Xem trong Thư phòng    Xem định dạng khác Xem định dạng khác    Xem Mục lục Xem Mục lục 

SÁCH AMAZON


Mua bản sách in

(A gift for my parents)

&

The movie brought me back to nostalgia

Perhaps one of my habits is that every time I watch a movie, read a short story, a novel, or a novel that is related to some facts or circumstances that are more or less similar to my life, it often gives me a lot of thoughts. The developments in the work brought back my memories of the sad and happy stories, surprises and sometimes even dreams and fantasies... that happened in my past life.

During the past week, in the cold early winter of Switzerland, I spent a lot of time watching the Vietnamese social drama: "A stormy life", a film produced in 2017, depicting the misery of a family in Vietnamese society before 2000. According to the images in the film, I guess the plot was staged in a poor working-class area in the river area of Ben Nghe canal or the upstream area of Doi canal or Tao Hu canal, two canals meeting to create a river junction with the Y-shaped bridge of Saigon city.

The film depicts the violent life of a poor family in a remote riverside countryside in Dong Thap province. The husband, the father, was an alcoholic who beat and cursed his skinny wife and four teenage children every day very brutally, forcing them to provide him with food and alcohol.... Then one day, in a drunken state, yelling and cursing at his wife and children led to a fight. The wife, in order to protect her children, fought with her crazy husband for a knife and accidentally stabbed her husband in the stomach. Mrs. Luom (the wife) was so scared when she thought she could not escape prison for killing her husband (Phi). At that time, her young children had no one to take care of them, so she led them to quickly flee the area. This escape was the beginning of a new adversity for her and her four children because they did not have any personal papers or money to integrate into society. The mother's miscalculated escape brought much suffering to her four children and herself.

Mrs. Luom and her children came to Saigon, wandering around sleeping on the streets, sleeping in the market, making a living by "picking packages", collecting scraps to sell for money to live. In that difficult situation, Mrs. Luom led her children into the "thief" profession, she taught them tricks and cleverness to avoid suspicion from the local police. She turned her children from petty thieves into a professional, very talented group. With that dirty "black" money, she saved it for her children's future, to repay her benefactors, those who helped her and her children on the road when they were in trouble, as well as to pay for the services of running the case for her children and herself when she committed a crime.

But life is not as smooth as people expect, especially for those who use cunning, immoral ways, squatting above the law to make a living. The life of Mrs. Luom and her children is not as peaceful and calm as she calculated in her career as a thief. With so many troubles happening one after another, her son was convicted of murder, her daughter sold her virginity to foreigners to earn money to run the case, she herself went to jail for taking the blame for murder on behalf of her son and then had a stroke, half alive, half dead when she met her husband whom she thought she had killed.

The movie ended in a sad and miserable way with no happy ending. Mrs. Luom, a mother who loves her children but has a cunning, clever, calculating personality. She thought that in life, people only have one single, most effective way, which is to make money, use money to solve problems when facing adversity, but she was wrong because she lacked a moral perspective. Personally, when watching the film, in the comments section, I found many opinions expressing pity and sympathy for Mrs. Luom's suffering. Personally, after only a few episodes, when I clearly saw the personality and "criminal" nature hidden in Mrs. Luom, I hated and somewhat feared her. It is natural for a mother to love her children and feel sorry for them when they suffer, but that cannot be the reason to lead, train, or teach tricks for her children to go down the path of sin. People can use beauty, goodness, honesty... to solve their own wrongs and evils, but they cannot use ugliness and hooliganism to solve them. If everyone uses such immoral methods, then society has no meaning when it comes to human dignity. That is the root of morality!

&

Of course, when I spent many days enjoying this film, I understood that it was just a creative work, in which there must be more or less fiction to create pleasure for the viewer. Even though I knew that, I still immersed my emotions in the film, giving me moments of sadness and joy according to each development of the film. Moreover, the film brought back my memories of the bumpy times in my life in the past, from childhood to the day I left my homeland to settle abroad. In that nostalgic mood about the past, I want to write here some of the hardships of myself and my parents' family in those miserable years of the past. Writing about the difficulties and hardships of the past does not mean crying or complaining. On the contrary, if there are expressions of successes and joys, it is not a way to glorify oneself to the world. All the crying, complaining or joys and happiness in my life, perhaps are just memories, up to now, they no longer have any meaning to an old man who is looking forward to the day of returning to the earth and stone in a light, airy and carefree way. Please understand me, readers.

In addition, I also want to honor the uprightness and morality of my parents, people who are almost uneducated, lowly in society, who have fallen into misery many times because of war, natural disasters of a Vietnam during the time of bombs and bullets, famine and poverty in history. That's right, my parents chose to behave within the framework of morality and humanity when facing adversities in their livelihood. It is completely different from the deceitful and immoral way of Mrs. Luom in the movie. I only collected a few stories of my parents during that chaotic time and then strung them together into an article as an additional gift from me, the eldest son, to the souls of my parents, whom I always respected and admired. The events that I mentioned in the article, not only I know but also a few other people know, maybe they themselves or their descendants related to the story, they are still living in Vietnam or overseas.

The value of my mother's dowry gold ring.

I was born at the time when the terrible famine of At Dau year (1946) had just passed for about half a year, in a poor village on the right bank of the Red River in Xuan Truong district, Nam Dinh province in northern Vietnam. I have absolutely no memories of the first 4 or 5 years of my life other than the things that my parents told me when I grew up. But after the age of 5, although I was still a child, I still retained many memories of the Vietnam-France war, a few years before the Geneva Accords of 1954.

Around the end of 1951, my village was bombed and burned, then more miserable with the French raids, shooting, raping... not enough, then a storm broke the dike on the Red River. The water rose up and covered the fields and gardens, my family only revolved in my grandfather's garden catching fish, shrimp, and vegetables to survive. Seeing that the situation was not livable, my parents left the dilapidated house to my single uncle, who had the same father as my father, and once again packed up and headed for Hanoi to find a way to make a living. Before that, around 1947 when I was only 1 year old, also because of the chaos, we drifted to Hanoi, that time we were helped by some charity organization to live in a collective housing area on the outskirts of Hanoi. After being refugees for a few months, seeing that the situation was stable, my parents took me back to my hometown. This time we left with more peace of mind because we thought we would be taken care of like the last time.

After a day of walking and boating... on the way, my family met Uncle Khoi and his wife, the same age as my parents, but they only had a son about 3 years old, and his wife was pregnant with their second child. Uncle Khoi's family came from a village in Hai Hau district, south of our Xuan Truong district. They said that like us, because of war and broken dikes, they had to abandon their fields and gardens to find a way to Hanoi to make a living. So our two families relied on each other to survive, as close as blood relatives. Uncle Khoi was very good at fishing, he brought a small net, wherever he went there were rivers and canals, he caught a few fish and shrimp for meals along the way, sometimes there was enough left to sell for money to buy rice to cook... Thanks to that, both of our families lived quite well on the way to refuge. According to the calculation, the two families would go to Nam Dinh province and then cross Ha Nam province to go to Hanoi. But one day when we arrived in the North of Nam Truc district, close to the capital of Nam Dinh, while bringing some fish and shrimp to the market to sell to buy rice, Uncle Khoi's wife slipped and fell and had to be taken to the Nam Truc district clinic for treatment. The clinic was too poor, so they suggested that we should take her to Nam Dinh provincial hospital as soon as possible because the fetus had suffered a severe shock from the fall. The most difficult problem for us was that we were too poor, even the money for transportation to the province was difficult, not to mention medicine and hospital fees. In that urgent and poor situation, we tried every way to beg the medical staff for help, but in that chaotic time, how could anyone help each other?

Finally, my parents looked at each other, secretly said a few words to each other, then my mother squeezed the hem of her shirt, took out a gold ring, handed it to Uncle Khoi and said:

- To be honest with you, my family only has this ring as its only asset, my parents gave it to me as a dowry, my husband and I have kept it for 4 or 5 years now, never thought of selling it despite many times of running away from war and poverty. I have never worn it because I am afraid of showing off my wealth and harming myself. We thought that we should keep it, save it for when we are in trouble. Today, with my aunt's situation, my husband and I give it to you so that we have a little money to take care of her when she is in trouble, please do not refuse. The life and death of my wife is the important thing, returning it to us can be considered later, don't worry about it, it's a miserable life.

It must be said that Uncle Khoi was stunned, unable to believe the kindness of my parents, a friend who had only known each other for a few days, did not know anything about each other's background, yet dared to help him like that. Uncle Khoi did not dare to accept, intending to leave his wife's life and death to fate, luck... After a while of pushing back and forth, but with the determined words of my parents, Uncle Khoi burst into tears:

- Well, my husband and I will have to be grateful to you two, after this ordeal we will try to work, save up to return it to you two. We would like to acknowledge your kindness.

Thanks to the money from selling the ring, Uncle Khoi's wife was transported to the provincial hospital, perhaps because it was too late, the fetus had to be removed, and his wife's health was not good, her spirit was down because of the loss of her child, so she insisted on returning to her hometown. Finally, Uncle Khoi followed his wife's wishes and planned to return to his hometown, while we continued our journey to Hanoi. Before parting, Uncle Khoi asked for the address of my father's half-brother in the village so that he could have a chance to repay my mother's debt.

Later, after more than a year of struggling to make a living in Hanoi, he encountered a military recruitment program to establish the Vietnamese army sponsored by the US and France. Thanks to the guidance of an acquaintance, my father joined the army, which was also the starting point for a new life, a huge change for my family later on. (I wrote more in detail in the essay: "Hanoi, two childhood friends", http://www.erct.com/2-ThoVan/LuuAn/HaNoi-Hai-nguoi-ban.htm).

Once, when my family was living with other soldier families in the row of houses behind the owner's house, Uncle Khoi suddenly came to visit. According to my uncle, he met my father's half-brother in the village, so he knew our address and came to find us. He said that when he left us, he took his wife back to the village. We don't know if it was because of the hospital's mistake or because he wasn't careful on the way back to the village, but his wife's wound got infected and she died. After finishing his wife's funeral, my uncle and his son continued to live together and take care of the farm for about a year, but life was not stable, so the father and son sold their fields and gardens and found their way to Hanoi. My uncle and his son received help from an acquaintance in Hanoi to work as porters at Dong Xuan market. Because he remembered the debt from a few years ago, my uncle saved his salary along with the money from selling fields and gardens in the countryside to pay my parents. When my uncle confessed that his wife had died in an accident, my mother absolutely did not want to accept the debt and told my uncle that our family's life was safe and orderly. We were not rich, but the uncertainty, fear of death and hunger like in the old days in the countryside would definitely not happen again. Then the push and pull between my parents and Uncle Khoi about the debt kept coming up again and again, finally my parents said to him:

-Why do you keep worrying about us helping you in times of trouble? The affection between my wife and I and you two is not increased or decreased because of that ring! It is precious because we help each other in times of need. Moreover, my aunt has passed away, please consider it as our condolence gift for her, please do not refuse it and let our affection fade.

Finally, because of my parents' determination, Uncle Khoi had to give in. From then on, the affection between my family and Uncle Khoi's father and son was very close. We often visited and gave each other gifts during the years we lived in Hanoi. But that affection did not last long, in 1954, my family followed the owner to migrate to the South while Uncle Khoi's father and son stayed behind, we lost contact with each other from then on. Rewriting this story imbued with affection, I want to honor the kindness of my parents, for a new friend, who did not know anything about their origin, but dared to give up the most valuable gift of my mother's life to help them. When they remembered, brought back the gift, my parents did not accept it, not because they were rich, but because my parents thought that the value of kindness, helping each other in times of trouble is priceless and meaningful.

My parents' lifelong debt.

We went to Hanoi, looking for the temporary residence of the first time my family went to Hanoi, that day we were helped by some charity organization, provided with food and a place to sleep. But this time, when we arrived, that place was no longer there, it had transformed into a new military camp. Not knowing anyone, our family had to live in hiding in the train station yard, on the sidewalk for several days. Later, thanks to asking around and searching, my parents met an acquaintance from the same village who had gone to Hanoi for a long time. She was the concubine or lover of a doctor in Hanoi, so she was called Mrs. D. Mrs. D was a very beautiful and elegant person, famous in the village. Everyone heard of her and respected her whenever she had a chance to visit relatives in the village. She lived in a separate, ancient house on Kim Ma Street, with a small flower garden. She had no children, so she lived with her nephew and his wife, who took care of the kitchen and looked after the house for her.

When we met Mrs. D, it was at the time when her nephew and his wife asked to quit their jobs and return to their hometown. There was no one to look after the house and cook, so she let our family stay temporarily in the warehouse behind the house, helping with the housework instead of her nephew and his wife. After about 10 days, the nephew and his wife returned to work, but thanks to their wide acquaintances because they had lived in Hanoi for many years, she helped our family, along with another family who were also migrants to Hanoi, rent a shabby, exposed house on Hang Bot Street, a poor, muddy area and also a garbage collection place in Hanoi. Of course, having a roof over our heads, even though it was shabby, but having a place to eat and sleep for our two families was a great fortune, not having to wander on the streets, sidewalks... every day, 4 adults went to the city to find work to make a living, the children stayed home to play with the children around. Mrs. D's kindness was deeply engraved in my parents' hearts for many decades. In this short memoir, I will write more about her, trying to describe my parents' gratitude and indebtedness to her. To me, it was a bit too much, but it spoke of my parents' grateful nature, and made me think a lot.

Then, with the developments of the times, my father joined the army, serving as a soldier for a leading family in the army. Like millions of others, my family joined the migration movement to the South in 1954. At first, we went to Saigon with the owner, continuing our life as slaves, then followed the owner to Da Lat to farm and reclaim land. After working on the farm for about a year, the owner lost power, and my family returned to Saigon. The first house that my family and another family from the same hometown rented was in lane 521 Le Van Duyet Street, District 3, Saigon. After living there for about a year, my family grew larger and larger, so my parents had to move to Tre Hamlet (lane 116 To Hien Thanh), not far from their old place. We lived in this Tre Hamlet for about 5 or 6 years. When I was in the sixth grade at Chu Van An School, my family returned to Hamlet 521 Le Van Duyet. This new house was at the end of the hamlet, and the previous house was in the middle of the hamlet. My family's life since moving back to Hamlet 521 Le Van Duyet has been brighter in every aspect because my mother jumped into the banana business, helping my father's military salary. Especially me, the eldest son, grew up better, I passed 2 baccalaureate degrees, passed the entrance exam to the agricultural center quite easily. Luck is still very important, but I also have to mention my own efforts when I saw the hardships and sacrifices of my parents, so I tried to study and work. That's right, I feel that although the nature seems rustic, it hides many moral nuances in the way my parents behave in life, which has stimulated and taught me to strive to improve in a pure and humane way.

It can be said that for many decades, my family lived in Saigon, Mrs. D always came to my house to visit or asked my grandfather, a Confucian scholar, to tell her fortune (I don't know what this fortune telling is called, roughly my grandfather gave her a book in Chinese characters, she mumbled a prayer, then opened the book and pointed to a Chinese character in the book. My grandfather would decipher that Chinese character and predict the fortune). Sometimes she asked about business, sometimes she asked about the date and time of departure for work, etc. Every time she came to my house, she was always welcomed with great respect by my parents, my mother always prepared a special meal to treat her if she stayed for dinner. One time, when my family was still living in a rented house in the 521 Le Van Duyet neighborhood, at that time my family was still in a difficult situation because the family of 7 mouths to feed (grandfather, parents and 4 of us siblings), all of us only depended on my father's salary as a soldier. At that time, I was already grown up, 10 years old, studying in the fourth grade of Chi Hoa primary school. That day, Mrs. D came to visit, asked my grandfather to tell her fortune, like every other time my mother had to spend a lot of money to prepare a special meal for her, seeing my mother had to save money to provide for the meal, with a little bit of unhappiness I said: - Why do you have to be so stingy, pinch your stomach to buy food to provide for him like that? I think it's better for you to limit it.

My mother looked at me with an unhappy expression and replied:

- Remember his kindness when we first came to Hanoi. If he hadn't taken pity and helped us, our whole family would have died of hunger and cold! No matter what, we still have to be grateful to him.

That's right, my parents' gratitude to Uncle D continued for decades until the day I left Vietnam to study in Japan. Uncle D still came to visit or had his fortune told. My parents still treated him sincerely. Many times when he came to my house, he brought along packages or tightly tied bags, gave them to my parents, and asked them to keep them for him to pick up in a few days or ask someone else to pick them up. He did not forget to tell my parents to keep it in a secret place, not to lose it because it was very expensive bags of monkey glue, tiger bone glue or ginseng velvet... Of course, my parents did as he told them.

One time, when my family lived in the house in Tre hamlet, Uncle D came to visit. After dinner, he left a package wrapped in oil paper, telling my father to put it under the bed, keep it for him, and he would come get it a few days later. The next day after school, in the evening, when I crawled under the bed to look for the ball, I saw that the package my uncle sent was open, maybe because the string was not tied tightly or because a mouse had dug it out. I pulled the package out and gave it to my father to rewrap for him. My father picked up the package and looked at the torn place with a shocked and scared expression. The package was not monkey glue, tiger bone glue or ginseng velvet, as Uncle D said when he sent it, but opium! After a moment of shock and trembling hands, my father said:

- Damn it, if it gets out, our whole family will go to jail! Why did he do that?...

Thinking for a moment, my father continued:

-I wonder if the things he sent me before were opium or not? It's unbelievable!

Then after a moment of discussion with my mother, my father carefully wrapped the goods, put them in a basket with some bundles of vegetables and old, shabby clothes on top to disguise them, then rode his bicycle all the way to his house in an alley on Phan Thanh Gian Street to return them to him. When I got home, my father said that when he received the package back, Uncle D seemed surprised and said a few words of apology...etc.

After that time, Uncle D seemed to come to my house less often. If he did, he would just ask my grandfather to tell his fortune and then say goodbye and leave. He rarely stayed for dinner. Perhaps he knew my parents were unhappy and hesitant. From then on, he never asked me to bring packages or packages to my house or to keep them for him. However, my parents still respected and loved him and always remembered his kindness to my family during their difficult times in Hanoi. Sometimes when he needed help with things like carrying things, changing tables, chairs, household appliances...etc., he still asked my father to help or found a worker to help him. Every year on holidays, especially when I grew up and was able to earn money to help my family, especially when I had a small chicken and pig farm in Tan Phu, Ba Queo... my parents still gave gifts to my uncle and did not forget to thank him for his help in the past. My parents still maintained the close relationship, respect, gratitude and repayment of uncle D until around 1990 or 1991 when my father informed me that uncle D had passed away.

Today, after enjoying the movie "A stormy life" with the image of Mrs. Luom instructing her children on the smart way to steal money to solve the adversities in her life and her children's. In it, she used that sinful, dirty money to repay her brother and sister, her grandfather, the benefactors of her family. That immoral act of repaying gratitude has immersed me in thoughts and memories of my parents. We also received Uncle D's kindness, and looked for opportunities to repay that kindness throughout our lives, but in a more transparent way. That's right, after watching the movie, I thought about Mrs. Luom's way of repaying her with the dishonest money and my parents' sincere and humane way of repaying Uncle Doc. Two completely different ways of repaying gratitude, one side consists of the unlucky money of theft, the other side has the shade of admirable kindness and that is also the reason why I respect my parents.

The last thoughts of an old man nearing 80 years old

The film brought my memories back to the rough years of my family, when my parents were still alive, we were still struggling hard and somewhat dirty to make a living... The film also gave me the inspiration to write down some events during that difficult time as a confession to the readers and also to honor the kind and pure nature of my parents, who were almost uneducated and poor in the dark period of Vietnamese history but still maintained the authenticity of human morality.

Also from that film, I was immersed in the thoughts and developments of my own life. My biggest dream is to enter the teaching profession, a high school teacher. I am confident that I have enough foundation and ability to be a proper teacher in all high school subjects except for language, an area in which I know very well my weak ability. But now that I am almost 80 years old, the doors to my life's opportunities and dreams have been completely closed.

Once, during a business trip to Kenya, a very large country with rich natural resources and majestic natural landscapes with mountains, rivers and lakes of East Africa, I was with a group of students from the Food Science Department of Nairobi National University in the student union room. The group of students thought I was a Swiss of Japanese origin and asked me a lot about Japan... I had to tell them my career path, a Vietnamese who came to study in Japan, which is also my wife's homeland, and then because of the force of the times, I came to Switzerland and became a Swiss citizen to be able to sit and talk with them today. A very strange thing, almost all the students did not know or understand anything about Vietnam, even when I talked about the horrific Vietnam War of decades ago, they were still clueless (maybe because they were born when the Vietnam War was in the past, just a vague place name in their basic knowledge). So I had to explain to them on the world map in the activity room).

During that activity, they asked me a lot about Vietnam, Japan and Switzerland, related to my feelings, work, thoughts, and wishes... about the 3 countries that I am very attached to. I did not hesitate to tell them that Japan is my wife's hometown, also the place where I studied and became successful, the place where I have a lot of memories, I really love Japan. Switzerland is the place that has brought me to understand the true meaning of the word SETTLEMENT, giving me a peaceful and prosperous life leading me to the role of a true specialist... I am always proud and happy when holding the red Swiss passport. And Vietnam, where my ancestors and I were born, lived and died with it, Vietnam is also the place where I once struggled with pain, poverty due to war, natural disasters but also the place where I grew up, became successful and buried so many memories. …I love Vietnam very much, I always pray for Vietnam to be peaceful and prosperous, not drowned in war, poverty, natural disasters...

Finally, I told them the following conclusion: "The safest shelter is the Mother's Heart, the place we love, pray for, and wish to serve the most is the Fatherland, the place where we were born, grew up and have many memories".


Luu An Vu Ngoc Ruan (Zuerich, Switzerland October.2022)

» Tải file Word về máy » - In chương sách này

Tiếp tục nghe? 🎧

Bạn có muốn nghe tiếp từ phân đoạn đã dừng không?