Veteran journalist Phan Quang.
+ Dear journalist Phan Quang, you have many works written about your homeland, published in the books "Homeland" (Tre Publishing House, 2000), "From the source of Thach Han to the shore of Hoan Kiem Lake" (Tre Publishing House, 2016), "On this old road we have traveled" (Literature Publishing House, 2019)... What is the special attraction of the topic of homeland that has inspired you to write so many works that have followed the years?
- The theme of homeland has a special appeal because it is... our homeland. Homeland exists in everyone's heart like a lamp, sometimes bright, sometimes dim. Dim when life requires people to devote themselves to doing their job well. Dim when people have to work hard, jostling to make a living. Bright when we have a little free time, life allows us a little opportunity to contemplate. At this time, the lamp of homeland in our soul, in our memory suddenly lights up. As I get older, my health gradually declines, my intelligence is not as good as when I was at my peak, but my memories of homeland are always fresh.
I write about my homeland because I cannot help but share beautiful memories and sad stories, cannot help but recount, even if in a simplified way, the heroic years of the people of my hometown Quang Tri through several wars of the country for independence and freedom, as well as the sorrow and hardships under the old regime, then the period of repression by those who willingly acted as lackeys for hostile forces or ill-intentioned people abroad.
+ According to you, what is the outstanding feature that makes the difference between Phan Quang's journalistic works about his homeland and those of many other famous people?
- Life, heart, feelings, memories of homeland are different for each person, from which the works written about homeland will have many different places. Homeland is "Sweet star fruit bunch" (Do Trung Quan), homeland is "Purple color of sim flowers" (Huu Loan), homeland is the desolate sadness "One afternoon the wind blew gently/On the hill sim flowers bloomed sadly, the color of people" (Gia Ninh), or more deeply, more anxiously in me from my youth and then lingered until today even though the situation is now very, very different from that time "The hills sim flowers do not have enough fruit to feed people" (Che Lan Vien).
The difference between journalistic and media works and literary and artistic works is that artists write about their homeland with their souls and emotions from the reality of their homeland, then through imagination, fiction, and images at many different levels, while journalism often sticks closely to reality, is authentic, sincere, and values context, situations, people, and details but does not fabricate anything.
I write about my homeland with all my heart for my homeland and my country. I write to meet a certain need, sometimes I write just to satisfy my own demands. I write about my homeland not simply to reminisce about the past but also to evoke obligations, things to do, attitudes to behave in the face of rapidly changing times. My soul recalls the past but my eyes look to the future.
I only know that I write about my homeland based on my own perception, from past experiences and immediate thoughts, when holding a pen and paper in hand or later sitting in front of a computer. As for your question about what makes Phan Quang's journalistic works about his homeland different from those of many other famous names, I will let the readers answer. It is difficult for the author to evaluate his own work. Moreover, I think the writer cannot and should not do that - except in cases where he needs to look back to draw his own working experiences.
Some works of journalist Phan Quang.
+ When writing about your homeland, how do you write? In your opinion, what are the special advantages and difficulties of writing about this topic?
- Every topic has its advantages and disadvantages. For me, every time I need to get involved, I often remind myself to think about the difficulties that I will have to overcome, to put aside the advantages to avoid being subjective, to avoid being easygoing and careless when working. In my opinion, writers must be strict with themselves. They need to remind themselves "Don't mistakenly think that you understand your homeland thoroughly", from there I try to collect, verify documents, check details, gather life experiences, update my knowledge about my homeland, because my homeland as well as my country is constantly changing. I value details, so that events and details themselves speak for the author's untimely comments, from which writers need to know how to choose valuable details and express them in a way that is not too long-winded. If so, perhaps my writings about my homeland will not be boring.
+ What memory about your beloved land of Quang Tri do you remember most?
- Many, so many, my friend! How can I tell all the memories of a life that has passed the age of 90 in a short exchange today? For Phan Quang, it was the deep blue sky with a few silver clouds floating in the sky the day I left my family to join the resistance war against the French following Uncle Ho's call. At that time, I was a teenager. The sky of Quang Tri is very beautiful, always has its own beauty. "The sky is still the blue of Quang Tri" , didn't the poet Te Hanh utter a memorable verse? The sky of Quang Tri is still blue when the land is dry. The sky of Quang Tri is still blue when the villages are burned by the French. The sky of Quang Tri is even brighter after a storm. The sky of Quang Tri is always blue in my soul, whether it was when I first started my journalism career at the age of twenty or now, my old man's life is fading in the sunset.
As for me, my hometown is the sound of broken tiles under each step. The day my father and I left the evacuation area in the mountains to avoid the enemy, quietly returning at night to visit the old garden where my family had a tiled house, now only a pile of ashes, except for the stone mill that the family used to pound rice, which still “stands the test of time”. The sound of broken tiles under each step my father and I took always pierced my heart, and it still hurts from that day until today. It was the scent of incense sticks that my older sister burned and stuck into an old milk can she had just picked up, scooped up a few handfuls of white sand and used it as a temporary incense burner, to commemorate our parents who had passed away in two wars. Those were the feelings I had on the first night I returned to my family after many years of separation.
Peace had just been restored when I left Hanoi for a business trip to the South. When I passed through my homeland, I stopped the car to visit my sister and her family in the village, and arranged to spend the night in the place where I was born, then spent the night in the thatched hut she had just built when it was still green to serve as a pillar to silence the sound of gunfire, with a few bamboo pieces and some still-green thatched grass as a roof. The hut was not tall enough for me to hang a makeshift mosquito net to keep out the buzzing mosquitoes, so I was even more restless…
How can we recount all the memories? There is a deeper reason. I ask, is there any memory of our homeland that is not fresh in our hearts when we had to leave our village to join the resistance before we were even twenty?
+ You are now over 90 years old, over 70 years in the profession, in other words you have devoted your whole life to writing, what advice do you have for the young generation of journalists?
- You have just asked a question that many young colleagues still ask me every time we have a chance to discuss the profession. And every time I avoid answering. Because it is true that all of us senior journalists have accumulated some experience in the profession. However, looking from another perspective, it is clear that young people are much more outstanding than us senior journalists in many aspects. Is it true that you have been educated and trained properly, in the context of our country moving towards modernity and deeper international integration? Is it true that you are in good health and more proficient in digital working skills than us seniors? Therefore, if you really need to hear some advice, I would like to answer you: "We, senior journalists and young colleagues, let's open our hearts and sincerely learn from each other. Young or old, everyone must study, study for life."
+ Thank you!
Quang Tri (Implementation)
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