The passion of reporter Bru-Xinh

Born and raised in a family with a rich revolutionary tradition in Van Ry village, Huc commune, Huong Hoa district, Ho Van Xinh (pen name Bru-Xinh), a Van Kieu ethnic, a reporter for the Center for Culture, Information and Sports (CIC - DTTT) of Huong Hoa district, has always been concerned about the fact that his ethnic language is at risk of being lost. Therefore, he has diligently self-studied, researched and studied to improve the quality of the Bru-Van Kieu radio program. Not only serving his profession, this work also helps him satisfy his passion, contribute to preserving and conserving the language and positively impact the lives of local ethnic minorities.

Bru-Xinh produces a radio program in Bru-Van Kieu language - Photo: KS

Passion and dedication

The fate that brought Bru-Xinh to journalism was that in 2011, he and two other ethnic minority students were selected by Vietnam Television in collaboration with Quang Tri province to receive intermediate journalism training. After completing the course, he was assigned to work at the Huong Hoa District Radio and Television Station (now the District Culture, Sports and Physical Training Center).

Over 13 years as a grassroots reporter, he has had the opportunity to travel to many places, especially to the villages in the district to find information to write articles. As an ethnic minority, Bru-Xinh understands more than anyone else the difficulties in receiving information through the local press channels. Therefore, in the process of carrying out propaganda tasks, he actively learns from the experiences of his colleagues, and at the same time, explores and finds ways to convey information to the people in a timely, close, and easy-to-understand manner.

As a mountainous district with nearly 50% of the population being ethnic minorities, in order to promote the role and effectiveness of propaganda through the grassroots radio system, from 2021 up to now, Bru-Xinh has been assigned to be in charge of the Bru-Van Kieu radio program. He translates for broadcasting and posting on the electronic information page of the district's Culture, Sports and Tourism Center. Thereby, making an important contribution to serving the information needs of the people, bringing many practical benefits, positively impacting the process of building new rural areas in remote areas.

He always struggles with each news and article he compiles in the Van Kieu language to help people truly understand and grasp it, thereby applying it to daily life, especially effective farming and livestock raising, contributing to increasing income and sustainable poverty reduction.

To serve his work well, he actively participated in training courses on Bru-Van Kieu language and writing; and self-studied journalism skills in ethnic minority areas through books, newspapers, and the Internet.

Taking advantage of his days off, Bru-Xinh often visits the homes of village elders and influential people in the village to communicate and convey the latest press information to the villagers in Bru-Van Kieu language. Not stopping there, he also connects with teachers who are knowledgeable about Bru-Van Kieu language inside and outside the locality to practice writing the Van Kieu language. Thanks to that, his vocabulary is increasingly enriched.

With the nature of his profession, Bru-Xinh has the opportunity to deeply learn about the culture of the Van Kieu ethnic group such as: the characteristics of traditional social institutions; religion, beliefs; customs; housing; costumes; cuisine; music ... From there, he not only has the conditions to absorb and acquire extensive knowledge of the Bru-Van Kieu language but also breathes life into the Bru-Van Kieu radio programs that he himself translates.

Bru-Xinh shared: “When I first started the Bru-Van Kieu radio program, I felt very worried because my vocabulary and experience were limited. Moreover, in daily communication, due to interaction with the Kinh people's life, each sentence of the people only had less than 50% of the original words. The Bru-Van Kieu script was born very late and has not been widely popularized among the Bru-Van Kieu ethnic group. Almost all people cannot write their own ethnic language.

Therefore, during the process of translating this language, I encountered many difficulties. However, with passion, determination and motivation to make people understand what I wanted to say and convey, I overcame the limitations and barriers to perform the task in the best way. I hope to open a class to teach writing to young ethnic minorities in the future. Through that, the language of my ethnic minorities will be preserved, its value will be promoted, and it will make an important contribution to the work of preserving the culture of ethnic minorities.

Bru-Xinh participates in making traditional dishes - Photo: NVCC

" Sweet fruit" from preserving mother tongue

The quality of the Bru-Van Kieu language radio program of the Huong Hoa District Culture, Sports and Tourism Center has been increasingly improved, creating an impression on local audiences, becoming an important information channel in the social life of ethnic minorities. The program contributes to encouraging people to enthusiastically compete in labor, production, and join hands to build new rural areas in the locality.

Thanks to that, the propaganda work in Van Kieu language on the radio system in the ethnic minority area in Huong Hoa has been increasingly promoted and become necessary. That result has the tireless and dedicated contribution of Bru-Xinh over the past many years.

Mr. Pa Quyet in Tram village, Huong Tan commune, happily said: "Since the program in Bru-Van Kieu language has been broadcast on the village loudspeaker, we are very happy because everyone can listen and understand more easily, especially grasping a lot of important information about the fields of socio-economics, national defense and security... Since then, we have actively encouraged our families and relatives to well implement the Party's policies, the State's policies and laws, and compete to build a new life."

Bru-Xinh often records beautiful moments of ethnic minorities and posts them on social networks in two languages: Bru-Van Kieu and Vietnamese - Photo: NVCC

Not only stopping at innovating and improving the quality of Bru-Van Kieu radio programs, Bru-Xinh also does a good job of filming and editing films, writing news when assigned by the unit's leaders. In his spare time, he spends time learning more about folk songs.

He listens to each folk song many times, tries to translate the lyrics of the song and then shares it on his personal Facebook and Zalo pages so that people with the same passion can exchange, give comments and collect. On his Facebook page, he often shares activities in daily life and propaganda information in the fields of culture, society, economy , national defense and security... with captions in Bru-Van Kieu and Vietnamese. From there, he contributes to spreading the love of culture and language of the nation to more people.

With the assigned functions and tasks, currently, the Center for Culture, Sports and Physical Training of Huong Hoa district has maintained and performed well the production of Bru-Van Kieu language radio programs with 2 programs per month, posted on the unit's electronic information page.

Along with that, over 70% of communes in the district's hamlets have a grassroots radio system in operation, fully equipped with loudspeakers reaching the hamlets, so this program contributes to making the propaganda and dissemination of all aspects of production and life for people in remote areas more familiar and practical. People can more easily update information and knowledge in many social fields, thereby joining hands to build hamlets and communes that meet the new rural model standards.

Talking about the reporter who is passionate about preserving the mother tongue in the unit, Deputy Director in charge of the Center for Culture, Sports and Physical Training of Huong Hoa district Nguyen Cong Sang said: “Mr. Bru-Xinh is a reporter who is very responsible for the assigned work. He always tries to attract more listeners. Therefore, the programs he produces are always new, with rich, diverse and meaningful translated information. In particular, he focuses on exploiting information that brings practical effects to ethnic minority people in all areas of social life.”

Ko Kan Suong

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/tam-huyet-cua-phong-vien-bru-xinh-194426.htm