"Artist"

I really, didn't think I was also... an Artist.

My background from the past to the present states: Father's hometown is Thua Thien - Hue, mother's hometown is Ninh Binh, born, raised and attended high school in Thanh Hoa city, attended university in Hue and now in... Pleiku, absolutely has nothing to do with Nghe.

When I was a child in Thanh Hoa, I only knew that the train to Vinh was the end of the road. Quang Binh, Vinh Linh was a place so far away, mysterious, and endless like... another world. My house was right next to the train tracks, so the dream of getting on a train to the last station in the South was always an urge that I could never fulfill. Every time I got on a train, I went to the North.

Then after 1975, my dream came true. From Thanh Hoa, my three children took the train to Vinh station, which was near... 1 week, so they could buy a bus ticket to Hue. The arduous wait to buy a bus ticket, which anyone who has ever experienced, will certainly not forget, made me, a boy who had just graduated from high school, have a closer look at Vinh.

It turns out that Vinh is also... modern, even though the train station and Vinh bus station at that time were a huge chaos with thousands of people crowded 24/24 hours, the smell of sweat, sewage and human waste, the screams of theft, chasing, fighting, the loudspeakers, the constant sound of police sirens made people in a state of tension, alertness and makeshift. Who knows, before hearing it was the end of the train, then being destroyed by American bombs until nothing was left, I thought it was like... a remote place. But it turned out it was also like... Thanh Hoa town where I lived. Not only that, Vinh girls were very beautiful. The imagination of a young man who was growing legs helped me to be more open-minded in my view of girls my age that I met at Vinh station. One afternoon, my father said, eating indiscriminately is both painful and a waste of money, go to someone's house and have them cook rice and bring it here for us to eat.

I held two bowls of rice wrapped in a handkerchief, and followed the railway tracks. After a while, I came across a house with dim oil lamps. I went in and greeted the landlady loudly, then she appeared. I explained the reason, the circumstances, the purpose, and the meaning... after a few minutes of investigation, she said: Go into the kitchen and cook.

There were only two brothers in the house, so cooking was as easy as... washing my hands. The rice was cooked in no time. While I was struggling to wrap the rice in a towel to take home or ask for a notice,... the homeowner's daughter appeared.

Not as active and quick as girls nowadays. This girl was shy and stammered, her face red with embarrassment, then said, "Grab it and take it home." Right. I washed the handkerchief and was about to use it to grab rice, but this girl said: "There are areca spathes." Honestly, sometimes I do grab rice, but with a handkerchief, but never with areca spathes. Of course, it was awkward, starting with the way to wash the areca spathes to make them soft and clean, so the girl... rolled up her sleeves.

That was the sweetest Nghe dialect I had ever heard, although to be honest there were many sentences I... didn't understand. But her breathing was light, her slightly sweaty sideburns seemed to tremble. That dark afternoon in Vinh, until now I still... wish I could go back. I still remember, she was in a class behind me...

Later, when I went to university in Hue, I met many... Artisans. After graduating and going to work, I also met Artisans, a lot of Artisans. Wherever there are Artisans, there is excitement right away, you can tell right away, there is no mistake, a "specialty" of Artisans that is both proud and conservative, both confident and dominating, both rough and rugged, both horizontal and... sharp.

I also play with some Artists.

Writer Pham Duc Long is from Yen Thanh. I heard that when he was in the countryside, it was very difficult. His father was the commune chairman, but his family was very poor, because he was very innocent. Later, his son was also innocent to the point of being ascetic. He studied at the University of Agriculture, graduated and went to Gia Lai to work. He waited for a whole month of the rainy season, felt so sad, didn't know what to do, so he... wrote poetry. But now he has more than 10 books, became a member of the Vietnam Writers Association. In the civil service, he is the head of the Gia Lai Rural Development Department, a not small position, a position that many people want. But with 3 years left until retirement age, he suddenly asked to retire early. In addition to writing and being the head of the department, he is very passionate about creativity, from making incubators for chickens, ducks, geese, and all kinds of eggs, now he incubates thousands of eggs for people every day, and also invented medicine to treat and prevent poultry diseases using leaves, etc.

In Dak Lak, there is Mr. Van Thanh, a former Chinese teacher from Nghe An who came to Buon Ma Thuot to write... poetry. Unlike Mr. Long, this man is stubborn and... uneducated. He has two famous verses about Bien Ho in Pleiku where I live:“I miss you so much, a lifetime without water/ that the stagnant pond became my ocean”. Really, only a very stubborn person with an... unfavorable view could discover that. I admire your intelligence.

The first time I met Mr. Van Nhu Cuong was at a... drinking party. I tiptoed over to get acquainted, he smiled and shook his white beard, I knew him. When drinking beer, he asked to pour it into a... bowl for him. I widened my eyes, he said drinking in a long line was more enjoyable. Later, when we became close, I learned about another Nghe character living in the capital. There was a stubbornness but moderation, a recklessness but meticulousness, a stormy but quietness. He was one of the very few Nghe people who spoke very softly, even during a drinking party, he also spoke very softly, and his hands and feet rarely... waved. The story of "The pig raising Professor Van Nhu Cuong" and his beard became an anecdote and a legend. In him, it seemed, conservatism and dissolution always flickered to create a Van Nhu Cuong that was very Nghe but also very Vietnamese.

The most tiring thing is playing with Mr. Le Huy Mau. This man is a brand name... of Art, of course there must be Mr. Tao, Nguyen Trong Tao, the two people who created the famous... Art song "Song Que Song".

One time I went to Hanoi for a meeting, borrowed a car, and invited Mr. Le Huy Mau to visit Thanh Hoa, where I had evacuated and had not returned for decades. I informed my friends and acquaintances there in advance, and they prepared to welcome me very sincerely and grandly. My old classmates were summoned back, and the commune secretary was also invited. When I entered, after a touching hug between my friends and me, I introduced myself: Poet Le Huy Mau, author of the lyrics of "Khuc Hat Song Que", and immediately I became... an extra person. Everyone surrounded Mau, five or seven people took out their phones to prove that their phone ringtone was set to "Khuc Hat Song Que", and someone called to show off that they were sitting with Khuc Hat Song Que. And then it was like that... more than half a lifetime of wandering was endless throughout the meeting, both on the phone and pretending...

Poet Nguyen Trong Tao was the one who wrote the introduction to my first collection of poems before he... read it, but when the book was printed and he reread it, he said, so it turns out I wrote it with... intuition, and it was true. I am a junior, I respect my older brother from... far away, but he always rushes to get close to me. He really likes to come to my house to "catch Yen Hau". Yen is my wife's name. If we choose a person with the most "sitting" ability in Vietnam, even the whole... world, we must immediately mention Mr. Tao. Mr. Tao can sit from... morning to afternoon. Then "get himself together" to sit from afternoon to... morning. My house in Pleiku has welcomed him several times like that. People around me, Nguyen Thuy Kha... were nodding off or completely collapsed, but he was still as steady as a rock. He is a true artist. Recently, he had a stroke, the whole Nghe An province was worried about him, worried practically, specifically, not just worried like the audience, readers with their beloved musician and poet. About half a year later, miraculously, he recovered, and was back to his usual activities, holding a glass of water of course. And then, almost a year later, he fell ill again. But I still see his pictures on Facebook, I still see him swaying here and there. Life is like that, live optimistically. It seems that I have never seen Mr. Tao so pessimistic, "Mr." Nghe is like that...

But then, he could not resist fate. More than a month before Tet, he passed away, at the age of 72. And, it can be said, there has never been a funeral as strange as his. Even when he was dying, his name was all over Facebook. After that, his funeral was packed with thousands of people, from Deputy Prime Ministers to Ministers, from writers to readers. And many people were surprised and exclaimed: It turns out that Nguyen Trong Tao is truly "extraordinary", only when he passed away did they realize how terrible the influence of his reputation, personality, talent, and humanity was? It has been a long time since someone passed away and moved society so much. It came naturally, no one forced it. Just like, Mr. Tao probably did not think that when he passed away, he would have so many lovers...

Right in Nghe An, in Hoang Mai town, I also have a “best friend”. I quote the word “best friend” because we are close friends but have never met. The time when the internet developed, it made people have unexpected communication behaviors like that. This guy plays Facebook, is my Facebook friend. He said he likes to read me, and invited me to visit Hoang Mai when I come to Nghe An. Importantly, he emphasized that I am a resident of Hoang Mai, the ancestral tomb 600 years ago originated in Hoang Mai. We kept talking to each other on Facebook, until one day I discovered that he was one of the “important people” of Hoang Mai. I admire this man for his extremely flexible and responsible view of current events, of human affairs, and especially, for being an “important person” who plays Facebook very “crazy”, although I have known many “important people” who play Facebook, to work, to grasp social information, to be close to the people and understand the people. What is more special is that he loves artists and intellectuals very much...

When the late history professor Tran Quoc Vuong was still alive, he once looked at me, squinted his eyes, raised his beer glass and said: Do you know where you come from? Cham. Cham essence.

I was going to ask him more to clarify, but he passed away.

Then I received a letter from the Van clan informing me that the Van family's ancestral temple in Hoang Mai, Nghe An was being built. On the occasion of its inauguration, the descendants of the Van family were invited to gather. Then there were several national congresses of the Van family in Vietnam. I made several appointments with Professor Van Nhu Cuong to return together to visit the ancestral temple, but before I could do so, the professor passed away...

Now I officially know that I am also... an Artist, Mr. Artist.

A very strange feeling mixed in immediately upon knowing that authentic information. It turns out that 600 years ago, my Van family had split into two branches, one branch going North, a strange thing, because the history of Vietnam is the history of moving South. That branch going North now has a famous family, the family of General Van Tien Dung. The rest went South as a rule. In Thanh Hoa, my family name was very rare, wherever I went to say it, people would look at it. Now that I have come South, I know that there are many, starting from Quang Tri, all the way to Long An, Soc Trang, Bac Lieu... The descendants of the Van family are now organizing... to find each other, every year they go to Hoang Mai to visit their ancestors. There is a very young Van brother, but very conscious of his family lineage, who rolls up his sleeves to take care of 60-70% of the work for the family, the "keeper" of the Van family temple, Van Minh Phung. This brother once spent months traveling all over the country to find the Van family...

“Artisan”, I don’t know who was the first person to call Nghe people like that, I guess it must have been a Nghe scholar. Nghe people have many talented people, their voices can become music, so Nghe music makes people who are far away remember it. Before I knew I was also a Nghe “man”, during a trip abroad, I painstakingly copied a lot of Vietnamese songs into my phone to listen to during my time away from home. When I got there, I was shocked to find that 3/4 of the songs I copied had Nghe melodies…