Wind of peace on the good land
The wind still blows, the clouds still drift, and peace to me is simply everyone's lips smiling the most peaceful smiles!
• April 22, 2025
These days, everyone is looking towards Ho Chi Minh City with eager anticipation of a historic moment. Half a century has passed, no one would have thought that the land that once lit up the night with a bright light would now be radiant with majestic skyscrapers and a modern train line running across the city. My mother still often exclaims how beautiful the city is now! The woman who went through the war when she was just in her early twenties, now with hair as white as morning dew, still often tells old stories about this land to her children.
For about half a month now, the city sky has been rumbling with the sound of airplanes. The strange thing, as my mother said, is that in the past, when they heard the sound of airplanes, they would hide, but now people pour out into the streets, look up and laugh and talk in an extremely refreshing way. That refreshing feeling can only be brought by peace. But the peace of the S-shaped strip of land is a period of arduous but indomitable fighting. The war has passed, but it has left behind stories that, 50 years later, still resonate in the hearts of the nation. From grandparents, to parents and to us, those who were not born during the war, but the generational memories have continued and inscribed in our minds an extremely sacred pride.
Just recently, in the first days of historic April, I went to exchange with students at a university in Ho Chi Minh City. The auditorium of about 300 students was silent when the students chose to perform a play about the war right on the stage of that event. The strange thing was that when the play ended, the song about youth and those resilient years was played on the sound system, right below the stage, the students clapped and sang along very heroically. When I asked them if peace was beautiful, almost in unison, 300 students shouted: Very beautiful. Peace is beautiful not because of the magnificent skyscrapers, not because of the trains, and certainly not because of the branded smartphones, but because right in this auditorium, we sit here, enjoying the peace and still singing revolutionary songs with a grateful heart for those who died so that the country could be united. Peace is beautiful and can be even more brilliant if each young person knows how to beautify it with knowledge and dedication to their Fatherland. During that exchange, I was quite surprised because the young people themselves had made an appointment to wear red shirts with yellow stars, a meeting on April 30 on the streets where the parade and marching procession passed by. That is the beauty of peace that young people are building with action and awareness.
Several relatives on my mother's side insisted on renting a 16-seat car from Dong Thap to Ho Chi Minh City a day in advance and staying until the weekend to celebrate the holiday. Celebrating the holiday means going to see the parade, marching, firing cannons, riding the train... Everything was carefully scheduled by my uncle. He followed his grandmother to Saigon when he was just a teenager. On the day of liberation, he was also afraid and hid in the house. When he heard the radio announce the surrender, his grandmother took him to the alley to watch the tanks passing Nga Bay in the direction of Phu Lam, heading to the military headquarters. He said that was the moment he knew the country would be quiet, he would be able to return to school and study properly. 50 years passed in the blink of an eye, he returned to his mother's hometown and chose to stay in his hometown and work as a civil servant from the commune to the province until the day he retired. Peace to him meant being able to live, to live without the anxiety of living between life and death. Like the stories of brothers and relatives, there are people who escape and never return.
The citizens of this land are probably the most eager to wait for the moment of national pride to be solemnly celebrated right in the most developed metropolis of this country. People still compare this land to a good land with all eight directions, four directions converging, living together, working together and having fun together. Nowhere like this land, openness, tolerance, generosity and justice have created a multi-dimensional developing city. Here, everything can interact and gradually become an indispensable harmony on the development journey. As the Hero of the People's Armed Forces - Colonel Nguyen Thi Thao once shared with me, that is the result of peace. Only when living in peace can people and the country have the conditions to move forward. In the memories still anchored in the mind of this 85-year-old female spy, at the first moment of liberating Saigon, she and her comrades hugged each other and shouted: "Peace". Her joy at that time was a smile through tears. However, 50 years later, her joy of peace is more complete than ever with a smile on her lips.
In April, Ho Chi Minh City is sunny and windy. I walked from Nguyen Hue Street, the busiest street in the city, to Bach Dang River Park, where the artillery is being displayed and rehearsed. On a weekend afternoon, the crowd was jam-packed, everyone was laughing and taking pictures as souvenirs. There were couples in love who chose this moment to take meaningful wedding photos. The artillery soldiers were often approached by many people asking to take pictures with them. All of them had the brightest smiles. The wind still blew, the clouds still drifted, and peace to me was simply the most peaceful smiles on everyone's lips!
