Kong Sundaramani, Honours Bachelor in Political Science, 3rd year
Internship country: Vietnam
Canadian NGO: Mines Action Canada
Local NGO: Association for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (AEPD)
Being present in the country, or in any location in general, is tremendously helpful for learning about it, and my internship in Vietnam for the Association for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (AEPD) is no exception. Spending three months here gave me some time to question the work that I do for the AEPD, and how that work might even reflect Vietnamese culture. From the last week of May until mid-June, I assisted the organization with managing clothes from the Eden Welfare Foundation in Taiwan for donation. This task involved carrying crates and organizing clothes into the correct categories for almost the entire day. Sure, it was tiresome, but the menial activity gave me answers to a question I always had about Vietnamese culture, or Southeast Asian culture more broadly: why are the people so communal in nature? It’s also not just my work where I got answers, but through my extensive travels in Vietnam as well. The international internship experience works both ways: giving you experience for future careers and giving you a chance to study something from diverse approaches. This experience of learning traces back to my first pre-departure training session with the Faculty of Social Sciences on experiential learning cycles.
The AEPD undertakes a plethora of projects and initiatives to empower disabled or any disadvantaged groups in Dong Hoi. In peer-support formats to stimulate a sense of solidarity, the organization employs capacity-building courses, sustainable livelihood projects, policy advocacy for social inclusion, as well as risk-education courses on climate disasters and unexploded ordnance. Although these are the areas of focus, the AEPD does branch out, often including distributing donations from international partners. The Eden Welfare Foundation in Taiwan would, of course, be one of them. At the end of May, I was instructed to come to the AEPD warehouse, which was way across town from where the office is. The task was to unload the clothes from their crates and reorganize them for donations across Quang Tri province for the desperate communities. The menial task lasted for several weeks; it consisted of carrying hundreds of crates, followed by reorganizing the clothes, placing them back into the boxes, just to organize the boxes into place again, for almost the entire day.
But while doing it, followed by moments of thoughtful reflection, I realized there were merits to this task. By working together with colleagues, co-workers, and other outreach workers who usually carry out the AEPD’s work, the cooperation bolstered a sense of collectivity within the organization. In other words, the people present were very open to each other. Although I couldn’t make out what they were saying, I could really feel that there were no barriers between them; they really are like family in a way. Even better, they tried their best to include me in their conversations despite their lack of English fluency. This experience also reminds me of AEPD’s other works. Since they are a peer-support oriented organization, they do stimulate a sense of collectivity. For reference, in risk-education training courses that take place in rural communes, attendees work together to finish assessments or simulations based on the training subjects. When I was editing a highlight video for the AEPD of events in 2026, I could even see through the pictures the communal nature of the activities the AEPD employed. After all, one of AEPD’s core tenets is social inclusion. This reflects Vietnamese culture’s communal nature, or even the broader Southeast Asian culture in general.
What makes collectivity so important in Vietnamese culture? Why do Vietnamese strangers here act like old friends when they first meet, whereas Westerners still act reserved even though they have met each other on countless occasions? By using the experiential learning cycle, I reflected and thought about my experience at the warehouse, and even on my travels elsewhere in Vietnam. For obvious reasons, Western and Asian cultures have a clear division regarding the individual relationship with others, whether it be friends, family, or acquaintances. As most may already be aware, Western societies place a heavy emphasis on individual rights, which derive from Enlightenment thought; people are equal and may do and believe in whatever they please if it does not harm or encroach on others. However, all these rights are effectively stripped away in Southeast Asian societies, especially those under Sino or Indosphere influences.
Vietnam happens to have both influences; the nation’s culture, for thousands of years, was dominated by Chinese influence. Following a barrage of Chinese conquests throughout Vietnam’s thousand-year history, Confucianism, a Chinese philosophical and political thought, was imposed on Vietnam’s political system and society. Unlike Enlightenment thought, Confucianism prioritizes strict order and social hierarchy. The same can be said for Buddhism, which has a considerable number of Vietnamese people who adopt the religion, which diffused from China and trade with India. Because of this, Vietnam demands respect for other people, especially the elderly. In fact, a Vietnamese person in my tour group told me that there are many vocabulary words in Vietnamese, and one reason is for people to address people who are younger or older than you. This social hierarchy and reverence for others are forces that bind people together, which generally does not exist in the West. So, if one were to disagree with something with their parents and argue with them in a Western household, one may get away with it just fine. Just not much in a Vietnamese household.
Another explanation has to do with the legacy of a series of wars, known as the Indochina Wars, following the end of the Second World War in 1945, where Vietnam fought to free itself from the shackles of colonialism for much of the Cold War. These conflicts are responsible for nation-building in Vietnam’s modern history; they are responsible for molding and shaping the country’s sense of national identity, a huge proponent of Vietnam’s communal nature.
How so? How did a series of devastating conflicts strengthen national unity? In a literal sense, Vietnam’s emergence from these conflicts did liberate and unify the country. During the First Indochina War (1946-1954), Vietnam liberated itself from its French colonizers; during the Second Indochina War (1955-1975), known commonly as the “Vietnam War,” North Vietnam was able to unite with South Vietnam, the latter being a relic of Western imperialism created by France and the United States during the 1954 Geneva Conference to maintain their influence in Indochina. And during the Third Indochina War from 1978 to 1989, Vietnam found itself navigating and surviving the tumultuous nature of the Cold War following the Sino-Soviet Split, where the Vietnamese had to fend off Chinese influence by ousting the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge regime and eventually defending against a Chinese onslaught over twenty times at that point in history in 1979.
For over fifty years, the Vietnamese fought and successfully fended off four superpowers, from Imperial Japan at the end of WWII, followed by France, the US, and China during the Indochina Wars. This is no easy feat, making it a moment of national pride that binds Vietnamese people together.
An important point worth mentioning is the state ideology that President Ho Chi Minh adopted for socialism and communism, with some of his thinking, to combat Western imperialism. The catch here is that this ideology served to bind Vietnamese people across all regions together under a common struggle to overthrow their oppressors and later unite the two Vietnams. During some time off work, I visited Phong Nha Cave. On the road along the way, my tour guide said the road to the caves is part of the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail, the regional supply line that penetrated neighboring Laos and Cambodia that the North Vietnamese forces used to supply the Viet Cong, the insurgency force in South Vietnam that sought to overthrow the South Vietnam regime so that Vietnam could finally unite under the North Vietnam’s regime. The trail would, of course, be subjected to a barrage of American bombing raids under US President Richard Nixon’s Secret War that started in 1969. Phong Nha Cave served as a cover for the North Vietnamese to survive the bombing raids. The damage was not exclusive to North Vietnam; the neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia became the most bombed countries in history, with remaining unexploded remnants of war to this day. Citizens across Indochina, in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, became radicalized and took up the communist cause, paving the way for the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the Pathet Laos in Laos by 1975.
Normally, such attacks of this scale would dissuade any nation or people from continuing their struggle, but the Vietnamese people persisted and achieved the reunification of Vietnam. All of this is because of the boiling sense of national pride that bound the Vietnamese people together from the previous Indochina War, along with the communist thought that reinforced the Vietnamese people’s resolve to break the chains of colonialism and attain complete independence. Marxist-Leninism was what worked for them, so they stuck with it to this day. As a result, Vietnamese society is very communal and open to each other, with very little to no resentment.
The proof of this culture is everywhere. During one of my tours in Da Nang, my tour guide took some time to comment on Vietnamese people’s affinity for beer when we were driving by multiple bars after working hours for the locals. The restaurants were packed. Our guide informed us that Vietnamese people always drink in groups, usually with friends, and they do it effectively every day for three reasons. First, if they had a great day, they would drink together to celebrate. Second, if they had a bad day, they would drink together to try to forget about it. Third, if their day was neutral, they would drink together to spend time with each other. Every activity the locals do stimulates a sense of community to uphold the nation’s national unity. Vietnamese collectivity is precious; hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese placed their lives on the line during the last century for the nation’s well-being. This all ties to my experience at the AEPD warehouse when I was organizing clothes from the Eden Welfare Foundation for donation. Although the task was menial, there was more about the organization that was revealed to me after witnessing it and reflecting on it, such as the work they do and how they cooperate as a family for Vietnamese people’s prosperity in Dong Hoi, Quang Tri.
Simply put, the FSS International Internship Program not only gives you real-world experience for the job market, but it also provides you with the opportunity to learn subjects related to social sciences in a different approach, one that is outside of university lecture halls. From my internship in Vietnam for the AEPD, my understanding of the core causes of some societal differences between Asia and the West, particularly how Vietnam values community, collectivity, and order, were strengthened. When examining the topic, it is tempting to pinpoint the immediate differences, such as religion. While they may be true, it is still important to closely observe the core development of the subject, such as history, something that some individuals overlook. By being at the location of study, in this case, Vietnam, you have the chance to grasp the situation in person; sometimes, it is easier to learn by being presented to the subject in person than trying to understand it thousands of miles away. In addition, immediately synthesizing it with similar topics helps tremendously with memorization. Working at the AEPD warehouse, followed by my travels in Vietnam, really tied up a lot of loose ends I had before I arrived for my internship. By using the experiential learning cycle espoused by the FSS, the international internship program does not subtract any hours from traditional university lectures; rather, it adds on by allowing you to learn about the world from different approaches.