Twilight Sun

Quang Nam Newspaper - a cufflink about to leave the hand. Photo: Nguyen Tuan

1. Mr. Le Van Hoe in the Tam Nguyen Dictionary, when explaining the two words "tang thuong" (桑蒼), wrote: "three old men sat on the shore of the sea, talking and asking each other's ages; one man boasted that he was related to Mr. Pan Gu (the ancestor who created heaven, earth, and all things); one man said that every time he saw the blue sea turn into a mulberry field, he threw away a stick to remember, now that number of sticks has filled ten houses; one man said that the teacher ate the peach of immortality (fruit only comes once every three thousand years) and threw the seed at the foot of Kunlun Mountain (the highest mountain in China) and now it has grown into a tree and that tree is as tall as Kunlun Mountain".

For some reason, every time I read this part, I imagine those three old men are three random journalists from Quang Nam, sitting next to each other under the porch, on the sidewalk, with a glass of beer, talking about everything after finishing their work for the editorial office.

Now that you have entered the literary world, the space I just described will surely appear in your mind. Feel free to attach the faces of the three people to whoever you know, because I am sure that if you have entered this world of words, you must at least know a journalist from Quang Nam or of Quang Nam origin.

I don’t understand how the land is so sacred that Quang Nam has become a prosperous land in journalism. If we count from the time of Mr. Huynh Thuc Khang, a native of Thanh Binh village who went to Hue to work for the Tieng Dan newspaper in the 1920s until now, it has been nearly “a hundred years in the human world” that one generation of Quang Nam people has followed another generation of Quang Nam people to work for journalism. Working for journalism is to develop the talent of “arguing”, arguing to reveal the truth, arguing until the argument “convexes”?

But considering that in the current era of social media explosion, "arguing" is no longer a trait that Quang people can claim exclusively for themselves.

2. Of course, arguing is not a bad thing. I think that every era needs people who “argue a lot” and “argue well”, but “argue well” is difficult. Argue so that people are convinced, argue until the end but still be friendly and importantly argue to the point where you know you are wrong, then stop, admit defeat and accept it, not fight to the end, say what you want, argue while still being able to look each other in the face…

You see, arguing also requires art. In a community where everyone is satisfied (or worse, superficially not satisfied) with what they see and hear, even if it is clearly wrong, but they refuse to argue, it is impossible to build a healthy community.

That personality is very suitable for the journalism environment. So it is not surprising that there are currently many journalists from Quang Nam. That personality also has an effect in poetry and literature.

It is no coincidence that one of the first “new poems” was written by a journalist from Quang Nam - Mr. Phan Khoi, from Bao An village, with the famous poem “Old Love”. But let’s listen to the voice of “a young poet” at that time, Nam Tran, from Phu Thu Thuong village, to see how resolute the spirit of poetry reform was:

Forget the old poetry,
Because it's out of date.
Law Road please wrap up,
Give it back to the sky.
In a competitive world,
National literature needs liberation.
Framework, throw it away!
Activity for life.

This thesis poem is long, and although its artistic value is not high, it clearly shows the determination to use the Vietnamese language to write Vietnamese poems for Vietnamese people. Not satisfied with the literary style that carries a spiritual life dependent on another culture.

We have our own pond...
Why do you keep bathing in other people's ponds?
[…]
Do not go to Dongting Lake,
Do not write poems about Thai mountain.
Don't describe the scene anywhere,
My eyes have never seen.
[…]
The tyrant cried for Xi Shi,
Thai Bach smiled arrogantly,
Five Emperors and Three Sovereigns.

The poem is said to have been sent to critic Tran Thanh Mai, probably at the time when the New Poetry movement was in full swing. That poet entered the world of poetry with poems written about the ancient capital, was it because, like the folk song "Students in Quang went to take exams/ Seeing a Hue girl, I couldn't bear to leave", he was captivated by this capital so the young man dedicated his first collection of poems to Hue, beautiful and poetic (1939)?

After rambling on for a while, I was afraid that readers would misunderstand that Quang Nam’s personality is all about arguing. And I imagined that when this article was published, there would be a Quang Nam journalist friend of mine who would meet me at a street stall selling dried squid near the editorial office. After drinking half a bottle of beer in one gulp, he would say: “I just read your article, it’s good, but”. After all, all “arguments” in the world start from those two words “but…”.

But I know he will also “argue” with me to print less and then finish the remaining half of the beer bottle, the conversation will turn to more “current” issues. The story of separation, the story of merger, the story of existence, the story of loss of a name, a newspaper… in a time when people lived for a year but thought it was fifty years with so many “sea changes” happening in a flash. Like the scene of about to let go of the newspaper with the cufflinks I used to love: Quang Nam.

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/nang-thoi-chang-vang-3157845.html