The pages of memory

1. Those were the days when I took my motorbike out of the house and traveled all over the city to write articles for the Saigon - Ho Chi Minh City special page published every Saturday in Thanh Nien Newspaper. Starting from September 2019, the presence of this special page in the newspaper has added a highlight, marking the past and present existence of Gia Dinh citadel over the past centuries, spanning many ups and downs until the appearance of the name Saigon, then Ho Chi Minh City today. It must be said that, together with fellow newspaper colleagues, Thanh Nien has "put a highlight" on the largest city in the country with many special page articles, contributing ideas to build in a meticulous, in-depth manner over the past 6 years, starting from the past, present and future aspirations.

Những trang báo ký ức - Ảnh 1. — Some of the more than 50 weekend posts on the Saigon - Ho Chi Minh City website

I have been working with my colleagues at the editorial office for more than a year (from 2019 to 2021) with more than 50 articles published every weekend. The special page is published on Saturday morning, and the articles must be submitted on Thursday. A type of article with historical and cultural elements of each place, which I have to research thoroughly before getting on the bus to a place, and outline an outline to carry out. After getting the materials, I go home and choose from the bookshelf, find related information, "digest" it, and then filter it to write an article. For example, with the first article published on September 21, 2019, titled From a suburban intersection about Go Vap District, it is impossible not to learn carefully about the traditional flower growing and horse breeding professions of this land, including the famous bronze incense burner making village of the ancient land of An Hoi, named An Hoi village on page 304 in the book Gia Dinh Thanh Thong Chi compiled by Trinh Hoai Duc in the early 19th century, which was carefully reprinted by Ho Chi Minh City General Publishing House in 2018.

Những trang báo ký ức - Ảnh 2. — The stupa at Vietnam National Pagoda (HCMC) shimmers at night, mentioned in the article The Bell of the Years Rings Long, Saigon - HCMC special page on May 23, 2020

I remember those days of wandering around Saigon, which gave me many lessons from each person, each land that recorded the sweat and blood of our ancestors who opened the country. From each stele, each wish is still buried in each tomb of famous and brave generals through the dynasties of many centuries past. From there, I think of the present and firmly believe when I find in each detail, each story the immense desire to live of the Vietnamese people, the past is still the same as today!

Những trang báo ký ức - Ảnh 3. — The betel garden in Ba Diem commune (Hoc Mon district, Ho Chi Minh City) was mentioned in the article Who returned to Eighteen betel gardens..., Saigon - Ho Chi Minh City special page on January 18, 2020.

Each article is a story and has its own idea, which comes from the author himself or at some random moment when having tea and wine with friends. For example, the article "The Journalist Village", then and now written about the special village of journalists in Saigon, appeared from a morning tea with 4 colleagues who stayed here 20 years ago. Or the two articles "Vong Chieu Can Vuong" and "Nhung Nam Duong Mot Thoi Su Ca" were created when he visited Hue on the occasion of the government and the Nguyen Phuoc family's Council holding a ceremony to bring King Ham Nghi's coffin to the Tan So citadel relic site ( Quang Tri ). Or while sitting and thinking about the heroic resistance war against the French by the Southern army and people in the mid-20th century, he took his bike and hit the road, writing the article "Returning to Nga Ba Giong" , a famous historical site in Hoc Mon district that is still imprinted in the hearts of many generations until now...

2. Going back 30 years, I still remember the trip that lasted more than a month in 1995 to the flood season in the Mekong Delta. In the rolling waves from the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, in the pain of losing people due to the flood, in the revelation of a bumper crop of shrimp and fish of fishermen on the Tien and Hau rivers, I suddenly thought about many things about the human strength struggling against nature to survive. From there, that classic philosophy of two sides of life, left and right, good and bad, gradually sowed a balance in the spirit of a young journalist at that time, me. And I dare to think that a certain perspective cannot and will never fully understand everything, but through each day, it will train and cultivate the writer to gradually eliminate the superficiality, the outbursts that are sometimes urged by temporary inspiration, to "mature" a little more.

Những trang báo ký ức - Ảnh 4. — The Thong Nhat train locomotive and the first train number to travel North - South (in 1975) were mentioned in the article Afternoon on Saigon station, Saigon - Ho Chi Minh City special page on October 10, 2020.

And I suddenly thought of the many changes in life over the decades that led Vietnamese households from Cambodia to find a place to live in a raft village on the La Nga River, a branch of the Dong Nai River, to establish a fish farming village, living a hard life in peace, about which I wrote the first reportage published in Thanh Nien in the summer of 1993. They were hundreds of families carrying the desire to survive from Tonle Sap Lake back to their homeland, Vietnam, with a business model drifting on the waves to their homeland, sowing so much hope that one day in the future, their children and grandchildren would be able to join their friends, their compatriots, in schools on the banks to learn more.

Those two stories, the flood from the other side of the Mekong River and the movement to find a way to survive on the Dong Nai River, naturally linked together like an intersection without needing identity, when looking for the place from which they left many years ago!

Những trang báo ký ức - Ảnh 5. — The Giong Junction Memorial Area (Hoc Mon District, Ho Chi Minh City) was mentioned in the article *Returning to Giong Junction* , Saigon - Ho Chi Minh City website on July 4, 2020.

Also from the La Nga raft village, I got to know an old man who used to make a living by catching crocodiles on the Mekong River. His name was Nguyen Van Song (often called Ut Song, or the locals also called him Ut Crocodile). When I met him, in September 1995, Mr. Ut Song was 64 years old, originally from Tay Ninh but born and raised in Cambodia. The article I still have quoted him as saying that "since 1959, he had been catching crocodiles in many places in Cambodia to raise in cages. After many years of catching, domesticating and raising crocodiles, in 1990, the Minh Hai Provincial Forestry Department invited "expert" Ut Song to sign a contract to incubate and breed crocodile eggs at Lam Vien 19.5", and then he cherished a wish and tried his best to fulfill it, which was to go to the La Nga raft village himself to buy a piece of land next to the river to set up a crocodile egg hatchery. What's special is that, meeting and listening to his stories, I understand more about many life stories, not only his own, but also many other villagers' struggles to make a living and find ways to get rich since returning to their homeland.

Những trang báo ký ức - Ảnh 6. — The author still keeps the reportage about La Nga raft village in the summer of 1993.

The reportage I titled Crocodile Farming on La Nga River was printed quite fully in the Thanh Nien newspaper on Tuesday, September 5, 1995!

3. Around the end of the 1990s, when online newspapers began to emerge, and then the rapid development of the internet, it became easier to copy and save articles that interested me. However, reading articles that were still kept on paper newspapers, perhaps had a different feeling. That feeling, the words that appeared before my eyes sometimes seemed to "whisper", making me re-imagine the roads I had traveled, the faces of the people I had met, the stories of each person's life... And most of all, the passion and dedication to the dream that I hoped would come true that shone in their eyes, how it used to inspire me when I returned at night, putting pen to paper to write those lines back then.

Những trang báo ký ức - Ảnh 7. — Article on how to incubate and raise crocodiles by Mr. Ut Song in 1995

For example, over the past years, and especially in the early days of this summer, the story of counterfeit goods has become a "fever" of indignation among public opinion nationwide. The actions of the criminals have been condemned, and officials have been prosecuted for their tolerance, appearing everywhere in the media. Suddenly one day, flipping through an old notebook, I saw an article of mine published in the Handbook section of Thanh Nien Newspaper on June 25, 1996, still lying there silently with the title Genuine goods, fake goods and the quality corridor , writing about the tricks of producing and selling fake goods to the market, with the following conclusion: "Perhaps the story of counterfeit and poor quality goods (for many reasons) is still a long story. How long it will be, only the competent authorities can decide. As for consumers, please "wait and see!".