Musician Duong Thu writes a letter to young people

Musician Duong Thu - Photo: NGUYEN DINH TOAN

Letter to young people

They sat there, in a region of time that seemed to have flattened out. Freckles, crow's feet, even deep voices; together they told stories of their beloved twenties.

Regardless of the form, interviews, confessions or notes, their feelings and messages are like love letters to their homeland and young people.

Musician Duong Thu sends a letter to young people.

Identity, accept or deny

At the age of 12, before the capital was taken over (October 10, 1954), my grandfather wanted to be a citizen living in a free zone, so he took my mother and me back to our hometown (Van Dinh), which was then a liberated zone. More than a year later, our family was classified as a landlord (because my grandparents had a lot of land), so life was very difficult.

As the son of a landlord forced to work in a reformatory, I used to pull harrows instead of buffaloes, dig ditches, hoe the land, build banks, scoop up fish, catch crabs and snails like other villagers.

Lack of food and overwork make people as skinny as storks.

The strange thing is that when I do hard work, I feel happy.

Being in contact with the poor, simple people, attached to the fields, immersed in mud, smelling the wild grass, the smell of ripe rice and the warmth of summer in the lowland fields helped me to ease the suffering that my family had to endure.

Born into a disadvantaged family, that is my fate. I accept it as a natural thing, like having to endure the cold in winter without warm clothes to wear.

It is good to change yourself and not be changed to adapt. I think we have our own life, our own body, our five senses to live, to receive. Not to live for others, not to live for others, not to live according to what others want.

We have a name, not a number. Accept your fate because it is what it is, not because it means denying yourself.

"Vitality is more important than age. I really like the title of Nguyen Huy Thiep's novel: "Beloved 20s". "Beloved 20s" is "age - 20 - me", so good. "Age - 20 - me" (lasting until the age of 74) is "less happy, more sad", but the happiness, sadness, and humiliation of "age - 20 - me" define me, giving me a name: Duong Thu".

Musician Duong Thu

Wounded but no scar

Listening to my songs, no one would think that I lived such a miserable life. In 1970, when I was the head of the literature and history department of the Tuyen Quang Province Pedagogical School, because I defended female students to convict a party committee member, and defended the poem Nhat Thich Thang by Tran Dan and the poetry collection Cua Mo by Viet Phuong, I was suspended from work and had to pack up and go to Tu Ly commune in Hoa Binh province under the guise of studying and working, but in reality I was herding cows.

I am innocent and have done nothing wrong, so herding cows is fun. I have time to bring my briefcase to draw realistic scenes. Even just drawing with watercolors is very moving.

In 1977, Mr. Nguyen Phuoc Sanh asked me to teach literature and aesthetics at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts where he was the director.

Three years later, I quit my job to pursue music professionally. After that, I was accused of commercializing music and getting into a lot of trouble, but I didn't resent it. I still wrote Listening to Spring Coming , still "the little dove, flying through the sky, the spring sky" (song Spring Breath ).

Will spring ever come to me? There is no sunlight shining outside the window. It is just the dream of a believer, a lover, a longing and a dreamer. That dream is the healing that makes my life, despite many wounds, leave no scars.

Musician Duong Thu and singer My Linh - Photo: NVCC

Foolish and wise

In 1965, because I was more engrossed in practicing the piano than in reading books in the library to prepare for teaching at the Literature Department of the Pedagogical University, I was disciplined and had to move to the mountains to teach high school.

Since I was little, my family always considered me a fool, so when I went, my mother also followed me to "look after" me. On the day of the introduction, she told the principal: "Thu is still very foolish, please help him." I felt so embarrassed when I heard that. Until now, in my "dictionary", the words clever and wise do not exist.

In 2013, in the article Choosing to be yourself (Tet issue of Sinh Vien newspaper), I wrote:

"Once you depend too much on circumstances, on factors outside yourself, you want to live safely, fear failure, fear disadvantage, fear loss, expect guidance from others, from experience, you will surely have choices that we often call "wise".

Too wise to dare to live, so you will not know who you are.

Not knowing who you are will lead to the serious consequence that you are not at ease. An unattuned person is a person of the crowd, living according to trends, wasting energy on unnecessary things.

I call people like that misplaced. They always sit in the wrong place, hold things that are not theirs, say things that are not theirs. That is not necessarily a tragedy for some people, but for a self-respecting person who wants to be a decent person, it is a shame, a "secret humiliation".

Obviously "being too smart turns into foolishness" because the most foolish thing a person can do, to me, is to lose himself. The "self" is very important because it is what we are supposed to become, it defines us, not an empty name, a borrowed name, a name bought with relationships, money.

The Red River Quartet includes musician Duong Thu (left cover), Tran Tien, Nguyen Cuong, Pho Duc Phuong - Photo: NVCC

The foundation to become

The songs that were "born" one after another over half a century are not random improvisations or records of reason, they are the incarnation of life.

It is myself, what I started searching for at a very young age through years of hardship and misfortune, through reading literature, listening to music, looking at paintings, learning to draw, and learning to play the piano diligently and passionately.

In poverty, I still dreamed of living with music and literature. I studied piano with Ms. Thai Thi Sam at the Music School of Mr. Luu Quang Duyet, listened to classical music at Mr. Diep's house on Hang Gai Street, and went to the National Library to read classical literature.

That was the safest "shelter" for my soul back then. Before that, I was studying fine arts at Dinh Minh Private Fine Arts School on Hang Trong Street, attending evening drawing classes with artist Nguyen Thi Khang.

During those years, art gave me faith in people, life and beauty. It kept me innocent, pure and above all, gave me the foundation to become.

Now the winter sea | Composer: Duong Thu, Singer: Thanh Lam

You may not be what I am, but deep down inside every human being lies the dream of becoming something.

Anyway, you have to start by committing yourself, by reading - watching - listening - learning, enough for a person to be called decent and civilized. You will succeed, or else you will become a person. To me, becoming a person is more important.

On the cover of the Duong Thu vinyl album, 80 years of a dream , I wrote:

"When I was 9 years old, I saw the ocean, when I was 16 I saw you, so I began to know the vastness, the distance, the unreachable. Yet I still sing the dream about it forever.

Living in winter and knowing for sure that I can only stay in winter, I sing about spring. Living in a narrow alley, I sing about the vast ocean.

Over 40 years old, no real love, still never touched your hand but always sing about pure love.

It is a paradox and that paradox has shaped me, has given birth to the songs that I have written in more than half a century of living. My songs are melancholy but it is the strength that a man like me can have."

I would like to send that confession back to you.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/nhac-si-duong-thu-viet-thu-gui-nguoi-tre-20240831104234845.htm