Detlef Schmidt-Ihnen recently heard his school's interim results in the Mathematical Olympiad. The head teacher had every reason to be satisfied. Six of his pupils had qualified for the next round at the regional level. This is nothing special for the Barnim Gymnasium (high school) in east Berlin; after all, the school has always focused on natural sciences. There is a relatively new problem, however: pronouncing the names of the prize-winning pupils correctly. Was the seventh-grade winner called Tran Phuon Duyen or Duyen Tran Phuon? And what about Duc Dao Mihn from the tenth grade? Schmidt-Ihnen often faces this challenge, because 17 percent of the students at his school in the borough of Lichtenberg come from Vietnamese families; the figure in the lower grades is over 30 percent. “Many of them are really good, especially in science and maths,” the head teacher says. The school's best pupil in maths is also of Vietnamese origin.
No other immigrant group in Germany is more successful in school than the Vietnamese: about 50 percent of their children make it to the Gymnasium (grammar school or high school). That means that proportionately more Vietnamese are swotting for the Abitur (school-leaving exam and university entrance qualification) than Germans. “The grades of Vietnamese students are in stark contrast to the picture we otherwise have of children with an immigrant background,” says Karin Weiss, Brandenburg's Commissioner for Foreigners' Affairs. Thousands of contract workers were recruited by the former East Germany (GDR) in the mid-nineteen-eighties. Now, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, their children are writing a hitherto little-known success story. Many migrant workers from the “socialist brother country” experienced hard times, unemployment and poverty after the collapse of communism in East Germany. They were isolated. However, their children are now making inroads into German society, showing tremendous diligence and great enthusiasm for education. The pressure to bring home good grades is enormous in Vietnamese families. The fact that their children have become model students is proof of the strength of a culture whose industriousness helps them to rise out of even the most adverse conditions. This has been documented for years in the USA, where an above-average number of students from Asian nations – or, to be more precise, nations dominated by the Confucian mentality – attend the leading American universities. Now the education miracle is being repeated in Germany.
Dung Van Nguyen and her family lived in a home for asylum seekers for many years. The girl has no bad memories from this time; after all, there was always somebody to play with. Dung's parents, by contrast, had hated the shared accommodation: the communal kitchen, the quarrels between the different nationalities, and above all the oppressive lack of space. But one thing was never missing: a place where the girl could learn. And Dung's parents did other things right too. Like nearly all Vietnamese parents, they registered their child with a kindergarten early on. In this way their daughter learned to speak perfect German. Today Dung attends a Gymnasium in Potsdam; she is one of the best in her class with an average grade of 1.5 (on a scale from 1 to 6, where 6 means failed). Last summer, the Start Foundation, an organization that promotes gifted immigrant students, supported the 14-year-old with a scholarship. About 30 percent of those chosen in eastern Germany are Vietnamese. And Dung is not an exceptional talent in her family either. Both her sister and her brother go to the Gymnasium and bring home top marks.
Yet the siblings had no one to help them at home with their school homework. Their home is not full of books, nor is the children's room crammed with educationally stimulating games. A giant flat TV screen stands in solitary splendour in the living room opposite the small altar with the joss sticks where the family remember their ancestors. The apartment, located in a housing estate on the outskirts of Potsdam, is cramped. Cartons of soft drinks for the parents' mobile snack bar are stacked high in the hall. It is mid-afternoon and the family have gathered for tea. Mr Nguyen is talking. The German words that he manages to squeeze out are difficult to understand. So the daughters translate his story: their father had lived as a contract worker in the Soviet Union and applied for asylum in Germany after the collapse of the communist empire; after many years of uncertainty, the family was finally allowed to stay – on condition that they could prove that they had sufficient income. Dung's parents worked to the point of exhaustion. From early in the morning until ten at night, the couple stood in their snack bar on wheels selling “spicy coconut milk soup” and “noodles with crispy chicken breast.”
Most Vietnamese survive by running their own small businesses. They often can't find regular employment because of their language problems. So they work up to 60 hours a week in their bric-a-brac or flower shops, in nail studios or at market stalls. The fact that many of them feel obliged to regularly send money to relatives at home increases the pressure on their incomes. The children often have to help out in the family business. Dung has always had to take care of her brother and sister, because the children didn't see much of their parents for years. Only in the afternoons their mother would briefly appear to cook a meal. Otherwise the siblings had to look after themselves for many hours every day. Even so, every afternoon they hunched over their books and came home with excellent marks.
How is this possible, Mr Nguyen? Why are Vietnamese children so good at school? The father, who has looked rather severe so far, now smiles for the first time. This topic is more to his liking than all this talk of the past. His answer is surprisingly simple: “Because all Vietnamese parents want their children to be good at school.” Translated, this probably means that the children learn at an early age the kind of marks they owe their parents – and that they must learn a lot to get them. “Education is the most valuable possession for Vietnamese families,” says Karin Weiss, Brandenburg's Commissioner for Foreigners' Affairs. Even if the parents have little time left after work – they always ask their children about their homework and exercise books. And, if necessary, they provide private help to ensure their success at school. Ms Weiss says she knows families living just above the poverty level who still save every penny to pay for special instruction for their children. Dung and her siblings didn't need such assistance. Yet they were still supported. If you look around the Nguyens' sparsely furnished apartment you will discover a computer in the children's room. And when Dung wanted to learn to play the piano, her parents bought her an electric instrument.
The East Asians' eagerness to learn is the most valuable gift they have brought with them from their homeland. There is a wise saying there that education is the only escape from the paddy field. As in China, Japan or Korea, many children in Vietnam go to private lessons given by special teachers in the afternoons and at weekends – in addition to their regular classes. They do far more homework than German children. By the end of their primary-school education, Vietnamese pupils are thousands of lessons ahead of their German peers. This educational lead is one aspect that explains the result of a study published by psychologist Andreas Helmke a few years ago. He asked fourth-graders from Hanoi and Munich to do the same mathematics exercises. Many of the schools in Vietnam's capital are poorly equipped with 50 children per class. Nevertheless, the pupils from this developing country performed far better than the Bavarian ten-year-olds. This result is confirmed by the Pisa studies, which for many years have awarded the top positions to Asian countries.
Asian immigrants here, too, are always striving to improve their situation. When you chat with Vietnamese parents, you hear phrases that are reminiscent of the kind of things you heard in West Germany in the nineteen-fifties: “Nothing comes from nothing” or “We want our children to have it better than we did.” Perhaps this is why the Vietnamese are called the Prussians of Asia. Unlike other immigrant parents, who often cannot find their way around Germany's complicated school structure, the Vietnamese understand it immediately: only the Gymnasium (or the comprehensive school as a poorer alternative) leads to the Abitur – so forget the rest! Even a “three” (average mark) on a school report sets the alarm bells ringing for many parents. Long Minh Nguyen, a 20-year-old who has thought a lot about his fellow countrymen in Germany, speaks of a keen sense of rivalry among Vietnamese parents. Whenever two fathers or mothers meet, one of the first questions is always: “And how are the children getting on at school?” Long Minh recalls: “My parents were always complaining to me that other pupils had better reports than me.” They simply ignored the fact that his marks were not good enough for him to be recommended for a place at a Gymnasium. And yet: last summer he passed the Abitur exam with good marks after putting in an enormous effort. Many Vietnamese parents believe that children don't vary in terms of talent, but only in terms of how hard they work. They hardly ever give up on a child. At the same time, weaknesses are rarely excused.
In Berlin, satisfaction over scholastic success has recently become intermingled with concern – because the breakneck speed with which the children are becoming integrated sometimes alienates their parents, especially when the children reach puberty. Tamara Hentschel from Reistrommel (Rice Drum), an organization that has been supporting Vietnamese people in Berlin since reunification, observes: “The young people live in two cultures.” There is no communication between the generations. And Ms Hentschel means that quite literally, too. Since many children start going to kindergarten at a very early age, they later speak German without an accent; however, their Vietnamese is often only good enough for everyday communication. So whenever the conversation gets emotional and therefore complicated, they can't find the right words – or the volume goes up. When it gets really bad, the young people turn their backs on their culture. But these are only isolated cases. Most Vietnamese families stick close together. And the children's respect for their parents is just as big as their ambition. “We want to learn and get on,” says Long. “Then, perhaps, one day we can be part of the elite in this country.”
