Chào các bạn,

Chị Đặng Nguyễn Đông Vy vừa gửi cho mình một số danh ngôn chị đã dịch từ tiếng Anh ra tiếng Việt để dùng cho Đọt Chuối Non. Chúng ta sẽ đăng các danh ngôn này từ từ. Hôm nay một câu.

Tuy nhiên mình muốn dùng cơ hội này để giới thiệu một tí về chị Đông Vy.

Đông Vy là phóng viên báo Sinh Viên Việt Nam, Hoa Học Trò, Trang Trí Nội Thất, một số tạp chí khác, và là tác giả tập truyện Hãy Tìm Tôi Giữa Cánh Đồng (Nhà xuất bản Trẻ, 20.11.2006). Lúc sách mới ra, mình và bà xã đang có mặt ở Việt Nam, nên có được một bản vừa đọc vừa thổi.

Đây là một tập truyện với đa số là chuyện có thật, những mẫu chuyện nhỏ trong đời, được tác giả, qua lời văn giản dị và trong sáng, trải cảm xúc và suy tư lên trên để thành những dấu ấn trong tâm thức.

Đối với mình, quyển truyện này rất khó cho mình đọc như các quyển khác, vì trong đó đa số là về những người mình biết và rất thân. Khi đọc truyện, mình đọc đến những mảnh nhỏ cuộc đời của những người mình phải rời xa và mất thông tin mấy mươi năm. Quyển truyện cho mình nhiều thông tin thất lạc của những tháng năm dài đó, cho nên nó như một cuộc hành trình tâm thức qua ba thập niên.

Sau khi đọc một mạch xong quyển truyện, mình có viết một bài giới thiệu trong diễn đàn VNBIZ, mà Đông Vy cũng là thành viên lâu năm. Bài viết đó mình có post lại dưới đây, để chia sẻ với các bạn.

Mình cũng tìm thấy trên Internet các bài báo nói về quyển truyện này: Việt Báo, Vietnamnet, krflim.net, VNExpress, và con nhiều links nữa.

Cám ơn Đông Vy đã gửi bài. I am so proud of you, dear. And I’m glad you are here with me.

Và sau đây là danh ngôn đầu tiên của Đông Vy trên Đọt Chuối Non.

Mến,

Hoành

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If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.

George Bernard Shaw
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Nếu bạn có một quả táo, tôi có một quả táo và chúng ta trao đổi với nhau thì tôi và bạn mỗi người vẫn chỉ có một quả táo. Nhưng nếu bạn có một ý tưởng, tôi có một ý tưởng và chúng ta trao đổi với nhau, mỗi người chúng ta sẽ có hai ý tưởng.

Đặng Nguyến Đông Vy dịch

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From: Trần ĐÌnh Hoành
To: VNBIZ
Date: December 14, 2006

[BOOK] Hay Tim Toi Giua Canh Dong by Dang Nguyen Dong Vy

Dear CACC,

A couple of days after the Saigon Gathering, while I was in Hanoiready to go to Philippines, Dong Vy sent a copy of her hot-off-the-press book to Phuong’s address in Tay Ninh—Hay Tim Toi Giua Canh Dong, Nha Xuat Ban Tre (Nov. 20, 2006). I sent a thank you note and said that I would read the book and write a review on VNBIZ.

Little did I know then that I would be in for such an intense emotional trip that would swirl me through different times and spaces and familiar names and faces that would rapidly fill the big vacuum of the missing years in my memory.

Although in this forum we address each other as anh/chi as the rule of decorum requires, Dong Vy is indeed the daughter of my best friend in highschool and college. Dong Vy’s father, Dang The Dung, was so close to me for many years that sometimes it was hard to say whether there was any difference between us other than the fact that he was taller than I. We were of the same age, both born in Quang Binh, lived in the same neighborhood (Cu Xa Kien Thiet close to Nha Tho Ba Chuong,Phu Nhuan, Saigon), studied together at St Thomas High School at Nha Tho Ba Chuong, then Dai Hoc Van Khoa Sai Gon. On the terrace of Dung’s home was a small room where we slept together with several other boys in the “gang.” I was there more than I was at my own home.

My parents knew Dung’s parents very well. Dung’s family was my family. I think we were even supposed to be related somehow, although my memory can’t remember anything so close as to requires only one cannon shot to reach.

Since 1975 we were separate. I got lost to the US (I mean “lost,” along story); Dung settled in Cam Ranh and built a family there. We did not communicate, although my heart was always with him. In those years, life was tough and telecommunicating with a friend on the other side of the globe was the last emotional luxury on everyone’s mind.

Twenty years later, in 1995, on our way between Da Lat and Nha Trang, Phuong and I stopped by Cam Ranh for a night to visit with Dung and his family. I think we met Dong Vy over dinner. I was busy talking with Dung and his wife that I rarely talked to his quiet girl at the table, who appeared to follow our conversation with interest. But I managed to learn that she was in 11th grade and she impressed me as a quiet, intelligent, confident and very mature girl.

Several years ago, I posted on both VNBIZ and Vern Weitzel’s Development list at UNDP a message on my experience in teaching a law seminar at the Ministry of Justice. A couple days later I got a message in Vietnamese: “Dear Chu Hoanh, I am a reporter at Bao Sinh Vien Viet Nam. Your message about education interests me. I would like to have your permission to translate that into Vietnamese for our magazine.” I responded: “Yes, as long as you keep my content intact.” The next day I got a thank-you note with a sentence: “You probably don’t remember me, but I think I met you once. My dad is Dang The Dung in Cam Ranh.” That is how we met again! Soon later Dong Vy joined VNBIZ.

The 224-page book is a compilation of many short writings, each a reflection about something, some event, with someone, that reveals to the author (and the readers) a small, beautiful piece of truth about the human heart. It is written in very simple and direct language, the kind of language that naturally flows into your heart like the plain “I love you” without the need for interpretation often required in the more colorful language. The book has two parts, tan van with 20 pieces of short writing, and truyen ngan with 10 short stories. But all these little pieces really integrate themselves well into a complete whole, for they all are written with the same simple direct language and the same style of thinking and reflection, which is simple, sharp, focused and ultimately gentle, about people and everyday’s events that are intimate to the author and to everyone of us–mom, dad, grand father, grand mother, brothers, sisters, uncles,
aunts, friends, teachers, the rice fields, the cassava plants, the fruits, poverty, love, hopes, dreams. Each subject is explored in a little story told with the soft and free voice of a girl lying in green pastures, talking to the cows, the grass, the flowers and the passing clouds.

For me personally, these writings go much deeper, because almost everyone in the book is someone I know and love. Of course, Dong Vy’s dad is my best friend; her mom is the wife of my best friend. Her grandfather is my best friend’s father, who I used to call “chu Linh,” the man I admired greatly but was scared to be close, because he worked hard and was serious with life (which was not something we kids could appreciate then). Dong Vy’s grandmother is my “thim Linh,” who loved me dearly and who I loved dearly. The house where the Dong Vy grew up in, I knew it before she was even around. When I was just finished Bacc I (11th grade) and that house was only a couple of years old, Dung and I went to Bai Gieng, Cam Ranh, to visit his mother. I stayed in that house for a week or so. The house was, and still is, on National Route 1. I would sit in front of the house watching buses (xe khach) go by. The scene of a xe khach on that long highway withthe distant engine sound fluttering over the open ocean sky always made me feel lonely and lost. Today, whenever seeing a xe khach on a stretch of open highway, the memory of that house and the same lost feeling still rush back to me with such an intensity.

So you can see how I feel when I read about all these folks, and these places, Bai Gieng, Cam Ranh, the parish church, the house, the yard, the trees, the fields, Nha Trang, Sai Gon, Da Lat, Nha Tho Duc Ba… I almost feel like I played a role in every event in the book. It filled a big gap in my memory– the years and the pieces of lives I have lost, have not got a chance to participate, even just to witness.

I read the book in one shot, from cover to cover, feeling an intense emotion that usually comes when your memory is hit by images that are so dear, so intimate and so far, so that you feel like you are floating in midair through an immense ocean looking down on dark waves and fog-covered islands while your heart is squeezed hard by such an intense nostalgia that comes whenever you remember a lost love.

Thank you, Dong Vy my dear, for such a beautiful gift.

Great day, Dong Vy and all.

Hoanh

—
Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
Attorney of Law
Washington DC