A Place Called Freedom

Don’t be sad, friend.

I know you are in misery. Believe me, I have experienced all what you are suffering now. I know what it is like when you face the world with an empty heart, feeling you’ve lost everything:  your love, your career, your will, and most importantly, your love of life and your confidence. Nothing could be more awesome than when everything slips off your hand, and you find yourself in full exhaustion;  you just do not have any vitality to stand up once again.

If things had happened to you earlier, you would have possibly picked yourself up, and stood straight once more, saying, “I will survive,” because you were still young then, full of life and full of energy. But you are 28 now, and we all know that in a country like Vietnam, it is too late for us, women of 28, to start something over.

Where do we live? Vietnam, a land of paradox. Everyday we see absurdity in great abundance. In another place, it may never be too late to do something, but here in Vietnam, things are simply DIFFERENT. At the age of 28, be in another place, you ought to see life just begin with so many things unknown lying ahead for you to experiment. You are young, you are still new to many things, and you are in the process of gathering life experience. But that is not the case in Vietnam. In this place, it is definitely too late for a woman of 28 to have a happy life.  At 28, you are just too late to start a new career, to seek a new love, or to make a home; in other words, you do not have a chance to lead a happy life anymore. You can’t embark in life once more when all other ‘ordinary’ women of your age have already had “a stable life”: leaving work on time every weekday, going to Metropol supermarket every weekend, buying new clothes and dressing up for themselves and their beloved children, feeding their children, watching the children growing up to become like their parents, satisfactorily relying their life on an economic provider - their husband. It’s totally absurd if they seek pleasure in something else aside from family.  

You know what, friend, I have experienced gloomy days just like you. But unlike yours, my heart was not empty, instead it was full of hatred. In my twentieths, I saw the life ahead as a dark black night. At 22, I wrote for myself, “Life treats me as though I were a dog. Yes, I am. But this dog will survive.” At 24, alone I wandered over streets, whispering to myself, “Angie, Angie, when will those dark clouds disappear? With no loving in our souls, and no money in our coats...”. I lived such days. Believe me, I felt what you are feeling now when you go under a severe spiritual (or mental) crisis. In the prime of youth I grew up a lot from hatred, but hatred also left scars on my soul like the scars I have on my face. I became a skeptic and cynic, and I lost all confidence I once had. No God, no Buddha, no one even me, did I believe in.

You must know it, friend, that we belong to a lost generation, we’ve lost so many things and it’s all too late for us to get them back. Why? Because the world is round, because the wind is high, because the sky is blue, because we live here in a land of no freedom. “Stop complaining. Who told you a calf to be?”

All Comparisons Are Lame

In a previous post, I included my personal “review” on the way our renowned historians did their job so that traditions, customs, stories, and lessons of history, or experience, could be passed down to us over generations. As I said in the post, with lots of efforts I skimmed through “The Complete History Book of Dai Viet” by Ngo Si Lien. I felt I can understand why aged scholars of our time say young generations are bad at what they call “national history”.  It is because nothing is so boring as the so-called “national history” told so far in every history book of ours. The writing style is boring, the facts are scattered and often exaggerated, the presentation in short is unacceptably poor. As for me personally, I find all these books contained just emotionless letters and words. They failed to show any link between young readers of our time with “our glorious ancients”. They failed to present to our eyes the beauty of time, or the priceless lessons of history. 

When we come to our historians, none of them think of issues which forever are of concern to human race, such as leadership, cult and religion, politics, progress and decay, etc. Take religion and sociology as an example. None of our "thinkers" ever questioned why people had to pay worship to some supernatural force called "ancestors" or "Buddha". None of them ever asked why man should be superior to woman, or why the Vietnamese should honour a stranger from the alien north, Confucius.

I can’t restrain myself from making comparison between the preachs our glorified historians gave us with what their western workmates wrote:

“To those who study history not merely as a warning reminder of man’s follies and crimes, but also as an encouraging remembrance of generative souls, the past ceases to be a depressing chamber of horrors; it becomes a celestial city, a spacious country of the mind, wherein a thousand saints, statesmen, inventors, scientists, poets, artists, musicians, lovers and philosophers still love and speak, teach and carve and sing.

If a man is fortunate he will, before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children. And to his final breath he will be grateful for this inexhaustible legacy, knowing that it is our nourishing mother and our lasting life.”

(Will & Arient Durant)

Didn’t they show us the beauty of history?

Did any of our HISTORIANS (in capital letters) and teachers ever succeed in convincing us that we should sometimes look back on the past? Did any of them ever succeed in helping us stand straight to face the world, to enjoy life and to expect unawsome death? In short, was any of their words true? I believe that only when the words they said came from their heart could they convince us about something, or even go further to give us advice, as did the Durants to their American readers. Ngo Si Lien, Le Van Huu, Nguyen Trai... no, thanks.

Yes, I am fully aware that all comparisons are lame. But I can’t help comparing the lessons of history that I was taught, or crammed, at school with ones I got from the net - my Western teacher.  

But I don’t blame any historian or teacher. They themselves were taught to hold older generations in high esteem. I just dislike the way they, through boring and unconvincing preaches, brainwashed us into believing that our duty is such.

Eyes Wide Shut

Throughout history, there are thousands of verses, compositions, plays, films, stories, novels, etc. that tell us not to carry the world upon our shoulders. Intelligent ones will choose to live in a way that helps them enjoy life.

“When I’m tired and getting cold,

I’ll hide in my music, forget the day…”

Apprently the best solution always is to enjoy life, or to play the game of life. But ultimately, as human beings we can’t. We keep living with all our human emotions of joy, sadness, envy, jealousy, anger, love, or hatred. Our emotions and desires stay the same for centuries, no matter how progressive mankind gets. Perhaps our original sin is that we can’t put away our emotions and desires. Even when we all are made as dumb as rocks, I believe that never can we live happily, turning turn our blind eyes to annoyance around us. There may be times when we keep our mouth shut, because we know we, as grains of sand on earth, cannot make changes, or because we feel things are none of our business. But, generally speaking, inside each human mind there is a mutinous soul that will linger to our final breath. We just can get our eyes wide shut.

"When the universe has crushed him, man will still be nobler than that which kills him, because he knows that he is dying, of its victory the universe knows nothing." (Pascal)

Hey, hey. You stop contemplating, please. I am not a thinker at all. In fact, I know well that there are lots of people who can live happily without any troublesome mutinous soul. Rebellion is clearly a luxurious joy and a costly choice.

Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed

In retrospect, there were thousands of examples of the inferiority complex inside each Vietnamese mind. Nguyen Du, the great poet whose “The Story of Kieu” was a good proof of Berne Convention infringement, ended his masterpiece by saying that his works was just for readers’ fun. For sure he did not dare to say he had tried to do something more than fun. No wonder why none of his followers got out of his shadow to publicly speak out their mind.

What? What prevents us from speaking out what is really going on in our head? I think there may be a few main reasons why we choose to live this way.

Firstly, it is because of our inherent complex of inferiority, which leads us to the fear itself. We are afraid of being criticized, of being belittled, of being isolated. Therefore deep in our mind, we have a tendency to evade responsiblities, saying, “Hey, hey, I (must admit right now that I) am not a professional in this sector. What I am saying/ writing/ doing just aims to contribute one more idea/ work on this issue. Hopefully someone with better understanding than me regarding this problem will do more to make things clear…” The words might be different, but the message is the same in almost every case. A very effective way it is to elude responsibilites and protect oneself from being attacked.

Secondly, if one keeps their mouth shut about something, that might be due to either of the following reasons:

- they are not sharp enough to see the problem, or
- they are not courageous enough to raise their voice, or
- they see no profit, or even worse, they see punishments that follow their opinion, or
- they see no change that may come afterwards, or
- they see no connection between the matter and themselves; they are simply not concerned enough.

Many people hold the view that living is easy with eyes closed and mouth shut, and they are right in most cases. Most frightening is the case when we face punishment after speaking out our mind. As for me personally, I bite my lips and turn away (not with a sigh) so many times as I know quite sure that nothing will change after I shout at that man/ woman’s face. The situation will evidently stay the same. More importantly, many of us would not voice our opinions when the link between us and the place we belong to has become loose. We don’t feel we are a part of it anymore. We don’t share its success or failure, we don’t even think of its future with us being part of.

I have worked for several organizations, and I know that members shall raise their voice if, and only if, they still feel attached to the organization. People feel a strong attachment for their country only when they share common future plans and thus inspiration to work the plans out.

What, and how an organization can do to keep the attachment of their members, if it is important or not, is another matter that goes beyond this blogwriting. After all, maybe the attachment of people with an organization or a community is not trully important. In this modern world of trouble and speed, these links keep loosening without anybody being affected.

“Living is easy with eyes closed,
misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone
but it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me…”

(Strawberry Fields Forever)

For me, anyway, blogging is just a gaaaaaame.

Lovable Extremists

One of our last year TV programmes, “Non-stranger”, was an unsuccessful acount of the career of Do Hoang Dieu. It left almost no impression on me at all, except for this: The woman writer, author of the controversial erotic story “Incubus”, said firmly enough to wake me up from sleepiness, “For me, writing is just a game. My major is laws.” By that she meant writing was just her secondary job which she did just for fun or for some experiment of her gift.

I got out of sleep, and said to my workmates, “Crazy woman. How can she be so arrogant?” But my workmates said, “No, that’s not arrogance. She is trying to evade any responsibility one may have to take in writing. If some audience, having read her book and felt no sympathy for it, hear what she says now in this program, they will agree to her that Do Hoang Dieu’s book was not a success because she is not a professional writer. Look, writing is merely her secondary job.” I thought my workmates seemed right to some extent.

I would later on notice many cases in which highlighted the author of an idea, a review, a comment, or an analysis, “I am not a writer/ critic/ professional/ ect. What I write here is just to express some personal ideas about…”. It is clear that all of them have set “safety barriers” for them to be protected from any possible attack.

Then I’ve realized recently that I myself am setting safety barriers for myself. In every writing of mine on this blog, I include these words, “I am not a dissident,” “I am not a political thinker,” “I am not an economist,” “I am not an artist,” “I would rather stay on the ground,” something like that.

In my recent writing about the battle of idea between government and market, I took into account the story of managers and staffs in my office. Then I stopped there, leaving it off without reaching any conclusion, or suggesting any solution.

Yes, like many others, I am setting safety barriers. And I am clear that I will keep doing so.

Why? Why do many of us set up safety barriers to hide from attacks? Can the safety barriers serve as our shelters? Or is there any other reason that keeps us with many untold things?

Why dare none of us speak out our mind even when that may at times make us extremists? Where are all the extremists?

The answer will come along in the next post.

Quote of the Day

"The others leap, shout,

Freedom!

The moving water will not show me

my reflection.

The rocks ignore.

I am a word

in a foreign language."

"We are all immigrants to this place..."

(Disembarking at Quebec, Margaret Atwood)

 

The poem is the writer's lament for her loss of the native soil. They were immigrants to the heaven of freedom. But the price they had to pay for that freedom was loneliness. While some of the immigrants leaped and shouted joyfully for the freedom they had years longed for and found at last, the woman in the poem felt she had lost something precious. She looked around, finding herself in a dead silence where even water did not show her reflection and rocks ignored her presence. She was not who she had been; she was not herself anymore. From that moment on, she found out that she was just a word in a foreign language.

Loneliness. It may be the treasure, or the price we have to pay for freedom.

Modernist poetry, it might be a bit difficult to read and to comprehend.

 

Below is the poem in full text:

"It is my clothes, my way of walking,

the things I carry in my hand

-a book, a bag with knitting-

the incongruous pink of my shawl

the space cannot hear

or is it my own lack 

of conviction which makes

these vistas of desolation,

long hills, the swamps, the barren sand,

        the glare

of the sun on the bone-white

driftlogs, omens of winter,

the moon alien in day-

time a thin refusal

The others leap, shout

                  Freedom!

The moving water will not show me

my reflection.

The rocks ignore.

I am a word

        in a foreign language."

 

And my translation is as follows:

Là quần áo của tôi, là dáng đi của tôi

Là những gì tôi mang trong tay

cuốn sách, chiếc túi thêu,

màu hồng xa lạ trên chiếc khăn choàng

không gian không nghe tiếng tôi

Có phải chính tôi thiếu

niềm tin tưởng đã tạo nên

những phong cảnh cô đơn này

những ngọn đồi dài, những đầm lầy, cát trắng,

ánh sáng mặt trời

trên những ngọn xương trắng

driftlog *

sự u ám của mùa đông

mặt trăng xa lạ ngày dài

một sự từ khước mong manh

Những người khác đang reo vang:

Tự do!

Làn nước chảy kia không cho tôi thấy

hình bóng tôi

Đá cũng lặng câm

Tôi chỉ là một từ rơi rớt

trong thứ ngôn ngữ xa lạ này.

 

* Driftlog: I cannot look this word up in any dictionary available, and I cannot figure out its meaning. 

Anyway, on the Vietnamese translation, sure you will find me influenced too strongly by Vietnamese modernist poetry, right? I know, I know... "từ khước", "lặng câm", "rơi rớt"... None of them is my true word. Well, I have tried my best not to be influenced by modern Vietnamese language, but it is really hard to create new words or new ways of expression. Where is my white flag???

Who Wins in the End?

So who wins in the end? Maybe from what I have written, a conclusion might be reached that I am a strong supporter of governmental intervention. But, again, no thanks. I am aware that human beings, for some unknown reason, tend to go to extremes and will always be extremists when not prevented. “Something in between”, or an elaborate combination between poles, is impossible to get. In terms of marcoeconomics management, all kinds of combination have finally failed in the sense that the “in between” thing fell into either extreme. The US adjusted economy, the mixed economy in Britain and part of Western Europe, all has turned closer to a model in which corporate sector is put under the command of government. Once the government plays an important role in the national economy, they will have the tendency to swell out instead of shrinking.

This is true even in micro cases, that is in corporate manegement, and I say this from what I have seen right here in my office. I work in a small television station, “an online and cable television company” as many of us should like to put it out of true or false pride. Theoretically, a television is devided into two sectors, the input and the output. The input sector, or the production sector, comprises subsectors dealing with sight, sound, and text… well, it needs not be too detailed. The output sector includes many subsectors, say, marketing, sale, broadcast (on-air and online), after sale, etc. To make sure the system work well, there certainly must be a supportive sector in charge of supporting production teams and broadcast teams.

I see in here the similarity with a much larger macro system. The input sector in our television is similar to the corporate sector in the economy, the audiences play the part of customers and prospects, and the supportive sector - the miniature copy of a real-life government. Based on market needs, production sector produces and provides products and services, and the output sector will have them consumed. TV producers and editors, based on what audiences need, shall produce TV programs, then the output sector makes them available for sale, while the supportive sector serves as assistants. My boss has many times said to us, “I hereby emphasize, once more, that the supportive sector is in charge of supporting production staffs”.

However, ignorant as many of us are, we see without any suspicion that whenever we ask for support from the supportive sector, we should be cautious about using words. We should be very careful before saying or writing anything, because any misuse of word may lead to unpleasant consequence(s). Sponaneously and automatically, all of us use very courteous words, sometimes more courteous than needed, say, “my very dear Miss…”, “would you please grant us the favour of…”, “oooh, thank you a lot, dear”, and so on. We must avoid annoying them, we can’t do so or else we will face tough “embargo” not just from them - we might suffer from embargo even from other teams of production; we might be isolated.

I appreciate politeness, and I would be very happy to live in a place, or a community, where people treat each other as if they all are honourable guests. However, I doubt that all the politeness I see is true. The doubt grows bigger as I see the supportive sector grows more and more aware of their responsiblities. They don’t just support us in our work, some of them would rather think for us, too. No matter what we might say, things are unchanged. Corruption, or "crony capitalism", has therefore become an indispensable part of such system.

Come back to the story of "the battle between government and market". To have a better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of governmental intervention into economies, a good way for us is to look at and make comparison between liberal and planned model of management. We have in hand an index to measure, or more precisely, to let us know how much a government intervenes or give loose to the economy, that is the Index of Economic Freedom, IEF.

More concepts and words are needed to discuss on this index. However, when looking at charts showing economic freedom and indicators that it entails, we can see that countries and territories standing top-list are more likely to be wealthier ones - Hongkong, Singapore, Ireland, Luxembourg, United Kingdom, United States of America. And bottom-listed economies, meaning under tight control - Zimbabwe for instance, are often poor ones, or at least their people prove to be less satisfied and less open-minded than the westerners.

Anyway, wealth and equality are not necessarily going together. Equality does not go with poverty, either.

We can argue, with firm belief, that the government takes the responsibility, not the right, of supporting the corporate sector. But it is really hard for them to stay just there. They will unavoidably identify responsibility with right. In fact, it is easy to identify the responsibility of managing and allocating limited resources with the right and power of taking command. It is nearly likely that power will always swell out more and more. After all, government is just a group of ordinary people whose greed and thirst for power are inherent and hereditary characteristics. What can we expect from ordinary people? The non-stop melody keeps repeating itself. "How much power is enough?" "I want that power, yes, that's good enough, plus a bit more."

So who will win in the end? I don’t know. I am not a dissident. I need, and will always need intervention from a “third party” to guarantee equality in allocating sources, in providing support, and so on. The problem is, as we have seen, that third party has never restricted their roles to just “support”. The solution to this problem is still a secret. Maybe with this secret, our life becomes more significant and interesting, doesn't it? Who knows? Life is always a struggle, sometimes a hard choice.

Forgive me making a lot of spelling and syntax errors. The illustrative picture is a painting by my favourite artist Kandinsky. There's no specific link between the illustration and the writing.

Remember, please, that I am not a political thinker, either. No, thanks. I'd rather stay on the ground, listening to music playing in my head.