The person who opened a Vietnamese market in Belgium.

At the beginning of the year, people started visiting the Vietnamese Market, Vietnamese Garden, and Vietnamese Kitchen in Belgium to wish each other a happy new year and thank the admin for creating a place where they could "gather gossip, make money, and get things done." I suddenly thought, only someone with knowledge and inspiration in accounting and finance could open such a "market" and build a garden in a foreign land like that.

It's just an online marketplace, but how do you manage it to generate useful information and positive connections among compatriots? Vietnamese people living abroad are very discerning these days; nobody has time for idle chatter, even though it's fun. Instead, you need to ask about social integration, whether anyone has driving school materials they can lend, where they need workers, the requirements for applying for citizenship, how to learn the local language quickly, or how to handle children after divorce... That's the kind of useful information people will use to interact.

Upon inquiry, it turned out that Le Thi Mai was working as an accountant, but her decision to establish this unique market had a deeper meaning. In March 2018, Mai moved to Belgium to settle down. The first year was very frustrating because she wasn't fluent in Dutch, and even when she asked her husband or his family, who were native speakers, they didn't know the information or procedures. When Covid-19 broke out, Mai had to learn online, and after much trial and error, she realized that if she had had accurate information from the beginning, she could have shortened the language learning and integration process, and found a job much faster.

Le Thi Mai and her daughter showcased traditional Vietnamese ao dai dresses at the 2023 Mid-Autumn Festival in Belgium.

Many compatriots are in a similar situation. “I created the 'Vietnamese Garden, Vietnamese Market, Vietnamese Kitchen' page in Belgium around March 2020 so that people could exchange and share information,” Mai shared. In the initial stage, Mai had to spend a lot of time connecting and increasing effective interaction by answering questions from overseas Vietnamese, providing official sources of information, and connecting those asking questions with those who had better information or experience to answer them…

And so, from an initial group of around 200 people, 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 as a general accountant for large businesses and foreign-invested companies in Vietnam. However, Mai's job search in Belgium, and her efforts to secure a position that matched her accounting skills and experience, reflect the common struggles many of her compatriots face in their early days abroad.

Mai recounted, "A typical accountant might not need to be fluent in three languages. But I used to be a general accountant, and finding a similar job in Belgium requires very high standards, needing to meet three criteria: knowing three languages—English, French, and Dutch—having a driver's license, and having experience or knowledge of accounting in Belgium." While accounting might be the easiest profession to find in Belgium, it's a specialized field requiring knowledge of tax laws and accounting regulations. Therefore, Mai was forced to undergo further training.

“I spent my first year learning Dutch, half a year studying and taking my driving test, and the next half year studying integration and advanced Dutch at university. Then came a year and a half of vocational training in accounting at the VDAB Vocational Training Center. Just learning administrative procedures took six months, all very practical knowledge like preparing quotations, writing debt collection letters, specialized computer skills in Dutch, listening and answering phone calls, learning to write application letters and resumes, and how to answer interview questions… After completing the theory, I moved on to 10 months of vocational training at two companies, where VDAB paid me an apprenticeship allowance equivalent to 60% of my salary. It took me three years of trial and error like that,” Mai recalled.

The process of finding a job that matches one's skills still requires much more effort, especially in communication. Immigrants have the right to request to take logopedie (pronunciation) training courses when applying for jobs. And it's still a long way to go to reach the goal of becoming an accountant with perfect communication skills. Mai is entering this second, challenging stage, but at least she knows how to proceed correctly. The Vietnamese Market, Vietnamese Garden, Vietnamese Kitchen forum in Belgium is about to celebrate its 4th anniversary. It will soon enter a new phase of activity, as the admin herself confided: "I want to invest in a more specialized forum on 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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