Two ambitious academics and friends supporting each others non-conformity. In episode 11 we join the conversation of Trang and Mai, two aspiring PHD candidates, as they talk about reducing poverty, Vietnam's masculinity crisis, and what they'd do with the power to change policies. Hai học giả tham vọng đồng thời là hai người bạn luôn hỗ trợ lẫn nhau . Trong tập 11, chúng tôi trò chuyện cùng Trang và Mai, hai nghiên cứu sinh, và nghe họ chia sẻ về việc giảm thiểu đói nghèo, khủng hoảng nam tính ở Việt Nam, và những việc họ sẽ làm để thay đổi các chính sách công. Transcript For full transcript, click "Next" [FULL TRANSCRIPT] This is Vietnam’s Renovation Generation. Sonic portraits of young minds re-shaping the country's future. For episode eleven we met the two NGO workers Trang and Mai who have dedicated their working lives to reducing poverty and fighting inequality in Vietnam. They first crossed life paths on their masters degree a few years ago, and have remained close friends ever since. They often meet up  to talk about your typical things like public policy, Vietnam’s masculinity crisis and equality in pay and love. This time, we joined them in their conversation.. I think among our friends I only have the same path with Trang. Other of my friends say “why do you do a PHD, why don’t you stay in Vietnam, settle down and get married doing something like that?!" That’s Mai I like hanging with her, at least I can talk about the topics that I am interested... I don't think many of my friends are interested in listening to those things. And that’s Trang They were both born in 1987 in rural areas just outside of Hanoi, but eventually collided when they won scholarships to study micro-finance, development and poverty eradication in the UK. These are things they became interested in during their studies in Hanoi. I think my friends, like my close friends think I’m independent, strong and ambitious…most of people think I am ambitious, but I’m not sure whether it’s true or not. We’ll let YOU be the judge of that. This is them speaking back in 2013 from their student houses in Brighton where they were studying in the UK. In the first few weeks I was really confused with the way people study here. In all the lectures and seminars every problems that we were discussing the conclusion is we didn't know enough or it's not good. So it's really confusing then so what is the good thing and what should we learn. What I figure out is that yeah the reality is not good and that' why we are here trying to study and later we can improve the reality. It got easier for them after a while.  When we met, Trang was working as a freelance consultant for charities, and Mai was full-time at an international NGO in Hanoi. Live in England was really free, I was alone, independently. Coming back it's like bring ourselves back to all types of social  relationships and social pressure. How to deal with family and jobs and college. I have the same feeling. I feel a little bit lost for a couple of months, especially before I found a job. And friends started asking: Ok, so now you’ve finished your master, when will you get married? You must have a lot of money. People ask you like really openly how much money do you earn? Always the first question Really... Yeah. I always tell them 5 million a month. [MUSIC] But having to lie about salaries is not the only thing that changed after they returned home. Coming back, it seems that the men look at me differently and I become somehow scary for them, so they didn't even dare to ask me out. Sometimes in the conversation, it seems that they hint “she’s well educated”, I didn't even think about it, but in their perspective I’m somehow little bit higher. And for a man to acc