Professor Tran Thanh Van and his wife Le Kim Ngoc: Give love, receive happiness

When awarding the Legion of Honor Officer Medal to Professor Tran Thanh Van and his wife Le Kim Ngoc on October 3, French Ambassador Olivier Brochet called this a very special occasion because there are not many cases where both husband and wife are awarded such medals.

The French Ambassador awarded the Legion of Honor, officer class, to the couple Professor Tran Thanh Van - Le Kim Ngoc - Photo: T.DIEU

Ambassador Olivier Brochet used many beautiful words to praise them such as "outstanding journey", "heartfelt", "generous", "hands that turn everything they touch into pure gold"...

But Professor Le Kim Ngoc admitted that she and her husband were just patient and persistent pavers who paved the road with each small stone, stones filled with love. Professor Tran Thanh Van affirmed that their achievements were the result of the contributions of many people.

Tuoi Tre talked with this scientist couple about the special factors that helped them achieve such extraordinary achievements.

Just be honest and people will come to you.

* How could a small scientist couple help change the fate of tens of thousands of children like they have done over the years?

- Ms. Ngoc: In 1970, the country was still at war, there were many orphans in dire straits, we established the Children's Aid Association in Vietnam, doing our best to raise funds to help orphans. We went to UNICEF to ask for permission to follow their model: selling postcards to raise funds.

My wife and I, along with friends and students, went out to sell postcards. In the years 1971 - 1973, the winter in France was -17 - 18 degrees Celsius. We left home at 5am, brought boxes of postcards to Paris, and went out to sell postcards to everyone.

We kept on doing this, and one year we sold 1 million postcards - such an impressive number that the UNICEF director came to us to talk and asked us to join. We were very excited to help them build a small kindergarten in the SOS Children's Village in Dalat.

From nothing, we ourselves could not imagine how we could open the first SOS Children's Village for orphans. We could not do big things like UNICEF, we walked under their airplanes and wiped away the tears of the children. We still remember in our hearts the faces of the young people who for many years worked with us to sell on the streets in the cold mist of Europe.

* What opportunity has Professor Odon Vallet given to the Odon Vallet Foundation to award scholarships to tens of thousands of Vietnamese students over the past 20 years?

- Mrs. Ngoc: We did not actively persuade him to sponsor Vietnamese children. He is a professor of religious history at Sorbonne University. His mother has a sister who used to be a nun in the convents in Dalat.

She wanted to save her small amount of money for Vietnam and entrust it to her son. We proposed to use the money to finance the renovation of some houses in Da Lat, but wanted him to come to Vietnam to do the survey himself.

During that trip, he witnessed us awarding scholarships to talented undergraduate students from universities in Hanoi in 2000. Touched and confident, he proactively applied to join the Vietnam Encounter scholarship that we had established in 1994. We were completely surprised and of course very happy.

I want to tell young people to do useful things for the community with what they have, even if they don’t have anything. You have to start, you have to steer your own ship, then others will get on board with you.

If you are weak, you must do it honestly. If you want someone to help you push a cart uphill, you must earn their trust by your honest actions.

* The achievements that you and your grandparents achieved must not have been easy?

- Ms. Ngoc: Some people always say "work without getting tired". I jokingly say that we get tired, you know (laughs), we work very hard, not like the French ambassador jokingly said that everything we touch turns to pure gold.

There were times when we felt like giving up, but thinking of the children who needed us, even though we had fallen, we still had to hold hands and stand up.

Professor Tran Thanh Van and his wife Le Kim Ngoc - Photo: NVCC

God's fate is tied, God's rod is tied

* How can a couple who both work in science achieve great success like you and your grandparents?

- Mrs. Ngoc: If Mr. Van were a lawyer, a doctor or doing any other job, I would not have been able to go this far in my scientific journey. Because we are both scientists, we look in the same direction.

If other wives in France need their husbands to take them out to eat, to the cinema, to the theatre every week, or more modernly, to go shopping, I don't want to worry about those things. On the contrary, Mr. Van is very simple in his life, he only values ​​the essentials.

We choose a simple, open life, eliminating unnecessary things to keep our luggage light for long, arduous journeys.

* How did you meet and recognize each other?

- Mr. Van: We met while working together in social work, had the opportunity to understand each other better and then fell in love. Ours was not a family-arranged marriage as was common at that time.

* Too busy with research and social work, how do grandparents take care of and raise their children?

- Mrs. Ngoc: I am very grateful to my second sister in this regard. My siblings and I took care of each other one after another, each sacrificing for the other because our mother died very early. At that time, the economy was especially difficult, my father had to work far away, my siblings and I took care of each other. Van's side was also protected by his siblings' sacrifices. It can be said that love is like an underground stream that always flows in our family. My children grew up in that underground stream.

I also have to thank my children for sharing their parents' love with others and, when they grew up, absorbing the spirit of sharing from the family and participating in many activities to help the younger generation.

* Like what Ms. Kim Ngoc said when receiving the Legion of Honor: "Money and fame can turn to smoke in an instant, but compassion and love are forever imprinted deep in the human mind"?

- Mr. Van: When we were young Vietnamese people studying in France, we received a lot of love and kindness from the French people. The French families I lived with during high school welcomed me very kindly, treating me almost like their own child.

The many favors we have received have made our lives beautiful, so we see that the most important thing in life is love, sharing, and giving in love. It is love that brought us together, and all our lives, everything we do is on a path guided by love. When we give out of love, what we receive in return is happiness.

- Mrs. Ngoc: When we have enjoyed a lot in life, we want to share more. But the things we do are simple. Just like we are the toad that has climbed up the well, we try to help other toads climb up the well like us.

When we were students, we had never had the chance to meet and discuss with famous scientists, not to mention the world's leading scientists. But we are trying to bring that opportunity to the current generation of young Vietnamese at ICISE.

Mr. Tran Thanh Van went to study in France in 1953, when he was 17 years old. A year later, Mrs. Le Kim Ngoc also started that journey. They studied at the same Sorbonne University. She majored in biology, he specialized in molecular physics.

In addition to their achievements in scientific research, they founded a series of scientific conferences since 1966 such as the Moriond Meeting, the Blois Meeting and especially the Vietnam Meeting held since 1993. This is a conference for young Vietnamese scientists to meet and exchange with the international scientific community, seeking opportunities to implement training and research projects.

In 2013, they built a center that they had dreamed of for the past six decades to be able to welcome great scientists from all over the world to Vietnam. That is the International Center for Interdisciplinary Science and Education (ICISE) in Quy Nhon, dozens of high-level conferences are held every year, 19 Nobel laureates have come here.

They also made great contributions to supporting Vietnamese children, such as establishing SOS Children's Villages in Da Lat in 1974, in Hue in 2000 and in Dong Hoi in 2006; and together with the Odon Vallet Foundation, granting scholarships to 57,000 excellent students since 2000.

BIRD OF PARADISE

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/vo-chong-gs-tran-thanh-van-le-kim-ngoc-cho-di-tinh-thuong-nhan-ve-hanh-phuc-20251010234845294.htm