mười chín tuổi tôi đi chưa đủ lớn để hiểu nỗi chia ly không còn nhỏ để mong về với mẹ tháng ngày trôi qua nhẹ như hơi thở tôi quên tháng quên ngày tung phút giây cho bay đi cùng gió cuộc đời nghe dài quá khi ta chưa hai mươi
Ngưòi đàn bà trong tôi bước tới tuổi ba mươi run rẩy nhận ra hình như ngày rất ngắn ngậm nắng trên môi để giữ những gì đang dần trôi qua
thật chặt
những nếp nhăn đầu tiên rọi bóng cuối chiều không còn chờ đợi một tình yêu tôi mơ về những điều bình thường hơn vài nụ hôn vụng dại một mái nhà chiếc xe và tiếng trẻ thơ mong mẹ người đàn ông như bức tranh quý treo tường
Tôi chợt hiểu chia ly và mong về với mẹ người đàn bà mãi đong đưa trong một phút ngây thơ ta chợt hiểu cuộc đời
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
more on books...
4. what i would call English classics, which also contributed to my fluency in Vietnamese. The first time we returned to Vietnam, my mom took one empty piece of luggage, which, by the time we left again, she filled with lime, chillies, dried young bamboo, lotus seeds, dried longan and many other treasures that we would end up eating for the next few months. Amongst the endless food were her old books. My mom, a literature teacher had her share on the book shelf, and she made sure that they don't go to waste by bribing the people at the airport so they let her take the luggage, which I think was almost double of the allowed weigh. And that's how I got to know Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I fell in love. I could not get over the darkness of the books for days. But there is something else that these books fueled - curiosity about the original work. You see, the Chinese books are so embedded within Vietnamese culture they never felt like a translation, but the Bronte's works, with their strange names that remain strange after being phonetically translated made me feel like I am missing something, reading them in Vietnamese. And hence, a new obsession - English, for the sake of reading books in their original language (well and to listen to MTV songs). As soon as i was able to read two sentences consecutively without consulting the dictionary I reread the Brontes again, and naturally had to read them over and over again, because seriously, having to stop every other sentence is very annoying. Then, I moved on to Jane Austen, Daniel Defoe, Bleak House (which I first read in the compressed version). To this list I will also count books that I enjoyed during English class in high school: Portrait of Dorian Gray and Catcher in the Rye. My secret ambition, which is part of the obsession, is to learn enough French so I could read The Count of Monte Cristo in its original.
5. Tottochan: The Little Girl at The Window. This book is the Harry Potter in my childhood. In fact, I read it so much the book fell apart and my mom had to get a me a new one. I read this book in Vietnamese only, being realistic enough that i will never have the chance to learn enough Japanese to read it in its original, but the joy it brings transcends the language barrier. It is a book that speaks to my dream of a school; it taught me the first lesson about understanding people who are different from yourself, about generosity, the difference between war and peace, and nutrition. I still remember today, the song that the children sang at lunchtime (the lyrics only, because the book did not give the melody): Ăn phải nhai, nhai cho kỹ, nhai cho kỹ hãy nhai cho kỹ những gì bạn ăn, hãy nhai cho kỹ, nhai cho kỹ, Cơm rau cá thịt chúng ta ăn.
6. Childhood infatuation: The Secret Garden, Little Women, Ania z Zielonego Wzgorza (a.k.a Ann of Green Gable) - most of the series. Except for Little women, I read these books in Polish (and in the case of The Secret Garden reread in English a bit later). I called them infatuation because, unlike the others that I have mentioned so far, I fell in and out of them and no longer feel the need to read them again once in a while (and considering my reading habit, the fact that I know many of them almost by heart should not be a reason). And yet, they still occupy a special place in my heart, nonetheless because I have spent many afternoons with them, afternoons when my friends are running outside playing volleyball and having first crushes on real people. I was too busy dreaming up my own garden and making up "novels" like Jo. My first introduction to Little Women was actually a cartoon, which I watched in German under the title Eine fröhliche Familie (A happy family), so in a weird way Jo in my mind always speaks German, in a strong boyish voice. The attachment to this image of Jo, running around young and free of girly worries is so strong that I refused to read the sequels to the book as sequels, so Good Wives and whatever else the author dreamed up never entered my list of favorite books. I read them and put them aside - this is not the future I have envisioned for one of my favorite characters in literature.
The other two simply form a piece of childhood memory, and I don't believe I am the only one amongst my friends to have read these books religiously. Whenever I think about Ania z Zielonego Wzgorza I also think about my sister, the anti-book-buying person who upon seeing the speed with which I devoured the first book took me to the public library next to the house to sign me up. Until today she believes it was a wise decision, and I have learned from that the habit of going to the library.
5. Tottochan: The Little Girl at The Window. This book is the Harry Potter in my childhood. In fact, I read it so much the book fell apart and my mom had to get a me a new one. I read this book in Vietnamese only, being realistic enough that i will never have the chance to learn enough Japanese to read it in its original, but the joy it brings transcends the language barrier. It is a book that speaks to my dream of a school; it taught me the first lesson about understanding people who are different from yourself, about generosity, the difference between war and peace, and nutrition. I still remember today, the song that the children sang at lunchtime (the lyrics only, because the book did not give the melody): Ăn phải nhai, nhai cho kỹ, nhai cho kỹ hãy nhai cho kỹ những gì bạn ăn, hãy nhai cho kỹ, nhai cho kỹ, Cơm rau cá thịt chúng ta ăn.
6. Childhood infatuation: The Secret Garden, Little Women, Ania z Zielonego Wzgorza (a.k.a Ann of Green Gable) - most of the series. Except for Little women, I read these books in Polish (and in the case of The Secret Garden reread in English a bit later). I called them infatuation because, unlike the others that I have mentioned so far, I fell in and out of them and no longer feel the need to read them again once in a while (and considering my reading habit, the fact that I know many of them almost by heart should not be a reason). And yet, they still occupy a special place in my heart, nonetheless because I have spent many afternoons with them, afternoons when my friends are running outside playing volleyball and having first crushes on real people. I was too busy dreaming up my own garden and making up "novels" like Jo. My first introduction to Little Women was actually a cartoon, which I watched in German under the title Eine fröhliche Familie (A happy family), so in a weird way Jo in my mind always speaks German, in a strong boyish voice. The attachment to this image of Jo, running around young and free of girly worries is so strong that I refused to read the sequels to the book as sequels, so Good Wives and whatever else the author dreamed up never entered my list of favorite books. I read them and put them aside - this is not the future I have envisioned for one of my favorite characters in literature.
The other two simply form a piece of childhood memory, and I don't believe I am the only one amongst my friends to have read these books religiously. Whenever I think about Ania z Zielonego Wzgorza I also think about my sister, the anti-book-buying person who upon seeing the speed with which I devoured the first book took me to the public library next to the house to sign me up. Until today she believes it was a wise decision, and I have learned from that the habit of going to the library.
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