The person I'd like to talk about is a girl called Yến, who was in my class in my first year of high school in Huế, in Vietnam. We weren't particularly close before this happened, which is what made it so surprising.
I'd just moved from a village to the city, and I spoke with a strong rural accent. A group of boys in our class started copying the way I talked, especially when I answered questions. It went on for a few weeks, and it got to the point where I stopped putting my hand up at all, even when I knew the answer.
One day in a literature lesson, the teacher asked me to read a poem aloud. As soon as I started, the boys began imitating me under their breath, and a few people laughed. Yến, who sat in the front row, turned round and said, quite loudly, "If you can read it better, go ahead." The room went silent. Then, at lunchtime, she came and sat with me, and the next day she told our form teacher what had been happening. The teasing stopped within about a week.
I felt a mixture of things. In the moment, I was embarrassed, because suddenly everyone was looking at me. But that feeling turned into enormous gratitude. She had nothing to gain from defending me, and she risked becoming a target herself. We became good friends after that and still are, even though she's now studying medicine in Saigon. More than anything, it taught me that one person speaking up can change a whole room. I've tried to do the same for others since.