Goodbye Mr. Nguyen Thuy Kha!

I was lucky to have known him for quite a long time, around 1985-1986, he came to Pleiku and I was the one who picked him up at the airport. And unfortunately, thanks to picking him up, I first knew about this airport, even though I had heard the name before.

Of course I tiptoed around him.

He asked me what I did, I said I was a... cadre. He asked if I wrote poetry? Yes, read me a poem. I stuttered as I read, he tilted his head to listen, then said, keep it up.

Then he told me how the AN 24 plane rotated before landing, how strong the wind was in Pleiku, and how nauseous it felt. At that time, the AN 24 was a Soviet plane, and the seats were along the fuselage like... a rickshaw seat. And he told me about his life as a signalman, where he had laid wire.

Then in the afternoon, he came to my room again (he lived in the guest house of the Department of Culture, my office was next door) and told me to listen to his song, which he had just written. And he sang, his neck veins bulging, the song “Peaceful Flights”. I was very impressed with his idea, the idea of ​​the poem, that for a long time Cu Hanh airport was a war airport, serving only flights carrying bombs, now it doesn’t carry bombs, it carries passengers, carries poets, flights of peace: “Flights to the Central Highlands, flights of peace/ Flights to Pleiku, flights without bombs”...

Later I became close to him. His group had 3 people: him, poet and musician Nguyen Trong Tao and poet Nguyen Hoa.

Once I sat with all three men at Nguyen Trong Tao's house, on the 6th floor, the highest in Phuong Mai apartment complex, I think, and then I had to exclaim: I don't understand how Nguyen Hoa got along with Kha and Tao. Because the other two men drank like crazy, talked like storms, read poetry and sang like waterfalls, but Nguyen Hoa didn't drink, didn't talk, didn't read poetry, just sat and listened. And even if the other two men forced him to read poetry, Nguyen Hoa would read very short poems, short but making the whole drinking party silent, like the time I heard poet Nguyen Hoa read: "You are salt/ marinating pain/ forever fresh". Both Kha and Tao exclaimed: so good.

There are many anecdotes about the friendship of these talented men, especially Kha and Tao, the most funniest and most humorous of which is the sentence: "Brother Hai said to Brother Ba/ Literature without Tao Kha would be sad", in fact, when reading, depending on the specific situation, replace Brother Hai's name.

In Nghe An, in addition to being very close to the poet and musician Nguyen Trong Tao, Kha was also very close to the poet Hoang Tran Cuong. I remember one time Kha called me to show off that he had just composed the long poem "Sediment" by Cuong. I honestly said that I really liked and adored Hoang Tran Cuong's long poem, but to compose it into a song, or a symphony, a choir or anything else, I didn't really believe it. So Kha sang, and I was even more disappointed because first, he didn't sing well, but he was... on the right tune, and second, he sang a cappella, over the phone, in the days when landline phones were so tangled that you could hear the rustling of the wind. But after that, Kha, I don't remember how, sent me a CD of his choir recording, produced by the Voice of Vietnam Orchestra.

I love it, it’s so good. And every time I turn on my desktop computer at work, it plays that song by itself. It’s “Miên Trung”. The most divine verses of Mr. Hoang Tran Cuong in the chapter “Miên Trung” are all kept by the musician, but still soft and smooth.

The last time I saw Mr. Kha was around April 2024 in Ho Chi Minh City at a conference. I remember his message: skip the invitation, come with me. It turns out this guy is as familiar with Saigon as he is with Hanoi. In Hanoi, Nguyen Thuy Kha has his own "corners of the shop".

Also early last year, after attending the Nghe An Newspaper Correspondent Conference in Vinh, I went to Hanoi to fly back to Pleiku. It was late at night when the phone rang, the name Nguyen Thuy Kha appeared on the screen. I picked up and he said: I know you just arrived in Hanoi, so I took a taxi here to have a few drinks with you, and then I'll give you a book, a brand new one. Honestly, I was very tired, but I still had to take a taxi here. He was sitting there, the shop had a Nguyen Thuy Kha wine umbrella, so after you're done drinking, leave it there and come out for a drink the next day...

If we need to count a dozen people in Vietnam who work really effectively in the fields of journalism, literature and music, then Nguyen Thuy Kha will definitely be there. He writes all by hand, and whenever we meet him, he always seems to be... drunk, but then he writes. And not only does he write, he also publishes very well. At that age, his memory is still excellent, he remembers every event and every character, even the most difficult details to remember such as the date of occurrence, such as related events...

He also loved his juniors. A long time ago, knowing that I was in Hanoi, he called and said, this afternoon come to 1B Chan Cam to eat rươi with him, it's in season. I came, of course with Nguyen Trong Tao and a few others, and I, it was the first time I had such a delicious rươi meal. Occasionally, a few of his juniors appeared, they ordered a few dishes, paid and left first, Mr. Tao, Mr. Kha and I sat until the afternoon.

Journalist and poet Tran Nhat Minh, head of VOV6, one of his juniors, and poet Thai Chi Thanh, also his junior, who always pampered him in all conditions, texted me more than a month ago: Mr. Kha is very tired, take the time to visit you, if you feel better, have a few drinks with you.

But before I could get out, Nguyen Thuy Kha had passed away.

Many people love and miss him, even though 77 is not young anymore, but still miss him.

As a poet, Nguyen Thuy Kha's poems have been composed by many musicians, among which I really like his song "Chieu khong em" composed by musician Phu Quang. As a musician, he also composed many poems of others. And he is also a writer of books on music, both research and criticism such as the books: Van Cao - the person walking along the sea, Half a century of modern Vietnamese music, The faces of the century in music, Nguyen Thien Dao - the exiled musician, Huy Du - life and music...

Afternoon Without You - poem by Nguyen Thuy Kha.

He also wrote short stories, but perhaps his other fields were more famous so few people knew about them.

But above all, he is a... player. Vietnam has several writers and poets who are known as... players, such as Hoang Phu Ngoc Tuong, Nguyen Trong Tao, and Nguyen Thuy Kha. They play to the fullest, but also work to the fullest. Just look at the number of their works and projects to know that.

This afternoon, I was sitting in a coffee shop with some friends, a girl suddenly read: “Taking my lover to my ex-lover’s house/ In the midday rain/ Feeling my soul split into two halves/ Half wet now, half wet in the past”...

Farewell, Mr. Kha, musician and poet Nguyen Thuy Kha. Down there, poet and musician Nguyen Trong Tao, your very close friend, has set out a tray waiting for you, I guess.