FOR "TUOI TRE" WRITING CONTEST IN 2007
If it wasn’t for an invitation of an former learner of mine, I wouldn’t have been in HCMC making a new chapter of my life, as it wasn’t for my God mother’s advice , I wouldn’t have been in Kien Giang for 28 years .
It started early March 2008 even though I had been considering moving for several times in several years. After his few encouraging calls, I took a trip to see what I could do for him and other schools. Then I decided to leave home for a change, for challenging myself, for making my family better.
... to be continued
| I haven’t known | what time the party will finish. why they had been doing that to me how I was taken here who exactly they are when I will have been able to get home whom I have been sitting nearby on what occasion they had found me and what you are doing now. |
I eat meals.
I always eat meals.
I eat between meals.
I always eat between meals.
... to be continued
1. When do you have a baby?
2. Could you tell me when you have a baby?
3. Tell me when you have a baby.
4. Let me know when you have a baby.
5. I want to know when you have a baby.
..... to be continued
People often ignore or underestimate or even forget what they are given. But what I was given by Ma Chanh- an additional cigarette- is unforgetable.
I started smoking at the age of 9 since my Dad left us. Blue, red Bastos, Bastos Lux and Ara were my brother’s and my favorite while watching Kungfu film in the mid 1960s. “Nhu Lai Than Chuong” was the first film we watched as we finished smoking half of a package till the end of the film. When my Mom had an evening shift- not having dinner- I cut half of my going-to the market budget so we could enjoy a film as well as smoking. In an early morning of Agu 28th, 1971, while gathering at HAU BAO’s to prepare for our trip to Bao Loc, I silently stopped smoking. That may make everyone at our school take off his or her hat to praise me, especially Teacher Sau Rau. The cold rainy days, homesickness, coffee invitations, my classmates’mocking or stimulating, the festivals or crisis took no effect on my determination of stopping smoking. That probably was why they named me THANH XI or that was part of what I should talk about myself. I went to Thu Duc University of Technical Education as a nice good student- no smoking nor having coffee.
I have been a really private person. I have been sort of perfected for myself a way of keeping a distance from people as well as a way to be close to them. I came to HCMC with nothing but I believed I could find something there.
Have you ever strived toward a goal that eluded you, no matter how hard you tried? Many times we have set specific objectives for our lives only to wonder why we don’t achieve them. Well, as you could predict, what I have ever lost and found in HCMC can be understood as easily as it can be.
“Mom! If you could read it- I wish you would, you would have found how much I loved you.”
We all love Moms, don’t we? But I had a different way to show my love to mine especially when I went to Agricultural High school in Bao Loc since Sep 1971.
The first thing I did was to stop smoking since the day I left home. I had smoked at the age of 9 due to some bad boys’ encouragements. I didn’t tell her and she didn’t care since I almost always went to school and tried to study and play basket ball. What else could a divorcee like her expect her son to do? The love for her helped me quit easily.
for such a long until I could try to forget.
There is not one thing in my life that I regret doing except showing her what I thought of her, how much she meant to me, BICH VAN.
I happened to meet her some where in front of our classes as I was in my first few days of my first year in BAO LOC to study forestry at Agricultural high school. She wearing ao dai stood still, half smiling, waiting for no one but me- I guess. As we met, if she really did, I just nodded my head slightly to say hello. She appeared as an angel among about 10 of her classmates. No one knew I was shocked. No one realized how much she influenced me at the first sight. The lessons that day became very strange particularly to me. Yet, the class atmosphere seemed peaceful and warm to me, just me.
