The honest story behind organising an event “To the Future and Beyond no.2”

It was warm outside. We were having a girl’s night out in Prague, came to a pub and started to chat about stuff and life. All of a sudden someone remembered an idea to remake an event we did once for one of the biggest cultural festivals in Budweis. Despite the fact that we were snowed under the exams, we knew that we should act on our idea now or never because it had been difficult to meet and plan anything, each of us was living in another city and everyone was having different obligations, moreover our project period was about to come to the end soon.

Our excitement from the previous event was still on momentum, in addition, we were encouraged by our friends in Prague who would love to hear these stories because they were interested in deepening their knowledge of the Vietnamese cultural heritage and roots of origins.

I took out my notebook from the bag „I am always ready, let’s plan!“ and together we started checking the calendar, choosing an ideal date and planning our event in detail. Looking back, it was truly a crazy idea to try to manage an event within two weeks.

We had to find a space, and think of catering, promotion, and sponsors,… During the planning phase my mind was restless all the time  because I was also  haunted by all the exams I hadn’t finished yet. As always we wanted to make our event great as much as possible and make all of our happenings memorable and insightful. For that reason, we had decided to upgrade this event and invite two special Czech speakers who would give different perspectives on our topic. One of them was a professor from Charles University who would collaborate on the historical methodologies we have been using in our project and explain its importance for collecting the minority’s history. Another host was a film director who was preparing a documentary film on the history of the Vietnamese minority in Czechia.

We also wanted people to experience genuine Vietnamese culture and have an extraordinary intercultural experience. How to do that? We usually have ambitious ideas that are complicated to plan. The idea was to give an opportunity to taste fresh Vietnamese street food. The problem was that we had to think about how to bring the catering to the venue. If we use public transport, it would take two hours. Why did we choose to bring food from a place that is so far away you ask? Because we believed  that food from “Little Hanoi “ tastes more original than Vietnamese food we can get from the centre of the city. Luckily a friend was interested in coming and willing to help us pick up the food by car, unfortunately he couldn’t confirm it immediately because he was also too busy with his work and there was a risk that he wouldn’t make it in time eventually.

„The capacity of the seminar room is 50. “ said Mai who was in charge of booking the space for the venue. The number seemed enormous because in our previous event in Budweis, 30 people were registered and we already considered that number as a huge success „Let’s set the limit to 40.“ I told her. I looked confident, but I was in fact deeply worried. Time was flying, we haven’t confirmed a lot of things yet, there was one week left before the event. We had to make decisions in uncertainty to move on and hope for the best. „Should we confirm the order for 40 people then?“ …“Do we have confirmed the sponsors for lucky-dip? Is there any volunteer who would like to try to reach out to Vietnamese sponsors?“ It was a challenge, our Vietnamese language wasn’t that bad but it was far from being professional, moreover, we all tend to have anxiety from speaking to strangers.

Where there is will, there is a way. We succeed, partly. Mai gave it a shot and convinced a manager of a Boba shop to give us a voucher.  “Send us more info and we will send the vouchers by email.” Unfortunately they forgot to check the email. She even made her way to visit the boba shop but the manager wasn’t there. We let it go cuz we were too busy with other stuff. At least we know that there’s a possibility to collaborate next time.

I feared that we won’t have enough audience because we had little time to promote the event and let people know about it. It’s a little bit disappointing and at the same time hurtful, when there are times you don’t get enough trust and support and the initiative doesn’t get to be shared. The idea to have 40 people became more unrealistic. But what can I do? A few doubts got into my mind but I was still confident about our event being meaningful and impactful. I shouldn’t have underestimated our effort and ambitions. Eventually there were a lot of organisations that rooted for us and thanks to them, the outreach was pretty impactful.

It had been almost a week since we ordered a catering and we still hadn’t received a confirmation yet. We were ready to encounter some complications but they were happening too much at once. There was a little miscommunication when we checked if the teacher would be able to come. Eventually we got a message that she would be busy and she couldn’t come to our event anymore. My friend was sure about coming and bringing the food to the venue, but he didn’t have time to pick it up from the bistro/restaurant, so we had to find somebody who would bring it to him first before he could bring it to the venue. I was also anxious because our photographer hasn’t confirmed his presence as well. The day prior I had to cancel my oral exam that I was supposed to have in the morning on the same day as our event. I was sad that one of our team members couldn’t attend the event.

Everything seemed to fall apart. Did I regret taking out my notebook? Maybe. There were moments when I thought that I could have saved myself and my team from all this stress but regretting things that went wrong is better than regretting not trying at all.  

A day before the event the lady apologised for not responding. Eventually we did have drinks for a coffee break! Luckily the teacher offered a substitute, her colleague was willing to come to the event and give a speech since he was working in the same field and in the same faculty as well. I was enchanted when I received a message from people from Charles University Vietnamistic Studies, they were interested to pay us a visit and listen to our presentation. And finally we got 40 registrations! The photographer confirmed. I was thrilled. Hurray! 

It was finally „a day D“! I had a meeting, regarding another project, just one hour before the event. You are probably thinking that I am insane but there was no other way around it. And the girls later told me that they felt under pressure when preparing the space for the presentation alone one hour before the event. I was very stressed because the same morning I just started to work on my new speech, I was responsible for moderating and I didn’t feel prepared yet. The girls took the lead. The catering wasn’t coming in time, my friend couldn’t find a parking spot, we haven’t prepared the rewards for lucky dip yet, the teacher couldn’t come to the event, the frustration was adding up, the timing was off from the schedule we have planned, it was too hot in the room, the streets were too noisy when we opened the windows,…

There are different ways to look at this story. The story sounds like a nightmare for any project coordinator. Some might judge us with disapproval and criticise our planning.  We were certainly aware of the fact that we will have to be very effective, we did detailed planning and did our best. But it’s not in our power to predict some situation. We believed in the cause, the purpose of the event and our ability to overcome the obstacles that will come our way. We could abandon the project at any moment because this project is solely based on voluntary effort.

But I am telling you that all the struggles were worth it! We didn’t give up and we were rewarded with many positive feedbacks in return. People praised us. It was a very special moment because this event brought so many diverse people together. There were young people with Vietnamese roots, Czech historians, people from different organisations, university, people who were just curious to learn more about our culture, some even travelled from other cities. People got a chance to look at the minority from different perspectives and listen to the personal stories and struggles that immigrants have to go through. People were curious to learn about immigrants‘ experiences and their cultural shocks when they first encountered new situations in a foreign country. 

After our presentation we got asked if we would like to present at the University, to create more synergies. I believe that we made progress in bridging the intercultural and intergenerational gap. Moreover we all had to go out of our comfort zone to challenge ourselves and test our limits.

I am fond of the idea that We are able to bring a unique cultural context, where people can encounter new situations, realities, and struggles that can stimulate their assumptions about immigrants and their worldview. Through storytelling, people could understand the complexities of the minority group and their experiences and become more aware of how people in different cultures live. In fact, intercultural interactions have the potential to enrich various aspects of people’s lives. With this event, we also encourage people to keep an open mind and avoid making assumptions about others’ cultural identities. 

This initiative is also meant as a self-empowering experience. We were so happy to hear feedbacks from some young people who told us that thanks to our initiative they became more interested in learning about their roots. This event has inspired them to become proud of their Vietnamese heritage and made them eager to learn more. There is nothing better than hearing our aspirations and vision coming to reality.