Story by Jake Stump
In 2004, West Virginia University afforded me a self-fulfilling opportunity. It sent a rural, Preston County boy—who’d never ventured outside the continental United States—to a land 9,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean. That land was Vietnam, a place where my father, an Air Force veteran, met my mother, a country native, during the Vietnam War.
As a student of the P.I. Reed School of Journalism, I received the Frank Kearns (former CBS correspondent and WVU alumnus) Fellowship that gave budding journalists a chance to cover an international news event. My assignment happened to be the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, in which the Vietnamese military brought an end to French colonial rule.
In my early 20s, I had never been to my mom’s homeland. And I was blessed with additional expertise ahead of the adventure courtesy of the late, great George Esper, who urged me to apply for the fellowship. Esper is best known for covering the Vietnam War as an Associated Press correspondent. He returned to his alma mater, WVU, in 2000 to teach journalism. We bonded over our Vietnam connections, and I took a liking to his generous disposition which was contradicted by a no-nonsense, old-school approach to news writing and storytelling.
Despite the knowledge at my disposal from my parents and Esper, no amount of advice could have fully prepared me for the experience. I did not speak the language. I leaned heavily on occasional encounters with English speakers and an interpreter who guided me on my excursions. The language barrier forced me to rely on other techniques—namely, using the five senses to paint the picture—to craft stories. More important than gathering quotes from interviews is coming away with compelling scenes and human faces in the moment.
The experience shaped my career as a writer, because as much as you can learn in the classroom as a student, there’s nothing quite like doing it out in the field. Being thrown into unfamiliar territory amplified the impact.
Three articles from the trip were published in the now-defunct Charleston Daily Mail in Charleston, W.Va., while serving as a summer intern: One on the Dien Bien Phu ceremony, another on the Iraq War from the perspective of Vietnamese veterans and a first-person account of what I saw there, which earned a first-place award as a lifestyles feature. That particular article must have resonated, as I received letters and emails from Vietnam veterans recalling their experiences there.
It delved into the full-on culture shock that overcame me. The roads were crowded with motorbikes, outnumbering cars 30-to-1. Horns blared and headlights flashed for no apparent reason. Bikes and bus drivers jostled for position, cutting each other off. Yet there were no signs of one-finger salutes or road rage.
Prices were lower than dirt. Outside shops, restaurants and cafes aligned city streets. A palpable meal—a bowl of hot, brothy pho, for instance—may amount to an American buck or two. You can find anything on the street. I, now looking back ashamedly, picked up several pirated DVDs of movies such as “Kill Bill: Vol. 2” and “Secret Window” that hadn’t even left American theaters yet. I also purchased a pirated Slayer CD, although I owned the real version, just to say I found evil, thrash metal in Vietnam.
On every corner, the curious youth of Vietnam chatted, played games and checked e-mail inside Internet cafes. The best part of all was the people. Everywhere you go in Vietnam—hotel, restaurant, store, sidewalk or someone’s home—a cup of steaming green tea awaits you. They don’t even ask if you want any. It’s just there, and they fill and refill your cup.
Many of the Vietnamese people I met gave me a gift or souvenir. One man who sat beside me on a Vietnam Airlines flight thought I was German. Which is funny because here in the States people can usually tell I’m mixed race. I suppose I don’t fully fit in anywhere on this planet. Nonetheless, the gentleman took the green fishing hat right off his head and insisted that I have it.
The only downside was that my relatives lived near Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon for the realists), 1,000 miles from where I stayed. But I would get to cross that off my bucket list some 15 years later, when I traveled with my mother there to meet them.
After graduating with my bachelor’s, I would join the Daily Mail staff covering everything from the serious (state politics, crime) to the quirky (the “Dancing Outlaw,” indie wrestling) before eventually returning to WVU for a master’s degree and working in University Relations where I continue to tell stories to this day. WVU and its selfless faculty and staff like Esper helped set the table for me to find myself professionally and personally. The University provided me a life-altering experience as an undergrad, and it continues to do so with similar study and work abroad opportunities for students two decades later.
