Witnessing the breakfast of rich district officials, thinking about the virtue of honesty

Early in the morning, I had an appointment at a coffee shop on a corner of District 1. Across the street, there were sidewalk eateries, with customers wearing the uniforms of the Procuracy, the blue shirts of the Youth Union, a few people in office clothes, some walking out of the Notary Office across the street...

Everyone was slurping their noodles, rice noodles... when the waiter shouted loudly: "Police, police" causing the whole street corner to be in an uproar. Some people were holding their bowls and standing to eat, some people were pulling a plastic chair back against the wall, one hand holding a bowl and the other hand holding chopsticks and a spoon in an awkward position, some people stopped and stood up to pay, their eyes staring blankly at the militia force that was rushing down from a pickup truck...

Also at this street corner, I once stopped to buy a loaf of bread, saw a man wearing an urban security uniform also stopped to buy, he came after me but the shop owner smiled "fakely", gave priority to the order first...

The image of a breakfast of some civil servants in a famously richest district in the country taking place according to a disturbing "scenario" left me with many thoughts. Thoughts about human dignity, thoughts about an unscientific urban management institution of authorities with many terms and its consequences... I asked myself: "How long will this continue?"!

After a few minutes of "boiling noise", the restaurant owner was harassed by the urban security officers... when the car drove away, the restaurant returned to normal, customers and owners called out orders, paid, people and cars came and went busily.

After the appointment, I walked up another street and saw a taxi driver opening his car door and urinating right on the sidewalk. Several pedestrians, including a foreign woman, quickly "turned" to walk down the street to avoid seeing the awkward scene!

Another "shot": Not long ago, I took an acquaintance to the airport to return home. When we got back "overseas", he texted me saying that he went to the toilet at Tan Son Nhat airport, and looked around the door where the hanger usually hangs, and saw that there were only two nail holes left. He sent a picture of the two bare nail holes and "dropped" a smile on his face!

Your story made me "feel bad". I went to a famous office building, when I went to the toilet, I noticed that not only the hanger but also the door handle was gone. I had the opportunity to eat and shop in some class A areas... the situation was the same. When asked, a security guard smiled "lightly" and said: "It's been a long time, gone without a trace"!

I once read in VietnamNet a survey by Nottingham University (UK) showing that Vietnamese people are at the bottom of the list in terms of honesty, along with Chinese, Tanzanians... The study also showed a tendency for people to be more honest in societies with less corruption, tax evasion and political fraud...

Dishonesty occurs at many levels, eroding trust in people and in the government. Smaller levels include stealing a coat hanger, higher levels include petty corruption in public offices, traffic police “enforcing the law”, higher levels include protection of gambling, corruption in disguise among those who fight crime and corruption…

In the City, many small and large projects have been and are being "creatively" created, magnificently magnificent... The dry matchbox-shaped concrete blocks are quickly reaching heights, the higher they are, the faster they become millionaires and billionaires. The Smart City project is also being urgently completed by the City for piloting, with the first implementation areas being District 1, District 12...

But the hangers in the toilets continue to be stolen, the meals of civil servants are full of insecurity, and the streets will still be filled with trash after a festival...

The city is lacking in humanistic architectural works, and seriously lacking in green parks, rivers, and lakes. Even newly built religious buildings are seen as ostentatious in form, while many "golden lands" fall into the hands of investors whose words and actions contradict each other in terms of vision and social responsibility.

I couldn't give advice to a student when he confided: The essay topic you gave is "write about a beautiful memory associated with the place where you live", I've been thinking about it for a long time but can't think of a place name to write about, can I just "make it up"?

I still remember, in a workshop on building Ho Chi Minh City into a “good city to live in”, an expert suggested that to build a good city to live in, we must first organize the spiritual life of urban residents well. Because according to him, the city is messy, chaotic, and uncivilized because the development of culture and people cannot keep up with the speed of urbanization, and lacks industrial style.

Indeed! Are we losing our cool in the race to meet economic targets and neglecting the task of upgrading “human infrastructure”, ignoring humanistic requirements...? No mechanical force can operate urban activities effectively when each citizen fails to master his or her own consciousness!

Truc Nguyen