MEETING WITH PROF. THOMAS ENGELBERT, UNIVERSITY OF HAMBURG, GERMANY

The Center for Vietnamese and Southeast Asian Studies welcomed Prof. Thomas Engelbert – Dean of the Faculty of Vietnamese Studies, University of Hamburg, Germany on the afternoon of April 12, 2013 on his business trip to HCMC.

At the meeting, the professor has shared lots of interesting things. Although we had known that he had a good command of Vietnamese, we were still surprised at how fluently and humorously he could speak the language.

Being a Westerner but his life has been closely connected with Vietnam. Over 30 years ago, he was a student who was granted scholarship to come to Hanoi, Vietnam, with the sum higher than salary of Vietnamese professors at that time. That was a good start for him to learn Vietnamese in his eagerness and follow his career in Vietnamese studies during the past decades.

Prof. Thomas Engelbert (2nd, R) visited the Center for Vietnamese and Southeast Asian Studies.

Prof. Thomas Engelbert also shared some stories of his people and some information about Germany after its unification with us. Thanks to the attempts of both sides, East and West Germany, especially significant financial contribution from West Germany, the unification has brought independence, democracy and equality, forming a foundation for the country’s development. The fact that the current German president and prime minister both have the East German origin is also a sign of that equal development.

Through the talk with us, the professor shows his big love for Vietnamese language and its use. Additionally, he hopes to be able to make more contributions to education and human resource training in Vietnam, being the bridge for Germany and the S-shaped country in the Southeast Asian region. He also expresses an interest in doing studies on the three countries Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, wishing to conduct more research to promote the long-lasting friendship and the development of this region.

The professor added that the University of Hamburg is now offering a BA program in Southeast Asian Studies in German and an MA program in the same major in English. The core of the former is to study one of the three languages (Vietnamese, Thai or Indonesian) and get basic knowledge of the Southeast Asian region in terms of geography, history, literature, and religion, etc. while the latter puts emphasis on in-depth studies on language, history and culture of one of the three above-mentioned countries.

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