SPECIALTIES OF THE CENTRAL REGION

🗣 When people speak of Nghệ - Tĩnh - Bình, they tend to tell one another about cu đơ candy, Xã Đoài oranges, Phúc Trạch pomelos, Thanh Chương nhút and Nam Đàn tương...

Many feel more compassion for this strip of land when the talk turns to the heat, the cold, the Lào winds, the storms and floods... "In my homeland we push aside the gravel to find our rice; the rain ends, the drought lifts, and another storm draws near."

A few, in jest, will bring up khu mấn fruit, or Hà Tĩnh elephants... 😂😂

🗣 People often speak of the distinctive specialties of the different areas along this strip of land. But there is one "specialty" shared by all, and it makes many of us proud: the studious People of the Cá Gỗ 📖📚

🗣 When I was small I often heard my mother tell of catching fireflies and putting them in a glass jar so their light could serve as a lamp for reading, of one pair of trousers worn by the older brother in the morning and the younger in the afternoon so both could go to class, of pressing mồng tơi berries to make ink for a fountain pen, or of the story of the wooden fish...

👍 No one has the right to choose where they are born. Hardship and adversity are nothing to be blamed for; the only thing to be blamed for is failing to try hard enough to overcome those challenges. And so it is precious and a source of pride that, generation after generation, the people of our Central region have always known how to rise above adversity by way of "LEARNING". 👨‍🏫

🧐 There are villages where most of the children, once they finish upper secondary school, are steered towards working abroad, whether openly as labour export or under the name of studying overseas, even though it costs hundreds of millions, sometimes a billion đồng. We have many roads by which to escape hardship and want, but LEARNING is probably the cheapest, the easiest and the one with the most lasting results. It is a pity that this road — good, wholesome and cheap, seemingly hard but in fact easy — is one that not many people are yet willing to invest in and set out on.

💪💪💪 COME TO YOUR CAREER BY WAY OF LEARNING 👨‍🏫📖📚

✍️ P/s: The photographs are from a Coffee with Books session during the Our Lady of La Vang Scholarship gathering in Hà Tĩnh (12 July 2018 - 16 July 2018)