been educated about the basic physical laws of the conservation of energy, but they are too entrenched in a linear system of production and consumerism 11 that they do not regard these physical laws in relation to environmental and ecological guardianship.
h. The Binary Sustainabilist
The binary sustainabilist sees sustainability as a matter of only two options: life, or death. To them, sustainability is an imperative because the failure to do so means death, for not only themselves but for society and perhaps even for the entire human race. Sustainability is of the utmost importance, and there is even a sense of urgency to it that is not present in the other understandings of sustainability. The impacts of environmentally degrading practices are now no longer perceived to be stretched over a few generations, but, to the binary sustainabilist, compressed into one. As Thanh wrote in his written response, if we truly like eco-farm and if we see sustainability as a life or death issue, we will be able to do eco-farming better once we take on this view. This is because there are now no excuses for not being sustainable: not being sustainable now not only breaches Natures rights or the rights of future generations, but also our right to live. Therefore the person would be moved to act. If he is a farmer, he will be more determined to farm in ecologically friendly ways; if he were an urban dweller, he would be more determined to find ways to change entrenched and environmentally degrading practices. It is interesting to note that urbanites tend to adopt this view of sustainability as justification for the environmental sustainability movement. Being removed from the natural environment, they are unable to adopt the more spiritual views of sustainability. In a fast-paced city environment, moreover, the virtue of ben vung is virtually impracticable, and if the sense of urgency was absent, the sustainability agenda would probably be forgotten.
Notice, however, that with this view, anything that is associated as non-sustainable would also be easily associated with death-causing in a false dilemma. For example, the use of fossil fuels, seen through these lenses,
11
See the video The Story of Stuff, http://dotsub.com/view/2bbb26b5-604f-46c2-a65d-05800f39f98d.
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would be perceived totally negatively, when there could be some gray area to its merits, such as providing warmth for people in cold countries. If this false dilemma is applied to material things and objects, and not to ways of doing things, it might not be helpful in solving sustainability problems. For example, if all fossil fuel were seen as death-causing, then the Decision Fabric mechanism cannot be applied. This is because the Decision Fabric mechanism relies on regulating, also, the amounts and extents to which something is used: in the case of fossil fuels, it would be alright to use them as long as they are not overly-extracted, and as long as the emissions they produce will be adequately dispersed. On the other hand, if this false dilemma were to be applied to ways of doing things, such as treating resource flows in a linear manner instead of a cyclical manner, then it will be helpful in reiterating and reemphasising that some ways of doing things need to be changed. Nonetheless, one should still be sensitive of cultural and circumstantial factors that dominate a certain situation. The point is that the sense of urgency which the binary sustainabilist view nurtures should not push one into making sweeping generalisations about situations. Sustainability as a life and death issue should be an urgent principle, but when it comes to action, one should nonetheless remain discerning and cautiously rational.
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v.
Benefits
a. For the students
From the interviews with Coi and Vin, it was quite evident that they had benefitted from the course. Coi was in the course since Day 0, and Vin came on Day 1, so both were rather good samples for the interviews. To Vin, it was his first time learning about the solar system and about other countries on Earth, making him see the world on a much smaller scale. He was thus able to conceptualise the extent of the impacts of global warming. Our strategy had been to introduce to the students the solar system, thereby telling them that the Earth belongs to a larger system, and then introduce to them the different countries in the world through the currency game in order to give them some conception of the largeness of the world. It was only after these two introductory topics that Kien and I went into the specific international environmental problems. In Vins words:
I learnt a lot in terms of the solar system, first time I know that the Earth is the third planet away from the Sun, and theres 8 planets in the solar system.
In the global warming module, we had emphasised that global warming had natural and human causes, in order to give a more balanced picture of the phenomenon and so as to avoid conflating all global warming with human activities. In the interview, Vin also said:
Global warming I have never thought of before, but I also [didnt] know what is a globe. So interesting to see, now, the globe. And also to understand the causes causing global warming were from natural causes and man-made causes.
It seems that the topics which impressed most upon Vin were global warming, water saving, and waste management. He did not simply learn about them as issues facing the world, but he also learnt about 29
A students explanation of the projected temperature rise in the next 100 years due to global warming.
conventional approaches to tackle them. For example, he was able to conceptualise trees as carbon sinks to counter climate change. Vin said:
We need to grow more trees to be able to absorb more carbon, carbon dioxide to reduce global warming. Reduce the use of motorcycles. To the powerpoint on water resources, I think we need to learn on how to use water in an efficient way, like saving. In terms of the one on waste management, I learnt one sentence, that waste is actually a resource. Therefore, we must recycle waste in order for reusable.
Indeed, it seemed as though the students had no conception about the distinction between inorganic and organic waste before FFS_HEPA. To them, all waste was simply waste. However, FFS_HEPA showed them that waste could be reusable. The module on waste recycling further reinforced that concept, by showing how, even in the urban environment, people are making an effort to recycle.
When asked, two-thirds through the course, to name three things in the course that were the most important and the most memorable, Coi listed the solar system, global warming, and English vocabulary. Of these, she felt that the topic on global warming was the most interesting. Even so, Coi said that when she goes back to her hometown, she would not share with her family and fellow villagers about global warming. This was because she did not feel confident and knowledgeable enough to be in a position to teach them about global warming. Moreover, the topic seemed too abstract and unconnected to daily life for people to understand. Instead, if she were knowledgeable enough, the one topic that she would share with her fellow villagers would be:
Waste. Ok, the only topic I will go for is the waste. If I was talking about the atmosphere and ozone and all of these stuff, how do I convince my elders and my youth? Because no one would understand. So starting from waste is the most realistic and most basic and fundamental issue facing our village, surround our life. People are always being convinced by the things they saw.
Besides content-based knowledge, Kien and I focussed on imparting to the students skills-based knowledge. In the modules on global warming, Kien made sure that every student had an opportunity to come up to the whiteboard to graph projections of temperature rise in the next one hundred years. This greatly reinforced their graph-reading skills, since they were not very adept at it. This was because their high schools, where they
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graduated from immediately before they entered FFS_HEPA, were not very good at drilling them in such skills, as the predominant teaching method there was to memorise-and-recite.
Other skills featured in the course included observational and experimental skills. The students did a cloudobserving exercise, where they went into the field to take pictures of different clouds. They also had to observe and record their water usage in a water audit, which, when combined with a discussion facilitated by Kien, introduced to them a higher-order skill of self- and group-reflection. In another exercise, the students conducted an experiment comparing candles in inverted glasses set in different locations. These skills were viewed by the students as desirable. As Kien said in the interview with Coi, [The students] want to dig up new skills, like, more practical, more experiment, more, yeah. It turned out that they were indeed quite captivated by the idea of experimentation, because, after being introduced to the organic gardening efforts at the Australian National University, they suggested making their own experimental vegetable beds to compare the effects of organic farming versus chemical farming.
Because the students had to report back their observations, they practised their presentation skills. Some reporting-back sessions involved the use of Microsoft Powerpoint, which was very impressive. FFS_HEPA is equipped with fairly modern technology, such as internet access (purchased from the military bases near the Viet-Lao border) and computers. Indeed, the opportunity for them use this technology meant that their lifestyles was not necessarily separated from modernity. Moreover, the practice in presenting their opinions and observations boosted their self-esteem and self-confidence in speaking up and in discussing issues. This would have been unavailable in a learning-by-following context.
Students using Microsoft Powerpoint to present their findings. Students prepare their own vegetable plots as an experiment to compare the effects of chemical and organic farming. The team on the left will experiment with growing crops using chemicals, while the team on the right will grow crops without chemicals.
Although I was initially invited to teach only English, Kien
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expanded my scope to include contemporary environmental issues in the course of our planning. It made sense, since FFS_HEPA promoted environmental sustainability. Furthermore, it would suitably leverage on my experience of having lived in three countries to provide the students with a somewhat realistic sense of what international is. As we progressed through the course, I became more sceptical about the benefits of learning English for the students, as personal experience informed me that the lack of practice, something which the students lacked by virtue of living in rural Vietnam, would guarantee that whatever efforts at building up a particular language skill would be wasted. Making English the focus of any intensive course would therefore be inefficient utilisation of resources. Cuong, the cook, mentions with a tinge of undeniable realism in his interview:
In the longer run, I do see that I will use more English, in terms of we get [the school] more expanded and expanded, but in the short term, I, at the moment I manage all the, kind of, food, er, so caring for the health of the staff member and also students, I find little time for me to actually having to focus on English.
Furthermore, I was afraid that by teaching the students English, they would yearn for the other and become more outwardly. Vin told me that in his village, people who want to learn English were perceived as dreamers, or people with goals. I then asked him who they dream of. He says:
They dream of to become an interpreter, tour guide, translator, and probably any sort of job or profession that have work that is related to English.
Later, when I probed whether these dreams of leaving and of going away were compatible with sustainability, he said:
He would like [himself] to be a trainer of English, to the kids who, or to the ones who move, who tend to be, and he try to encourage them to stay back.
Here it seems that Vin is trying to assert his experience as someone who has been trained in both English and ecological farming methods to encourage the younger villagers to remain in the village. It seems as though he is acknowledging that the desires of leaving are unhelpful to sustainability, and that he, as the English-trained person, would know better.
Luu, the administrator of FFS_HEPA, however, provided a different and rather reassuring perspective. He says: 32
I see a strong, a clear, erm, increasing of interest of learning of English because its a demanding language, that means its getting even more expand in language, that require everyone needs to know. Although I dont expect in two weeks that people can change from step one to step five, no, but its definitely interesting.
Unlike Vin, Luu was not asked to consider what would happen to the people who learnt English, but merely the benefits of learning English. He highlighted that English was a universal language, the lingua franca of the time. Therefore, it is good to have exposure to it. Underlying his message was the importance of cross-cultural exposure, which the learning of English could facilitate. There is, after all, no better way to learn about a certain culture other than through learning its language. This was an exposure to the mainstream other, the other in which many ideas flourish. Luus point was that it was good to learn English for the sake of exposure, because it is simply good to know. His keenness and enthusiasm to learn is quite striking here.
Vin also elucidates the another benefit of learning English, which I had not realised before:
Also, learning English through vocab, particularly scientific-based vocab, itll be interesting to get exposed to the world, advanced technology, they have been way far ahead compared to Vietnam.
This is no way is meant to come across as Anglo-centric, but is meant to emphasise the subtler point that a lesser-globalised language might not embody some of the ideas which are driving modernity. Perhaps the Vietnamese language in cities has evolved so as to include certain ideas; however, the very fact of living in the rural highlands implies that the adoption of this evolution happens at a much slower pace. Furthermore, the learning of another language, which thereby introduces ideas from another culture, highlights the presence of another, which could then be used to juxtapose against their own worldviews. This juxtaposition triggers a process of self-reflection, which is a necessary step towards learning and intellectual advancement. To illustrate my point simplistically, the word telephone conveys the idea of communicating across distances. The fact that there exists a word to embody this idea emphasises that there exists an invention which has achieved the idea of compressing space.
However, the popularity of the learning of English amongst Vins villagers could point to a way to increase the attractiveness of FFS_HEPA among potential applicants. Because English is offered, FFS_HEPA would be able to appeal to the desires of those who are attracted to Western culture, or who associate English with modernity 33
and sophistication. It may even be viewed as less radical. Nonetheless, it is still necessary to emphasise that the offering of English does not compromise the ecological emphasis of the school. It must instead come across as compatible with the sustainability goals of FFS_HEPA not only to project a coherent image, but also highlight that Westernity and the ecological values that the school imparts are not necessarily separable. Cuong clearly expresses this point:
But to be honest, HEPA must remain a strong identity of what HEPA is like. So theres no need to follow international, although to learn from international perspectives is clear, you know? To learn from it is ok, but to, er, like international friends and whoever who is willing to come to HEPA must follow HEPAs rules, and identity. So its more about having a reflection after being exposed to international perspectives. But its about integrating but its not about, erm, penetration. So, integrating is good, but its not about forgetting about us, like, we learn, but not forgetting about who we are, what we are doing, we dont.
Using the by-product of rice as an alternative to dishwashing detergent to wash the dishes (FFS_HEPA initiative). Students and staff share the chores, creating an egalitarian environment. The practice of this FFS_HEPA innovation during the international environmental perspectives course is symbolic because it shows that local practices, when beneficial, should be valued and should persist.
The course was delivered with this in mind, and another benefit that emerged was that the students and the staff at FFS_HEPA were able to recognise that they had a lot to value in their current lives, and that there is no need for them to feel compelled to move to the city. In the interview, Coi highlights the keep up with the Joneses mentality prevalent in the Hmong community:
In my village, erm, people are pursuing bigger house, and, instead of bike and walking, we want to buy at least motorbike. AS given by the name, as the Hmong people, so a lot of prejudice created by the Kinh majority was, well, minority are backward, minority are stupid, so the image and the perspective would be, Id like to follow up, as in, the Hmong people here like to follow and 34
reaching to the level of the Kinh majority, they want to be like the Kinh majority. Richer life, so that they wont be looked down by the others.
The staff of FFS_HEPA were able to realise that learning from international perspectives does not amount to the wholesale copying of international practices, but to pick out what is worth learning that suits the local context. In this sense, it was to pick out the best from the best. Cuong says regarding international environmental organisations:
where they talk about environmental issues, I realise the value even more about my role and someone elses role. Like Duc, like me, like Kien, because those who work on the ground make the changes. So we know exactly about organic farming, like these organisations can talk about organic farming on the policy level, but we know exactly what to do in process, in the reality.
In fact, it can be argued that delivering such international perspectives through FFS_HEPAs authority satisfies the students curiosity about the outside, about which the students must wonder by watching television. Furthermore, Cuong has highlighted the fact that discussions about the environment reinforced that gut feel that the environment should be protected. There is a sense of vindication that what he, the farmer Kien, and the gardener Duc have been doing has always been right and wise. The fact that there are other well-recognised organisations in the world advocating for practices similar to theirs makes them feel very technically adept.12
Luu, the administrator, confirms this insight:
[If] you looking at all of the lectures on environmental issues, the, some of the staff members here, particularly the students who are very close to nature already, are some sort of backed up by theory, practical framework, how they relate one thing to the nature, and next thing to the nature. So they see themselves, to, to, the lecture is like a mirror, but you know, in a theoretical frame, helping them mirroring oh well, we are close to nature, and that straight backs up their confidence in working towards nurturing the nature.
Interestingly, having taught the course, thereby being involved at the grassroots level, this is also how I feel whenever people academics, students, and the like talk about empowering minority groups in Southeast Asia.
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In Luus opinion, even the students, and especially those who were very connected to nature already, benefitted from the course because it served as a theoretical backing to their practical framework. For example, they now could draw on the renowned example of DDT as an argument against the use of chemical pesticides. Furthermore, their understanding of nature is no longer simply practical, but is now substantiated by conceptual, scientific understandings. If there were conceptual and scientific understandings to begin with, then at least these prior understandings have been more verbalised and, hence, reinforced. Granted, this can only succeed if accompanied by the right teaching methodology and the right emphases on treasuring the local.
On top of the responses given in the interviews, it was quite evident, through the student responses, that they had gained a better understanding of sustainability. They now have a language to think about the environmental problems facing the world, and they can use now this language to think about environmental problems that face them. For example, they now know about water management, climate change and global warming, recycling, and DDT. They can relate the problems being faced by their own villages to these precedents, and have a framework to think about their problems. For example, in their responses, Thanh cited non-recyclable (organic) waste [not being] collected as an environmental problem in his village, Giang mentioned that the use of chemical fertilisers and the use of pesticides are huge, and Viet mentioned warming in climate as examples of environmental problems facing their villages. Although it cannot be quickly concluded that the mention of these issues are because the students have been empowered with the vocabulary solely due to the course, since other issues not covered in the course, such as the topic of enforcement by the local authorities, were mentioned too, their occurrence in the student responses shows that the students have made some sort of connection between the course content and their village contexts. This is significant, as it also shows that the course has given them a framework to think about and relate to the environmental and agricultural issues in their own villages. They will be at the very least well-informed about global environmental problems. Better yet, they will be able to use this information and knowledge to justify their move to and persistence in ecologically sustainable farming practices in their own villages. Even more significantly, with increased awareness of global issues, they will less likely be deceived by conniving, profit-driven outsiders, and hence will be less likely to place themselves in positions of subjectivity and dependence.
Furthermore, Coi and Vin were asked, in their interviews, to reflect on their experiences in FFS_HEPA when 14 students from the Australian National University visited, as part of a course which Kien had organised at the start of 2008. This was to compare the effectiveness of having merely international students mingling with the students, versus the effectiveness of having an international teacher. In Cois words:
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I think, one to two people would be fine, and a good size having, and also having one to two weeks block would be better in terms of learning more, and having to [interact] more. Just like a class, if you have a lot of students, then the density [of information and knowledge dissemination] would be very sparse. Things get down to each ear, very little compared to the class with very little students, so people receive more, and being to shown known and unknown more, so that would be preferable.
In other words, Coi felt that the presence of international visitors attending classes with them actually acted as an impediment to learning, since the more students there are in the class, the less attention an individual student would receive. Coi also says:
I think I learnt that herbal medicinal plant resources are much richer [here in Vietnam] than compared to Australia. I believe that their scientific knowledge is much, say, advanced than us, but thats very abstract. I cant understand.
Vin cited the use of fire as something which he learnt from the ANU contingent. He said:
we learnt about the Australian aborigines have used fire as a method for regenerating fertiliser, or, erm, potassium, but fire has been used, burning the fire, just one road, one line, to prevent the bigger fire.
However, Vin also confused the ANU contingents visit with a teaching module conducted by Marisha Auerbach, a volunteer-teacher in permaculture and permaculture ethics from the United States. He cited the integrative growing of vegetables and herbs, which he learnt under Marisha, as things he learnt from the ANU contingents visit. This is perhaps a response given when the memory is strained, and it therefore suggests that having international students learning with the FFS_HEPA students does not necessarily expose the FFS_HEPA students to significantly more knowledge. Marishas teaching was mentioned because she was linked by association as an international visitor. Moreover, what Coi and Vin said to have learnt from the ANU contingent was very Australia-specific. It was more of a cross-cultural exchange of significant natural resource management knowledge than learning underlying principles or concepts that govern or dominate the international environmental scene.
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Therefore, having an international visitor come into FFS_HEPA to assume the role of a teacher, even though slightly more troublesome in terms of coordinating the course schedule and planning the course syllabus, has a greater impact than simply having the FFS_HEPA students interact with other international visitors who come in as students. As Luu distinguishes, Here [in my course], [Yingshan] took up more role, like [she is] part of the driving the group, so we, [the staff] are in a different position, compared to the ANU group. Clearly, coming in as a teacher would be assuming a more active role, while coming in as visitors to learn from FFS_HEPA, like what the 14 ANU students did, would be assuming a more passive role. Unless they are made to have intensive group discussions, which are difficult given the language barrier, it is quite unlikely that they will learn much from each other. Furthermore, it has been shown that the international topics have substantial value-addedness to the students, and so teaching visits incorporating international environmental perspectives should persist.
b. Personal
On the other hand, I learnt a lot from my FFS-HEPA experience too. I learnt how to live beyond my comfort zone: sleeping on a mattress-less bed, taking cold showers at night, going to a bathroom which was just adjacent to a sty with grunting pigs, walking in the dark at night, the immense language barrier, and being tolerant of electricity outages, huge forest cockroaches, and many mosquito bites. Since I grew up in Singapore, all these were physically challenging to me. However, there were many factors which made the challenge worthwhile: the students sincerity and keenness in learning, the warmth and generosity which the staff and students at FFS_HEPA showered on me, living in a very pristine and protected environment, waking up to a picturesque view of the Vietnamese mountains every morning, and having an adorable dog named after me.
Furthermore, I also learnt about the ecologically-friendly initiatives which FFS_HEPA has introduced. For example, they used the by-product of rice (sandy but soft grains - probably from rice husks) to remove grease and oil from the dishes. Thus, it acted as a substitute for detergent. Furthermore, the used by-products were fed to the pigs, thereby offering a nutritious add-on to the pigs food. Furthermore, food was locally produced in farm sites at FFS_HEPA. In this way, the resource loop is made significantly smaller.
In addition, I learnt that banana trees can be planted in a ring, and organic waste can be placed in the middle of the ring. This maximises the banana trees capacity for breaking down organic waste and treating wastewater. We therefore never had a shortage of sweet and juicy bananas to eat! The field school was also beautifully landscaped with rocks and plants, which made the site more aesthetically pleasing. 38
Perhaps the more significant lessons I learnt were about data management and about humility. Regarding data management, if not for Kiens constant reminders that I should be organised and update changes to the schedule consistently, I would scarce be able to produce any paper like this. It already has been very challenging for me to write this report amidst other various commitments. As to humility, if not for the kindness and the sincerity of the staff and students at FFS_HEPA, and if not for their genuine concern about malnourishment due to my vegetarian diet, I would not have enjoyed the experience as much. The fact that I met such sincere, motivated and kind people in FFS_HEPA has more than demolished negative stereotypes of the rural.
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vi.
Looking forward
a. Personal vision for HEPA
It is my hope that I can return to FFS_HEPA again to work again with the same students. They are immensely talented, hard-working and motivated young people with a lot of potential to become leaders of their own villages and community, or even more. FFS_HEPA is a bed of knowledge jewels, and offers the urban human being and the Westerner many lessons. Conducting a similar intensive course is a good opportunity to do volunteer work while making use of the knowledge bases that FFS_HEPA has to offer to conduct research at the same time. Alternatively, the teaching stint itself could constitute a research project relating to education or to the environment. There are, at the moment, grants offered by international organisations to conduct field work relating to the environment. 13 This is an exhilarating first-step to get more students involved in going over there to teach, and to, at the same time, learn about the lifestyles and philosophy of living in a rural but ecologically-friendly environment, and thereby bridge understandings not only across cultures, but also across the urban-rural divide.
The students at FFS_HEPA were selected from a pool of applicants from villages around rural Vietnam. They are selected based on their aptitude and attitude. Vin, the class monitor of K1A, was very active in his villages youth activities. He and other youths in his village meet up twice a month, to share issues concerning youths, and, you know how you have, er, once a month, cleaning the village [They] also organising field trip to helping the poor and lonely families. So those who are lonely, and those who are, yeah, they help. They organise such field trips to elderly, elder lonely families, because alone, then they would not be able to do, so youth are collecting firewood for them to cook, cleaning house, that sort of thing.
Therefore, it is not surprising that they are highly motivated, of excellent conduct, and have a lot of potential. There is an elitist school in Singapore called the Raffles school, comprising secondary school and junior college. Students who enter Raffles are known to be all-rounded, exceedingly motivated individuals. The Raffles school is famous for producing leaders and entrepreneurs in Singapore. Given that the students at FFS_HEPA have qualities similar to the Raffles students, I think it is possible to transform FFS_HEPA into a Raffles equivalent, albeit without the elitist connotations. I foresee the students who graduate from FFS_HEPA as future leaders of ecological and environmental protection in their own villages. They are people
For example, the Clinton Global Initiative offers grants to projects dealing with sustainable development. The Australian Youth Ambassador for Development programme, under the wing of AusAID, is also another avenue.
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of intelligence and integrity, who have the character to withstand the pressures of a materialistically-oriented market economy. Coi, for example, is the only female minority student in my class, and she is very out-spoken, confident, and interested. If she were given the opportunities that we all have, it is hard to not envision her as an ambassador for the rights of females in ethnic minority groups. This may sound a tad idealistic, but the potential is there, and is recognised. Marisha, who pays for her own expenses to come from the US to teach permaculture in FFS_HEPA, is a precedent of someone who has seen the value of investing her energy in the students. What we can do as visitors is to emphasise their talents to them, and what we can do as educators in FFS_HEPA is to hone these latent talents to produce ecological and environmental leaders of the rural highlands. 14
b. Continuity
In order to achieve this vision, teaching modules must not be one-off efforts, but must have continuity. Currently, Eunice Teng, another Singaporean studying psychology at the University of York in the United Kingdom, and I plan to go to FFS_HEPA to teach the same group of students in late December 2009. Eunice will teach English, while I will focus on concepts of environmental justice. Kien will again be our translator and facilitator. Kien and I are interested in developing long-term modules or curriculum that span over three years or so, and in developing schemes to interest volunteers to teach at FFS_HEPA. As we recognise that volunteers individually have their own life plans to pursue and therefore will not be able to return to FFS_HEPA annually, we are hoping to develop a framework which will ensure the continuity of having international visitors teach in FFS_HEPA whilst not imposing too much on the individual volunteers.
A poster which FFS_HEPA staff and K1A students produced to illustrate the ability of the banana-tree ring (a circle banana of trees) to break down organic material.
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Yingshans theory is that by primarily educating them concepts of justice, rights, and the discourses of social equality that are common in mainstream Vietnamese society, and by secondarily exposing them to contemporary issues around them to ponder, the students will be eventually well-equipped to become leaders in their own right.
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It is in this context, and in the context of the intangible yet invaluable benefits of being involved in the work of FFS_HEPA, that I would like to invite you, the reader, to consider visiting FFS_HEPA as a volunteer teacher. It is a wonderful opportunity that will help create ecological sustainability for farmers in rural Vietnam. Farmers are, after all, the foundations of human society.
As Coi nicely summarises, its a matter of a brave and a effort.
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vii.
Acknowledgements
Immense thanks must be given to the Social Policy Ecology Research Institute (SPERI) in Vietnam for allowing me to have this amazing teaching opportunity in FFS_HEPA, the staff of FFS_HEPA for their unwavering support and their warmest concern for me, and my good friend Kien who was invaluable in making this opportunity a reality. This experience would not have been possible without them.
In addition, I would like to thank the Fenner School of Environment and Society in the Australian National University. If not for the exposure and encouragement provided by the School faculty and students alike I would have never even dreamed of going to Vietnam to teach. In particular, I would like to thank my academic advisor, Dr Richard Baker.
The Intensive Programme on Sustainability must also be credited for the very international insights that it has given me on the concept of sustainability. I would like to thank the organisers and the sponsors of this incredibly eye-opening programme.
Of course, my family, friends, and teachers cannot be forgotten. They must be thanked for inspiring me, and for all the support they have given me. It is they who embody my motivation.
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viii.
Appendix
a. Sample course schedule. Although not comprehensive, effort has been made to make this as accurate as possible.
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b. Interview transcripts 1. Interview with Cuong, 7 June 2008 2. 3. Interview with Coi, 10 June 2008 Interview with Luu, 11 June 2008
4. Interview with Vin, 12 June 2008
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Interview transcript 1 of 4 Interview with Cuong (cook of FFS-HEPA), 7 June 2008, Saturday, 8:15pm, just outside the kitchen area K translates to C in VNese. => K Cuong responds in VNese. => C K translates Cuongs reply. => k
YS: Thank you, Cuong for agreeing to be interviewed. Basically this interview is to find out what you feel about international perspectives, and to find out whether it has changed your viewpoint in life in order to find out whether it is worth integrating such an element into the course for the students. So your views are really appreciated. Please be very, very honest, and really appreciate your time. K YS: So just to set the groundwork, could you please tell me about your background? How old are you, where are you from, how many people are there from your family and your village, and what is your role in your family or village? KCk: My name is Nguyen Van Cu'ong. I come from village number 10, Son Truong commune, Huong Son district, Ha Tinh province. YS: Can you spell it for me please? C writes. Other details provided: born 28/1/1983, 26 years old. KCk: 6 people in the family, 2 parents, 4 children. Older brother has family already. I work here for four years. 1 younger sister in grade 11, and 1 younger sister just graduate, not yet have a job. YS: Right. And what about your village? Could you tell me more about your village? KCk: In my commune, it has 19 villages, and I am in the village number 10. YS: How many people are there in your village? KCk: 70 families, on average 4-5 people per family. YS: Do you know what is the main occupation of the people in your village? KCk: Mainly agriculture life. YS: Thank you. And what do you think is your role in your family? KCk: The second son. YS: Second son. How do you think you contribute to your family?
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KCk: In terms of income, actually I am a worker here, so I dont earn much, so the contributions in terms of finance is rather limited. But having been four years here, I quite like it, by fact that I have been educated by so many classes, social classes. I having been seeing farmers, I have also been interacting with foreigners of different countries, I also talk to minority groups, erm minority students, Ive been able to interact with officials, erm, the staff members of the NGOs, erm ,also even higher level authority, also come over here already. So I have grown up a lot in terms of knowledge and experience, being exposed to different culture, different background. Erm, I learn also how to behave and also I got caught up with the updates of the latest theme all around the world, even latest theme in life, like issues. So if I stay back in the village, probably its hard to know, but since I am moving away from the village, and er, being here, got the latest updates of different issues, I became more aware, and when I go home, people still look at me in the way of grown up in mental, erm, grown up in mindset, and grown up in the attitude, erm, including everything. YS: So, erm, could you tell me about your understanding of sustainability? KCk: Now I have listened to the words of sustainability, and having had lectures from Geoff Lawton, the one who taught permaculture, organic farming here, I think once or twice. Even with farmers mentioning about sustainability. But I dont think I have practiced, like in implementation, I have done well with sustainability, like I dont think so. I am aware highly of sustainability, as in concept, given and shaped by HEPA itself. Much of my time, the reason for not being able to implement sustainability just because I focus too much on work, on even cooking. So busy in the morning, by going to the market and buy things, and then having to be busy also cooking three meals a day, so not actually work on sustainability, in both general and in specific by action. YS: Ok, but could you summarize what you think the concept of sustainability is all about? KCk: Ok, this is what I learn from HEPA.HEPA promoting, erm, the balance in human and nature relationship. And I think that, erm, now, sustainability just simply mean: whatever we take away form nature, we must return to nature, and erm, whatever we doing for the goods of nature, the nature will offering the goods for the human society. Erm, just like the law in energy conservation, whatever energy comes in, the energy comes out. And, but it depends of how we use energy in a good way. So put in the context here, erm, I appreciate very much HEPAs teaching to me in terms of balancing out human need, erm, nature relationship, and this is the most simple definition of sustainability that I find meaning for from being in HEPA and from being reflected in HEPAs work. YS: Why do you think it is necessary for a human being to act in a sustainable way? KCk: Now, the trend in the society seems to, er, moving towards more urbanized and industrialized, with the use of a lot of chemicals and pesticides. Erm, one part of that, I am being here, but I think I personally realize the value of living in a clean and healthy environment where people living with each other, caring for each other, in such a simple manner, and not demanding too much. We, of course, everyone needs to meet a certain need, just to satisfy needs, but what I dream of having a plot of land where I can grow agricultural food in a very clean and safe process, where I can eat enough and to cure my family, but also to care and share the agricultural produce to the neighborhood community. So basically going back, the reason why, probably the demand for living for ourselves and the family and the neighborhood in such a caring and healthy environment is, erm, just a good way. But having to go to the city area where facing with a lot of increasing in pollution, increasing in food unsafety, duhduhduh, thats striking me a lot. Erm, I think a lot of people surrounding me at the moment have changed my views a lot. Although I dont know how to answer why, but I think thats all the interaction that people have made for me, and also the environment, like the office here has created, has shaped up my thinking and values.
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YS: Ok, thank you. So looking back to before you joined HEPA, and given that you were from a mainly agricultural village, did you have any inclination towards sustainability or towards saving the environment at that point in time? KCk: Well, before joining FFS-HEPA, I wasnt aware at all, but probably, having four times here, changing in awareness have been, erm, gradually click, you know. But it has been probably from, erm, one of the most impressive lessons was to learn to make that compost fertilizer and that has been comparable with the chemical fertilizer. And I can give you an example from my town. In 2 communes, Son Truong and Son Ha communes, they grow special orange specialty, as part of the very special cuisine, like fruit cuisine. But by fact that they use so many chemical to, for increasing in productivity, but I can see the impact straightaway on top of the land. So coming back here, I can see that when we learn to dig the hole to grow orange trees, we dig it really big, and then put a very huge volume of green manure and composting and all sorts of green leaves, to grow. I learnt that, well, it could take a long time, like, it is longer if I compare, well, three years to use chemical, just to get the fruit. This might take longer, but I believe that it is a better way to the land and to the soil. At the moment, we cannot say HEPA is already yet at the level of sustainability because you dont find much of economic efficiency, even looking at the produce here and the efficiency in terms of finance, but I still believe that having a fair, friendly environment, living with nature, and erm, because somehow, just to see the two examples here, using green manure and compared to the two communes that I come from, like near my area, they start already to argue from there, with the seeing that the soil start to degrade, they use so much chemical to grow very good orange, good as in, big, big fruit, but then now I see the negative impact upon the soil, and then everyone start to blaming about it, but once I see also a comparative example that to grow orange near here, so I believe that from the practice that people are practicing here, although its slow, but it probably, like I cant judge upon efficiency yet, but hopefully its good for all. In my area, I, we grow a lot of, he just reemphasize the point, that orange with chemical and pest, so once I come here, and really recently we grow orange tree, but I go back and forth, back to my village, I see the impact on the soil, therefore I start to realize the more value of sustainability as a concept and also in practice, by such example. YS: Thank you. Well, having been socializing with me since I arrived, and having attended the first two to three days of the course that I am offering, what do you think are the benefits of learning English? KCk: He thinks that its pretty worth, in terms of, er, there was strong push upon, must, like, everyone else must understand, so the, like crosscheck, like enthusiasm, looking at the students, so er, making sure that student understand the concept, were the biggest effort coming from these lecture hours, and the good thing is to make sure that everyone even understand a bit, but people start to not only understand, but realizing it, like it goes into their minds, therefore its worth more than, erm, maybe maybe one day working here can worth even one week in other education because lack of caring attitude from teachers, so he still very happy with strict attitude, and having practice. Er, he always, er, I always like, er, not only study but also having time to do field work, so all of the fieldwork so far has been quite good, and people start to realize more. I can give the example of Mr Zheng Guang Zhou, who teaches organic farming. As soon as he talks about organic farming, he start to take the hoe, dig up the soil, and get everyone together surrounding him. This is what we need to learn. So, along with organic farming, her dig up the soil and show what is the proper body form for digging up the soil, and how do we do the cover, as in mulch, so you need building a mulch area where you reducing evaporation of water from the soil. So all of this, he train us. So he has already a reflecting draw on your course and Mr Zhengs course, as a connection, that we need more practice. So, thinking about shaping this course later on is more experiment, more observation out there in the field, that would be, erm, incredible, interesting, incredibly useful to the practical. The practical side was very useful, but when in class environment we actually really enthusiastic in making everyone work, and making everyone understand, make sure everyone understands, and, erm, a great push, a great effort to learn. And people really write down the sort of, 48
ok, thats international perspective, but make sense. Its not something that is a barrier or a wall we created between so-called local knowledge and then what is so out there, unfamiliar to them. YS: Ok, good, thank you. Erm, How do you think you will use English in the future? KCk: In the longer run, I do see that I will use more English, in terms of if we get this more expanded and expanded, but in the short term, I, at the moment I manage all the, kind of, food, er, so caring for the health of the staff member and also students, I find little time for me to actually having to focus on English. But lets say in five years time, when HEPA decentralized and actually allocate this land area belong to me for use and management, I may hire other people to join me in the work of cooking, so I can have more time to spend upon English, and also HEPA looking at having more international visitors, or internship coming in to study, I definitely will maximize my opportunity to use up my English. YS: Right, thank you. I understand that during the first two days, we talked a lot about English vocabulary and just the world in general through the currency exercise, but having come in and out of the lectures now and then and just listening around, what is the one thing about the international environment that has struck you the most? KCk: I think, having just go in and out and having, well, probably the term that we know that well: the atmosphere has been heating up (so, he doesnt use the word global warming), so thats probably one of the things that I have recently heard. But the issue we need to talk about here is, he finds it frustrating, on the one hand we talk about it, but then more factories are continue to be built, and then people are, are still use a lot of motorbike, although I know that the smoke coming out from the motorbike is this and this and this, so I think its very striking in terms of reaching what we aim, what we talk about, and what we put in reality. More dams are building, more factories are building, people still in Vietnam are still own more cars, more bikes, more motorbikes. Well, we might listen and hear from the world, but I think we have to change a lot in terms of the Vietnamese perception and the Vietnamese awareness, the Vietnamese practices to get sustainability in a very proper direction in the implementation side. YS: When you watch TV, or when you turn the TV on, do you hear much about environmental issues being discussed? KCk: The time that normally people open up TV is actually on the news and the changes around the world. World politics and Vietnam policy responding to the world in all aspects, social, economic, and environment. I rarely spend time, even other colleagues, rarely spend time to watch other things, so, erm, if specifically specify into environmental issues may not be a real answer, but I think I follow almost news, politics, and Vietnams response in different aspects of the world. YS: Sorry, let me phrase my question. Do you think that there is a lot to learn from watching the news and world politics on TV, and do you think that it is informative about environmental sustainability from your experiences? KCk: So I think it is very important for to me raise awareness to issues in the news and expose to the world issues and the Vietnamese issues. Erm, it would be useful in terms of focusing only on environment and sustainability, but we cannot separate out ourselves, because we are personally under the impact of policy change, whether it is at the larger scale, so having to have to be aware of, to this news and policy change because it affects my life. YS: Have you heard about the IPCC, the WMO, and the UNEP, and if so, where from?
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KCk: Well, once or twice, a lot of times, it might be mentioned in the news, but I dont actually who they are. Dont know. Maybe the names are heard, but I dont actually know what they are doing. Like, having no idea what specific, well, what does it mean? What do they do? How do they do? Well, Cuong mentioned one point that, erm, continue on, although I dont actually know what the other organizations do, but the important is, where they talk about environmental issues, I realize the value even more about my role and someone elses role. Like Duc, like me, like Kien, because those who work on the ground make the changes. So we know exactly about organic farming, like these organizations can talk about organic farming on policy level, but we know exactly what to do in process, in the reality. We implementing composting, implement banana ring circle, we implement recycling of grey water, duhduhduh, so we know exactly what we are doing, although having to share, ok, this is the organization that we know around the world who cares about the environment, so come back to the other point was, erm, Duc and Kien and I know our roles well, and know the crutches, that we are doing (discussion in VNese), so, erm, the last point which I forgot, was, erm, maybe so maybe until , so these organizations also talk about the non-use of chemicals pesticides and duhduhduh, which they are promoting, so we already knew that, in practice, we are already practicing it, and maybe, someday in the future, when the world strictly prohibited the use of, er, chemical-free, like, er, no, never use of chemical anymore, no use of pesticides anymore, so we are the ones who survive. (Can you see the difference here? He make a strong statement.) Ck: So having to say that, I also, we also like to emphasize that we are implementing the specific, the action, so we dont, we are not afraid of being left, erm, everything is pretty in detail, like in real life. Erm, the promotion of organic farming, or the promotion of chemical-free, we need to strictly put in practice, and we are practicing it, so we are not worrying of die. YS: Ok, right, ok, thank you very much. What do you think of the idea of integrating international perspectives into, as an addition into the Farmers Field School course? KCk: I think in the future, definitely. And it has to be certain that integrating international perspectives has to be here in the future. YS: Why? KCk: So. Why? Because if you looking at the trend of the world, on the one hand, so theres two lines, one hand the world, or even Vietnam, is promoting towards urbanization and industrialization, and up to the point they can reach to the top, but definitely at that top, they would like to go back to the primitive society, not in the meaning of the primitive society. As soon as they go to that high level, at some time, some point, theyll want to go back to the smallness, to the life that is nature-based, because at this level, at this level, sometimes we see that industrialized can cause so much of illness and disease, and by fact that eating unhealthy food creates so many other ways of disease and expose to, to hygiene or even problems, new problems of the highclass society. But definitely, I think they would still want to go back sometime to the low level, like to the simple level of life, whereas here, if we continue, FFS-HEPA continue to, to remain strong, then we can be, we should be confident of ourselves in the longer term, if we are firmative of what we have been practicing. Erm, one of the things that I realize and actually often wonder, why our ancestors in the primitive times, whether they are in the hunter-gatherer society, they can live for ages. But here, now, we can see, people at 50, die at 60, and then 70. They are very weak, and less, less manual. They are, people are focusing too much on, erm, other ways of laboring, so they are less physically-active, and erm, in order to get a healthy body, I believe that we need to eat good food, also good work, in terms of physical. YS: What kinds of benefits do you think that, erm, integrating international perspectives can give you?
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KCk: Ok. I think international, integrating international perspective is a clear direction, but the benefit of it would be we learn from international experience. But to be honest, HEPA must remain a strong identity of what HEPA is like. So theres no need to follow international, although the need to learn from international perspectives is clear, you know? To learn from it is ok, but to, er, like international friends and whoever who is willing to come to HEPA must follow HEPAs rules, and identity. We have our own identity, and we are strong and we are proud of what we are doing. And were practicing the good thing to the nature. So its more about having a reflection after being exposed to international perspectives. But its about integrating but its not about (K pauses to find right word), erm, penetration. So, integrating is good, but its not about forgetting about us, like, we learn, but not forgetting about who we are, what we are doing, we dont. YS: Were you around when the 14 students from ANU visited HEPA in the beginning of the year? KCk: Yes. YS: Ok. What did you learn from their visit? What international topic did you learn from their visit? K YS: Could you give me some examples? Ck: They are very strict at hours. Every ANU friend having to face, erm, like after finishing Da Nang time, very tired, and when they were here, theres a lot of rain and storms, and everyone get up, and be on time. Very punctual. The best thing that I like. Ck: They joined a lot of work with us. On that time, I wasnt being part of the group, so I couldnt say much, but they are very punctual in hour, in time. YS: What do you think a good life is? KCk: First of all. Ck: A good life to me is about promoting healthy competition. When I make a veggie patch, I need to be in a competition with someone else, but actually helping my gardens be better. Not destroy my garden. YS: Anything else? KCk: So, erm, also, the last point is, I think, besides promoting healthy competition, I believe that we should reduce the conflict. So a good life for me is to get one and the next person next to me understand each other, and we dont have much of a conflict in all sense. YS: You mentioned something about economic efficiency in HEPA. What are your views about this issue, and could you give me some specific examples of why you think that there is an issue of economic efficiency, and also, what do you think can be done about it? KCk: I think, first of all, economic efficiency, be with me that HEPA has always played a very strong role upon education, so no matter what we talk about, efficiency, economic efficiency, is not in the financial term, its more for educational term. Although I can give you an example of being a cook, definitely economic efficiency can be understood that I have to serve better services in terms of food, cuisine, I need to do a better gardening here, back at the, there, and raising pigs. So, if I serve people better, there, here, and the pigs, then eventually, er, the gains is actually is for me. Get it? 51
Ck: So, he already proposed, I think this is what Cuong means by, because the plan of the reforming has already planned decentralizing, allocating this pilot here for Cuong to manage. SO he has to serve better needs with better quality with food for everyone, better veggie green, green veggie, and better pigs. So the efficiency in economic income, or the reputation of him will increase later. YS: You mean, a pilot K: for the cook. YS: kind of, erm, independence for the cook. K: Yeah. And economic efficiency for the cook. He set his role quite clear, like he lay out the role, his position, and drawing upon economic efficiency in relation to his positions. YS. Right. What kinds of incentives do you have to improve your own services? KCk: Yes. CKCk: I think he target that, erm, I would target to hire more people, get them trained, and I also have to train in better serving with high quality, whether in food, in cook, in serving, because I see myself as a service man, so better serving, better caring for the green veggie patch, better raising of pigs, and cleaning environment. But its very more important is to looking at attitudes towards customers, erm, how do I draw more attention for new customers, how to attract people coming, thats a very important point. YS: Well, thank you very much for your time, and as a last question, what is your favorite dish to cook? KCk: Only local knowledge, er, local food. I can cook very well all the local food. I wish to cook local food very good, to the point that I can draw so many attention from people, and I wish particularly foreigner comes to HEPA must eat local food, because the whole point is about experiencing HEPA, experiencing the local dish, and experiencing the local culture. Because the food itself reflecting local identity, and I want customer to follow us, not us following foreigner. YS: Thank you very much. Ck: In one to two years time, I wish, and I dream, that, now, I not only cooking the local food, but also most of the agricultural produce, as in the input for the food source, must be home-grown. So locally-grown. Local products. Here, just on HEPA. YS: And not having to go to the markets. k: So we dont have to go to the market, thats how we target. And he target one to two years time, with the development of new, just the future, hes quite optimistic, so, more agricultural products will be grown and, as an input, and also processing, processing here. YS: Ok, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Cuong, for your time and for your contribution and, er, I wish you all the best in the decentralization project to manage your own kitchen and kitchen area. K Ended at 9:45pm, Transcribing completed on 8 June 2008, Sunday 52
Interview transcript 2 of 4 Interview with Coi (student of K1A, FFS-HEPA), 10 June 2008, 7:50pm, just outside the kitchen area K translates to Coi in Vietnamese. => K Coi responds in Vietnamese. => G K translates Cois reply. => k YS: Ok, Coi, thank you. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed again, and thank you for your patience in waiting for us. So, you will be talking to two of your teachers, so please dont feel so intimidated, and we are very friendly people, so just be as honest as possible, and, uh, yeah, I mean, we really value your views. K YS: Ok, so just to set the groundwork, tell me about your background: How old you are, how many people you have in your family, what is your role in your family or village, which community are you from? KGk: I grew up from an agricultural-based family. My father - parents have no jobs. Always go up to the rice field, terrace farming, and also ploughing the land, thats how they earning income actually not income, but they earn food source. I have a lot of members in my family, to the extent that the family is so poor, that I, we, the whole family is if to see as the one unit, we dont even have enough money to buy motorbike, only go on a bike. My father is 47, and mother is 49. We have six brothers and sisters, three boys and three girls. One got married, one studied political science, as in, in one university, but its just a provincial-based, like district, provincial-based, and one study in the water irrigation university. Im 20, now studying in the FFS, and my younger, two younger brothers, one is studying in grade 9, one is in grade 11. I dont remember about how large my are, my village are, is, but surrounding my family, theres about 20 families, and on the, over the next hill, about 35 to 40 families. So they live by mountains, on the different peaks. In terms of finance, or material, no, but I contribute spiritual and my labour. Like, spiritual, as in feeling, share the feeling with other people, and contribute by labour. YS: Which part of Vietnam are you from? KGk: Northern Vietnam YS: Can you write it down for me? K: Address. Coi writes: Di Thang I, Na Hoi, Bac Ha, Loa Cai city. YS: Do you have anything else to add regarding the first questions? KGk: No. YS: Thank you. So what was the appeal of FFS-HEPA when you applied to it? KGk: I first got intoFFS was actually from Simacai. Everything was very strange, and Coi looked at all of us I was there too, and Coi and Dung so young, less than ten age, like she felt so young, like in terms to be a teacher, a female teacher or male teacher. 53
YS: For you (Kien) to be a teacher. K: Uh. And they find it, this group of people, are too young, less than 10 years age difference. But then, I think, either one of us, or many of us, were saying, just come treat it as a home, feel free, and get used to it, and Coi started to, because the talking, the interaction, was pretty familiar to her own house, her own home, so Coi doesnt feel too strange. YS: You mean, like, a very family-like environment. K: Um. Like brother-sister, rather than teacher-based. YS: When did you enter FFS-Simacai? KGk: 15 November 2007. YS: So why did you choose to apply to FFS in the first place? KGk: Now, I was first refuse, like going through so much time for making decisions for myself. At first I was thinking of not coming back at all that was the time when they come, and she go back to her home, and thinking of whether she should or should not go back to the school or not. And then, going after a month, she actually changing her mind, for deciding to completing her, filling in her application, to go for that school, that is in FFS-Simacai, based on two main, erm, reasons. One, she found out that the school has set up a only 20% of theory and only 80% of practice. So that was a good sign, in terms of, well, she value the saying that learning is always to making, turning words into action. Erm, always do this thing together with practising this thing. So based on that sentence, statement, she find that, well, she predicted, that the school might offer a good environment where she could pursue more practical skills, interaction with people, learning from the field, and having a lot of hands-on skill. Secondly, it was the time, where at the point of making decisions time, in her own village, open up the course on growing seeds and green veggie in her place. Then her father also made an influence upon her, that, well, we are all farmers, we dont have a job, and, (a), we cant afford for you, but if you go to the school where teaching farming skills (cos were teaching farming skills, really), then its better, in all sense. So she will be acquainted in an environment that is very familiar to them, not whiteboard, in a closed, like indoor environment, blocked by different modern teaching things, but out in the field, enjoying it. So her father got influenced too, encouraged her a lot, in terms of taking up that commitment. YS: You mentioned that you like a course that is very practical-based and not too much in the classroom. What do you think about the past two, er, one and a half weeks that you have been with us, in the English-cuminternational perspectives course? KGk: Now, first of all, I find that the topics and the contents are very useful, but the ratio seems to be reversed. I think that compared to other courses being taught by us, then this course has been focussing 80% on theory and 20% on practice. Given that ratio, but the method, this is what we talked about, the methodology of delivering our content, although theoretical based, but with much enjoyment, and erm, friendly words, easy to understand, capturing the concept, although far beyond what they could think of, things like global stuff and solar stuff, so beyond their understanding, but they grasping the concept in a very easy way to get it, like to, to realise it, so breaking down to, erm, the ground. So, by fact, the ratio different, totally reversed, totally reversed to the other courses, but definitely useful and knowledgeable. YS: Before you started the Farmers Field School course, what was your understanding of sustainability, if you had one at all? And what do you think of environmental problems in your hometown before you came to FFS? 54
KGk: Never had one concept of sustainability. Gk: If I was listening to it, I did, but I dont understand it. KGk: Waste. And people doesnt know how to make use of the animal manure as a waste, green fertiliser sources. YS: You mean back in her hometown? K: Yeah. You were talking about environmental problems, dont you? YS: Yes. K: The waste one, and thats the one that she told you, doesnt know how to make use of animal manure. Gk: We dont have much forest, so we lack of water. And we use a HUGE, huge quantity of chemical. YS: And back to before you started the Farmers Field School course, is there any, erm, like back in your hometown, is there any attractiveness in your people, in your hometown, for the learning of English? And personally, what do you think is the attractiveness of learning English? K: What do you mean? YS: As in, erm, back in her hometown, do the people find that learning English is something that is actually attractive, and that there is a need to learn it, or that they want to learn it? KGk: Now, not many interest in her village about English, but religious. Almost a lot of family members follow, are religious followers. Theyre interest in Christian. YS: Ah. So its the Christian faith. KGk: Catholic. Erm, so before, the government of Vietnam forbidded religious practices, but now, erm, they dont, they dont forbid. YS: And so your family has taken up Catholicism as a religion? KGk: My father doesnt follow, however. GK: So, I think there was a time when her father was struggling a lot between either non-religion and religion, and there was a lot of influences coming from the uncle, like the fathers brother, brother of her father. At the point where they want to set up a altar table, now, the uncle said, do you choose Christian or Catholic or non-religion. And then he didnt say anything, but he realised the Then at some point in time, he think and he think and he decided, no. But even in the context, a lot of her villagers surrounding follow the Catholic. YS: So you are a Catholic? KGk: No. Im not a Catholic follower, however I think, given any religious practices, there are always good things, and there are some aspects that I like about it. I often in Noel, Christmas. YS: So, personally, given your experience back home and for the past one and half weeks, what is the appeal of learning English for you? Is there any? 55
K: Appeal to what? YS: Appeal to learn English. Is there any? KGk: I think, not only English, but also I grasp every opportunity that passing by towards learning, I value learning as lifelong, so I value all, not just learning English. I found its interesting method, given courses teaching by this FFS, mainly a lot, many, many foreigners, they come in and teach, with teaching, so one of the good things about it is that, despite the mainstream teaching English, like in the mainstream school, they focus so much on grammar, but here, its much only about vocab. Its a different method, linking what you were saying into the reality, with the surroundings, so pretty much I find interesting, and useful, definitely. KGk: Now, Ive seen, in terms of useful, how, first of all, looking at the conversation setting up in the beginning, if I was trained in hello, how are you, and duhduhduh, I was able to quickly and interactively talking and shaking hands with other people, work in pairs and shaking their arms and duhduhduh, so having a straight conversation in practice, so thats the practice side of a very small thing. Secondly, by going through every single topic that we went through, we always pinpoint at things and objects right at the field, you see? So if we talk about organic, what is it, so we show it, this is organic, if we talk about patch, this is the patch. So we have the link between words and the things that are on the ground, so they are easy to understand, and easy to visualise it, to see it, and to visualise it. And, erm, thirdly, this doesnt involve much about marking, as in, critical assessment, so its more about promotion. Although I (Kien) am very strict upon marking, but she think that its, still the system itself, it doesnt have a test, it doesnt have a stuff, you know, to strict and or to discipline them, but its more encouraging them towards finding out more, so the marking wasnt a big issue, so, hence, they find it interesting too. YS: Having spent one and a half weeks with us, has your understanding of sustainability changed, from not having one to having one? Even though we havent really defined it for you, but do you think you have an understanding of sustainability? KGk: Simply to define, that, I think, sustainability, put in a simple term, agricultural sustainability means to bring in or to produce clean and safe food for us, and without polluting the environment. I think I have done design course, like the landscape course, and design, like permaculture design course with other people, so one of the, also with a lot of other teachers, lecturers here, field staff. Sustainability is only achievable when we do the sustainability by component. Lets say in design, landscaping. One component in the system must link logically with the next component within the system, and then link up to the next component in the system, and then the next component in the system. So sustainability in the larger scale is only achievable at sustainability being achieved by each component itself, and link up systematically. Probably there is a bit of common understanding that, I think, sustainability must be recognised by everyone, because it is just the right concept. YS: So your definition your simple definition of sustainability is in terms of agricultural sustainability which you said is producing clean and safe food for us without polluting the environment. Could you give me any specific examples to explain why you define it in this way? KGk: Id like to give an example of, in FFS-Simacai, where I learn first time, introduce the concept of sustainability in agriculture, we learnt to make a compost, and we actually did a lot of composting in Simacai, and its all very green manure, and we use that as a fertiliser source for growing seed, local seed, local vegetable seeds. And at the point where we harvest the, the so-called, safe vegetable, add feeling by taste of the food, that being grown by us, eat differently to the chemical food, I didnt like it. So probably I think thats a good example of reflecting what I define of sustainability in agriculture. YS: So you felt that it tasted better? 56
K: Um. YS: Ok, thanks. So what do you think of the so-called international addition to the Farmers Field School course, which is what Kien and I are doing now? How has it influenced your views, and could you give me three examples of the things you have learnt that you find are the most important and the most memorable in the past one and a half weeks? KGk: Now. What was the first question? International addition. Now the interesting bit, first of all, I find quite familiar, between what is so-called international, and then local here. But definitely the method has been carried out in such, in a manner that is way more scientifically based, so things are logically and things are very scientific, er, sound. However, given a poster from Singapore, right, Coi dislikes the fact that when you draw you know how a recycling stuff? but the pictures in it is not real. Now, here we offer a more realistic view to things, rather than compared to the Singaporean posters, and definitely even given my methodology, you learn one thing, you compare straightaway to the field, and do something to compare, so get students to get hands-on with that practical, and see its not somewhere too far. But with the poster, I think she has quite a critical view that, erm, we might think to break it down to more pictures that is more real, rather than drawing faces, and things that on the bin, remember, thats what she dislikes. CG: Solar system. How many planets on the Earth, er, on the solar system. Environmental issue: global warming. English vocab. Three things. YS: Ok. So among the three things you just mentioned, which is the one that you liked most, or which is the one that you find the most interesting? KGk: Global warming. YS: Would you go back to, I mean, when you go back to your family and hometown, would you share what you have learnt here, within this past one and a half weeks, with your family? KGk: Until I am confident enough with my knowledge that is pretty full, as in, complete picture of everything, then Im happy to do that, on a family scale up to larger scale. I target the youth first, youth that have literacy and qualification, I would target them. There are a few words are pretty scientific based, like global warming, that no elders would understand, therefore I would, er, and also I have to translate from Vietnamese to Hmong language, so I would target the youth. YS: So, when you go home, if you, if all these criteria are met, meaning youre confident enough, you have enough, wholesome enough picture to make you confident of your knowledge, which is the one topic that you want to share with them? KGk: Waste. Ok, the only topic I will go for is the waste. If I was talking about the atmosphere and ozone and all of these stuff, how do I convince my elders and my youth? Because no one would understand. So starting from waste is the most realistic and most basic and fundamental issue facing out village, surround our life. People are always being convinced by the things they saw. YS: Were you here when the 14 students from ANU visited at the beginning of the year? KGk: Yes. YS: And did you learn anything about international perspectives during their visit? 57
KGk: I learnt from groupwork. YS: What about groupwork did you learn? KGk: Theres one group are going, visiting, erm, a beautiful forest area inside the, the discussion. One group learnt herbal medicinal plants from that main lecture hall, so the Mrs Dungs farm site. YS: So did you learn anything about other countries? KGk: I think I learnt that herbal medicinal plants resources are much richer than compared to Australia. I believe that their scientific knowledge is much, say, advanced than us, but its very abstract. I cant understand. YS: Anything else? KGk: No. YS: So compared between having someone coming in to lecture, about, erm, international perspectives, like international environmental issues, compared to having students come in as part of the learning group, which would you prefer, and why? KGk: I think, one to two people would be fine, and a good size having, and also having one to two weeks block would be better in terms of learning more, and having to interaction more. Just like a class, if you have a lot of students, then the density would be very sparse. Things get down to each ear, very little compared to the class with very little students, so people receive more, and being to shown known and unknown more, so that would be preferable. YS: Personally, are you looking forward to more international perspectives being introduced to FFS, like if you go up to your second year of FFS, would you like another course that is, which introduces international perspectives at a broader level, or would you prefer it not to be introduced? KGk: So. Everything wont be decided until the results of this class being find out. But definitely its at the high priority in terms of its importance and significance of it to be integrated into the second year. But whether the level, now were talking about level, the knowledge, breadth of depth, or more advanced, we have to depend on the results of this one. So we see to what extent students learn from this course, in order to proceed the next year. So its not about we need to see that from the results of the students, we need to reflect on us, whether are we pushing more than students demand, so its very important to look at results more, to redefine for the next year, that meeting the need of the students. YS: I understand, thanks. Why do you see this course as important? Why do you place a high priority for it? KGk: I think its a matter of a brave and a effort. I though why dont we do it? So lets take up the initiative. So lets not judge upon the significance of it. But once the interest are there, lets take it up. Now, lets see the results of the first year, and take it up for the next year. So its not about the question of judging its importance. Its already important. See? So its not about the back-up of the judgement to re-judge the importance of it. Its very important to see, effective way of communicating or breaking down to that sort of level, building up new skills. YS: So from the perspective of learning, you think it is important? K: Um. Improving in skills. 58
Gk: And it must be dealt for the next year based on the results of this year, like, of K1A class. YS: Clarification: what do you mean by improving in skills? K: They want to dig up more skills, like, more practical, more experiment, more, yeah. YS: And, like graphing, that kind. K: Yeah. YS: Ok, thank you. What do you think a good life is? KGk: Being able to live in a healthy environment, clean and safe produce, is probably, is a good life. YS: Anything else to add? KGk: To think about a good life for the others, meaning that, erm, we also think about how to reduce global warming, from individual to community to larger scale. Now, maybe one group of people here is too small, given the ratio of this group divided by the total world population. If no one is joining in effort, then theres no, the effort were putting in is so little, like sand in the ocean. So theres pointless. But we need to together, making the scale of expanding more wider and more effective in all aspects. YS: Looking back to the community that you are from, what do you think is their understanding of a good life? KGk: Now. In my village, erm, people are pursuing bigger house, and, instead of bike and walking, we want to buy at least motorbike. As given by the name, as the Hmong people, so a lot of prejudice created by the Kinh majority was, well, minority are backward, minority are stupid, so the image and the perspective would be, Id like to follow up, as in, the Hmong people here like to follow and reaching to the level of the Kinh majority, they want to be like the Kinh majority. Richer life, so that they wont be looked down by the others. YS: Ok. Do you have anything else to add? KGk: No. YS: Thank you very much. As a last question, do you have any questions for the both of us? KGk: Definitely I will have, but I will think about that later. YS: Thank you very much. Thanks for your input and for your time, and, so the plan is for me to write up a report, and I will let you know of the findings of the report through Kien. KGk: I wish you do well. YS: Thank you! I wish you do well too. Its been a pleasure having you in class. Ended at around 9:05pm ~Transcribed on 11 June 2008, Wednesday.~
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Interview transcript 3 of 4 Interview with Luu (administrator of FFS-HEPA), 11 June 2008, Wednesday, 8:05pm, inside the office area K translates to Luu in VNese. => K Luu responds in VNese. => L K translates Luus reply. => k YS: Ok, so thanks for agreeing to be interviewed, basically I will ask, the questions that I will ask you in the interview will be more about your administrative work in HEPA, so please be as honest as possible, and the information will be used for me to write my report. K YS: Ok, so just to set the groundwork, could you tell me more about your background? How old are you? How many people do you have in your family? Which part of Vietnam do you come from? L: I am Luu. Full name is Nguyen Hai Luu. I 29 years old. I come from Ha Tinh province, Vu Quang district, Duc Giang commune. And my family have 6 people, including my father and my mother and three brothers and sisters. YS: How big is Duc Giang commune? KLk: About 3 square kilometres. YS: And how many people are there in your commune? KLk: 1000. YS: Ok, thank you. KLk: And some forest too. Bare land. YS: Is that bare land or forest? k: Used to be a forest land, but they chopped down the trees. Lk: Residential land is very dense. YS: What do you see is your role in your family? KLk: Up until graduation, as I graduate, I contribute just a little. Helping out mom and dad and the old parents, a lot of housework, and also rice work, like field work. Until 2000. 2000, the year 2000 define when I rarely spend my time at home. YS: Ok, what happened in the year 2000? KLk: Oh! I joined the army. 60
YS: So, did you graduate from a university? KLk: Um. YS: What did you study in university? KLk: IT. YS: And is joining the army compulsory for men in Vietnam? KLk: For my case, I was volunteer. Not all the cases compulsory. YS: And so what do you think of your role in your family right now? KLk: From 2000 up to one and a half year later, he mainly stay in the army, rarely keep contact with the house, so not playing any role at all, where its housework or fieldwork. Once you join the army, you rarely can revisit the home. In terms of working, I dont contribute anything, even finance, but again, once again, feeling the responsibility in the case of emergency, that always be there on time, in time with the family. From 2001 to 2005, I start uni level. So probably that was a diploma level. YS: Right, ok, like a bachelors level. Lk: By the time I join or study university, I think I depend totally on my parents finance, so that was a little bit of a cost for the family, but in year time, once in a year, I can revisit home two months, just be away from uni work, so that sort of, not compensate or anything, but having two months at home, I contribute my labour, help with work, and stuff. But, the uni cost, as in tuition fees, and things like that, as well, to the moms pocket. I have felt more strong and felt more clearly my responsibility towards my three brothers and sisters. YS: Ok, are they older or younger than you? KLk: All younger. Ive been working in the FFS_HEPA since 2005. My role has shift again, change and more responsibility, and being in a workplace, earn money, so changing the role and contribution to the family. I join them, parent, particularly, in carrying out tasks at a high level, at a high level, require more decisive, decisionmaking costs within a family. And on my very first time, I felt pretty vulnerable, here, as in isolated and lonely and sad, but it was from parents encouragement to help me overcome. YS: Ok. Right. Anything else. KLk: No. YS: So what made you join HEPA? KLk: What made me go to HEPA is from, I think, connection, peoples connection, one of the friend, not friend actually, who was in the ministry of finance, who is uncle of him, not really, but a person who close to him, introduced him to here, so in 2005, it was again, changing times, but what striking him, and also again make an attractive point, was actually the environment, working environment. Ive been going through army environment that put people, but the behaviour is a little bit different, too disciplined, too tough, too rough. Then I also was in the university environment, lots of social evils, can be distracting you out of focus. Then I go to HEPA, working environment is something very attractive, healthy environment, probably the manner of working seems a little bit modern, you know we all equipped with facilities, you know, pretty modern isnt it, like, although its very isolated locality, but laptops and things, are equipped. So given a far, a distance from the 61
mainstream environment, he find that its still very comfort. And lastly was the point of behaviour between one another, people behave nicely here, friendly here. Given my specialise is a little bit on IT, but, and also some of accounting skills, but as an accountant, and my very first time, I was very busy, handling so many different types of work, I do gardening, I join construction work, as in, making all that houses, the seven thing houses, wooden houses, and I also do electricity, I also do water management, I also do accounting, I mean I join all different types of, and also some office work as well. So I am occupy my time with almost things around keeping me busy and busy and busy, once Im here Im here and there all the time, so I dont find bored. YS: Could you briefly describe to me the nature of your work in HEPA, the main responsibility? KLk: The nature of my work remains pretty much close to accounting, office, including IT. I have to deal with, well, IT has pretty much my personal interest, although it was part of my graduation certificate, but once I was joining the office, the office is big, and the responsibility is also big, but I find it pretty comfort, also having to deal with both, office and accounting. Within the office, much of that would be including in IT too. YS: Alright. So. Looking back to before you joined HEPA, did you have any understanding of the concept of sustainability? KLk: Now, I have heard about sustainability. Ive been join two Geoff Lawton courses on permaculture, and lots of the concept has been raised about surrounding agricultural sustainability. Probably the thing that I would understood, to put my understanding in a very simple way, sustainability equals to conservation. Sustainability equals to conservation of energy, like things are equal out, but also conserved. YS: Ok, so what about before you joined HEPA? k: I thought he answered already. YS: No. k: No. So what I said was since HEPA. KLk: Now, what he means by the conservation of resource therefore energy, now, he made a, we used to be conserve everything, a bit conservative, here YS: In HEPA? k: In the very first time, until Geoff Lawton came, with a permaculture introduced to a course to the HEPA itself, to the farmers network, and to us. We understand sustainability in a different way. Now we are allowed to cut some trees, but we make sure that we need to have an equal, what we take away, as in the budget we take away from the soil, or the land, even through chopping of the forest, HEPA also looking at re-adding into the soil, by growing more trees, to conserve it, to make it into a balanced environment, so not, in a different phrase, we not totally conservative now, only more, we think in a very flexible more, in a more flexible way. YS: So when were the two Geoff Lawton courses which you attended? KLk: April 2006. April 2008. So the sustainability as a concept was raised in the first course of April 2006, but the 2008 was just revisiting, readdressing such concept, not much of a changes, so we continue reaffirming that, erm, we continue of broadening of the seedling of nursery, so as in to, as a means, because after Geoff Lawton things get broader and broader in scale, particularly nursery, so we targeting at seedling, more seedling, more seedling, to put in more land, we add in, yeah. 62
YS: So why do you think it is necessary for human beings to behave in a sustainable way? KLk: He would like to add more first, on sustainability as a concept. So, hed like to add more, the conservation of energy as first point, now sustainability is also to promote an equal inter-relationship between human and nature. He forgot the question that you asked. YS: Why do you think it is necessary for human beings to behave in a sustainable way? KLk: It is obvious that human beings depend on nature. So, the reason, the rationale, that I take up, would be, for whatever the things that we do to the nature, we would gain some returning, impact, so that sort of, that equal inter-relationship between human and nature too. So meaning that once our lives is dependent on the nature, whatever we done to it, we might either gain an effect, or an impact, or consequences, from nature, by nature. I cannot do much, but what Ive done in specific is at least two of the families in the neighbourhood next to my house, they grow, just fully-free chemical, chemical free, vegetable, and one time I go to join a discussion with party members, members of the party, I also share the process of making banana-tree ring. YS: Do you think that you are expo...