Journalism in the Central Highlands cultural vein

Over the years, working as journalists in the Central Highlands, we and many colleagues have searched for and written about the cultural heritage of ethnic groups. Many times, we feel the lack of space in the mountains and forests...

Many colleagues when coming to the Central Highlands have the same feeling, the land under the Truong Son mountain range is truly majestic and also full of mystery.

The Central Highlands culture is a vast space ((Photo archive)

As for us, we have spent almost a lifetime as journalists attached to the great Central Highlands, walking through bustling streets and many remote villages. Scenes of life in the highlands, encountered only a few times, have left their mark on our memories. Stories in the middle of the night in the forest haunt us endlessly. Names of places and regions typical of the highlands. Mountains without human footprints. Rapidly flowing rivers. Prosperous forests. High rocky slopes that we climb and climb, almost our entire lives without ever reaching them.

Sometimes, when I feel the lack of mountain space and the image of the highland people, my writing seems to lack vitality.

Thuan An Volcano ( Dak Nong ) (Photo by Ngo Minh Phuong)

Working as a journalist in the Central Highlands, I have been through so many villages. So many stories I have heard and books I have read over and over again. Sacred forests, freshwater streams. Fascinating folk songs and dances. Streams of music that once heard cannot be forgotten. Customary laws that still hold their value and many indigenous knowledges that surprise and amaze us. That is the Central Highlands.

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 space and what they know is just a drop of water in the vast ocean of unknown things.

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.

The people of the Central Highlands always have a deep love for their villages and ethnic culture (Photo by Ngo Minh Phuong)

But also in this place, the children of the Central Highlands still maintain a passionate love for their villages, a love that clings to the thousand-year-old culture passed down by their ancestors. A love like the blood flowing in their veins. A love like the regret for what is gradually leaving. The young people of the Central Highlands are living in nostalgia for their stories, for their villages right in their thousand-year-old homeland...

Over the years, working as journalists in the Central Highlands, we and many colleagues have searched for and written about the cultural heritage of ethnic groups, explained the living space, the village-forest institution, the chain of agricultural rituals, the chain of life-cycle rituals; analyzed the source of cultural "genes"; told stories about villages, honored folk artisans, the "living treasures" of the great forest.

We also try to purify cultural values, indigenous knowledge that needs to be preserved and backward, barbaric customs that need to be eliminated. Journalists, with their civic responsibility, try to find ways to explain the causes and propose useful solutions to authorities at all levels, to management agencies and functions.

A waterfall in Krong No district (Dak Nong) (Photo by Ngo Minh Phuong)

Journalists are not researchers, not experts in the field of culture, but journalists have the advantage of being witnesses. Sometimes, it is just simple things. Looking at the feet covered in basalt soil. Listening to the voice of a village elder telling a story. Hearing the crackling sound 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 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 ancient song...

Just like that, but those are the differences, the differences that create identity. The identity of life will create the appeal of journalistic works. Journalists will come and go. Come and feel and be excited by the experiences and discoveries . Familiar things and strange things. And if we feel more deeply, we will find strange even the things that seem very familiar.

Source: https://baodaknong.vn/lam-bao-giua-mach-nguon-van-hoa-tay-nguyen-256105.html