Patriotism in the young way
Each era, each person has their own way of loving their country, of their own generation... The country is at peace and developing, we have the opportunity to express our patriotism in our own way among countless choices.
Another school year is coming, people will see an image that has become familiar for a long time, creating a beauty that carries the passion of youth: young people in green shirts volunteering under the sweaty sun or the tearful rain, wholeheartedly supporting candidates or new students, new university students before, during and after the exam seasons. That same shirt color, that passion, can be easily seen on every road of the Fatherland. They help people harvest crops, fight, run away, overcome the consequences of natural disasters... That green color has perhaps become a profound and strong expression of Vietnamese spiritual culture.
Youth is like that, always dynamic, sensitive, always carrying within them the desire to commit and the spirit of creativity. And in any job, I still feel in their hearts a deep, passionate patriotism...
Each era, each person has their own way of loving their country, of their own generation. We have admired the very young hearts of Tran Quoc Toan, Kim Dong..., a little older are Hai Ba Trung, Tran Binh Trong, Nguyen Tat Thanh and generations of young heroes, from leaders to soldiers, militiamen, workers... in modern times. From the pioneers who sought the path to national liberation to generations of young men and women who sacrificed themselves for independence, freedom, and national unification... they all became immortal in the memories of future generations forever.
On the other hand, aren't The Lu, Che Lan Vien, Xuan Dieu, Vu Trong Phung, Nam Cao, Han Mac Tu, Khai Hung, Nhat Linh, Thach Lam,... also people who started their careers at a very young age? Just in their twenties, that elite generation created the appearance of modern Vietnamese literature by finding, building and affirming a new direction for Vietnamese literature, creating one of the fundamental premises for building an advanced Vietnamese culture imbued with national identity.
Each person or group of people among them has different ways to express their patriotism due to their inborn talent and the opportunity to choose their attitude and behavior in life. Even in the same era, some people enthusiastically engage in a direct struggle with the enemy, while others "Use their pens as a whip to twist the regime/ Use bombs and bullets to destroy tyranny" (Song Hong); some people express their patriotism through works that directly attack and condemn the enemy or propagate revolutionary ideals, while others quietly express their feelings in distant, sad patriotic poems, in their love for traditional values and in their love for the Vietnamese language... All are dedications to the Fatherland.
I often ask my students, when teaching about Nguyen Trai, should we direct them to his way of loving the country? And my answer is no, because I understand that patriotism is not the monopoly of any one person, and no one can force people to express patriotism in the way the ancients did. The country is at peace and developing, we have the opportunity to express our patriotism in our own way among countless choices.
We have witnessed many young people volunteering to go to the front line to fight the epidemic a few years ago, or young people sacrificing themselves to save people from drowning, to be admired. The story of young man Phung Ba Hung in Duong Lieu commune, Hoai Duc district, who went to Hanoi to study and then returned to establish a reading room for rural children right in his living room. After more than 10 years, he had more than 10,000 books and then cherished the dream of going to the US to study in depth about libraries, to turn libraries into community cultural centers; the story of some teachers in Ha Tinh painting hundreds of meters of murals on the walls of communes in Vu Quang and Huong Son districts to beautify their homeland... are all expressions of patriotism. And, that patriotism can be expressed in the smallest, most humble gestures, such as planting an extra tree, not eating wild animals, or even just bending down to pick up a cigarette butt on the side of the road and putting it in a trash bag or trash can...
The event of the U23 Vietnam football team winning the runner-up position in Changzhou that year created a new and great source of inspiration for our people, especially the young people. After that event, many young people used the song “Proud to sing forever, oh Vietnam” as their phone ringtone. Honestly, I myself was sometimes ecstatic with this song when it was staged with scenes of mothers in ethnic costumes of the highlands threshing rice, a hot air balloon flying majestically in the sky, terraced fields chasing each other up the mountain and especially the image of young people wearing red shirts with yellow stars with energetic and joyful dances. My impression of the enthusiasm of young people for their homeland was partly kindled from that.
And then, I cannot deny my love and admiration for young people on motorbike trips to remote areas of the Fatherland, on the top of high passes, on the edge of the abyss of Cao Bang or Ha Giang, on the vast coast of Binh Dinh, Ca Mau or the vast canals, the "endless fields" of the Mekong Delta... Sometimes we see those actions as a wandering, adventurous hobby with a bit of the wanderlust of youth. But after all, surely those actions are more or less urged by a deep emotion that sometimes we and they themselves do not realize: that is the flesh and blood attachment to every "vegetable, inch of land" of the country. Sometimes we see their filming and distributing of footage as actions that we call “showing off”, “showing off”, “like-baiting”, “view-baiting”, but after all, their actions (which I used to doubt and have a bit of sympathy for) are contributing greatly to promoting the image of beautiful mountains and rivers, and they did it with the hearts of youth that always know how to beat with the vibrant rhythm of life.
Also aiming to promote the image of the country and people of Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Ha Trang (Hanoi) sought to create digital content to introduce the image of Vietnam to international friends with the thought: "At those times (attending international events - author's note), I always tried to introduce beautiful, developed Vietnam to Korean friends in particular and international friends in general. I am proud to be a child of Vietnam".
However, not all young people are patriotic or have the opportunity to express their patriotism. Perhaps everyone will feel pain and even shame, even feel hurt when reading a news somewhere about a young person participating in a ring that traffics women and children abroad, a young person whose behavior tarnishes the image of Vietnamese people in the eyes of the world community... I want to call them lost children. Of course, that is another side of life.
Sometimes when I see and hear the contributions of young people, I suddenly hear a verse from Che Lan Vien's poem:"Victory Star”:
Oh my Fatherland, I love you like flesh and blood
Like our parents, like wife, like husband...
