Saigon ‘bad kid’ a refugee success
After the Vietnam War ravaged his homeland, Hao Lam tried to flee Saigon more than 10 times.
In 1988, at the age of 20, he succeeded, arriving at a refugee camp in the Philippines after spending seven treacherous days on a fishing boat with nearly 150 other people, seasick and low on food and water.
“I looked around and cried,” said Lam, now 51, recalling the boat journey. “I didn’t know if I was going to see another sunset. I didn’t know if I was going to see my parents again.”
After about a year in the refugee camp, he moved in with extended family in Canada, where he earned a high school diploma in two years and graduated from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. In 1995, he moved to Seattle to join his wife, Lisa — another passenger from the fishing boat escape.
His career path wasn’t clear. He barely knew English and wasn’t sure if his mathematics degree could get him a job.
Twentyfive years later, Lam owns the Best in Class Education Center franchise, a network of 65 tutoring centers across 13 states — including 12 in the Bay Area — that provide supplemental education for elementary and high school
students. The most recent centers opened in Palo Alto and San Jose earlier this year.
For Lam, a motivational speaker and author, the centers symbolize not just his success in America, but what he wants to pass on to future generations. The forprofit centers are especially popular among Asian immigrant families who want their children to advance academically.
“Education is so important to me because I didn’t have it (growing up),” Lam said. “I think everything is possible. Look at me — a street kid who left Vietnam with nothing.”
Lam, who still lives in Seattle, admits his upbringing didn’t exactly set him up to become an educational leader. Raised in the poorest Saigon slum, he hardly went to school, instead playing soccer and picking fights with neighborhood kids, he said.
“I was really bad,” he said. “I stole. I fought. I did a lot of horrible things because I was just a bad kid. I did everything besides go to school.”
When Saigon fell to communist North Vietnamese on April 30, 1975, Lam said his father, Tham Lam, disappeared. Tham Lam, a South Vietnamese soldier working for the United States, was shot in the leg in battle, captured and sent to a reeducation camp, where hundreds of thousands of military officers and government workers were imprisoned by Vietnam’s communist government.
“We thought he was dead,” said Lam of his father. “He came home a year later and I couldn't even recognize him.”
It was when Lam turned 18 — the age for mandatory service in the Vietnamese military — that his need to escape became urgent. His father offered people bribes to get Lam a spot on the fishing boat, he said.
Lam spent one year in Palawan, Philippines, learning the English alphabet in the refugee camp. While getting his high school and college degrees in Canada, he tutored his peers in math to earn extra credits. That small gig sparked a passion for teaching.
He opened his own tutoring center in 1995. He franchised the business in 2010.
“I didn’t even know that franchising is a different animal,” he said. “When I franchised, my phone didn’t ring. It took me a few years to learn.”
The majority of students at the centers are looking to get ahead, rather than catch up, in school, Lam said.
The franchise offers test and college prep, tutoring in math and English, and developmental programs for young children that focus on letter and number recognition, phonics and counting, among other lessons.
Kevin Lee, director of the Best in Education Center in San Francisco’s Chinatown, said students’ confidence benefits from the small tutortostudent ratio.
Lee, 39, said he’s thankful Lam brought him on board after he graduated from UC Berkeley.
“I’m so lucky to work with him and to know him,” he said.
Lam has additional centers planned in Dublin and Pleasanton, and in Texas.
“As a refugee … today I’m still saying it’s a dream,” Lam said. “I feel grateful every single day. I don’t take anything for granted.”