Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In the Vietnamese culture, when a person begins his talk with “I’m frank” or “I’m telling you frankly”,(tôi nói thẳng), you will start to get nervous, because you know the guy is going to dump all kinds of garbage on your head. They use “I’m frank” as a permit to insult you – the permit that they indeed issue to themselves.

I have never heard anyone respond: “Can you try not to be frank?”

In the Vietnamese culture, frankness is considered a virtue. Frankness is the equivalent of honesty. But everyone uses the term “frankness” for only one purpose: pushing you down to the sewer.

To be frank or honest doesn’t mean to be impolite and nasty. You can tell any truth in either a polite or an impolite way. You can deliver a birthday cake by a new Mercedes or a garbage truck. That is your choice. You can deliver the truth in the way a nun sweettalks or the way a robber screams . Pick your choice. Just please don’t say “I’m going to be frank with you” and start dumping garbage on the head. That is extremely abusive and gangsterlike.

The way you talk and what you want to deliver are two completely different things. They have no relationship to each other. You can tell anything in either a nasty way or a sweet way. Telling the truth doesn’t require you to be rude.

And everyone knows that gentle talk is always more effective than rough talk. So try to use gentle talk, most of the time. Probably once in a blue moon you may need to play rough to be effective, but that would be a very exceptional occasion, maybe once in a year or once in a decade. Most of the time, gentleness reigns supreme.

So, frank or not frank, be polite and gentle.

Wish us all be effective in talking.

With compassion,

Hoành

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