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| Under the long roof of the Ma people |
We grew up in the lightning, the rain, in the legendary space and the pages of history with so many tragic emotions. Every epic poem sung in this land was written from rivers of blood, mountains of bones. Proverbs are the wisdom of our ancestors for posterity. Each short folk song is the soul of the ancients for their descendants to perfect morality, complete love of goodness and beauty. A soulful folk song behind the bamboo fence of the village or drifting on the river of our homeland is the emotional melody of long years of building and creating. A Xam Xoan voice, a Ca Tru song, a Quan Ho tune, a Ho Khoan sound, a Ly sentence, a Mai Nhi, Mai Day, Vi Dam tune, a cool Cheo story in the communal house yard or the melancholy Southern Vong Co... are the voice of our ancestors, the polyphonic sound of many lands.
The mossy stone steps of Hung Temple; the stone axes of Do Mountain, Nua Mountain, Son Vi Mountain; the shells of Cuc Phuong, the ponds of Giong village, the soil of Co Loa, the mountains of Hoa Lu, the wooden stakes of Bach Dang, the ceramic pieces of Hoang Thanh or the relics of Sa Huynh, Oc Eo, Cat Tien… have been and are evoking our consciousness towards the origin. The colorful highlands of the Northwest or the majestic and mysterious peaks of the Central Highlands also call out to the footsteps of writers with many new emotions, creating excitement for discovery and experience. Go and arrive. Come and feel, you will understand more, it will be extremely interesting. For journalists, no matter where in this country, history and culture are always attractive and also the yeast that creates writing power…
Culture is a broad and polysemous category. From different research purposes and starting points, each scholar, each country, each ideology has different perspectives, definitions, and interpretations of this concept. From ancient times to the present, there have been more than 600 definitions of culture in the world ; here, we would like to quote the definition given by UNESCO in 1992: “Culture should be regarded as a set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional characteristics of a society or a social group and that it encompasses, in addition to literature and art, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions, and beliefs”.
No matter from which perspective, culture is a whole set of values that cover all areas of social life. And one thing is certain, a nation that loses its culture will perish. Vietnam has gone through many hardships in history, thousands of years of Chinese domination, hundreds of years of Westernization, but has not lost its identity. The Vietnamese people and nation have found and continue to find themselves in their history. The system of values that creates that vitality, that smoldering source, is the source of history - culture, national consciousness. As journalists, we benefit; at the same time, we have the mission to honor and contribute to adjusting, consolidating, and nurturing those extremely noble systems of values.
In the vast and deep treasure of the cultural flow, the discovery and expression of each writer's work is extremely small. Of course, with love for the country, civic responsibility and enthusiasm for national culture, we try little by little to have works that bring meaningful sharing to the public. Journalism gives us many opportunities to experience. Each trip, each topic, each work appearing in the newspaper is a clear expression of labor, love for the country and civic responsibility. The passion and desire for creativity, the authenticity and appeal of each work, are also kindled from here...
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Many colleagues when coming to the Central Highlands have the same feeling, the land under the Truong Son mountain range is majestic and also full of mystery. As for us, we have spent almost a lifetime as journalists attached to the mountain range, walking through bustling streets to many remote villages. The scenes of life in the highlands, encountered only a few times, have left a mark on our memories. The stories in the middle of the night in the forest haunt us forever. The names of the land, the names of the regions typical of the mountainous region. The mountains without human footprints. The rushing rivers. The fertile forests. Many times, when we feel the lack of mountain space and the image of the highland people, our articles seem to lack vitality.
French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre once put forward the proposition that “to live is to choose”, to choose and to be responsible for that choice. From this frame of reference, in the process of learning and experiencing journalism, we deeply feel that the ethnic minorities of the Central Highlands have chosen their living space. In that space, they have created a system of wisdom and cultivated extremely rich cultural values, with distinct identities.
As we know, the Central Highlands is a special territory of Vietnam, a long-standing living space of ethnic communities speaking two language families: Mon-Khmer and Malayo-Polynesian. Due to its geographical location, the Central Highlands has had a close relationship with other regions in Vietnam and Southeast Asian countries. From prehistoric times to modern times, the land later called the Central Highlands has continuously undergone internal fluctuations and important shifts in the process of communication and contact with the outside world. Communes and commune alliances are long-standing social organizations in the ethnic communities of the Central Highlands. From ancient times, from the dark wilderness of the besieged mountains and forests, the great sedimentary stream has been lit up by sacred fires, by the sound of lithophones, by gong culture and the xoang dance. The majestic epics have also raised the voices of the ethnic groups expressing their aspirations to conquer and reach noble values. The Central Highlands is mysterious and attractive; it was once a place that domestic and foreign ethnologists considered a promised land of discoveries. Research collections, archaeological and ethnological discoveries from this place brought to the world a strange treasure. The Central Highlands was once a model of identity that overwhelmed people and sometimes had to be explained by mysterious theories.
With a long history of residence in the highlands at the foot of the Truong Son mountain range, the great forest with all that belongs to it has determined the formation of cultural values of ethnic groups. During the survival process, the ethnic groups in the mountainous areas of the West of the Fatherland have continuously answered questions responsibly about their choices with their own cultural characteristics. In this place, there are dozens of ethnic groups in the middle of the green forests and red mountains. They still maintain their customs and remnants of bad customs, habits and behaviors. In this place, there exists an epic cultural area and a Gong Cultural Space. Journalism in the Central Highlands with so many villages that have passed. So many stories that have been heard and books that have been read over and over again. Sacred forests, fresh water sources. Folk songs, folk dances. Streams of music that are unforgettable to hear once. Customary laws that still have their original value and many indigenous knowledge that surprise and astonish us. That is how the Central Highlands is. Journalists think they understand something, then they think they don’t understand anything. Then they ponder, then they want to go on field trips, eager to search. The more they go, the more they search, the more they lose their breath. They realize that the culture of the Central Highlands is a vast ocean and what they know is just a small drop.
Also in this place, cultural expressions are gradually being lost and faded. Forests and living spaces are being depleted. Abandoned tombs. The "bleeding" of bronze musical instruments and antiques. Old artisans in villages leave and bring with them the "living documents" of a unique cultural region to the land of Yang. Many traditional cultural values are facing the risk of fading and being lost. But also in this place, the children of the Central Highlands still preserve their passionate love for their villages, love in the feeling of clinging to the thousand-year-old culture passed down by their ancestors. A love like blood flowing in their veins. The young people of the Central Highlands are trying to tell their stories, the stories of their villages in their own way...
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Journalists are not researchers, but they have the advantage of being witnesses. Sometimes, it is just simple things. Seeing the feet covered in basalt soil. Listening to the voice of a village elder telling a story. Hearing the crackling of firewood in a corner of a stilt house in a remote village or the sound of a bamboo instrument echoing in the night, the sound of a water wheel in a stream or the chirping of a mountain bird in the forest. A flower whose name we do not know blooming in a strange land. A river we wade across for the first time. A relic, a famous place, a folk story, an old song. Just that, but those are the differences, the differences that create identity. The identity of life will make the appeal of journalistic works.
Source: https://baolamdong.vn/van-hoa-nghe-thuat/202506/ky-niem-100-nam-ngay-bao-chi-cach-mang-viet-nam-2161925-2162025-co-mot-mach-nguon-bat-tan-ed31b86/
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