Polo from the Asian Reporter
"Well, about one thing we can all agree, and that is our children.
Their need for the best education we can give them."
-- Chi Jones, President
Vietnamese Science and Culture Society of Oregon
On what we can all agree
February's fund-raising concerts for Village School Foundation
By Polo
The Asian Reporter
There are so many issues still unsettled. Exiles are that way. There is a world of deeply held feeling, from dark bitterness to irrepressible hope, about Viet Nam. The nation and the war.
So many things invite angry debate -- the loyalty of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, the lyrics of popular singer Trinh Cong Son, the current intentions of the Socialist Republic's smiling CP leaders. Oregon's vigorous Viet Kieu community is that way. But after passions cool, this immigrant community and their not-so-far away homeland both benefit from each side's struggle to understand their shared and difficult history. And the future looks good again.
"Well, about one thing we can all agree," MC Chi Jones said, deftly handled introductions at the Village School Foundation's benefit concerts last month, "one thing we can all agree on is our children. Their need for the best education we can give them." His audiences, one at South Salem's Westminster Presbyterian Church, the other at Portland Community College's far-west Rock Creek Campus, had to nod, had to smile.
There is also a world of difference between poor rural children in Phan Thiet Province, the focus of Village School Foundation's construction and scholarship efforts, and the tall, polished suburban cul-de-sac kids enrolled in Chi Jones' Vietnamese Science and Culture Society of Oregon's (VSCSO) educational enrichment programs based at the Rock Creek Campus. That painful distinction was lost on no one. Mr. Jones' subtle point was profound. So everyone surrendered to an evening of inspired entertainment.
Inspired music and elegant dance
After an invocation by The Venerable Fa Thai of the Hawthorne District's Miao-Fa Chan Temple, VSCSO students took stage and immediately filled the packed auditorium with traditional Dan Tranh music, with notes of both longing and joy. Elegant young Viet ladies in flowing ao dai danced, elders in their audience dreamed, younger ones were captured inside their lovely moment. Appreciative of the bridge between past and present, home and here, the crowd clapped loud and long.
Nationally acclaimed guitar man and concert story-teller Tinh played next, backed initially by two of Monmouth Taiko's mighty war drums and Village School Foundation trumpeter Dan Enbysk. Tinh then went solo, talking story about what's in his American baby boy's eyes and what flutters around his Phan Thiet pagoda's garden.
Tinh's concerts blend many things. He bends his refined American six-string guitar licks around his stubbornly Viet sensibilities. He loses the distance, in decades and geography, between a lonely monsoon-soaked GI patrolling an Ap-talai rice paddy and our audience of fashionably casual Oregonians soaking up an evening of his acoustic rain. In recognition of his musical originality First Lady Barbara Bush invited Tinh to the White House in 2003.
Village School Foundation
Tinh founded the Village School Foundation in 2002. It is a federally recognized nonprofit charitable organization. The Foundation has since built 3 one-room elementary schools. A volunteer team will be building another this summer in Tinh's ancestral province of Phan Thiet. The cost of labor and materials for a country schoolhouse is approximately 8000 USD. All proceeds from February's benefit banquets and concerts go directly into construction and scholarships. The Foundation welcomes all volunteers, skilled and unskilled, Viet and American, on its trips to Viet Nam.
Coordinating this summer's project are The Foundation's trumpet man, Oregon environmental activist Dan Enbysk, and recent PSU graduate Vy Le, daughter of a nationally prominent painter of the former Republic of South Viet Nam, who settled his family in Portland after the Fall of Saigon.
This season's awareness and fund-raising efforts are coincident with the release of a tribute album for the late great American folk guitar legend, John Fahey. Tinh is a protégé of the Salem musician who passed away in 2001. The tribute album includes Paul Geremia, John Doan, Woody Mann, Terry Robb, and George Winston, among others. All album sale proceeds go to Village School Foundation.
"Helping to insure education in Vietnam seems a fitting and poetic gesture truly blurring the boundaries between philosophy and life," says Tinh of the album and all the efforts associated with Village School Foundation. "Finding inspiration in rediscovering my roots, reconnecting with children in need, and especially remembering John Fahey's music and mentoring, have all come together in this project.
"Putting things right again has become a legacy of this story, and to the children in us all -- the circle comes full round."
At the end of each of February's concerts, lights came on, smiles took the place of tears, audiences spoke softly, left quietly, maybe even drove home a bit more peacefully than the drive there. According to Vietnamese Science and Culture Society of Oregon president Chi Jones, the PCC event alone raised $7000. Enough to raise another small school house. Almost enough to erase a little bitterness.
Bev Silveira, who along with her husband Ben, attended Salem's banquet and concert said "when I look at those children's sweet little faces, the hope there, I know that education is going to help them and their country be a part of the world. Our world."
For more information on the work of the Portland-based, federally recognized non-profit educational organization, Vietnamese Science and Culture Society of Oregon, please see their website:
http://www.vscso.org/
For more information on the work of Village School Foundation, please go to:
http://www.vsfoundation.com/
"when I look at those children's sweet little faces, the hope there,
I know that education is going to help them and their country
be a part of the world. Our world."
Bev Silveira
Salem, Oregon
Their need for the best education we can give them."
-- Chi Jones, President
Vietnamese Science and Culture Society of Oregon
On what we can all agree
February's fund-raising concerts for Village School Foundation
By Polo
The Asian Reporter
There are so many issues still unsettled. Exiles are that way. There is a world of deeply held feeling, from dark bitterness to irrepressible hope, about Viet Nam. The nation and the war.
So many things invite angry debate -- the loyalty of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, the lyrics of popular singer Trinh Cong Son, the current intentions of the Socialist Republic's smiling CP leaders. Oregon's vigorous Viet Kieu community is that way. But after passions cool, this immigrant community and their not-so-far away homeland both benefit from each side's struggle to understand their shared and difficult history. And the future looks good again.
"Well, about one thing we can all agree," MC Chi Jones said, deftly handled introductions at the Village School Foundation's benefit concerts last month, "one thing we can all agree on is our children. Their need for the best education we can give them." His audiences, one at South Salem's Westminster Presbyterian Church, the other at Portland Community College's far-west Rock Creek Campus, had to nod, had to smile.
There is also a world of difference between poor rural children in Phan Thiet Province, the focus of Village School Foundation's construction and scholarship efforts, and the tall, polished suburban cul-de-sac kids enrolled in Chi Jones' Vietnamese Science and Culture Society of Oregon's (VSCSO) educational enrichment programs based at the Rock Creek Campus. That painful distinction was lost on no one. Mr. Jones' subtle point was profound. So everyone surrendered to an evening of inspired entertainment.
Inspired music and elegant dance
After an invocation by The Venerable Fa Thai of the Hawthorne District's Miao-Fa Chan Temple, VSCSO students took stage and immediately filled the packed auditorium with traditional Dan Tranh music, with notes of both longing and joy. Elegant young Viet ladies in flowing ao dai danced, elders in their audience dreamed, younger ones were captured inside their lovely moment. Appreciative of the bridge between past and present, home and here, the crowd clapped loud and long.
Nationally acclaimed guitar man and concert story-teller Tinh played next, backed initially by two of Monmouth Taiko's mighty war drums and Village School Foundation trumpeter Dan Enbysk. Tinh then went solo, talking story about what's in his American baby boy's eyes and what flutters around his Phan Thiet pagoda's garden.
Tinh's concerts blend many things. He bends his refined American six-string guitar licks around his stubbornly Viet sensibilities. He loses the distance, in decades and geography, between a lonely monsoon-soaked GI patrolling an Ap-talai rice paddy and our audience of fashionably casual Oregonians soaking up an evening of his acoustic rain. In recognition of his musical originality First Lady Barbara Bush invited Tinh to the White House in 2003.
Village School Foundation
Tinh founded the Village School Foundation in 2002. It is a federally recognized nonprofit charitable organization. The Foundation has since built 3 one-room elementary schools. A volunteer team will be building another this summer in Tinh's ancestral province of Phan Thiet. The cost of labor and materials for a country schoolhouse is approximately 8000 USD. All proceeds from February's benefit banquets and concerts go directly into construction and scholarships. The Foundation welcomes all volunteers, skilled and unskilled, Viet and American, on its trips to Viet Nam.
Coordinating this summer's project are The Foundation's trumpet man, Oregon environmental activist Dan Enbysk, and recent PSU graduate Vy Le, daughter of a nationally prominent painter of the former Republic of South Viet Nam, who settled his family in Portland after the Fall of Saigon.
This season's awareness and fund-raising efforts are coincident with the release of a tribute album for the late great American folk guitar legend, John Fahey. Tinh is a protégé of the Salem musician who passed away in 2001. The tribute album includes Paul Geremia, John Doan, Woody Mann, Terry Robb, and George Winston, among others. All album sale proceeds go to Village School Foundation.
"Helping to insure education in Vietnam seems a fitting and poetic gesture truly blurring the boundaries between philosophy and life," says Tinh of the album and all the efforts associated with Village School Foundation. "Finding inspiration in rediscovering my roots, reconnecting with children in need, and especially remembering John Fahey's music and mentoring, have all come together in this project.
"Putting things right again has become a legacy of this story, and to the children in us all -- the circle comes full round."
At the end of each of February's concerts, lights came on, smiles took the place of tears, audiences spoke softly, left quietly, maybe even drove home a bit more peacefully than the drive there. According to Vietnamese Science and Culture Society of Oregon president Chi Jones, the PCC event alone raised $7000. Enough to raise another small school house. Almost enough to erase a little bitterness.
Bev Silveira, who along with her husband Ben, attended Salem's banquet and concert said "when I look at those children's sweet little faces, the hope there, I know that education is going to help them and their country be a part of the world. Our world."
For more information on the work of the Portland-based, federally recognized non-profit educational organization, Vietnamese Science and Culture Society of Oregon, please see their website:
http://www.vscso.org/
For more information on the work of Village School Foundation, please go to:
http://www.vsfoundation.com/
"when I look at those children's sweet little faces, the hope there,
I know that education is going to help them and their country
be a part of the world. Our world."
Bev Silveira
Salem, Oregon
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