LUNAR NEW YEAR – TET in Vietnam is coming

There are just almost 3 months left and we, Vietnamese people, will celebrate a Lunar New Year according to our Calender. This is similar to the New Year in Western Culture, however, the way we celebrate and enjoy every moment of this special event is somehow different. In order to help you guys partially feel how and why we are so eager, let's have a look at our history of Tet (the New Year in Vietnamese)

This scared Festival sometimes between late January or early February (depend on Lunar Calendar ) and Tet has become so familiar to the Vietnamese that when Spring arrives. The Vietnamese, wherever they may be, are all thrilled and excited with the advent of Tet, and they feel an immense nostalgia, wishing to come back to their homeland for a family reunion and a taste of the particular flavors of the Vietnamese festivities. Although officially a three-day affair, festivities may continue for a week or more with every effort made to indulge in eating, drinking, and enjoyable social activities. It is also a time for family reunions, and for paying respect to ancestors and the elders. Gifts of food are made to friends, neighbors and relatives in the days before Tet.

The Tet of the New Year is, above all, is an opportunity for the household genies to meet, those who have helped during the year, namely the Craft Creator, the Land Genie and the Kitchen God. Tet is also an opportunity to invite and welcome deceased ancestors back for a family reunion with their descendants to join the family's Tet celebrations. Finally, Tet is a good opportunity for family members to meet. This custom has become sacred and secular and, therefore, no matter where they are or whatever the circumstances, family members find ways to come back to meet their loved ones, gather for a dinner of traditional foods like "Bánh Chưng" (a square cake made of sticky rice stuffed with beans and pork), "Măng" (a soup of boiled bamboo shoots and flied pork) and "Xôi Gấc" (orange sticky rice). This is followed by a visit to the local pagodas.

Everyone is in a rush to get a haircut, buy new clothes, spruce up their homes, visit friends, settle outstanding debts, and stock up on traditional Tet delicacies. Businesses hang festive red banners which read "Chuc Mung Nam Moi" (Happy New Year) and city streets are fes¬toned with colored lights. Stalls spring up all over town to sell Mut (candied fruits and jams), traditional cakes, and fresh fruit and flowers. Certain markets sell nothing but cone-shaped kumquat bushes. Others sell flowering peach trees, symbols of life and good fortune which people bring into their homes to celebrate the coming of spring. As vendors pour into the City with peach trees strapped to their bicycles, the streets look like moving pink forests. 

Vietnam Teacher's Day - November 20th

Teachers� Day is really a unique celebration, which shows how important and valued the position of teacher is in Vietnam. Students regularly buy gifts for their teachers and both students and parents will send cards and wish you a �Happy teachers� day.� Students will also thank you for the all of the ways that you, as a teacher, have helped them in their studies as well as their lives. . Teachers� Day is a great way to realize the impact you have on your students, now and in the future.

Teachers� Day is an annual holiday taking place every 20th of November and is usually an all day event. This holiday allows students to express their respect to all their teachers. Students begin preparing a week in advance, and many classes usually prepare literature and art to celebrate the day, while other students prepare food and flowers for the parties held at their schools. Students sometimes visit their teachers at their homes to offer flowers and small gifts, or organize trips with their teachers and classmates. Students also pay respect to their former teachers on this day.

As a teacher the entire day you feel very proud of your profession and incredibly appreciated. Even if your students don�t give you gifts you will get good wishes and cards all day long. If your students do give you gifts you can expect anything from dress shirts to bottles of wine and bouquets of flowers for the ladies. All of these gifts and wishes of good health and good luck are intended to make teachers feel how much they are appreciated by their students. In Vietnam teaching is a very well respected profession, and Teachers� Day is just one of the ways that Vietnamese people show respect towards teachers.

How to face the Reality: Our Economy Needs More Engineers and Fewer MBA’s

Recently, MBA has becoming a trend worldwide not only because of the high demand for a professional manager in the past but also because of the dream-worthy salary that you can have, at least according to some sources. We come, we learn but are we sure about what we will do in the future?

 The United States economy is in serious danger from a growing mismatch between the skills that will be needed for jobs being created and the educational backgrounds (or lack thereof) of would-be workers. That is the conclusion of a mammoth analysis of jobs data being released today by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

The new report says that the United States is "on a collision course with the future" since far too few Americans complete college. Specifically, the report says that by 2018, the economy will have jobs for 22 million new workers with college degrees, but, based on current projections, there will be a shortage of 3 million workers who have some postsecondary degree (associate or higher) and of 4.7 million workers who have a postsecondary certificate.

The colleges that most students attend "need to streamline their programs, so they emphasize employability," said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Georgetown center. Carnevale acknowledged that such a shift would accept "a dual system" in which a select few receive an "academic" college education and most students receive a college education that is career preparation. "We are all offended by tracking," he said. But the reality, Carnevale said, is that the current system doesn't do a good job with the career-oriented track, in part by letting many of the colleges on that track "aspire to be Harvard." He said that educators have a choice: "to be loyal to the purity of your ideas and refuse to build a selective dual system, or make people better off."

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Above all, do we really have to learn something that we don't know whether it will help us with our future?