The farmer writes for the newspaper

(Baonghean.vn) -I and many reporters and editors of Nghe An Newspaper sometimes received messages from him. They were always lines asking about health, then compliments (or criticisms) of an article he had just read in the newspaper. Occasionally, he informed that he was in a remote, isolated area and would send the article to the newspaper when he returned... Then he wanted to be guided further on how to write, wanted to hear comments...

His articles, as always, are handwritten in a soft, careful, clean handwriting, sent by express mail. There were times when he sent poems via email, but then he said it was inconvenient because he had to go out to wait at the computer store in the district town (he had a computer but…wasn’t connected to the internet). Every time I received his articles, I found in them so many flavors of the land he passed through, often imbued with the breath of the mountains and forests, of the cold, misty slopes, the streams that wake up the villages in the early morning sun… There was his sweat, his footsteps mixed with the footsteps of the Khmu and Mong people on slippery roads, his hands pressed against the paper next to a small lamp and wrote the lines with so much passion and concern…

Last winter, during the coldest days, I received a message from him saying, “Tomorrow I’ll be going to Vinh. I have a gift to send to the editors and reporters of the Mountain Region.” I replied, “Let’s wait until later, when the weather is warm and convenient, I’ll come down to visit you.” But he insisted, “No, you don’t have to worry. I’m still plowing the fields when it’s 7 degrees Celsius.”

I was nervous for a long time, knowing his personality, once he decided to do it, he would do it, not afraid of difficulties or hardships. So the next morning, while I was on my way to work, I received a phone call from him: "I'm standing in front of the editorial office gate. But because it's working hours, I can't go in. Go to the gate, I'll see you in a bit."

Waiting for me outside the gate was a small old man, limping. His 1981 Cub, his backpack still covered in dust. And the cold… I asked him: “What time did you get off? Did you finish any work?” He said: “I just got off here, stopped by the provincial Literature and Arts Association to hand in the manuscript of a poetry collection, didn’t finish anything else. I brought you some local rice paper.” He opened his backpack, which was full of rice paper.

He shook my hand, the big, broad hand of a plowman. That hand led the buffalo on the plow when the weather was 7 degrees Celsius. That hand also painstakingly wrote each stroke of the letter about the difficult highlands to send to the Mountainous-Ethnic section of my newspaper. That hand also wrote heartfelt poems, thoughtful thoughts on world affairs. He should have been a lawyer decades ago. Yet, for many reasons, he had to return to his hometown to be a plowman…

I watched him, watched his limping steps as he pushed his motorbike across the street, and felt my heart filled with respect and pity… He, the farmer who wrote for the newspaper, often signed his articles with a simple one-line name: Contributor Vo Van Vinh.

Thuy Vinh