"Listening to the boat singing at night, I miss Uncle Ho"

(Baonghean) - These days, Kim Lien, Nam Dan is always crowded with people coming to visit the Tru village relic site, Sen village and the tomb of Hoang Thi Loan. I'm far away so I don't have many opportunities, but when I was still in school, I visited Uncle Ho's hometown more than ten times. Every year, schools and agencies organize for students and staff children to report to Uncle Ho. The other day, my nephew bragged about going to the school's Uncle Ho's Good Children Congress, going to Uncle Ho's hometown, which made me think back to my school days and suddenly feel nostalgic.

I have been to Uncle Ho's hometown so often that I know the face of the tour guide and narrator in the thatched houses in Uncle Ho's paternal and maternal villages very well, and I know the stories she tells about each house and each object. This is the loom where Uncle Ho's mother used to weave cloth to earn money to support her husband and children, right next to it is the hammock where she used to lull her child to sleep while weaving cloth, this is the burnt bed that had to be sawed off in part, which Uncle Ho still recognizes after many years of visiting his hometown, and this is where the intellectuals of that time sat and discussed the country's affairs when Uncle Ho was still just a boy standing outside the door quietly listening. In the quiet but passionate voice of the narrator, the thatched house was naturally dimmed as if there were no traces of time left, a folk song and the creaking sound of the hammock echoed from time immemorial, making everyone silent, startled and sad, but also more respectful of the father of the nation.

Tru village and Sen village have changed a lot today. Apart from Uncle Ho's house relic site, the poor countryside of the past now no longer has earthen walls and thatched houses. If there is anything that remains with Uncle Ho's years of life, it is probably the lotus scent that fills people's hearts every month and year, or the folk songs and ferry songs that Uncle Ho spent his childhood traveling through the length and breadth, and then throughout his life, Uncle still lingers and misses the Lam River, its waves and the moonlit night singers.

In a foreign land, whenever someone asks where my hometown is, I am always proud to say that I was born in the homeland of President Ho Chi Minh. To see that land is no longer just a place name, but when we mention it, we cannot help but feel boundless gratitude for the land that gave birth to and formed the person, personality, and ideology of the national liberation hero. To see that the old son from Sen village went to find a way to save the country, now has made the whole homeland, the country, and the people famous.

Talking about the land of love where he was born, Uncle Ho was moved on the day of his return:

Homeland is a place of great love and affection,
How much love those fifty years!

We have been following the moral example of Ho Chi Minh, learning from him from the simplest, closest and most humane things such as the morality of living with love for the homeland, the ideal of living to protect and build the homeland to be more and more beautiful... If we grow up and become strong but still remain loyal to our roots like Uncle Ho (who, despite traveling through many countries and speaking many languages, still kept his deep Nghe accent, still yearning for his homeland), we ourselves will be honored by the world, but also honor our homeland, so that our homeland will be famous and famous forever.

Uncle, tonight we sing the Vi Dam and Do Dua songs with immense longing. If the songs Uncle used to listen to were for people who lost their country, today we sing songs of independence and freedom, songs of Uncle's longing from the past. And the songs of building and protecting the homeland that Uncle spent his whole life to liberate, are still waiting for us to continue writing and singing, isn't that right, beloved Uncle?

Hai Trieu (Email from Paris)