(NB&CL) After all, we need Tet and Spring so much, but we really don't know that!
Like the chubby cheeks of a baby.
Like the clear eyes of a shy, timid young girl, making life poetic and soft:
“Your eyes are like a boat reflecting on the water
Her dress flutters in the gentle breeze, shyly outside the spring wharf”… (1)
Like a fragile flower bud bursting from a bare, dry branch - the polar opposite of fragrant youth and withered, rotten wood.
Luckily there is still Tet, Tet comes on time making our hearts sprout green leaves of spring.
* * *
Society has changed dramatically, the changes are like waves sweeping across the globe, sweeping away many old traditions.
The shift from rural to urban areas. Many cultural layers of the traditional family are being broken down piece by piece. More breakups and divorces. The world is opening up, flattening, tilting, and flattening. Digital technology and technology are all-encompassing. “AI” is also creeping into love poems that were thought to be exclusive to poetic souls.
The heart too, has changed, but perhaps not completely. Because it is not easy to change the heart!
All year round, struggling to make a living, on the days before Tet, the clock bell suddenly chimes to warn: Tet is coming! Tet is coming! And we, big, small, old, young... are busy in a different way to prepare for a New Year's Eve to close the old and welcome the new. Everyone is busy with work, and excited:
“The way home is through our hearts
Whether sunny or rainy near or far
Failure, fame
Home is always waiting for us”... (2)
Please remember, whether we are "failed" or "famous", honored or humiliated, rich or poor, our home is always waiting for us to return to our hometown, to touch the warm source of our homeland, the "sweet star fruit cluster" to receive the sap of life.
On cold late afternoons, train stations, wharves, airports, everywhere is full of people. People leave everything behind in the bustling city, go home!!! The place that promises a warm kitchen, a red fire, a mother's embrace to heal all wounds,...
It's strange that no matter how long we've been away from home, just by "touching the city gate" or "touching the village gate", we can immediately enjoy the familiar space and taste of childhood, of our first memories.
Yet, it is truly pitiful for those with wandering souls, who seem to “miss their homeland” wherever they go. Wandering for half their lives, their parents are gone, their old home is no longer there. All year round, “residing” in the capital, at the end of the year, they return to the old place alone, forever immersed in the old ways but still unable to see their distant homeland. Like a bewildered stranger in the place where they were born and raised, forever looking back for the things of the past...
"I am just a petty gangster
Hearing the sound of boiling rice makes me miss home”… (3)
So, adults are “very poor”, “have nothing”. All their lives they are busy searching. The river is deep at the end of the year, Tet comes, the wind and frost have faded their hair, suddenly they ask: Where is home?!
* * *
It is said that there was a respected professor who, when our country was still poor and hungry, proposed to abolish the Lunar New Year to focus on labor and production. But that proposal met with fierce opposition from society.
Recently, a professor also proposed to merge “New Year’s Day” with “New Year’s Day”, following the example of Japan, Singapore, etc. to keep pace with global life, and avoid the long stagnation of “our own style” holiday. But the debate between the consensus and opposition has never been less tense.
The Vietnamese people have a tradition of placing love, family, and strong cultural values above economic interests. That is why the Vietnamese nature is as soft as the flow of water and as strong and powerful as water - perhaps that is why one of the symbolic images of this rice civilization is the great rivers. It is this flexibility and resilience that creates a sustainable community, which has never succumbed to danger and always reaches a happy ending, a nation that has fought against foreign invaders for thousands of years without being assimilated, and continues to grow miraculously, with the aspiration to fly like the boy from the village of Gióng years ago!
These years, every transformation is painful, even loss and hidden hardship, hardship. "Last night, in the front yard - a branch of apricot blossom" - Bright dawn is coming! Like Spring, accompanying humans for millennia but still "forever young", overcoming everything, Spring always returns to rice fields, mulberry fields, beaches, villages. Spring always returns to hearts that know how to smile at the grass and flowers budding, blooming...
Young people long to sail out to sea.
People who have gone through stormy years are like a boat full of love returning to the old dock.
"My house is next to the bridge looking for water
You come to me once
“Flocks of wild birds flock together across the spring wharf”… (4)
You came to me just once, and my life changed forever…
Spring comes, the scent of incense lingers, the fragrant scent of flowers and grasses is mixed with spring rain, Van Cao's music soars up sacredly, making the rhythm of life repeat. And Spring is like the flow of time, even though the two banks are different in age, even though it flows over hard rocks or dry land, as promised... pure Spring still returns to the world!
____________
Note:
(1), (4): Song of Spring Wharf – Van Cao
(2): Song "Going home" - Hua Kim Tuyen, Den Vau
(3): Excerpt from the poem "Giang ho" - Pham Huu Quang .
True Origin
Source: https://www.congluan.vn/ben-xuan-ca-post331239.html
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