“Cứ như một quy luật, những khúc quanh đau đớn trong lịch sử chúng ta luôn là những cuộc thương lượng thất bại và những nỗ lực hòa giải dở dang.”

Trích ĐÀN BÀ ĐẸP và CHÍNH QUYỀN

Nguyễn Hoàng Văn

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Cuộc đời của tôi là một quy luật “Thương lượng và hoà giải” như anh đã viết. Cảm giác không thoát được nó làm tôi nản.

Rồi một hôm mây xanh với những giây phút lành tôi lại bước ra ngoài.

Đánh hơi mùi men của rượu.
Lại yêu đời.

Khoe nè. Thơm quá nha, fresh off the printing press from Amazon

Trâm nhận được rồi nè anh Nguyễn Hoàng Văn .

I love the large print, can’t wait to read it, and maybe get an autograph.

“Anh Nguyễn Hoàng Văn , so it’s a collection of essays? Just got home from visiting my parents, to brag about my new book. I’m in the middle of reading the second essay. I find it is rather odd that I actually enjoy reading your essays, or rather any essay at all. My dad said that you have a great imagination, perhaps this is why your writing is so engaging?”

“Oh, Phuong Tram, I’ve written with my head and heart. I am so happy to have a reader like you and your Dad.”

“He said you’re a bit “mad”, and my reply was “and your daughters dad? they are crazy!” We love you, even though you are “người Huế” hheheh.”

“I am from Quang Nam, next to Hue”

“south of Hue right? It was just a bad racist joke I used to break the ice, it matters more to my parent’s generation but not so much mine, here in Australia we are preoccupied with other prejudices, my sisters and brother have never even had time to worry about North South let alone the middle. You speak of mind and heart, you mean “nghĩ và cảm”. To me it is science and poetry. Without it, one can not live, one will never be able to understand truly what it means to be happy or sad let alone satisfy.

It feels as though, you[YOUR WRITING] get me. LOL. simply put.”

“Người đời, nói theo Picasso, thích nghe tiếng chim hót nhưng không ai lên tiếng đòi chim phải hót sao cho họ hiểu. Họ cũng thích trồng hoa hay cắm hoa nhưng không bắt hoa phải nở cho họ hiểu. Tuy nhiên họ cứ bắt họa sĩ vẽ sao cho mình hiểu.”

Nguyễn Hoàng Văn

Heheh.. Thật tình.

Can I blog my thoughts ông anh? If you say no. I’m just going to do it anyway.

Văn của ông anh thu hút quá ạ!

I wish all essays were written like this and school might not have been such a torture all those years not being able to understand anything.

Your writing is acidic, scathing, humourous, bloody frank and refreshingly honest.

Your honesty is absolutely breathtaking. You read, you read a lot, but not once did you make me feel small or belittled. Like most of the people I have came across in the last eight years of rediscovering the mother tongue.

Frankly, you inspire me on this journey of trying to understand my parents and their heritage.

You give me hope, beyond the daily grind of sweat and tears the Vietnamese vernacular will endure and flourish.

It begins with a starter, a hook like “BEAUTIFUL WOMEN & AUTHORITY”, follow by arguments, nevertheless, more important are the conversations.

Conversations. Yes. Conversation.

I believe we need to coffee. This part. You can’t say no to.

Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

November 20th, 2024

[Hoa, họa và đàn bà: cái cảm và cái nghĩ]

“Quả thật bất công cho các họa sĩ… họ khăng khăng làm khó các họa sĩ mà không chịu bỏ ra, chỉ vài sát na với ý nghĩ thoáng qua rằng, để cảm cái gì đó thì phải vứt bỏ định kiến, phải xích lại thật gần và, để hiểu, thì phải học.”

Nguyễn Hoàng Văn

……………

Applicable not just in the arts but also in literature. Time and again people complain poetry is hard to read, say in the past 8 years, the poetry I have read by anh Lê Vĩnh Tài. No one wants to spare the time nor are they prepare to let go of their preconceptions and prejudices, get their hands dirty, or simply unprepared to learn anything new.

My ability to translate poetry is always labeled as something else other than persistence and hard work. Reading the dictionary have become my hobby. Google is my friend. The learning experience in itself fascinating.

Translating to me is both science and poetry, both mind and heart combine. It is felt but logic is essential for it to make any sense in another vernacular.

And again in this new transcribed vernacular, it must also be felt and understood.

I have been so frustrated trying to get this point across, but my mother’s tongue failed me time and again.

It feels as though finally, someone understands me.

Sorry.

Just venting.

Reading books is cheaper than therapy.

Trâm

November 20th, 2024

[Bệnh nhược tiểu, thói hủ nho và thủ dâm chính trị]

Uhm, small mind, outdated, and way too much self-love can absolutely slowly eat away at one soul.

Voiced audibly through the author is the frustration of someone who love his country.

Dare to say, dare to point out the flaws without an ounce of reservation.

Time, the ephemeral lifetime. I can do nothing but echo Nguyễn Hoàng Văn’s frustrations. Surely one day it will become reality:

We are small but we are not small mind.

We have history but it should make us rich with knowledge, knowledge to endure not to hold us back. Knowledge being the means and the tools for us to move forward, help us keep up with the rest of world.

And when we love, we learn to love ourselves enough to know how to care and love for those all around us. We are a collective.

We pick up the garbage on the side of the road, not for ourselves but for those all around us. We do NOT collect master degrees so we can step on people around us.

It has little to do with being humble, it is about respect, respect the kind thought for someone who picks up the garage we litter in the street. The farmers who had toiled through the seasons so we can have the white rice we “deserve”.

Ahh…

Again, I vent.

As it went.

Another opened can of worms.

November 22nd, 2024

[Phải học Tú Bà]

The truth is a rude awakening. We have much to learn from the madame of any institute.

If you want to fuck, you must learn how to fuck properly! What goes where and into what.

Certainly when to stop, and when to simply run!

Educated with all those master degrees but you don’t know where a woman’s G spot is then, what is the point of living.

November 22nd, 2024

[Đàn bà đẹp và chính quyền tồi]

Tồi: hypocritical and two face.

Frankly, I was a little disappointed. The essay entitling the collection of essays, the hook, the reason I feel the urge to own such a book was not about me: a woman with a problem with authority, the patriarch.

Nguyễn Hoàng Văn showcases our motherland in a desperate plight for recognition, her fight is always diminished by those who likes to play dirty. If you are submissive, you are kind and sweet, you let people dress you up and pass you around like a doll, will you be remembered then?

My inability to shut the fuck up, and my mother’s term of endearment not in any way derogatory: “little madame”, begs me to conclude my role is more suited as a despicable character like Tú Bà rather than one of the Vương’s sisters in the epic tale by Nguyễn Du.

Life is never kind, life is hateful and mean, beyond that is just the fat that keeps us warm.

November 23rd, 2024