Before he actually passed away this morning, the second day of the Lunar New Year, poet Giang Nam was rumored to have passed away a few years ago. I don’t know how he was so devastated, but a leader of a Western Literature and Arts Association wrote on Facebook “farewell to poet Giang Nam”, then left it there… to go out. So there was a flood of condolences. I knew for sure that Uncle Giang Nam was still well because I had just spoken to him on the phone a few days ago. But I was still half-believing, half-doubting, so I called poet Tran Chan Uy, a junior of his in Nha Trang, and on the phone, I heard poet Tran Chan Uy swearing. It was a whole day later that the guy who “farewelled to poet Giang Nam” returned to Facebook and… corrected it.
The first time I met poet Giang Nam was in Nha Trang, in the early 80s of the last century. Knowing that he was the one I was going to attend, I was very nervous. And then, he appeared, warm and friendly. What I liked most was that he called me by name when I greeted him before leaving.
After that, one time he went to Pleiku, I organized a poetry night in which he would be the main character. I remember, when he appeared, the whole hall, mostly students from the Pedagogical College, stood up and crowded close to him to… admire. One friend honestly said: I thought Uncle Giang Nam was… a martyr. That’s right, everyone had learned the poem “Homeland”, now they had just met the author in person.
But not everyone understands the poem thoroughly, as evidenced by the time I wrote a short article about visiting his house in Nha Trang, seeing her, the former guerrilla, making fish sauce to sell, I bought a few liters to eat and as a gift, many friends came in and wondered, where is that guerrilla… who sacrificed herself?
Later on, I met him more often, especially when he was the Chairman of Khanh Hoa Literature and Arts Association, I worked at Gia Lai Literature and Arts Association, the relationship between the two associations of Khanh Hoa and Gia Lai was quite close at that time, after he became Vice Chairman of the province, the relationship became less, although once I joked with him that yesterday I saw him waving the flag for the bicycle race to start, could he pedal along for a while, he laughed, I sat in the car and followed the brothers for a while.
Since he retired, I often met him because he often traveled and I often visited Nha Trang. Most of his trips were related to literary activities. At that time, I was a member of the Executive Committee of the Vietnam Writers Association, Head of the Writers Association's Membership Committee in the Central and Central Highlands, so of course we often met.
When he was over eighty years old, we met at a literary conference in Da Nang, right on the occasion of an international football tournament. Before that, he had to undergo a major surgery, cutting open his chest to connect his blood vessels, and then had to take blood vessels from his arm and connect them to the heart stem to make the blood flow smoothly, because he was blocked by atherosclerosis. He opened his hand to show me the scar running along his arm. He had a blocked coronary artery. Like other people, they would put a stent. But his was so severely blocked, it would take more than ten sections. So an idea came: Cut him open, take blood vessels from his legs and arms and connect them, like in the subsidy period when we had to put a tube in our tires. Before that, several French doctors personally examined him, and they… shook their heads. Because he was old, over 70, surgery was no longer recommended, as the medical literature said, and he was still weak.
Either way… he was going to die. When someone suggested the option of a direct laparotomy, he immediately agreed. And the surgery was successful beyond expectations. It is said that the French professors still… shook their heads because they could not understand. After that, he was very healthy and clear-headed. A normal person at that age would have become confused, let alone a poet. People often looked down on poets as being senile and having mental problems. But he had no “problems”, because he had been the Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of Phu Khanh Province, the Chairman of the Literature and Arts Association, and before that, he had been the Editor-in-Chief of the Literature and Arts newspaper of the Writers’ Association. And he was completely alert, behaved coherently, walked straight, laughed heartily, and even talked about… women and girls. Therefore, he was very eager to watch the 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. matches, and skipped the late-night matches. But the next morning, the first thing he said after opening his eyes was: Who won the match last night?
I remember the time when there was an Asia-Pacific poetry conference, we arrived at Noi Bai Airport, the Vietnam Writers Association sent a car to pick him and me up on the same flight. At that time, he was 87 years old. But when sitting in the car, looking at his face, seeing the way he carried his bag and climbed into the car, refusing my offer to help, no one would think he was an old man, only 3 years from now he would be 90 years old. When we returned, it was still me and him going to the airport, I took him to the check-in gate and then said goodbye because his gate was different from mine, still no one would think he was that old even though the staff asked him to sign a guarantee paper.
On that trip back, I wrote an article about him and the strange surgery he underwent in the Health and Life newspaper. One day he called me, chuckling: I just read the article you wrote about me, I was so happy, I laughed until I cried. Oh, where did you read it? Ah, the Director of Khanh Hoa Department of Health read the newspaper and saw an article about me so he brought it as a gift. At that age, I should call him uncle. I see a few people older than me calling him uncle. But I have been calling him brother for a long time, so I took the opportunity to "present" it on the phone, he chuckles: Just feel free to call him brother. I said: Well, if you live another 13 years, it will be fine, at 100 years old, you have to let us juniors follow you. He chuckles again and tells me his mobile number and says he will call me from time to time so we can chat. I asked him if he had an email, he read it, but said it was his nephew's email, if anything happens he will let me know...
Then he told me a friend bragged to him: How happy I am, now I don't have to write or think, just play. He immediately replied: Oh no, I have to do it, no matter how lazy I am, I have to read and write for a few hours a day. Even though I know I don't write well anymore, but now I write for... exercise, not for composing like before. Having said that, I still occasionally read his poems in the newspaper, and still see him answer TV interviews very well. He told me that his old friends, when they get old, change their personalities, and suffer a lot. One of them chased his wife and children away to live alone, and when he visited, he saw how miserable it was but he couldn't give any advice. Another one went around every morning, picking up whatever he saw, his favorite being... diapers. After picking them up, he went to whoever had a mailbox and dropped them in...
This morning, he passed away peacefully, at the age of 96. I remember the day his wife, his guerrilla, who later went to make traditional fish sauce in Nha Trang, left him first, also very peacefully, lying in a hammock resting, then she passed away. He had a harder time, lying in the hospital for several months, then passed away, I heard also very peacefully.
From afar, I bid him farewell with a few trivial stories about him, a personality, a will to live, and a very optimistic attitude. And thanks to his optimism, he lived a long life, and was very peaceful...
