Journalist Tran Duc Chinh as I love and cherish

As soon as I had a chance to go to Hanoi , I invited my friends to visit him right away. He lives in an apartment, his daughter's house is also nearby so she can come over every day to take care of her parents. His daughter said that her father now sometimes remembers and sometimes forgets, is a bit hard of hearing, but still likes to read the newspaper...

When I first joined Lao Dong Newspaper (1990), journalist Tran Duc Chinh and journalist Nguyen An Dinh (Chu Thuong) were two battle-hardened writers, few could match them.

Before, although he was retired, he still had at least one article published in a newspaper every day. Once when I met him, he said: "I still write, but I don't have a column anymore. I don't have to worry about having to write an article for a newspaper every period."

When he was in his prime, it was common for him to write three or four articles a day. The column was called “Say or Don’t,” but the main thing was to “say,” while the thing he “don’t” rarely got to do.

journalist Tran Duc Chinh like I have men with common cold picture 1 — Portrait of journalist Tran Duc Chinh through the drawings of journalist Huynh Dung Nhan.

Journalist Tran Duc Chinh was born in 1944 and was a student at Chu Van An High School (Hanoi). Journalist Tran Duc Chinh graduated from Hanoi University in 1967. From 1968 to 1972, he was a war correspondent in Vinh Linh (Quang Tri) and the Ho Chi Minh trail. He studied at the Leningrad University of Culture (former Soviet Union). He worked at Lao Dong newspaper from the end of 1967. He retired as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Lao Dong newspaper. He then became Editor-in-Chief of the Journalist & Public Opinion Newspaper from 2006 to 2010. In addition to writing, he also taught journalism and was a member of the National Journalism Awards jury.

I noticed that you are a very skillful user of the triangle of truth on your face. Ears hear, eyes see, mouth asks. But you are very clever. You don't let people know you are looking, listening, and paying attention. People lose their guard, just pouring out all kinds of stories, not knowing that there is a journalist who seems to be absent-mindedly looking out into the yard but is actually paying attention, picking up every word, every idea in that innocuous, lively story.

His second skill is knowing how to split topics. There is a topic that he splits into many separate ideas, separate perspectives with different comments. He can write for many newspapers at the same time thanks to that. But he is more talented than those who are good at "splitting hairs into four" in that he breathes into the story his intelligence, sharpness, and wit, so each of those separated stories does not clash, does not fight each other, but on the contrary, complements and interacts with each other. In him, the depth of the Northern scholar is clearly visible, unmistakable. He is half-asleep, he is whispering, but each sentence he utters is deadly...

I went drinking with him a few times, and had iced tea on the sidewalk with him. His class was natural, he surpassed the people around him because of his somewhat intentional modesty, the "I know it all" attitude but didn't say it, making people who talked to him rarely dare to surpass him in terms of career.

I went on a business trip with him to Cao Bang , and saw him drinking while the cicadas chirped, drinking while still sober as a flute, never feeling tongue-tied. On the way back from Cao Bang, he complimented me: "Nhan went out drinking all the time, but when he came back he was able to write a reportage on "Cao Bang in the chestnut season" . He probably didn't know that in that reportage of mine, there were quite a few of his words, phrases, and ideas.

When I came to work at Lao Dong Newspaper, I truly admired his level of plowing the field of words. After more than 20 years of holding the column, he had tens of thousands of articles. His writing ability made us young people take our hats off. He once told a colleague: “After more than 20 years of holding the column, I now have tens of thousands of articles. In 2014 alone, I had up to 800 articles published in Lao Dong Newspaper, at least 2 articles per day for the 2 columns “Say or Don’t” and “Things You See” . With his humorous and political style, along with his strong writing ability, he was named one of the “four pillars of non-fiction” in the Vietnamese press.

He is a true joker. He jokes about everything, is humorous, and can make jokes. He has a special talent for reducing the tension of a problem, softening the stiffness of dry topics with subtle jokes. That is his own characteristic, his own style, of the "Say or Don't" column. Satirical without provoking anger. Serious but still cheerful. He told me a sentence that is very "Say or Don't" like this: Every time I go to Saigon for work, my wife only tells me two things: "One is not to go drinking with Tran Quang. Two is not to sit in a car that Huynh Dung Nhan is driving." The joke is both a criticism of Tran Quang for drinking too much and a criticism of Huynh Dung Nhan for driving poorly. It is half-serious and half-joking. Anyone who hears it will remember it for life and will never be angry with him.

When talking about the Editors-in-Chief of Lao Dong Newspaper, it would take a few minutes to pick out a few outstanding ones. But if asked to name a reporter who created the brand of Lao Dong Newspaper, everyone would definitely mention one name: Journalist Tran Duc Chinh!

Huynh Dung Nhan

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