The 13 short stories in "The Death of the Bees" do not have much drama. They are all very ordinary stories, which everyone has probably experienced or encountered. They are stories about young couples meeting at village festivals, coming together, losing each other, stories about parents in the highlands missing their children who have traveled to the lowlands to make a living, stories about young people constantly searching for something unknown, stories about old people missing their old hometowns...
In the stories, the most prominent are “issues of customs and current events, between old customs and modern changes, between the highlands and the lowlands” as writer Ho Anh Thai pointed out. This theme is the thread running through Huu Vi’s stories, it is what he is always concerned about, it is the reality happening around him that he sees and hears every day: the encounter and collision between the old and the new, between the mountains and the lowlands.
In particular, writer Huu Vi always tells these stories from a very private, intimate and unique perspective, making ordinary events both familiar and strange, easily touching the most genuine feelings in the hearts of readers.
The unique customs of the mountainous region and the reality of life, the beliefs of the elderly and the wandering of the young are skillfully expressed by Huu Vi. The story is gentle, with familiar joys and sorrows, but is subtle and lingering thanks to the naturalness of the way it is told, thanks to the strange customs that are also easy to understand for anyone who values etiquette and family.
Through Huu Vi's collection of stories, readers encounter and learn more about the customs of the mountain people: wedding and funeral rituals, nursery rhymes, the custom of throwing pao to catch a wife, the position of the shaman, the custom of worshipping ghosts, the custom of slaughtering buffaloes, the family worship ceremony, the punishment ceremony, the importance of the main pillar in the middle of the house, the soul calling ceremony, the ceremony of worshiping the giang...
The collection of short stories "The Death of the Bees" deals with a current and eternal issue: the conflict between the new and the old, between the highlands and the lowlands. This issue has no clear and definitive answer, no right or wrong. However, we will have to think about this, to carefully consider what we should retain in an era of rapid change, when old values are constantly challenged and shaken. In addition, the issue of preserving the customs of ethnic minorities is also something that needs to be seriously discussed.
