VietNamNet Bridge – “Engaging with Vietnam” is a story about a Vietnamese doctor in Australia, who founded a specialized forum on Vietnam, which brings together leading scientists in the world.
After graduating from the Institute of International Relations and the Hanoi National University, Dr. Phan Le Ha went to Australia for a master degree course on social sciences in 1999.

Ha went to Australia with confidence of her own ability but the young student was “shocked” when international students acknowledged Asian students as “passive”, “closed”, “imitative” in research. To prove herself, Ha studied very hard. She tried to seek research topics with two criteria: showing Vietnamese identity and dialogic aspect.

Besides proving Vietnamese values, Ha wished to promote dialogue in her works, through which to receive other opinions about Vietnam, even opponent views.

After 12 years in Australia, she is now a PhD degree holder and a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education, Monash University in Australia, and holds honorary positions at universities in Vietnam.

She also holds a visiting professorship appointment at the Institute of Education, the University of Reading, UK, the co-convener of the disruptive notions seminar series with the Monash Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Global Engagement), that engages in notions impacting the changing landscape of higher education globally.

Her teaching and research interests include Vietnam, knowledge mobilization, 'Southern' theories, cultural sociology of education, English as an international language, culture and identity, writing, and international education.

Dr. Ha has been supervising research projects at Master and PhD levels on a wide range of topics, including identity studies, English language education, Australia's offshore education, and the internationalization of education in the Asia Pacific region.

Ha, with generous scholarly and moral support from Professor Stephanie Fahey (Monash University), Professor Philip Hirsch (University of Sydney), A/Prof Pham Quang Minh (Vietnam National University Hanoi), Professor Michael Singh (University of Western Sydney) and Professor Adam Forde (Victoria University), has developed the ‘Engaging with Vietnam: An interdisciplinary dialogue’ Initiative over the past years.
 
Dr. Ha wished that international scientists to have diverse outlook and approach to Vietnam in various fields, not seeing an old Vietnam of the war, through which further understand this country’s values, characters and its changes in all areas.

She also wanted to make a forum for anyone in the world who makes research of Vietnam in all fields and most importantly, this forum must have the participation of Vietnamese scientists.

Ha said that many Australian scholars are interested in Vietnam and they had many research works on Vietnam. However, these works mainly focus on old themes like wars and history. These scholars do not have a chance to access to documents from Vietnam, compiled by Vietnamese colleagues.

“Engaging with Vietnam” is the forum for foreign and Vietnamese scholars to exchange. Through this forum, foreign scholars will have a comprehensive and more accurate outlook of Vietnam while Vietnamese scientists can introduce their works to international colleagues.

“Dialogue creates two way understanding and I also want to prove that not all methodologies and scientific approaches of the West can be used to decode social phenomena of the East,” Ha said.

Ha said that “Engaging with Vietnam” is a broad idea, in which the forum is the first step.

The fourth “Engaging with Vietnam” will be held at the East-West Center in Hawaii, USA. Ha hoped that the fourth seminar will gather many Vietnamese American scholars and Vietnamese students in the US.

Xuan Linh