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Trung Vo from Vietnam
test specialist engineer
adept at recreating tough software bugs
didn’t communicate with spoken English well.
His boss’s boss had learned she could say anything 
who had climbed her career with a straight face 
argued against him for a raise
she said English so inept
makes an incomplete engineer.
Before the US, Trung had lived in Paris ten years
he told us his French was much better than English but
when at dinner in Paris with a frustrated waitress
we detected English leaking in and
there was a matter of Metro police stepping him off the train
his ticket insufficient for the ride.
Back in Boston Trung was a chef and an engineer
appreciating the promotion I’d pressed through
he baked a gourmet French cake as a holiday gift that year.