The Ho Chi Minh City Esperanto Association
The Ho Chi Minh City Esperanto Association (HEA) is a social-political organization in charge of HCMC external activities. It is also a member organization of the Ho Chi Minh City of Friendship Organizations (HUFO) and the Vietnamese Esperanto Association (VEA).
It was established under the HCM City People’s Committee’s decision No. 308/QD-UB dated September 13th 1990.
It operates within the Law of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the VEA.
It has its legal status, its own stamp and bank account.
Function and Mission:
Gathering Esperanto lovers in HCMC, the HCMC Esperanto Association aims at developing the Esperanto movement for the national interest, socialism, peace, cooperation and development between Vietnamese people and peoples of other countries.
Chairman: Mr. Tran Quan Ngoc
Deputy Chairman and Secretary General: Ms. Le Thi Thien Thu
Activities:
The HCMC Esperanto Association is one of the earliest members of HUFO.
“What is Esperanto?”
Esperanto is a man-made language created in 1887 by Dr. Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof, an ophthalmologist of mixed cultural heritage from Bialystok, then part of the Russian Empire.
Its vocabulary was built on the common vocabulary of languages in the Romance, Germanic and Slavic branches. Esperanto grammar is much simpler than the grammar of natural language (national language) and rigorously standardized in 16 rules. The Esperanto alphabet is based on the Latin script.
“Esperanto” translates as “one who hopes”. Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy-to-learn and politically neutral language that transcends nationality and would foster peace and international understanding between people.
Uncle Ho was the first Vietnamese learning Esperanto. He came to this language while living in England doing revolutionary activities.
“How does the Ho Chi Minh City Esperanto Association work?”
The Ho Chi Minh City Esperanto is a multilateral friendly association. They communicate and develop friendship with other associations and individuals around the world using Esperanto.
Therefore, the first task is to widely disseminate Esperanto. Over the past 20 years, the HEA has organized many Esperanto classes at primary and intermediate level. At the primary level, students learn how to read, write, speak Esperanto as well as 16 rules of grammar of Esperanto. If learning hard every day, after a 6-month course, students will be able to communicate with international friends or write a letter to discuss various issues related to daily life. After six months learning intermediate programs, students will be able to communicate, exchange letters with international friends, read and easily understand some literary work easily.
More and more international Esperanto Associations visited Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City. The Esperanto Associations frequently hosts meetings among their members, and how exciting it is to hear members of the Esperanto Associations present their tradition, customs and scenery. VEA has many times organized trips for their own members and UEA’s to have the opportunity to visit the scenic spots around the area. Such exchanges are a good chance for VEA to practice foreign languages, retighten relations among the Esperanto Associations from different countries. From the date of “innovation”, VEA has visited many international friends.
One more activity that Ho Chi Minh City Esperanto Associations attracted much attention was publishing many articles and books. In the past few years, there was time when HEA was in charge of translating Vietnamese articles into Esperanto in order to circulate widely worldwide. It has also published collections of Vietnamese short stories and reprinted poems of Ho Chi Minh and To Huu in Esperanto. In spite of tight budget, in the late 90s HEA published a1500-page English-Esperanto dictionary, which was a miracle. In addition, 2800-page book “How to create words and sort questions in Esperanto” and a translation of epic poem “The Tale of Kieu” by Nguyen Du in Esperanto respectively were published, which was also highly appreciated.
During the last two decades, HEA has steadily released internal journals providing useful information and knowledge of the language Esperanto for its members.
Vietnam Esperanto Association is proud to be one of the active members of HUFO to contribute to its achievements in diplomatic mission.
