VietNamNet Bridge – Studying abroad is the dream of many young people. However, there are also those who study abroad because they are forced by their parents.

Forcing children to study abroad as a good riddance

Not only does he overspends his parents’ money, Thien also upsets them with his bad behavior. At high school, fights, breaking the windows and cutting the trees in the school yard were his hobbies. He also spent his time swinging in a hammock, driving through red lights and taking part in illegal motorcycle races. Thien failed the university entrance exams three times, but it seemed that didn’t care. Not being able to stand their spoilt son anymore, Thien’s parents made him go study in Australia.  He happily accepted because he knew that going abroad would mean he would be “free” from his parents.

Sending children abroad to be free to go about with lovers

When his mother died, Tung knew that his father would be seeing another woman sooner or later. But he couldn’t imagine that that would happen only one month later. The worst thing was that his father didn’t have only one lover, and all of them were at the same age as Tung.

He tried to talk to his father but to no avail. Tung fell into despair. He neglected his study, every night he went to nightclubs and drank. After getting drunk he would come back home and yell at his father, telling him how ungrateful, dissolute and lustful he was, insulting the women he brought home.

As a result, Tung’s father began to be afraid of him. When Tung was expelled from school because he was absent too often and his grades bad, he immediately told his son to go study abroad, promising that he would provide Tung with as much money as he wanted. Knowing that his father did this just to be free to go about with lovers, Tung was very angry at first, but then he decided to go because he didn’t want to see his father’s depraved lifestyle anymore.

Tormenting children by forcing them to study abroad

Many parents want their children to study abroad, believing that it’s good for them, but sometimes that’s not true. Hanh, a 20-year-old student, is an example. Hanh wasn’t a good student: She had to work very hard just to get into an average college. Although they knew that their daughter was not smart and her English was not good, they insisted on her going to study in Europe.  They told Hanh: “If you live among foreigners, your language will certainly be improved. About the syllabus, just try your best and everything will be okay. You must have a foreign diploma in order to get a good job in the future”.

After two years, Hanh had to give up and she came back home, weary and emaciated. She couldn’t keep up with the difficult syllabus. The girl couldn’t even understand what the lecturers were saying.

Phuong Lan, unlike Hanh, was a very good student in high school. But when being told to study abroad by her parents, she refused, because she was timid and afraid of a strange environment. Thinking that studying in Vietnam would waste Phuong Lan’s talent, her parents forced her to go abroad. One year later, they had to take their daughter home because she was suffering from depression. Not being able to integrate into the new environment, loneliness and homesickness struck her down.

Tuyet Ngan