Telling stories about Uncle Ho to the world
With the spirit of learning and following Uncle Ho's moral example, the tour guides of Kim Lien Relic Site have strived to surpass themselves to fulfill their wish: Telling stories about Uncle Ho to the whole world.
Always strive for love of the profession
No matter how harsh the weather is, how tired you are, the interpreters at Kim Lien Relic Site will still complete their duties with a gentle, simple, and smooth Nghe accent. Hearing that voice, few people can imagine the intensity of work that these interpreters go through every day, especially during peak times such as holidays, Tet, summer vacations...
“Wearing traditional ao dai, our work includes welcoming guests at the registration office, giving explanations at relics, offering flowers, holding memorial ceremonies... During the summer, on average, 17 tour guides will welcome over 150 groups of visitors at the sites each day. On holidays such as April 30 - May 1, there can be up to 400 - 500 groups of visitors per day, all of whom must continuously explain and guide in the morning from 7am - 11:30am, in the afternoon from 1:30pm - 5pm. During the peak season, during the summer, we sometimes only get 1-3 days off each month. The work in the hot season, working outdoors is very hard and tiring to the point that many times while explaining, a friend fainted or had a nosebleed... In addition, to diversify the forms of propaganda, tour guides also have to carry out propaganda tasks outside the relics through thematic talks about Uncle Ho, writing propaganda articles for newspapers, website, exhibition explanation, building special topics about President Ho Chi Minh…”, Ms. Phan Thanh Quy - Deputy Head of Propaganda and Education Department, Kim Lien Relic Site shared.
Before choosing to stay in the profession with its initial difficulties and hardships, the interpreters had to go through a challenging journey with many hardships. Talking about the first days of her career, Ms. Quy recalled: “Having graduated from the Faculty of Foreign Languages, the historical knowledge from Uncle Ho's birth to his childhood, then his hometown and family, historical knowledge... were very strange to me. Besides, I needed to supplement many skills such as demeanor, expression, explanation, communication, writing... In particular, practicing a gentle voice, clear and easy-to-understand language so that guests from all regions could listen and understand. Among them, the journey to overcome one's lack of confidence and shyness was probably the most difficult thing to do, taking a lot of time. To confidently present, one needs a certain amount of knowledge about expertise, communication and social understanding".
Once the knowledge is fluent and the content is solid, the presenter will have the ability to flexibly and emotionally adapt his speech to the situation and to each type of visitor.
The stories may be the same, but the emotions each time we tell them and the reception from visitors are very different. The most touching is probably when welcoming groups of elderly people and veterans - Uncle Ho's soldiers who have experienced rain of bombs and bullets. Many of them could not hide their emotions and burst into tears, and we ourselves could not hold back either.
Ms. Phan Thanh Quy - Deputy Head of Propaganda and Education Department, Kim Lien Relic Site
Ms. Pham Thi Oanh - one of 17 guides of Kim Lien Relic Site shared: “The members of the department are all female, most of them are young and raising small children. Half of them live in Vinh City, so going to work and being on duty on holidays and Tet is also a difficulty that needs to be overcome. Many days, the women have to take turns sleeping over to welcome the group early, and on New Year's Eve, they stay with their colleagues until the morning. With a modest income, if we don't have a love for this job, it will be difficult for us to stick with it for a long time.”
The love for the work of Ms. Quy, Ms. Oanh and the members of the tour guide team was kindled by their respect for the father of the nation, by their pride in their homeland, by the precious emotions of tourists... "We consider ourselves a member of Uncle Ho's family and are happy to share stories about him. In return, we also receive a lot of precious feelings from tourists. It can be compliments, words of encouragement, respectful handshakes or small gifts such as hats, umbrellas, candy, bottles of essential oil... but they give us a lot of motivation" - Ms. Quy shared.
Learn to tell about Uncle Ho to many international guests
Among many funny stories about the profession, Ms. Quy always remembers the story of a Japanese tourist. During the whole tour, he listened to her attentively and enthusiastically. Before saying goodbye, he asked the interpreter to tell her: "I don't understand Vietnamese, but the words you say sound like a melody and I can read the sincerity in your eyes." Stories and situations like that are the motivation for Ms. Quy and her colleagues to try harder, learn more, so that they can tell stories of Uncle Ho to international friends.
With that determination, in 2019, the Kim Lien Relic Site Interpretation Team proactively asked the Management Board to create conditions for them to learn more English to serve their work. “Most people graduated from Literature and History majors, so starting over with English at this age is extremely difficult. Among them, Ms. Bui Thi Dam - Head of Propaganda and Education Department, born in 1972, is 50 years old this year but is still determined to study to the end. We ourselves as well as the Management Board do not set big expectations, just hoping to meet the requirements of explaining about Uncle Ho in English and being able to communicate basically with tourists. To achieve that small goal also requires a lot of perseverance and effort.”
Having graduated with a degree in History Pedagogy, Ms. Pham Thi Oanh never thought that one day she would be able to fully explain Uncle Ho's stories in English. But she did it. Ms. Oanh recalls: “In the first lessons, my sisters and I realized that what we had learned in school was completely different from the knowledge taught by native teachers. Just to pronounce the word "is" correctly, we needed several lessons to correct it. At the same time, many people thought that what we were doing would not bring any results. Luckily, everyone studied together so we could encourage each other and look at each other to try. At that time, to keep up with the program, I had to take advantage of every free time to study and remember new words. I wrote and posted them all over the house. The most difficult skills were still pronunciation, stress, and pronunciation. To improve this skill, whenever there were Western guests, my sisters and I eagerly came out to chat, it was so much fun!”
After 5 months of hard work and practice, 5 members of the department were able to confidently tell stories about Uncle Ho in English with standard intonation and pronunciation to international friends. After this small success, from the suggestion of the Management Board, they continued to conquer the goal of explaining in Lao. “Similar to English, we did not expect to be fluent in Lao but only set the goal of being able to explain stories about Uncle Ho. After the course, we were able to welcome high-ranking delegations from other countries to visit and received compliments from them. This means a lot to us,” Ms. Quy shared.
Not only improving their foreign languages, during the social distancing period due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Kim Lien Relic Site Interpretation Team also equipped themselves with some new skills such as making historical documentary videos about Uncle Ho, participating in hosting programs, reading podcasts, giving online explanations... With what they have done and are doing, they themselves are concrete examples of the spirit of learning and practicing following the example of President Ho Chi Minh.
