Vietnam in me

Everyone must wonder why a foreigner like me loves Vietnam so much? I was born and raised in Poland but half of my blood belongs to Vietnam. Ever since I was a child, I loved watching VTV4 (a Vietnamese television channel broadcast abroad). At that time, I was extremely interested in watching the scenery in Vietnam through the TV screen. Vietnam has changed a lot after nearly two decades. Vietnam appeared with many motorbikes on the streets, many high-rise buildings, especially the city at night is extremely brilliant with many street lights. Since then, my love for Vietnam has grown more and more, even that love helped me overcome all difficulties to realize my dream of living and working in Vietnam. I started to want to learn more about the beautiful S-shaped country by reading documents related to Vietnam in my mother tongue.

In fifth grade, I wrote two articles about the tallest buildings in Vietnam: Hanoi Keangnam Hanoi Landmark Tower and Bitexco Financial Tower on Wikipedia when the two buildings had just started construction. Even documents about Vietnam written in Polish were not enough, so I tried to read documents written in English to understand more about Vietnam. Because my English ability was limited at that time, finding information became more difficult. I had to continuously study and improve my English.

In the process of learning about Vietnam in English, I also broadened my vision of the world. From documents about Vietnam on the web, I began to find websites with information related to countries around the world, from which I began to enjoy learning more about countries in the Asian region such as Korea, Japan, China. Through learning about the culture of that country, I realized that there are many similarities with Vietnamese culture.

From there, I became more interested and curious about Vietnam. When my knowledge about Vietnam could be called "hồm ôm", I confidently created a youtube channel with the purpose of sharing information about Vietnam such as the Vietnamese army, cities or architecture in Vietnam. Some clips even reached 200 thousand views. That youtube channel is called grzesiox15. Through my channel, I feel closer to the country and people of Vietnam. Making youtube helps me learn more songs about the Vietnamese revolution or songs praising the people and homeland of the country. Through those songs, I really want to learn Vietnamese. Although there is no shortage of English documents for me to learn about Vietnam, to understand more deeply about Vietnamese culture and people, learning Vietnamese is extremely necessary.

After a year of studying Vietnamese, my father took me to Vietnam to meet his family there. When the plane landed in Vietnam, I felt an unusually familiar feeling. Seeing the customs officer's hat at the airport made me feel like I was in a dream because I couldn't believe I was in Vietnam. Moreover, I felt extremely happy to be able to walk through streets like Nguyen Chi Thanh, Le Van Luong, Nguyen Trai, Thanh Nien or streets like Hai Ba Trung, Ba Trieu, Trang Tien. Those were streets that were extremely familiar in my mind but felt so far away when I was still in Poland. I never expected that one day I would be able to experience Vietnam so naturally! I still remember those feelings clearly.

After coming to Vietnam, meeting everyone in the family made me feel extremely warm and affectionate. Through that, I had the opportunity to verify whether my thoughts about family life and Vietnamese people were true to what I had known and learned? And the truth exceeded my thoughts in an extremely positive way. After returning to Poland, except for going to school, I always stayed at home texting with Vietnamese friends and watching Vietnamese video clips. While other friends went out to play, I stayed at home, absorbed in my passion for learning about Vietnam and the Vietnamese language. Although my body was in Poland, my heart and mind were always in Vietnam. Thanks to that, my awareness of daily life in Vietnam as well as my Vietnamese language skills improved dramatically.

Foreign students at the Faculty of Vietnamese Studies and Vietnamese Language

A day without contact with Vietnam was unbearable, at that moment I suddenly realized that I could not live in Poland with my mind always on Vietnam. That is why I decided to live, study and work in Vietnam in the summer of 2017. Before achieving my goal, I went to Vietnam for the second time with the purpose of learning Vietnamese and getting rid of the feeling of not being in contact with Vietnam for a long time. At that time, I stayed in Vietnam for 40 days to learn as much as possible and prepare for living in Vietnam next year. Right after receiving my high school diploma in the summer of 2017, I immediately flew straight to Vietnam to live and study. During my university studies in Vietnam, I met many foreigners who shared the same goals and visions about Vietnam. The Faculty of Vietnamese Studies gave me the right tools to continue pursuing my passion. Also, by working in Vietnam, I have become a part of the fields that have appeared in my clips in the past.