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Articles by Mark A. Ashwill
A Face Like Yours: A Romanian-French Poet Speaks to Us from the Grave
Gemini created this image – with some human tweaking – based on the lyrics. Remember only that I was innocent and that, like all of you, mortals of this day, I had, I too had a face marked by rage, by pity and joy, an ordinary human face! Those are animals, they (Palestinians in Gaza) have no right to exist. I’m not arguing on how it should be done, but they need to be exterminated.
I Had a Dream: From Vietnam to Gaza
Israel has reached an unimaginable peak of evil. And indeed many people all over the world find it hard to imagine that this is so. …The only possible conclusion must be that Israeli evil has nothing to do with Judaism and that what is manifested in Israeli behavior is not Jewishness. It is pure colonialist, nationalist and chauvinistic racism and should be treated as such.
International Educators Must End Their Silence on Gaza
“There is a price to pay for speaking the truth. There is a bigger price for living a lie.” – Cornel West I recently saw a post on LinkedIn by Elena D Corbett, director of education abroad at Amideast, whom I immediately recognised as a kindred spirit. In no uncertain terms, she threw down the gauntlet for her fellow United States international educators, calling them out for tolerating a “culture of silence” and indirectly challenging them to embrace a culture of action.
Godspeed to George William Cooper, Activist and Purveyor of Kindness
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” – Desmond Tutu It was just over a year ago that Don Luce, whom I described in The Man Who Exposed the Truth About the Tiger Cagesas a kindred spirit and one of my heroes, passed away.
Death by System: A Two-Generation Tale of Loss and Betrayal
Every trip from Vietnam, a place I have called home for nearly two decades, to my home state of Delaware includes a pilgrimage to my father’s grave in Lawn Croft Cemetery, a stone’s throw from the state border in the industrial wasteland of Linwood, PA.
A Vietnamese American Poet’s Slide Down the Slippery Slope of Hatred
Someone who hates one group will end up hating everyone – and, ultimately, hating himself or herself. – Elie Wiesel Linh Dinh (LD), whom I have long admired for his insightful, brutally honest, and superbly written essays about important issues of the day, including his relentless and merciless chronicling of the decline of the USA, and whose work I have shared with many and cited in my own essays, is a hater of Jews, among others. Read on for the sad and incontrovertible evidence.
Militancy for an Existential Cause: Environmental Protection in Vietnam
While most people use Facebook, the third most popular website in Vietnam, to post photos of themselves and their exploits, often depicting an idealized reality, there is an expat in Dalat in the Central Highlands who uses it for an entirely different, more meaningful, and less glamorous purpose.
The Man Who Exposed the Truth About the Tiger Cages: Donald Sanders Luce (1934-2022)
Don Luce, who passed away on November 17, 2022, a week before the US Thanksgiving, at the age of 88 in Niagara Falls, NY, was a kindred spirit and one of my heroes on a decidedly short list.
Driven to praise, driving me nuts: a US-Vietnam traffic comparison
It’s also because I care. There are so many avoidable problems, squandered opportunities, wasted potential and unrealized ideals. Along with the bad and ugly, however, is the good. There is one cultural difference that always puts a smile on my face when I return to the U.S., rent a car and hit the road.
We’re Here Because the US Was There
I shared my August 2022 essay They Hate US ‘Cause They Ain’t US! with a number of friends and colleagues in the US, including some recent Vietnamese immigrants, with a request that they react to my favorite reader comment: I wanted to know if they agreed with the reader’s scathing assessment of the US as a “fraud.” (On a brighter, note, I also asked them what they like about the US, excluding its lofty ideals.) The comparison story of Switzerland’s rise and the USA’s simultaneous decline...
Graffiti is visual pollution, an eyesore Vietnam can do without
The newest pollution kid on the block in Vietnam is visual, a recent disturbing phenomenon in major urban centers – graffiti. As if the air, water and noise pollutions were not enough. Every closed door, window, wall or slab of concrete is a blank canvas just waiting to be baptized by self-proclaimed "artists" armed with cans of spray paint, a smug attitude and nothing better to do with their time.
The Costs of Unlimited Growth: A View from Vietnam
Canada, the most affluent of countries, operates on a depletion economy which leaves destruction in its wake. Your people are driven by a terrible sense of deficiency. When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.
They Hate US ‘Cause They Ain’t US!
During a recent trip to Boston, I saw this delusional expression screaming at me in large red, white, and blue letters from the side of a passing cement truck. For the uninitiated, it’s a US cultural reference that has been metamorphosed into a bellicose nationalistic war cry replete with t-shirts sold on Amazon. After throwing up in my mouth a little, I chuckled.
If You See Something, Say Something®
This creepy slogan was coined on September 12, 2001 by a New York advertising executive in reaction to the tragic events the day before. It was subsequently used by New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) for ad campaigns on the city’s subways and buses, and quickly catapulted from the local to the national stage and insidiously wormed its way into the collective consciousness.
Gun Violence: an International Educator’s Moral Quandary
Shortly after arriving in the US in late May for a month of business and personal visits, after two-and-a-half years of limited international travel, I noticed an unusual message on my Facebook feed. A US international recruitment colleague questioned his professional raison d’être.
Gun violence: An international educator’s moral quandary
UNITED STATES Shortly after arriving in the US in late May for a month of business and personal visits, after two-and-a-half years of limited international travel, I noticed an unusual message on my Facebook feed. A US international recruitment colleague questioned his professional raison d’être. He posted: “It is days like today in the USA when I have an internal ethical struggle with my job ... the job I’ve had for 20+ years ... the job I love and find so rewarding ...
"Nothing is Impossible" Finds It Impossible to Tell the Truth About Vietnam
Just before the Lunar New Year, I finally received my review copy of Nothing is Impossible: America’s Reconciliation with Vietnam by Ted Osius, who served as US ambassador to Vietnam from 2014 to 2017. Consider the following a modest attempt to set the record straight about some of the actions Osius took – and failed to take – during his time in Hanoi and his post-State Department retirement.
A Call for Universal Empathy: We are the "Other"
While I was deeply gratified and moved to see the outpouring of support for Ukraine and its people on various social media channels in response to the Russian invasion, I realise how selective it is within the United States, knowing that its government has followed the exact same bloodstained path on numerous occasions without the same response.
Settler-Colonialism in a Cross-Cultural Perspective
January 2, 2022 From New England to Vietnam by Mark Ashwill Painting by William Halsall, 1882. Throughout its millennia-long history punctuated by invasion, occupation, and war, the Vietnamese people have accomplished an unparalleled feat: they managed to retain their culture and their sovereignty.
Former US Ambassador to Viet Nam Chooses Expediency Over Integrity Time and Again
Success without integrity is failure. – Anonymous Since Ted Osius, former US ambassador to Viet Nam, is out and about hawking his new book, Nothing Is Impossible: America’s Reconciliation with Vietnam, at the usual haunts, including sympathetic home turf venues in Boston, DC, and New York City, this is an opportune time to set the record straight about some of the actions he took (and didn’t take) during his time in Hanoi and his post-State Department retirement.
The Latest Chapter in Vietnam’s Valiant Battle Against the Delta Variant
Hoan Kiem Lake in the heart of Hanoi during the lockdown. Photo: Mark Ashwill.
Of Spirits, Martyrs & Legends: the Magic & Sorrow of Vietnam's Côn Sơn Island
A short up-and-down overwater flight from Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport and, voilà, you’ve arrived. While your destination is just off the coast of southern Vietnam, it may as well be another world. In less than an hour, you are transported from the hustle and bustle of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to the quiet and melancholic beauty of Côn SơnIsland, the largest and most infamous in the 16-island Côn Đảo Archipelago.
Covid-19 silver lining: overseas study opportunities abound for Vietnamese students
Educational institutions in key host countries, most of which bore the brunt of Covid's fury last year, are reopening their doors to international students, including those from Vietnam. One silver lining of Covid-19 and its impact on global higher education is that overseas study has become a "buyer's market." There are more high-quality, fulfilling, and meaningful study abroad opportunities than ever, resulting in the agony of choice.
Constructive Criticism Rooted in Respect: A View from Vietnam
I recently penned an essay about the scourge of environmental pollution in Viet Nam that was published by a major media outlet. Shortly after posting the article on LinkedIn, Mr. Pierre, a Frenchman living in Viet Nam, left a comment that left me dumbfounded: I am a French citizen… As France is a former colonial country, I cannot blame Vietnam even when I dislike.
Patriotism and Pollution: Confronting Vietnam's Toxic Legacy
It has been my privilege to live in Vietnam for 16 years, nearly 40 percent of my adult life. I am a global citizen without national affiliation who sees the goodness and even greatness, past, present, and future, of every country. I also care deeply about those issues and areas – sometimes openly discussed, other times lurking just beneath the rhetorical surface, and still others not something to be spoken of in public – that are in desperate need of improvement.
Freedom of Speech According to the Gospel of Koch
Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of history of education at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, kicked off his 1 July 2021 essay, “Universities, we have a problem we are afraid to speak of”, by citing a 2020 survey of free speech among US university students with the result that “six out of 10 felt they could not express an opinion for fear of negative reactions from peers, faculty or administrators”.
Dishonor by Association: A Red, White, and Blue Object Lesson
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.
Whatever Happened to Internationalism?
“The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.” – Thomas Paine The international education profession, especially in the United States, has devoted untold pages, bytes and conference sessions to the red hot, perennial topic of intercultural competence, but very few to nationalism, a cultural superiority complex and exclusionary state of mind that transcends gender, race, social class and political affiliation.
Vietnam needs to get wise about being healthy and wealthy
I am a global citizen without national affiliation who sees the goodness and even greatness, past, present, and future, of every country. I also care deeply about those issues and areas – sometimes openly discussed, other times lurking just beneath the rhetorical surface, and still others not something to be spoken of in public - that are in desperate need of improvement. One of the most pressing problems in the world that you and I share are widespread air and water pollution.
Miracles in our midst: an ode to the trees of Hanoi
One of the things I like about living in Vietnam is the year-round presence of the color green in its many hues. It is in contrast to the three main colors one sees in continental climates during much of fall, winter, and early spring e.g., white (snow), blue (sky), and gray (clouds and deciduous trees). Every month in a tropical climate is a season for a different tree or flower to explode in vibrant color, making the world a more beautiful place.
Of Class Rings, Bone Fragments and Fish Ponds: the Interminable Search for US MIAs in Vietnam
Photograph Source: U.S. Information Agency – Public Domain Two U.S. Navy planes came in fast over a bridge in Dong Phong Thuong, North Vietnam. It was June 1965. Cloud cover forced them to descend extremely low. The enemy was waiting. Heavy ground fire erupted and the plane of Lt. Cmdr. Frederick Crosby of San Diego was on fire as it plummeted toward a fish pond. The RF-8A reconnaissance aircraft rolled before it crashed, spraying up water and mud.
Of Class Rings, Bone Fragments and Fish Ponds: the Interminable Search for US MIAs in the Vietnam
Photograph Source: U.S. Information Agency – Public Domain Two U.S. Navy planes came in fast over a bridge in Dong Phong Thuong, North Vietnam. It was June 1965. Cloud cover forced them to descend extremely low. The enemy was waiting. Heavy ground fire erupted and the plane of Lt. Cmdr. Frederick Crosby of San Diego was on fire as it plummeted toward a fish pond. The RF-8A reconnaissance aircraft rolled before it crashed, spraying up water and mud.
Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam Revisited
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair …The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 1967 Enough has been said, here and elsewhere, about the contents of the bestselling book Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam (KATM) and the meticulous archival and field research on which it is based. It is a brilliant–a word I use sparingly–work about one of the most tragic periods in Vietnamese and US history.
Trumpism is Exactly Who Many of US Are
During the dark years of Trump and MAGA madness, I often heard from disbelieving and exasperated colleagues that this is not who we are as US Americans, an attempt to invoke the country’s “better angels” or J. William Fulbright’s “two Americas”: One is the America of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson; the other is the America of Teddy Roosevelt and the modern superpatriots.
The US presidential election as a reflection of two Americas
These prophetic words, written by Senator J. William Fulbright in his 1966 book "The Arrogance of Power," are as true now as they were over half a century ago. They remain an apt description of U.S. national character and the ongoing struggle among U.S. Americans. A number of unresolved issues whose roots are deeply embedded in the country’s over four centuries of colonial and post-independence history played out in stunning fashionin the recent U.S. presidential election.
Freedom of speech according to the gospel of Koch
UNITED STATES Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of history of education at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, kicked off his 1 July 2021 essay, “Universities, we have a problem we are afraid to speak of”, by citing a 2020 survey of free speech among US university students with the result that “six out of 10 felt they could not express an opinion for fear of negative reactions from peers, faculty or administrators”.
Balancing Solidarity & Individualism in the COVID-19 Era and Beyond: a View from Vietnam
A Vietnamese colleague recently asked me this timely and important question in the age of COVID-19 and beyond: Solidarity is sometimes called ‘collectivism’. I want to see in my own daughters and our younger generation, in general, both the spirit of individualism (a strong sense of self), balanced with a spirit of solidarity/collectivism.
Missing the forest for the trees: National English exam results reconsidered
Last month, Vietnam wrapped up the annual rite of passage that is the national high school graduation exam. Of the 900,000 graduating high school seniors who took the exam, 750,000 took the one-hour English test, which consists of 50 multiple-choice questions. 63.1 percent of the test takers received below average scores; over half scored 3.4 out of 10 while 543 students scored below 1.
Promoting Study in the USA in Trying Times
There is nothing obscure about the objectives of educational exchange.
Vietnam Criticized for Its First-Round Victory Over COVID-19
You can’t please everyone, especially those who do their utmost to find fault with a country that has distinguished itself as a national role model in the midst of a global pandemic.
A Letter From Viet Nam on the Occasion of the 45th Anniversary of the End of the War
Photograph Source: Abbie Rowe, National Park Service – John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum – Public Domain Dear Fellow Citizens, I am reaching out to you as current official friends and former enemies of Vietnam because I want you to know the truth about what could have been, an alternative and viable path of history that both countries could have trod together for mutual benefit and a more peaceful world.
View From Vietnam: COVID-19 Reminds the World That Trump Has No Clothes
The famous 19th century fairy tale by the Danish writer, Hans Christian Anderson, could have been written about Donald Trump, a man-child who lives in a fantasy world of self-delusion and lies and who surrounds himself with sycophantic yes-people who value their positions and professional advancement over truth and justice.
During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Do as the Vietnamese Do
As I wrote in a recent essay for international education colleagues, Viet Nam has overcome steep odds in many contemporary arenas and throughout its millennia-long history. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Viet Nam is doing all of the right things, placing the health and well-being of its people and foreign visitors, i.e., all people, above all else. The result so far is relatively few confirmed cases of the coronavirus.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, do as the Vietnamese do
This includes many contemporary arenas, one of which we are witnessing now. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Vietnam is doing all of the right things, placing the health and well-being of its people and foreign visitors, i.e., all people, above all else. The result so far is relatively few confirmed cases of the coronavirus.
Why Constructive Criticism of the US is Not Anti-American
International parents and students are neither stupid nor gullible. Among their key concerns about study in the United States are gun violence, a broken visa system, monitoring of social media information, the uncertain status of the H-1B and OPT (Optional Practical Training) programmes and the widespread perception that the US is not as open, friendly and hospitable as it once was.
Playing Geopolitical Whack-a-Mole: The Viet Nam Flag Issue Revisited
The National Flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. If a US educational institution enrolls Vietnamese students, chances are there’s a Vietnamese flag displayed somewhere, perhaps in the student center, along with the flags of the other countries represented in that school’s international student population. I’m referring to the red flag with a yellow star not the yellow one with three red stripes flag of a country that was relegated to the dung heap of history 44 years ago.
Reflections on General Giap and the End of an Era in Vietnam
Six years have passed but the memory of the great general’s death and funeral are still fresh in my mind. While thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese waited patiently under the still potent autumn sun to bid a final farewell to their national hero, General Vo Nguyen Giap, who lay in state at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, I stood within view of his flag-draped coffin.
Reflections on the passing of General Giap and the end of an era
While thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese waited patiently under the still potent autumn sun to bid a final farewell to their national hero, General Vo Nguyen Giap, who lay in state at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, I stood within view of his flag-draped coffin. It was a moment steeped in irony that I, as a U.S. American, a friend of Vietnam, and the only non-veteran among the members of our small U.S. delegation, had the honor of paying my respects.
Whose Bread I Eat, His Song I Sing: An International Education Nonprofit and a Devil’s Bargain
2019 is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Institute of International Education (IIE), a well-known US-based private nonprofit that focuses on international student exchange and aid, foreign affairs, and international peace and security.
Patriotism: The tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime
During my first trip to Vietnam in January 1996 to set up a summer program for U.S. students, I caught a glimpse of what could be a rapidly changing nation just opening up to world after decades of isolation and poverty, mostly the result of a U.S.-led economic embargo and the legacy of two cataclysmic wars with France and the U.S. following in the former’s bloody and foolhardy footsteps.
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