It is an afternoon during the first weekend in March, with warm spring sunshine and gentle breezes. On a stage in Hualien City’s Liberty Square, Vietnamese flags are fluttering in the wind.

Vietnamese women are wearing comfortable áo bà ba (long-sleeved, narrow-waisted shirts), and everyone is playing games including “catch the pig while blindfolded” and “throw sandals into a can” as sounds of laughter waft through the bustle and noise. Children are on a lawn playing tug of war, or are using burlap sacks to play “jumping zombies,” amid cries of support for the competitors. These are all activities organized by the Vietnam Storybook House to mark Vietnam’s Children’s Day on March 8, which is also International Women’s Day.

Every Saturday the Vietnam Storybook House offers free Vietnamese language classes. A portrait of Ho Chi Minh, the father of modern Vietnam, is hung on the classroom wall along with six words in Vietnamese: “Tiên học lễ, hậu học văn”—“First learn proper behavior, then acquire knowledge.” Huynh Quoc Tuan and Huynh Le Anh Huy, both of whom are postgraduate students in the PhD program in Asia–Pacific Regional Studies at National Dong Hwa University, are in charge of the class, in which they offer instruction in Vietnamese and English.

Marrying into a strange land

Dao Thi Que, who founded the Vietnam Storybook House, married into a family that runs a homestay near the Hualien Train Station. A decade or so ago business was booming, but because Dao’s future mother-­in-­law, Su Yugui, who had retired from the police department, suffered from frozen shoulder (adhesive capsulitis), she found it very hard to clean the rooms, so she hoped her son would hurry up and get married. Her son, Liu Zhizhong, a sincere man of few words who originally had no intention of tying the knot, decided to follow the wishes of his hardworking mother, and after an intro­duction from a friend, went to Vietnam for a matchmaking meet-up with Dao Thi Que.

When Dao, who had just turned 20, first came to Taiwan as Liu’s bride, she could not speak a word of Chinese. She remembers as if it were yesterday: “I arrived in Taiwan on September 9. Two days later, on September 11, my mother-in-law took me to the affiliated supplementary school of Ming Yih Primary School in Hualien to learn Chinese.” There Dao met many fellow Vietnamese women who spoke her mother tongue. “Every­body took good care of me and the teacher taught me well. I felt surrounded by warmth and it gave me a sense of security, so that I didn’t miss home so much.”

Her in-laws noticed she was adjusting well to her new home, and they suggested she work as a telephone volunteer for a family service center for immigrants set up by the Hualien YWCA. This center offers advice to immigrant women on matters such as how to adjust to life in Taiwan and taking the driving test.

Whenever Dao gets a call about a case of domestic violence, she feels very thankful to her new family. She says with evident satisfaction and happiness: “My parents-­in-law have never treated me as an outsider. They treat me as if I were their own daughter.”

“My father-in-law says that learning Chinese at school is academic education; working as a volunteer is social education; and there is also education within the family.” Dao says that her in-laws have great respect for her traditions. This is why before every meal the younger generation will always first say “Grandparents, please eat!” before beginning to dine themselves. This is family education which incorporates the importance of manners in Vietnamese culture.
 

A distant gamble

Dao decided to marry Liu only two hours after meeting him. She cannot help speaking more loudly as she says: “My husband felt that it was destiny, but for me it was a gamble I made with my life.” Her family in Vietnam was very poor, and her father-in-law has described her life there as being like Taiwan 40 years ago: The house was a thatched hut, the toilet was a latrine pit, and the family squatted on the floor when eating. She was willing to take a chance on marrying someone from Taiwan, believing that if she married well she could improve her family’s life.

She bravely faced up to the challenges of her new life. “On my second day in Taiwan I began learning how to make the beds for seven different kinds of rooms and to provide the rooms with the articles needed by guests.” Her in-laws saw how devotedly she worked for the Liu family, and they knew she wanted to build a house for her own family in Vietnam, so they gave her pocket money each month and allowed her to send it all back home. After ten years, when she and her husband had paid off the mortgage on the homestay, her in-laws gave her a sizeable sum of money so that she could build a house for her family. Thanks to her ­dedication and commitment, the quality of life of her family back home was transformed.

The Vietnam Storybook House

Dao had only graduated from middle school back in Vietnam, so after coming to Taiwan she started all over from elementary school through middle school to ultimately get a diploma in business administration from National Hualien Commercial High School. “I took evening classes for nine years, with no need to pay tuition or incidental expenses. I was usually one of the top three students, and I received scholarships,” she says with pride.

Supplementary schools affiliated with public schools in Taiwan are free, and for other kinds of schools there are mechanisms like student loans to help pay tuition. Dao says: “I received so much help from society, I wanted to do something in return. But my only real skill was that I was fluent in Vietnamese.” In 2018 she applied to the Foundation for Women’s Rights Promotion and Development for a grant under their “Power of Women” business accelerator program and received NT$150,000. With this funding she had more than 1,000 illustrated books in Vietnamese, totaling over 100 kilograms in weight, shipped by air from Vietnam, including children’s stories and primary-­school Vietnamese language textbooks. This was the beginning of the Vietnam Storybook House.

Ideals are all well and good, but although the Story­book House had books, other Vietnamese women in the area were so busy with housework and jobs that they had no time to read to their children, and the kids themselves couldn’t read Vietnamese. This is why Dao began to offer free Vietnamese language classes on weekends.

Currently the first hour of each Vietnamese class is devoted to vocabulary and writing, while in the second hour there is storytelling along with games, ­dancing, and Vietnamese cuisine. Some children have been attending for two years straight.

Huynh Quoc Tuan, one of the teachers mentioned earlier, who is studying for a PhD at National Dong Hwa University, feels that by teaching the Vietnamese language class he can see the children of immigrants earnestly learning their mother’s native tongue and getting a better understanding of the culture of her homeland, which enables them to develop their sense of ethnic identity.
 

Transcending the community

Since 2020, the Vietnam Storybook House has been holding activities with Vietnamese cultural themes almost every month. Moreover, these are open to the public, and are normally held on weekends, so that migrant workers who have the day off can attend and find some relief from their homesickness.

Every Lunar New Year, the Storybook House puts up a festive plum tree with yellow flowers, and Vietnamese women wear joyful red traditional clothing as they celebrate the holiday together. Women from northern Vietnam make savory rice dumplings using Vietnamese glutinous rice, as well as sweet banana dumplings, while their sisters from the south of the country are sure to bring watermelon as well as “five fruit platters” featuring various fruits including lychees and mangoes. Though the dishes differ depending on where they come from, all symbolize abundance in the new year.

Each time they celebrate a holiday, these women from Vietnam not only express their cultural identity, they also achieve the goal of maintaining their traditional culture.

Sixteen years ago Dao Thi Que embarked on a great adventure that made Taiwan her home, and she treasures Taiwan’s excellent public safety and advanced healthcare. Through participation in public affairs, she transforms all the gratitude and wellbeing she feels into help for other Vietnamese women and their ­children.

Hualien county councillor Yang Hua-mei says that the women of the Vietnam Storybook House are using language classes and festive activities to engage in dialogue with Taiwanese society. Through their experience of having relocated their lives to another land, they have made Taiwan more culturally diverse.

For more pictures, please click 《Keeping Mother’s Culture Alive: The Vietnam Storybook House》