I’m not a, particularly positive person, more pragmatic than anything, but hell may freeze over before the numeral ZERO will ever stop me!
Fuck that!
Never say die!
I have watched my children, those who came from my loins and those who have not, struggle day after day with this depressing economy to find a job, let alone those who are near and dear to me losing their livelihood LITERALLY over a poem!
I don’t have the answer, I just know that I should not give up. If I refuse to give up. Perhaps then my children will NEVER give up. Those around me WILL NOT give up.
Defiance is NOT reserved for the RICH or the STRONG. Defiance is reserved for those who are the littlest of us, DEFIANCE is reserved for those who are willing to FIGHT.
So FIGHT. Fight for it. Fight for your job, fight for YOUR VERNACULAR!
FIGHT!
—-
May 2022
—
Tôi không phải là một người đặc biệt tích cực, thực dụng thì đúng hơn, nhưng địa ngục có thể đóng băng trước khi con số ZERO có thể ngăn tôi lại!
Quá chán!
Huống chi nói đến chuyện thất bại, tôi sẽ không bao giờ bỏ cuộc!
Tôi đã chứng kiến những đứa con của tôi, những đứa trẻ đến từ cơ bắp của tôi và những đứa không phải là của tôi, chúng đã phải vật lộn ngày này qua ngày khác với nền kinh tế đang suy sụp này để tìm việc làm, huống chi những người gần gũi và thân yêu của tôi mất đi sinh kế NGAY LẬP TỨC chỉ vì một bài thơ!
Tôi không có câu trả lời, tôi chỉ biết rằng tôi không nên bỏ cuộc. Nếu tôi không chịu bỏ cuộc. Có lẽ khi đó các con tôi sẽ KHÔNG BAO GIỜ bỏ cuộc. Những người xung quanh tôi SẼ KHÔNG bỏ cuộc.
Sự thách thức KHÔNG dành riêng cho những người GIÀU CÓ hay MẠNH MẼ. Sự thách thức dành riêng cho những ai nhỏ bé nhất trong chúng ta, SỰ THÁCH THỨC dành riêng cho những người sẵn sàng CHIẾN ĐẤU.
CHIẾN ĐẤU đi chứ. Chiến đấu vì nó. Chiến đấu cho công việc của bạn, chiến đấu cho NGÔN NGỮ CỦA BẠN!
FIGHT!
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm, the blogger, poet, and translator, was born in 1971 in Phu Nhuan, Saigon, Vietnam. The pharmacist currently lives and works in Western Sydney, Australia.
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm 
Love this post!!
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thanks 🙂
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Nice blog you have… I shall be back…
I lived in Saïgon… (Which I will always call Saïgon) for six months in 1956. Just between the two Vietnam wars, the French and the American. I was too little to remember. We lived at the Majestic hotel until our house in Phnomh Penh was ready. My father worked for Sihanouk…
My mother used to take me and my little sister for a walk on Rue Catinat…
I’m glad you found a home in the Land of OZ. I hope all your family made it too. It was not always the case…
Au revoir. Stay well.
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Thank you for your kind words, you perhaps know then what it was like to be different anywhere, we have at least that in common. The blog in truth began as a mere by-product of my journey toward a language I thought was lost inside me. Poetry unexpectedly had become a much-needed therapy. Cheers, Trâm.
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Hi Trâm (Of course your first name is the last!). Yes, I do know what it is to be different. But it’s all right. One learns to live with it.
(I do hope you have not been too harassed during COVID, since Europeans can’t tell one Asian form the other… When most times it is very obvious. And regardless Asian harassment in the West has been a problem. I have a friend from Singapore now living Down Under. She gets harassed often… Anyway…)
A lost language… Of course… You must have been very little when you left… I’m glad you found it back… I’m French, living in Latin America for so long that sometimes I forget too.
Au revoir
Brian
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Hello French Brian, it is my greatest pleasure to have met your acquaintance.. ❤
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Haha! “French Brian”
Pleasure is mine Trâm… (It’s also nice to have a ^ on my keyboard…)
Have a nice week-end…
🤗💕
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Thank you, you too. ❤
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