Now, occasionally receiving messages from teachers and students from many places asking about the details in the essay "Ca Mau homeland", I am absent-minded, remembering. Nguyen Binh of the past "Living in Ngu Vien but missing Ngu Vien", and me, living in the Central region but missing the West.
It was 2006, summer. That time, after many dates, Pham Xuan Hung (poet Tu Da Thao) and I finally put on our backpacks and hit the road. We got on a bus from Da Nang straight to the West, the two of us only had a little money in our pockets and gave it to Hung to manage.
Because they had decided to “go backpacking”: eat backpacker food, drink backpacker wine, stay in backpacker rooms at the lowest possible price, and they were still haggling. And neither of them brought any notebooks or pens, meaning they would not work, but just wander around.
Hung didn’t know, but for me it was the first time I went to the West. At that time, the West was still wild, without money, we went to every place, even to Phu Quoc Island. At that time, Phu Quoc was still sparsely populated, in the morning herds of cows covered the road.
After swimming at An Thoi beach, we drank some fresh seafood grilled on the sand by some street vendors, which only cost us a few tens of thousands of dong. I still remember the scene where we got on the boat from Nam Can wharf to Dat Mui, bought a bag of rice wine with two straws, the one in the front seat and the one in the back seat passed it around, until we arrived, the whole liter of wine was gone, without any snacks. Setting foot on the land of Mui, we felt dizzy...
Determined to go out for fun and not work, when Hung came back he didn't write anything. As for me, a few months later, one day I saw that the Tien Phong Sunday issue was missing a pen, so I searched my memory to write. I wrote more than 2,000 words, also quickly, in just about two hours. I wrote completely spontaneously. I realized that what I write spontaneously without any constraints often remains more memorable, like "Ca Mau homeland".
Journalism is usually “putting on a backpack and going”. But I have two ways of “going”. One is to go in the usual way, quickly arriving at the scene, actively and attentively recording the facts. The other is to “go” in my mind. That is, I think deeply and long about a certain beloved land, then set off. For example, the West is a place I always think about, always ponder until it is full, and then it is not until I am 39 years old that I first set foot there.
So in the travelogue "Drinking Coffee on the Road by Vu" (The Writers Association Publishing House and Thai Ha Books, 2017), I divided these long-distance travelogues into two sections: Land, and Mind.
You will encounter many such "mental regions" here. That is Cau Den hamlet in the Nha Nam hill area where resistance writers were sheltered, the Cam Giang train station with the "Literary Camp" of the Thach Lam brothers and the Tu Luc Van Doan, O Quy Ho, Bac waterfall with the misty meteorological station "Quiet Sapa" by Nguyen Thanh Long, the proud and silver Deo Ca pass in Huu Loan's poem, the shadow of the emperor on the Mekong River, the "lightning-struck" villages on the Truong Son peak, to the waiting ships full of ancient pottery that sank for 700 years at the bottom of the sea in my hometown, and the pottery village in Ninh Thuan with Cham women with clay bars in their hands who walk backwards all their lives...
"Ca Mau homeland" was printed in Vu's book "Drinking coffee on the road" for 5 years. Then one afternoon in June 2022, I received a phone call from an unknown number. He introduced himself as Dang Luu - a lecturer at Vinh University, also a member of the Editorial Board of the Textbook series Connecting knowledge with life, part of the 2018 General Education Program.
He had read "Ca Mau homeland" in the above book, and wanted to ask the author's opinion about including it in the 11th grade Literature textbook. I was completely surprised. After a few minutes of conversation, I realized the honor, and provided him with a few quotes about myself to include in the book. Of course, we still have to wait for the results from the National Textbook Appraisal Council.
At the end of December 2022, I was on the road when I received a phone call from him. He happily informed me that this morning, Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son had signed to approve the 11th grade textbooks of the 2018 General Education Program, including the 11th grade textbook series Connecting Knowledge with Life, and my article.
I remember in our first conversation, he said that there was no shortage of literary and journalistic materials about the Southwest region, but my article was suitable for inclusion in this book series. So, I always thought that I was lucky, because my suitable article caught the attention of the Editorial Board. But until now, I have been busy and procrastinating, and I have not had the opportunity to meet Dr. Dang Luu in person....
This school year is the second year that 11th graders study the new textbooks, including the lesson "Ca Mau homeland". Many unforgettable memories. I remember the last days of last year when I had a business trip to Quang Tri.
After finishing work, Pham Xuan Hung and I were about to board the train back to Da Nang when the teachers and students at Cam Lo High School found out that we were going to Cam Lo, so they hurriedly called to ask to meet and discuss in order to prepare for two lessons on the lesson "Ca Mau homeland", as well as to conduct a provincial-level Literature Topic lesson on this article. Hung and I decided to stop in Dong Ha to wait.
And then more than a dozen teachers and students from Cam Lo school hurried down on their motorbikes when it was almost dark, drizzling and cold. The conversation was full of excitement, the students took turns asking questions, then recording and taking pictures of Hung and I talking for documentation.
After that, Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Hao from the Literature Group of the school sent me a series of pictures and videos about the Provincial Literature Topic lesson at high school level conducted by Ms. Tran Thi Tram, with the participation of subject heads, Literature group leaders of high schools in the province as well as Literature teachers from schools in Cam Lo.
The demonstration lecture was very successful. As the author, I also received this joy from teachers and students in many places. Like the City-level Literature Topic for Grade 11 in the 2023-2024 school year in April 2024 organized by the Department of Education and Training of Hai Phong City, teacher Dinh Thi Doan and students of grade 11SN at Tran Phu High School for the Gifted (Hai Phong City) directly implemented.
At her request, I selected a few passages from "Ca Mau Homeland", read them in front of the camera and sent them out. Ms. Doan then excitedly sent pictures and videos of the workshop and boasted that "the Department's leaders were very pleased, key teachers from the whole city attended in large numbers and stayed until the last minute."
Or like the Literature Topic combined with professional activities for the whole city of Hanoi last April about "Ca Mau homeland" conducted by Olympia Schools, which was broadcast online to all high schools in the city...
Now I have two Ca Maus. One Ca Mau in my school books. And one Ca Mau in real life. I have returned to that beloved place several times, but the images and flavors have changed a lot. Occasionally I receive messages from acquaintances and readers near and far, saying that they are looking for places and scenes that I have described, but they are no longer there. There is no longer such a house, no more such scenes. And that was only nearly twenty years ago.
Who knows. I console myself, at least I have somehow kept some nostalgic memories of the scenery and people of that distant but familiar place, from a time not so long ago.
(Article from the Central Highlands Spring Labor publication - 2025)
