The person who opened a Vietnamese market in Belgium

At the beginning of the year, people started going to Cho Viet, Vuon Viet, Bep Viet in Belgium to wish everyone a happy new year and thank the admin for creating a place to “gather and talk to make money”. I suddenly thought, it must be someone with knowledge and inspiration in financial accounting to open a “market” and build a garden in a foreign land like that.

Just an online market, but how to manage it to publish good news and good deeds to unite fellow countrymen? People living abroad are very awake now, no one has time to gossip, even though it is fun. You have to ask about how to integrate into society here, who has driving documents to lend, this place and that need workers, the standards for applying for citizenship, how to learn the local language quickly, how to deal with children after divorce... Only with useful things will people interact.

It turns out that Le Thi Mai is actually an accountant, but the reason she set up this special market has a deeper meaning. In March 2018, Mai moved to Belgium to settle down. The first year was very frustrating because she was not fluent in Dutch, and she often asked her husband or his family, who are native speakers, about this and that information. When Covid-19 broke out, Mai had to study online, fumbled around, and then realized that if she had had the right information from the beginning, she could have shortened the language learning and integration process, and found a job faster.

Le Thi Mai and her daughter perform in Ao Dai at the 2023 Mid-Autumn Festival in Belgium

Many compatriots are in a similar situation. “I set up the page Vuon Viet, Cho Viet, Bep Viet in Belgium around March 2020 so that everyone has a place to exchange and share information,” Mai shared. In the beginning, Mai had to spend a lot of time connecting and increasing effective interactions by answering overseas Vietnamese, providing official sources of information, connecting questioners with people who have information or better experience to answer...

From the initial 200 members, the forum has now grown to 2,100 members. Le Thi Mai is currently an accountant at EuroNav, one of the largest crude oil transportation companies in Belgium. She has experience in general accounting for large enterprises and foreign-invested companies in Vietnam. However, Mai's process of finding a job in Belgium, even striving to do the right job and accounting experience, is a common dilemma in the first days abroad for many compatriots.

Mai said: “A normal accountant may not need to be good at communicating in all three languages. But I used to be a general accountant, and to find a similar job in Belgium requires a lot of work, you need to meet three criteria: knowing three languages: English - French - Dutch, having a driver's license, and having experience or knowledge of accounting in Belgium”. Accounting may be the easiest job to find in Belgium, but it is a special profession, requiring knowledge of tax laws and accounting regulations of the host country. Therefore, Mai is still required to take a retraining course.

“I had to spend the first year learning Dutch, studying and taking the driving test for half a year, the next half year studying integration, studying advanced Dutch at university. Then I spent a year and a half studying accounting at the VDAB Vocational Training Center. Just learning about administrative procedures took 6 months, all very practical knowledge such as making quotes, writing debt collection letters, specialized computer skills in Dutch, listening and answering the phone, learning to write letters and prepare application documents, how to answer interviews... After finishing the theory, I moved on to 10 months of vocational training at two businesses and was paid an apprenticeship allowance by VDAB equivalent to 60% of my salary. It also took me 3 years of groping around like that,” Mai recalled.

The process of finding a job that suits your abilities still requires a lot of effort, especially communication skills. Immigrants have the right to be required to take logopedie (sound training) courses when going to work. And it is still a long way to reach the goal of an accountant with perfect communication skills. Mai is entering this second stage, which is difficult, but at least she knows how to go in the right direction. The Vietnamese Market, Vietnamese Garden, Vietnamese Kitchen Forum in Belgium is about to be 4 years old. It must also move to a new stage of operation, as the admin himself confided: "I want to invest in a more in-depth forum about legal and cultural life in Belgium to help my compatriots integrate, live better in the community and be useful to society".

Huong Kieu

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