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In Ho Chi Minh City, where Mart Stewart taught courses and workshops
in American studies and environmental education from late 2000
through the end of 2001, he found persistent and conflicting misconceptions
about America.
Some saw it, through rose-colored glasses, as a kind of paradise,
with excellent schools, good jobs and good music, he realized.
But old suspicions endured. More than two million Vietnamese died
fighting Americans in what they still called "the American
war"; every week someone died of an injury from unexploded
ordnance, and there was more news about the lingering effects
of Agent Orange. Cultural historian Huu Ngoc has described Vietnam
in the last decade as fighting its "third and most difficult
war of resistance"-to keep out the "social evils"
of the West.
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However, Vietnam is a youthful country-60 percent of its 80 million
residents were born since 1975-and the young are keenly interested
in the United States. So Stewart, an associate professor of history
from Western Washington University, did his best to demythologize
it-with "internationalized" curricula and "post-colonial"
readings. He also developed the first American studies workshops
for university faculty in Ho Chi Minh City since 1975, and coached
high school teachers on how to "green" their courses
and use literature to teach environmental ethics.
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Stewart says teaching at the University of Education's Center
for Exchange, Culture and Education Research in Ho Chi Min City
has been "one of the richest and most rewarding teaching
experiences" of his career. He also began some research with
Vietnamese colleagues that he hopes to continue during a return
trip this summer. His plans include a comparative study of rice
growing in the Mekong Delta and the American Southeast (he's already
published a book on the environmental history of rice growing
in 18th- and 19th-century Georgia), and perhaps a project on comparative
forest history.
He will bring a new perspective to his teaching in Bellingham,
Washington, as well. He is developing a course, "Vietnam
and America," that will take a very broad look at the relationship
between the two countries. "The Americans and the Vietnamese
need to discover new stories about each other," he says.
He is also working to create an ongoing relationship between his
host and home institutions.
But the highlight of his Fulbright experience has to be the friendship
he struck up with a Vietnamese writer and fellow traveler that
blossomed into something more. "Her name is Lan," he
says. Together, they explored Ho Chi Minh City's lively sidewalk
stalls and markets-walking, talking and sampling the local fare;
"the sidewalks are one big restaurant," he says.
"We married a year after we met," he adds. "Making
it even more likely that I'll return and work in a place I loved
from the minute I stepped off the plane."
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