Quang Tri - the source of creativity of land and people

One day a long time ago, about 12 years ago, I wandered through Tho Chu archipelago (of Tho Chau island commune, Phu Quoc island district, Kien Giang province), the farthest island in the Southwest sea, located near the sea border between Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. We flew from Ho Chi Minh City to Phu Quoc and from there took a Navy ship overnight, crossing nearly 60 nautical miles to reach Tho Chu island commune port. In the afternoon, passing through several places and encountering many landmarks related to the Nguyen Dynasty, Mr. Pham Hoang Quan, a historian who accompanied me on that trip, told me: “Quang Tri, your hometown, is a small land but in a certain sense, it is very large! If in 1558, Lord Nguyen Hoang had not come to Ai Tu to establish his career, would our country be as vast as this today?

Sovereignty marker of Tho Chu island - the farthest island to the southwest of our country - Photo: L.D.D

“From the time of carrying swords to open up the country”, until now, nearly five centuries since the tents of Lord Nguyen’s army were built on the banks of Thach Han, every time I think about my homeland, I feel a surge of emotion for my ancestors who chose this land to build a career and from here to create a vast Fatherland, and leave to posterity pride in the position of my homeland in history, as well as pride in my homeland as a source of silent but passionate creativity! Not every land has the “mixed cultural quality” like Quang Tri .

It is a land that is not vast, not crowded. But strangely, from that humble, even austere appearance, there springs up an endless source of creativity and sacrifice.

Like an underground river flowing under the rocky ground, that source is not ostentatious, not noisy but persistent and fierce, forging people, events, and names that history, though often passing quietly, cannot make all of them forgotten.

Many of my friends, every time they return to Quang Tri, unlike the trips to two localities bordering natural heritages and cultural heritages of world stature, tell me to explore Quang Tri slowly like wading through a deep river, not because the water is rushing but because my heart feels pulled back.

There is something that makes people want to stay longer, want to sit under the shade of an ancient tree by the old riverbank to listen to the thousand-year-old rocks and soil tell stories. The beginning of a thousand-year journey is not a bustling capital, not a rich central area, but the simple Ai Tu sandbank.

But it was there that the first military camp was established, paving the way for a long and wide Dang Trong, extending deep into the mainland to the Gulf of Thailand. That was the beginning, and every great beginning often starts from something very small. Like the way the Thach Han River rolls through the “cold stone” before finding its estuary.

Then in 1885, when the capital fell, King Ham Nghi did not choose a dangerous place in the deep mountains to take refuge. He chose Cam Lo, a place not far from Hue, but where he won the hearts of the people. And it was there that the Can Vuong edict was issued. The Can Vuong edict not only called on the people to stand by the king to fight the enemy, but also appealed to the hearts of the people.

This land, every step we take is a slice of time, of memory. Now we are familiar with the idiom “people’s hearts and minds”, is it true that King Ham Nghi chose Tan So not only because this was a dangerous land to stop the enemy, but also because he chose the hearts of the people, the hearts of the Quang Tri people as the starting point for a long-term resistance against the French?

During the anti-American war, Quang Tri once again did not stand aside. Amidst the chaotic consequences of war, a rural area on the banks of the Hieu River was chosen as the capital of the Republic of South Vietnam - that land was the "capital" of the first liberated zone.

Perhaps nowhere else is the division of the country as evident as in Quang Tri. The Ben Hai River is the boundary, but it does not divide the hearts of the people. On the contrary, it is here that the struggle for national reunification has flared up most fiercely and persistently. The people of Quang Tri have never lived as a part that has been cut off. They live with a deep awareness that they are the origin, the place to preserve and the place to return.

Art exhibition on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of famous painter Le Ba Dang in his hometown of Bich La Dong Photo: L.D.D

Is that why on this land, many people grew up in the countryside but still shine with the history of the country. We can mention Le Duan, one of the greatest strategic minds of the Vietnamese revolution. There are generals like Doan Khue, Le Chuong, generals who left an indelible mark, from the hearts of the people, from the deep call of the motherland.

And many more names have gone down in the history of the nation. They, those people, did not grow up from academic books but grew up from the dry Lao wind, from the fire of war, from the tears and faith of the People.

Then there was Che Lan Vien - the poet who carried the pain, wisdom and humane skepticism of a nation that had just passed through a century full of storms. As well as musician Tran Hoan, who wrote songs that have lasted through the years. There was Phan Quang, a journalist, a profound and sophisticated culturalist. All, like mountain peaks rising from a common mountain range - the Quang Tri mountain range.

Recently, when Le Hong Phuong, a nephew of the famous painter Le Ba Dang, brought his artistic heritage from France to Vietnam, among what Phuong brought back, I was fortunate to come into contact with the notebooks, notes, and emotional improvisations of this famous painter known as "the master of the two worlds East and West".

And although I have read and watched a lot about him, I have never ceased to be amazed by the miraculous creativity of painter Le Ba Dang. If we were to choose a symbol for the creative source of modern Quang Tri, that person would certainly be Le Ba Dang, the one who brought the soul of Quang Tri homeland to the world and reached human stature.

Born in Bich La Dong, the young man Le Ba Dang emerged from poverty, from years of losing his country, accepting to be an exiled soldier in France to nurture the aspiration of an eagle wanting to fly to the ninth cloud (is that why his paintings are always painted from the perspective of a bird spreading its wings in the blue sky looking down at the human world!).

Leaving his hometown of Quang Tri, his artistic journey, although successful in Europe, exhibited in five continents, but Le Ba Dang's paintings still carry a heavy Vietnamese spiritual flavor, obsessions with his hometown of Quang Tri and a desire for Bich La fields to spread out to the world.

His paintings are not just for viewing, but also for listening to the sound of the homeland's land moving in each geometric and overlapping line, the sound of the wind blowing through the Ancient Citadel, and the sound of human footsteps on the journey to open up new lands in the long night of history.

Le Ba Dang was not only a painter, nor a painter of memories, his art was a philosophy of origin and creative inspiration. And so, although he lived almost his entire life in Europe, the famous painter never stopped returning to his homeland through his mental journeys.

The source of creativity of Quang Tri people is not a coincidence. It is the crystallization of a harsh terrain, a history of endless suffering and aspiration, a culture imbued with national spirit. That land, although not rich in resources, is the birthplace of the most “human resources”.

People who never accept their fate, never give up in the face of challenges. Perhaps, because they deeply understand that in life, there is no easy choice and no land is blessed with prosperity without a trade-off. Quang Tri accepts harshness in exchange for depth, accepts poverty in exchange for bravery, accepts loneliness to maintain its own personality - both quiet and fierce, both soft like the coastal sand strips, and also solid like the rocks of Truong Son mountain range.

Quang Tri is not a place to pass by. Quang Tri is a place to stop, to listen and to feel. Because every blade of grass, every handful of soil, every bamboo bank, every road, every thicket ... has witnessed the history of this nation courageously and clearly. And the source of creative inspiration has started from there!

Le Duc Duc

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/quang-tri-mach-nguon-sang-tao-cua-dat-va-nguoi-194396.htm