Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am talking about personnel matters. There are many things the Vietnamese, as each individual and as a collective society, need. But I am trying to narrow down to three most fundamental things needed for good and quick development, personally and collectively.

1. Unity

Unity means all, or almost all, people unite into a single body, with one heart and one mind.

Right now, I have the feeling that the country is not very united.

Not very hard to be united, folks. All you have to do is to respect people of different opinions, different thinkings, different schools, different traditions, different religions, different races, different beliefs, different cultures, different genders, different ages…

You don’t have to agree with anyone, you just need to respect everyone, regardless of any differences between you and them.

Then we will unite in differences.

Also, please remember that this idea of unity of not much different from the teachings of all great spiritual teachers of the world: Love everyone.

Unity also means that you respect your culture and live with your culture. All Vietnamese share the same Vietnamese culture, and that, by itself, is an aspect of unity. Vietnamese culture has many characteristics: focusing on humility and loving, peace loving, strong fighting, friendship promoting, respecting and loving the poor, respecting the aged, putting community & nation first and the individual second, the entire nation is a big family – calling each other uncle, aunt, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, con, cháu… (Read Build your policies on your culture).

This big term “unity” also means “teamwork” in smaller settings. The team – in your office, your organization – needs to have good teamwork. When discussing, everyone discusses seriously, and raises many different ideas. But when the team has come to a final decision – usually from the team leader – then all team members must unite, one mind and one heart, in performing the decision.

2. Harmony between inside and outside

Today we learn many new things from the outside world. We need to learn the good things from outside and reject bad things from outside.

What are good and what are bad from outside?

Hard to say, because these things are subjective and depending on each individual. However, something can be obvious, such as: In the West, young folks may show little respect to elders; that is a no-no in Vietnamese culture. Or, in the West people respect rich people, Vietnamese culture respects the poor. Or, all Vietnamese are a big family, addressing each other by the familial way: anh, chị, em, cô, dì, chú, bác… Don’t try to call each other by “I and you” or just plain name without rank, even when using English: “Dear dì Lan” not “Dear Lan” (unless the other person is your friend).

So, don’t just blindly learning everything from outside as civilized and/or reject everything inside as out-of-time.

The cultural characteristics determine the characteristics and structures of political and social systems.

3. English

English is the lingua franca of today, folks. Your English should be good for your career and your country.

But when you study English, remember points 1 and 2 above.

With compassion,

Hoành

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