Rediscovering the old corners

1. During my wanderings through Europe, I often came across, on someone's porch, somewhere—in the semi-timbered old streets of UNESCO World Heritage sites in Germany, or in the remote old villas of Normandy (France), or the tranquil, beautiful mountain and lake regions of Switzerland, Austria…—an old bookshelf, a small bookcase, or even a basket, holding old books for visitors to read for free.

I encountered authors I already knew, those I had read since childhood through Vietnamese translations, as well as more unfamiliar names that the language barrier prevented me from easily accessing, from Ernest Hemingway, Claude Sarraute… to Mark Twain, Guy de Maupassant… There were also baskets of books next to the stalls with signs that read "1 euro" if you wanted to take the book away. The secondhand markets in Spain even have stalls selling mini-versions of classic novels like Walter Scott's Aivanhoe, all worn and tattered, as if to say: these books have passed through the hands of many readers and are still waiting for new kindred spirits.

I often stop at those book stalls, gazing and feeling moved. Not only do childhood memories of old books come flooding back, but the thirst for reading from those days also surges within me. Back then, most of us in the 70s generation probably had a study corner, and that little corner always contained fairy tales, poetry collections, and children's stories—books like Tô Hoài's *The Adventures of the Cricket*, Trần Đăng Khoa's *The Courtyard and the Sky*, Phạm Hổ's *The Cow Looking for a Friend*… That old corner reappears as a beautiful piece of memory in my recollections whenever I encounter those roadside bookshelves in a foreign land.

2. It's interesting to see a glimpse of my 30s in my daughter's assignment – ​​a Gen Z student majoring in Creative Application Design at RMIT University (Ho Chi Minh City). Her essay depicts the image of a "woman of the 2000s." Remember how we welcomed 2000 as a special milestone of the new millennium? A quarter of a century has passed since then. Through her eyes, the image of me – a "modern" woman back then – has also become a nostalgic memory. This is evident in the photo of me driving my car.

In a photo of me sitting in front of a square-headed Cup 82, my daughter captioned it with surprise: "In 2000, women were riding these vintage motorcycles?". In another photo, I was sitting in front of a 486 desktop computer, and through my daughter's eyes, it was: "A large-bezel monitor and matching cream-colored office supplies! And look! This computer case even has a CD slot!". And in a photo of me sitting on a landline phone, she captioned it with a strange question: "Hmm... This phone has a cord?! What if you want to talk while walking?". In yet another photo, I was hunched over reading a book, and she captioned it: "Paper books - the passion of our parents' generation before the dizzying development of digital technology "...

These seemingly unrelated stories are deeply connected, prompting me to ponder: whether these "old corners" remain or disappear, is it a story about cultural values ​​and beauty amidst the ceaseless flow of modern life?

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/tim-lai-nhung-goc-xua-185251213183832175.htm