Toxic

“Words don't cost money/ Choose your words carefully to please… voters”

That is the 4.0 version of the folk song that a group of delegates silently memorized. The heat or cold of public opinion sometimes depends a lot on the actions of politicians, most of which are conveyed through the gateway of language.

Perhaps no keyword this past week was big enough to surpass the word lu. A representative's statement on anti-corruption solutions has sparked a fury about the capacity of representatives and even the quality of academic degrees.

Netizens have too many reasons and endless emotions to exploit the keyboard's capacity to the fullest. If that were a motorbike taxi driver's statement at a village meeting, it might have been different. While pouring thousands of billions into the problem without solving anything, using jars, bowls, or even cans to prevent flooding is still more beneficial to the country and the people, at least it is not as harmful.

The story is not a proposal from a head with a common mentality, but a speech by an Associate Professor at a city-level conference. The owner of this unique idea later explained that this was not her own idea but a product that had been put into practice in Japan. As for the jar, it is a folk saying, it is a wonderful combination of human scientific achievements with a thousand-year-old ceramic tradition to "promote the rich national identity". Needless to say, netizens cursed each other. After using prose, people turned to poetry, after poetry, they turned to photos, after photos, they also made music. People also dug up her private life, blood relations, even extracted her academic titles to mock her. Poor her.

A calm person blames her for not researching thoroughly before making the proposal. In foreign countries, people use flood-prevention tanks as a form of water circulation regulation. When it rains heavily, water flows into the tank, they only temporarily hold it here, after the flood is over, people pump it out to the drainage system to prepare for the next storage, this is exactly a collection tank. But Ms. Dinh's tiny, cute jar is different (from a dynamic state to a static state). Could it be that yesterday the jar was full of rain, and today it rains "second time" and she has to boil it to drink it all to store another layer? That's not to mention high tides, could it be that she used a ladle to scoop water into the jar to prevent flooding? The use of regulating tanks has been applied in many places around the world. But the idea of ​​mobilizing jars for combined use in daily life is truly unique. As for netizens, they couldn't control their emotions and were drawn in by the crowd, so their words were too much! And her threat to use the Cyber ​​Security Law to “control” public opinion is truly unique!

Speaking of the word “poison”, let me say a few words about it. Poison is something that can harm the health or kill living things (poison). The word “poison” can also refer to a type of personality, behavior, or human behavior (vicious, evil). The most common use of the word “poison” is to mean “unique”!

A Buddhist doctor who is the abbot of two temples has just been arrested for raping a 14-year-old girl. That is evil. The price of electricity and water that makes waves is an inevitable consequence of monopoly. And the officials who say they don’t know about the recent increase in their children’s scores are a form of poisonous mouth. To society, they are… poison!

When I was in high school, my class had a friend named Hung who was a real troublemaker. Hung was the ringleader of all the mischief, even the "boss" not only in the class but also in the school. The homeroom teacher cried more than once because of Hung, and after many times of being helpless with the bad student, she asked to change classes to avoid the "boss". The school assigned a new homeroom teacher. On the first day of class activities, the young teacher said, "Who is Hung?" The whole class turned their eyes to the last table where the "boss" was sitting tearing paper to wrap firecrackers. "Hung, please stand up?" It was the first time she saw Hung obediently stand up. "Thank you, please sit down." Then she continued, "Like this, I see Hung sitting at the last table, convenient for observing, Hung is also very interested in by the students in the class. So I assigned Hung to be the class vice-president, in charge of arts and classroom discipline. What do you think, everyone in the class?" Without anyone saying anything, suddenly there was a burst of applause. So from then on Hung changed. Last year, on the occasion of November 20th, as usual, Hung and I visited my old teacher. Recalling the old story, she said, “If we hadn’t played the card game of fighting poison with poison, I’m sure you wouldn’t have remembered to visit me today.”

So, there are things that are very toxic but also very precious. Arsenic is a carcinogen, but arsenic itself not only cures syphilis but is also used in combination to cure a rare type of cancer (acute primary leukemia). Cobra venom is extremely toxic, but it is snake venom that is the savior for 150 million arthritis patients around the world. Even the legendary killer plant called aconite. Last year, aconite, which was already famous for thousands of sad love stories, suddenly became famous again because a delegate proposed using aconite to carry out death sentences instead of expensive lethal injections! It is so toxic that it was dragged into the parliament, but I heard that aconite is a medicine to treat boils, which is shocking....

Remembering the saying “Misfortunes never come singly, happiness never comes twice”, the fable about the jar had not yet cooled down when this delegate immediately continued to heat up the online community for the second time by proposing to use tough measures to “send” immigrants in Ho Chi Minh City back home. With the musical simile “Em oi do thanh gio nay anh song khong quen” she officially became a “public figure”. Laughing to death! Just by doing this, she deserves to be an artist in adding fuel to the fire. Netizens thanked her for her “American-style” proposal! Without that strong statement, how many people would have known that the female delegate was born in Cambodia and grew up in the countryside… in the west! A rather poisonous act of chasing relatives. If this case had fallen into the hands of my former homeroom teacher, who knows, the delegate might have been appointed “vice-president in charge of immigration issues”.

It is also medicine, but tonics taken for a month may not be effective, while poison only needs a little bit to be "returned to its final resting place"! Adding a little bit of goodness to life is sometimes harder than doing the opposite. At first, thinking about the can or the jar is just a reflux in the process of digesting information, then everything will be calm again. Perhaps we need to get used to the difference, even the abnormality, although in our country it is still very rare. "Following the beaten path is the job of sheep" humanity would not be what it is today without independent research ideas, even crazy and being chased away.

But to “grab” an achievement, humanity has also had to go through countless other crazy and useless ideas. Not every different thinking is successful, but not every crazy idea is a waste. Respecting that difference is the request of the development process. You may not love it, but please do not throw it away, at least do not say cruel words to it!