Overseas Vietnamese attend "Spring in the homeland": Proud of Lac Hong's descendants

Overseas Vietnamese returning to their homeland amid the warm weather and golden sunshine, the capital city seemed to light up, beaming with happiness as they gathered to attend the program "Spring Homeland - Glorious Lac Hong" 2014 which will take place tonight, at Thang Long Imperial Citadel, Hanoi.

The handshakes seemed tighter, the looks seemed more passionate of the children of Vietnam for each other when they were thousands of miles away from each other in five continents and four oceans and suddenly met in their homeland. The joy spread from the confusion of the overly honest sharing to the laughter and the voices still imbued with the regional accent of the children who had been away from home for almost half a century. For them, just standing here, in the middle of windy Hanoi, speaking their mother tongue with their fellow countrymen was enough to make their hearts flutter with emotion...

New Year's Eve in the snow country...

“Thousands of miles away, the Tet feast is still set up/ Green Chung cake, jar of hometown sticky rice wine/ Five-fruit tray, incense smoke billowing/ Calendar by the wall, peach blossoms with red color/ My heart is filled with sadness in the deserted neighborhood/ The shadow of an old father cleaning the ancestral altar/ Mother busily keeping watch over the fire/ Listening to anxious footsteps looking over the threshold/ I cannot return to visit my parents/ My heart aches with red scars that have not healed/ I have not yet collapsed before the storm like fate/ Sadness turns the whole day white/ I have everything but how can I have Tet/ There are so many strangers around me/ Behind the window, the clouds are hazy and snowy/ The red fire in the stove, my mother's figure is so far away...”

Doctor of Literature Nguyen Huy Hoang (from the Russian Federation) began his nostalgia for Tet holidays far from home with a poem that, as he said, was thousands of miles away, surrounded by white snow and hard-working Vietnamese people, in that atmosphere he wrote this poem.

The man with white hair said: “Every two years I return to Vietnam to celebrate Tet. People in the country will not see all the obvious changes in Vietnam's appearance, but I come back from afar and see that my country has changed a lot in recent years, from the faces of more dynamic people, young people with more thinking and knowledge than our time, and more adequate means and material. However, the gap between urban and rural areas is too big. I believe that in the near future Vietnam can be on par with many powerful countries in the world because we have enough conditions to integrate.”

According to Mr. Hoang, with the problems that still exist such as food safety and hygiene, social evils... Vietnam can completely solve them in the near future.

Currently, it is estimated that about 100,000 Vietnamese people live in the Russian Federation, mainly in Moscow. Due to convenient transportation, in recent years: “What is traditional Vietnamese people is easily 'exported' to Russia. We still celebrate New Year's Eve, have a New Year's Eve meal like at home, early on the first day of the new year we also choose the first person to enter our house, give lucky money to children, and welcome guests to our house to wish us a happy new year... We all maintain the customs like in Vietnam when we come here. The most special thing that will probably surprise you is that every family in Russia has an ancestral altar, even students. That shows that Vietnamese culture will always exist,” said Mr. Hoang.

According to the doctor who has settled in Russia for a quarter of a century, the young generation of Vietnamese people in Russia still like Vietnamese food. However, the problem is that families with conditions and care can have their children learn their mother tongue and understand their roots, while many families are busy working and almost leave their children to the school to educate, so the children easily lose many traditional values. But in return, the children are very good at studying and achieving many high achievements, which is undeniable.

...And the pride of Lac Hong's descendants

For the second generation born and raised in Thailand like Mr. Phan Van Vuong, even though he had to live in a foreign land since childhood, at that time life was still poor, but every spring, Mr. Vuong and his siblings in the family were still bought new clothes by their grandparents and parents, eagerly welcoming the traditional New Year. Little Vuong at that time had the opportunity to live in an atmosphere of making banh chung, Tet parallel sentences, incense sticks, offering prayers to welcome the New Year... of the Vietnamese community in Thailand.

“This tradition has educated and created in us a sense of national pride, self-respect, love for our homeland, the birthplace of our ancestors, respect and value the good customs and traditions of the Vietnamese people, and remember and look back to our roots. We will also vow to educate our children to preserve and promote this good tradition forever,” Mr. Vuong shared.

However, every time he returns to his homeland to celebrate Tet, besides his pride in tradition, Mr. Vuong also worries about educating, teaching, and encouraging the "children of Lac Hong" to preserve and promote their mother tongue and the good customs and practices of their people in Thailand.

Because, the generation of people like Mr. Vuong always keep in mind that, in addition to using their intelligence and intelligence to contribute to the host country, the Vietnamese community must also actively contribute to the cause of building and protecting the beloved homeland of Vietnam.

“To achieve that goal, we see that in addition to establishing schools and classes to teach Vietnamese, it is necessary to build a cultural center in the Northeast region of Thailand,” said Mr. Vuong.

As for Ms. Pham Thi Thuan, the woman who surprised everyone because although she was nearly 60 years old, she looked as young as if she were in her early 40s, but her family was divided quite uniquely. Having settled in the Czech Republic for nearly a few decades, her husband had to stay in Hanoi due to illness, while her son lived and worked in Ho Chi Minh City, while she and her daughter worked in the Czech Republic. That is why every year she spends about two months returning to Vietnam to celebrate Tet.

For this simple, honest woman, “The most important thing about Tet is family reunion to strengthen the bond between husband, wife, and children, and make up for the distance...,” Ms. Thuan said emotionally./.

According to Vietnam +