Today, I hardly concentrate on my work but keep thinking and questioning… The news hurts deeply in my heart, not just because of the death of 9 Vietnameses, but the pain of a weak country without no “bargaining power” in politics. Yesterday, I read some opinions from the Chinese “friends”in forum- about Vietnam, which insult Vietnamese people by “poverty”, “dirty cheap labour”, “weak country”… I was angry, felt like wanting to shout out loud but it’s bad that I don’t know what to say then. These few words are just what we think of Chinese labour and its products in the past, and obviously those things can also be applied to Vietnamese. We are weak, it’s something that we can’t deny. China, the weak country in the past (it is still like that in some elder Vietnamese’s mind), bypassing all the notorious rumour, arises with its real power in economics and technology. At this time, how do Vietnamese people behave? It is true that we are content with those rising in GDP, while people are satisfied with more imported products rather than export, while people are using high technology rather than mastering and inventing new! Vietnam is left behind too far from others, especially the Chinese “neighbor”. Embezzlement, corruption and internal dispute are still abound in the society, from top to the bottom. Is it a natural human behavior or the ugly Vietnamese? Or people haven’t feel ashamed to be weak yet, and more over, never we feel the threat from the strong-and-stronger Chinese neighbor. How to make the Vietnamese Education be better, to see Vietnamese students learn passionately to catch up with the world, not some individuals who are named on the newspaper but the whole nation? How to change the Law System to see foreign investor feel reliable to put their money in the country? How to replace the troublesome and complex administrative formalities with those transparent and simple one? And the most important is… HOW TO TRANSFORM THE “UGLY” VIETNAMESE PEOPLE? Please forgive my words to say so, but I hardly change this fact! We, Vietnamese, are proud of the past with successive wars, arrogant with our intelligence, content for achieving what others did in 10 years ago and never fear for being bully by the nearby neighbor, never feel the deep hurt for our weightless speaking to other countries.

When I and my friends talk about Vietnam, we easily say… “Oh, it’s Vietnamese style. It only happens in Vietnam, why Vietnam can’t be like Singapore’s style” and the story then faded away. It is like we’re accepting the fate of Vietnamese, or waiting for the big change. I rarely give comments about those sad news about the ineffectiveness of Vietnamese Education, about the corruption in some companies or Department of Oil…, as it is redundant to say those things that everybody know, but doing some things that people search for.

Someone said “Economics determines politics”- that’s true. 9 deaths of innocent Vietnamese fishers who are called sea-robbers by China make it become very sensitive political issue that every movement of each party has to be considered carefully. We are angry, we feel unfair for our Vietnamese fishers but we have to stay calm. Online petition, meeting for asking the justice make some senses but it might not quite suitable here. We have our judge, but more importantly if we know how to be resigned, to turn the long-suffering into our strength and strategic movements. Patriotism is a concept that might hard to explain, but the hurt and traumatic when we don’t have a power to speak and be listened even when you know you are right are somethings that you might understand. The war victories from the past are over, the present has just happened, only the future is left for us. “How can we make the NATION see the future in the same direction?“ and DEAR “UGLY” Vietnamese People, what can we do to make VIETNAM be much more than this?…