full article<\/a> by Le Si Long on BBC Vietnamese).<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nSuch an attitude doesn\u2019t make much sense, given that at all Vietnamese universities, students have to devote 12% of their study hours to gaining good command of Marxist sciences and Ho Chi Minh thought. In fact, those young men and women won\u2019t bother to discuss the socialist aspects of the music video just mentioned above. Only people like me, those that struggle to understand what their political education (or \u201cmoral education\u201d as many teachers would tell us) means, may feel surreal and bitter watching thousands of students get immersed in the Green Summer Campaign.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m aware the music video, an excerpt from a film depicting Vietnamese students in rare and beautiful moments of their lives, is a product of the media and thus mediated. Unfortunately, I also know it\u2019s based upon the fact that every year, countless houses, roads and bridges are built by those enthusiastic volunteers. And many more language lessons are distributed, I should add.<\/p>\n
They look exactly like my friends, candid young faces, who sneak into the hamlets of the Mekong Delta, every summer.<\/p>\n
And what is more, they are the image, just two or so years ago, I thought I would become. I find it very difficult to feel disillusioned altogether with socialism or something of this sort, in which many Vietnamese have succeeded doing once gaining a full understanding of democracy or something of that kind. It\u2019s thus always a mix of love and hate, or better still\u2014nostalgia, when I see those contemporary Vietnamese, yes I mean real Vietnamese, rush into campaigns like the Green Summer one.<\/p>\n
I never had formal political education, so I\u2019m not talking about politics. The need to make sense of what my friends are doing and to feel being in touch with them has resulted in several overheard ideas, such as that Marx thinks capitalism is totally irrational to leave everything in the hands of markets. In order to be rational, he would say, we\u2019ve got to plan not only our life but also others\u2019, which non-Marxists have no support for. Thus, if you wish to spare yourself from Marxism, please worry less about Vietnam. If they choose to be stupid, volunteer for the Green Summer Campaign, and hold the Youth Union\u2019s flag, please let them do so. I, however sadly, have chosen to write this post for the smart, the intellectual, and more importantly, the diacritics.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m perhaps spoiled or simply naive. Either way, it\u2019s hard to denounce such values as \u201chumble, truthful, and brave,\u201d which is the last (and also my favorite) of the five articles taught by Uncle Ho\u2014the thing I learned from moral education in primary school.<\/p>\n
So dear readers, I know most of you are academics, formally or informally, and here I\u2019ll end with a quote originally found on the first diacritic\u2019s facebook profile:<\/p>\n
It doesn’t matter which (academic) discipline you are in, just as long as you are ashamed of it.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Bernard Cohn<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/em>(It\u2019s sad the Harvard\/APA referencing guide doesn\u2019t teach us how to refer to facebook statuses.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Vu Thi Quynh Giao\u00a0is a third-year undergraduate at RMIT Vietnam, studying Public Relations and Advertising on a full scholarship. Her life-time goal is to run an open-education program where everyone can learn from each other and decide on the best way to live. Besides that, she wishes to connect thinkers and doers to help tackle climate change, especially in Vietnam, before it is too late.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n
~<\/p>\n
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Please do me a favor, before we proceed with this post, by looking at the following picture and delaying your political interpretation. For I promise you that it\u2019s not meant to be politics, that I\u2019m writing here for diacritics and that there will be actually media texts you artists may (dis)like. This was an ad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":9385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[]},"categories":[29,80],"tags":[126,227,264,372,393,431,473,476,496,534,577,764,778],"yoast_head":"\n
Political media commentary | Vu Thi Quynh Giao<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n