Phan Thuy Thanh - the only female ambassador of Vietnam
“Where is our female ambassador?” the Prime Minister suddenly asked as he didn’t see ambassador Phan Thuy Thanh in the group of Vietnamese ambassadors who were taking a photo with him at the Diplomats’ Meeting 24.
The heart of the ambassador
Speaking about the task of protecting Vietnamese citizens abroad, Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem, who is also the Foreign Minister, said: “Such cases like Buu Huy couldn’t be solved without Ambassador Phan Thuy Thanh”.
Asked about Buu Huy, Deputy Director of Agifish, who was suddenly arrested at an international fair in Belgium and detained for over 100 days, Vietnam’s Ambassador to Belgium Phan Thuy Thanh always gently refused to answer: “It has passed”.
She didn’t want to talk much about what she had done. However, without her intervention, Mr Buu Huy couldn’t have been cleared from the charge at the Belgium court and escaped from being extradited to the US.
“When Buu Huy was arrested, his wife - Thuc Hanh - met me and cried a lot, saying that she didn’t expect that it would happen like this and how could their children live without their father. I’m also a woman so I understand Thuc Hanh’s pain and consoled her. I think that if I had been in her circumstance, I also would not have known what to do,” Ms Thanh said.
One day after Mr Buu Huy was arrested, representatives of the Vietnamese Embassy in Belgium entered the detention room to visit him. Two days later the embassy sent diplomatic notes to every related agency.
The Vietnamese Embassy organised many meetings with relevant agencies in Belgium to talk about Buu Huy's case. Ms Thanh said that it was not simply the case of Mr Buu Huy, but the prestige and honour of Vietnamese businessmen. Finally, Mr Buu Huy was released.
Strong attachment to external press activities
Graduating from the Institute for International Relations in 1974, Ms Thanh became an employee of the Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From an expert of the Press Department, she became the assistant to the spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry, the spokeswoman of the ministry, and now the Vietnamese Ambassador to Belgium and to the European Union. She is one of few experts of the Foreign Ministry who have been involved in journalistic tasks for over 30 years.
Her son has succeeded his mother. He also graduated from the Institute for International Relations and is now an employee of the Press Department of the Foreign Ministry.
“I’m lucky to have had opportunities to immediately work in a good environment since I left university. Journalistic tasks in the diplomatic field have helped me a lot in the position of a spokeswoman and this new post (ambassador),” she said.
The ambassador still remembers her first disappointment. At that time she was the youngest expert of the Press Department. She was assigned to guide a group of foreign journalists to the south of Vietnam.
Those foreign journalists were very experienced and it was difficult for Ms Thanh to explain to them about some places that they couldn’t visit.
A foreign journalist didn’t accept Ms Thanh’s explanation, saying that she lied and wanted to hide the truth. When the group of foreign journalists returned to the north, the reporter complained to Ms Thanh’s superiors. Luckily, other foreign journalists understood the situation. They defended Thanh and didn’t agree with that journalist.
That’s an experience that Ms Thanh has never forgotten. When she became the spokeswoman of the Foreign Ministry, Ms Thanh realised that only one inaccurate sentence can make an impact on many people. She was very sad when her words were quoted wrongly by some reporters.
Being a gentle and considerate woman, Ambassador Thanh always receives the affection and confidence of partners. Her womanly gentleness is an advantage for her. When she was the spokeswoman of the Foreign Ministry, she won the affection of many foreign reporters, who called her Madame Thanh.
The relationships between Vietnam and Belgium as well as Vietnam and the European Union have developed well with the contributions of Ambassador Thanh.
Behind a successful woman
A husband who understands and sympathises with his wife, a big family with members who know how to help and share everything with each other: that’s the foundation for the success of Ambassador Phan Thuy Thanh.
It is lucky that Ms Thanh’s husband is also an expert in the Foreign Ministry so he understands his wife’s job.
Ms Thanh’s family has lived together with her parents-in-law for years. Her parents-in-law have helped her out much in taking care her children and her houses for the past 20 years.
The secrets of Ambassador Thanh to fulfilling her job and her responsibilities as a wife and a mother are self adjustment, both herself and her job, and respecting what she has. When she worked in Vietnam, she stopped everything to spend whole weekends with her family.
At home, Ms Thanh is a normal woman who loves cooking and decorating her house. In Belgium, without the help of a charwoman, all members in her family share housework. Sometimes the ambassador feels uneasy for having little time for her family.
“Without the sympathy and assistance of my husband, my children and the families of the two sides, how can I fulfill the responsibilities of a wife, a mother and a diplomat? For me, my family is everything,” Ambassador Thanh said.
Gia Dinh - March 17, 2007.
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