Vung Tau teacher puts Oil Rig Man in textbook

One day at the end of February, Ms. Vu Thi Viet Hoa, Principal of Quang Trung Primary School (Vung Tau City) suddenly received the news: The poem "The Drilling Rig" she composed more than 10 years ago was officially included in the Vietnamese textbook for grade 4, Canh Dieu book series.

For the first time, the image of oil and gas workers was included in textbooks. It was not only the joy of the author of the poem, but also the common joy of workers in the new era.

The "brainchild" of the "outsider"

The poem “The Drilling Rig Person” was originally titled “The Man on the Drilling Rig” and was born after just one night of tossing and turning. However, for the author Vu Thi Viet Hoa, the flow of emotions within her has long been like a grain of silt that has quietly settled over time.

The poem "The Drilling Rig" is included in the Vietnamese textbook for grade 4, Canh Dieu book series.

Original poem "People on the rig" by Ms. Viet Hoa.

The school she works at is located in the heart of the “Oil and Gas City”, very close to the Southern Helicopter Company. Every day, watching the bustling helicopters flying back and forth to pick up and drop off engineers and workers on the drilling rig, she feels a surge of respect and admiration for the people who exploit oil and gas offshore. They work in a unique environment: far from their families and loved ones to work in the middle of the ocean, working with colleagues on giant blocks of steel for a long time.

Starting to compose since she was a student, up to now, Ms. Vu Thi Viet Hoa has had many literary and poetic works published in newspapers and magazines, set to music or won prizes in competitions. For her, composing is simply expressing her own feelings: "When encountering an idea, a topic, the pre-arranged sentences naturally connect together, sublimating into a work".

At work, Ms. Viet Hoa is a typical example of the provincial education and training sector, the only "beauty" honored at the 15th Vietnam Glory program of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor , in 2019.

She imagined the people here always working in a hurry, urgent, full of enthusiasm, responsibility and love for life. And there, the gas fire on the rig was like a flower burning with vitality, faith and hope of people in the middle of the ocean with its endless waves.

The emotion in her was the emotion when she accidentally heard the story of a "drilling rig worker" telling his wife about the meeting during the shift change with a close colleague. All the precious feelings, along with the encouragement, they did not need to say it out loud, but put it all into a tight handshake. Then hurriedly, one said goodbye to the sea after dozens of days of hard work to return to the mainland with his family, the other started his work on the drilling rig in the middle of the vast waves.

Ms. Vu Thi Viet Hoa.

“Many of my colleagues have husbands who are “drilling rig workers”. We often encourage each other so that they can both take care of their family work and complete their school and class work well. Every time their “drilling rig workers” come back from work, without anyone telling us, we join hands to help with the school work so that their time with their families can be extended a little bit,” Ms. Viet Hoa emotionally shared.

As an “outsider” both in literature and in the special economic sector called oil and gas, but with a sensitive soul and “a rich heart”, she wrote the poem as “the first voice, the first voice of the soul when touching life”. The poem won third prize in the poetry contest on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Vietsovpetro’s establishment (1981-2011).

The Search for Miracles

The poem was composed 12 years ago, not yet widely published in the media but was unexpectedly included in the Vietnamese textbook - Canh Dieu series of Ho Chi Minh City University of Education Publishing House. Behind it is an interesting story, showing the dedication and responsibility of the textbook compilers.

The image of the drilling rig is also featured on the cover of the 4th grade Vietnamese textbook.

Talking to us, Professor Nguyen Minh Thuyet, Editor-in-Chief and Editor of the Vietnamese Textbook for Grade 4, said that in order to achieve the goal of comprehensive education, the Vietnamese Textbook - Canh Dieu series is built on two main axes, which are the Theme - Key axis and the axis of Activities to practice reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. According to the Theme - Key axis, the readings in the textbook are organized into four topics: Young shoots, Community, Country, Common home. The topics are gradually expanded and developed for each grade. In Grade 4 in particular, the Country topic is developed into the following topics: Joy of labor, Song of defending the country, Young age, great ambition.

With the theme of Joy of Work, Professor Nguyen Minh Thuyet discussed with the authors of the textbooks about the idea: In addition to traditional industries such as agriculture, fisheries, etc., this theme needs to have more readings about new economic sectors, including the oil and gas industry. Because this is a key economic sector of the country, but up to now, there has never been a work written about this field included in the textbooks.

To find suitable works, the group of authors who compiled the book spent a lot of time, effort, and effort searching for works written about the oil and gas industry from many channels and sources, even contacting people in the industry for support.

The poem “The Rig” really moved me when I saw the images of my colleagues and myself there. The poem being included in the textbook is not only the author’s personal joy, but also the common joy of oil and gas workers. It is a meaningful honor for generations of workers who have been silently contributing to the development of the country.

(Mr. Hoang Phuc Long, Vice Chairman of Vietsovpetro Trade Union) .

At that time, Ms. Luong Thi Hong Nhung, Head of the Propaganda and Women's Union of Vietnam Oil and Gas, connected with units in the entire industry, including the Vietnam-Russia Joint Venture Vietsovpetro, to find suitable works. "The Rig Man" was one of many works collected and sent by Mr. Hoang Phuc Long, Vice President of Vietsovpetro Union.

Author Dang Kim Nga, a member of the textbook compilation team, shared that the “encounter” with “The Drilling Rig” was not a coincidence, but a deliberate and purposeful search by the authors who compiled the book.

She added that textbooks must meet certain requirements in terms of content, art, number of words and suitability to students' ability to receive. Among many works that textbook authors have access to, "The Rig Man" fully meets the above requirements: "The poem is beautiful and full of emotions. Through it, the image of oil and gas workers appears clearly. The work has created impressive strokes in the comprehensive picture of the country's renovation process."

According to the group of authors, an interesting thing is that the poem for primary school students was composed by a primary school teacher. The poem will help students understand more about the people working on the rig, a very important industry in the country's construction. Perhaps, many students, especially those in Ba Ria-Vung Tau, will be happy and moved because they see somewhere the shadow of their relatives.

After the poem was proposed, Professor Nguyen Minh Thuyet directly contacted the author, requesting to edit the work to include it in the textbook. He was also the one who successfully defended the work before the Textbook Review Council with convincing arguments. In addition, he also decided to put the image of the drilling rig on the cover of the Grade 4 Vietnamese textbook to honor the country's key economic sector and the workers of the new era.

Khanh Chi

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