Tell quiz

Q: Many painters of the same generation as you have created and exhibited many different types of paintings. Why do you still display sketch paintings from the Vietnamese battlefield?

A: Someone said I was crazy as I only pursued the “paintings of memories”. I just laughed away. Twenty-one exhibitions is not enough for me and I will continue. I consider it to be an unfulfilled mission. There are still over one million people alive who fought and served on the trail and I have to continue to “tell” stories to pay my respect to them. My exhibitions attracted a large number of my comrades-in-arms, friends, youth volunteers, fire workers and soldiers. Many of them cried as they saw the “old sights and people”. They are valuable archives that I created following ten years of the mission on the battlefield. I want the young generation to know more about this trail as well as understand their ancestors’ sacrifices so that they can appreciate the value of peace and do positive things.

Q: How does Truong Son Trail stand in your memories in addition to what has been shown in the paintings that have been introduced to the public?

A: The atmosphere of opening, repairing and protecting the route as well as shipping goods to the southern battlefield via the Truong Son Trail was extremely vibrant and urgent although life and death were only narrowly separated during that time. Painters like me revelled in capturing the scenes of the soldiers’ trucks still rushing forward to the south despite the fallen and destroyed key points, rocks and trees. Meanwhile, the base stations were always fiercely attacked by the enemy. The actual image was really woeful and majestic. Once I opened an exhibition on the battlefield, my paintings were pinned to tree trunks. Our soldiers watched and wondered why the paintings featured the right shapes of a section of A letter and Phu La Nhich pass but the scenes were not the same as a few weeks ago. I had to explain that the enemy’s bombs had made trees and soil change colour, so only the shapes of roads and mountains remained. I also met and drew a 60-year-old man, who was blinded in both eyes due to the enemy’s tortures but tried to carry a 60kg basket of bullets. His grandson held one end of a stick to take the old man to follow the fire workers to hand over the bullets to the soldiers.

Q: Did artists like you face many difficulties on the harsh and dangerous road full of bombs?

A: In that situation, we could not make paintings with canvases. Only sketches with iron pens, pencils and watercolours on paper were suitable for quick propaganda. To be more precise, sketches attempted to vividly reflect the battles, roads and key points so that they helped me timely hold small exhibitions right on the battlefield or at the rear. Later, I repainted large paintings with modern materials based on the sketches.

There were also three other painters who were very passionate about this topic. We tried to work beyond our ability. We drew in the bomb craters and painted while the sounds of guns and bombs beside us. From the previous generation, Co Tan, Lang Chau and Le Lam were talented painters with many exhibitions held in the north since 1965. Their sketches were published in volumes and released widely both in the country and abroad to let the world know more about the war for national liberation in Vietnam.

Our paintings of the battlefield and the legendary Truong Son Trail truly reflected the historical reality as well as recreating the resilience and heroic spirit of Vietnamese army and people during the sacred resistance war.

An interchange on Truong Son Trail (Oil painting, 2014)

For me, they are my memories

Q: With the specific characteristics of the mission at that time, not any painter who wanted to paint Truong Son Trail would be assigned the task. How did you stick to the trail?

A: I loved painting when I was very young. In 1965, when the US sent troops to the south of Vietnam, young people like me energetically joined in the army. I became a soldier of Infantry Regiment No.5 that was assigned the task of opening the Truong Son Trail in western Thua Thien – Hue. Experiencing many difficulties and hardships, I was deeply moved and wanted to do something to encourage my comrades-in-arms. I drew the first paintings on military civil engineering soldiers who dug a secret road on the Truong Son Trail. During the time for rest or at night, I tied the paintings to the trees so that they could watch. I painted with the wish that my paintings would help younger generations see the fierceness of Vietnamese army and people’s fight against US imperialism.

Witnessing my engrossment on the road and capturing the things I observed on my paintings, the Political Bureau (under the Command of Division 559) allowed me to specialise in the people and the events during the resistance war in order to serve the goal of communication. At that time, I drew completely instinctively with the spirit of a soldier and deep patriotism. In 1968, I was assigned to paint at the soldier stations, transportation areas and routes. Since then, my steps have been imprinted on many routes on Truong Son Trail under a rain of bombs and storm of bullets. I tried to paint with all my soul.

Q: As I know, you were present at the moment when Vietnamese soldiers entered Independence Palace. Do you still remember the atmosphere of this historic day?

A: On April 30, 1975, I followed the gang of ordnance trucks of the Transportation Division 57 under the Truong Son Command to enter Saigon. The gang stopped in front of the Independence Palace. At this time, I had not seen the national flag hoisted on the roof of the Palace. I immediately asked two other people to stretch a large paper and I drew. When my painting was almost finished, the flag flew. I still keep it now.

Q: Several American veterans wanted to buy your sketches but you did not sell them. Why?

A: I could not sell to them because they are my memories that would not be able to be returned. After my exhibition “Memory of Truong Son” ended in Nam Dinh Province on December 24, I donated two valuable works titled “Tha Me focus during the dry season in 1968” and “The key eyes” to the provincial Museum because many veterans in the locality, including many of my gratious comrades-in-arms, worked on the Truong Son Trail.

Q: In addition to the Truong Son Trail, have you created paintings about other topics?

A: In 1973, I was sent to study at the Vietnam Fine Arts University and then returned to the battlefield a few months later.

After 1975, I worked for the Museum of the General Department of Logistics and spent much time repainting sketches I created in the battlefield while creating paintings of rigs, landscapes and families. I participated in just two exhibitions of landscapes and then realised that I was more suited to topics related to soldiers. Thus, I only displayed the sketches of Truong Son.

Thank you very much for your interview!

The Height 550 was destroyed. (Watercolour painting, 1972).

A nurse prepares a COVID-19 vaccine at 109 Military Institute in the northern province of Vĩnh Phúc. — VNA/VNS Photo Hoàng Hùng

HÀ NỘI — The health minister yesterday warned localities to use their COVAX-supplied COVID-19 vaccine doses by May 5 or face having them redistributed.

Minister of Health Nguyễn Thanh Long made the statement during a meeting with all provinces and cities in the country regarding COVID-19 control and vaccination efforts, urging them to finish vaccinating priority groups before the deadline or the remaining unused doses would go somewhere else.

Việt Nam on April 1 received the first batch of 811,200 doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca from the global vaccine sharing scheme COVAX Facility out of the planned 4.1 million-dose shipment by May.

Previously, the health ministry asked all localities to submit a list of all those eligible for vaccination and finish the inoculations by May 15, but the new deadline was moved up 10 days

The COVAX doses’ expiry date is said to be May 31, 2021.

Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính in his first cabinet meeting on Thursday said the health ministry and localities cannot let any vaccine doses go to waste.

Regarding Việt Nam’s slow vaccine rollout, health experts noted the country has its own protocol – different from most nations – to ensure safety for the vaccinated as the COVID-19 vaccines have been approved for emergency use only.

All COVID-19 vaccination sites have to meet certain requirements in terms of facilities and staff, as well as carry out screenings and counselling before injection. All those who receive the jabs must remain at the site for at least 30 minutes for medical observation, monitor their condition at home in the following 24 hours and further monitoring is required for another three weeks.

Some 73,000 people – mostly frontline workers – have been inoculated against COVID-19, using, for the most part, the 110,000 doses bought from AstraZeneca that arrived in late February more than a month after the national drive was launched on March 8.

Eligible people for COVID-19 vaccine are those within the 10 priority groups detailed in the Government’s Decree 21, which are frontline workers (medical workers, COVID-19 steering committees, police and military forces directly involved in the fight against the pandemic); Vietnamese diplomats and relatives sent on overseas missions and diplomatic delegations and UN representative offices in Việt Nam; customs, exit and entry officers; essential service workers (utility, airlines, transport, tourism, etc.); teachers and education institution’s staff or those working at front-facing administrative offices; people with chronic diseases; the elderly (above 65 years old); people in COVID-19-hit outbreak areas; poor people and social welfare beneficiaries; people authorised by the State to work or study overseas.

Side effects

The National Expanded Programme on Immunisation has recorded 33 per cent of those vaccinated displaying typical post-injection reactions such as localised pain, itches, light fever, or fatigue that usually go away without medical intervention in one or two days.

The programme noted that the reactions in Việt Nam seem “much lower” than in other countries, adding that the rate of side effect reports among the vaccinated in its usual five-in-one vaccination for infants (diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenza type B) is about 50 per cent.

Only 0.1 per cent reported serious reactions, but they received timely interventions and could return to work after one or two days of treatment/follow-up observation at a medical facility.

No rare blood clotting incidents have been recorded among the vaccinated using AstraZeneca in Việt Nam so far.

The health ministry on Thursday issued a decision to set up a steering committee on safe vaccination, comprising leading experts in the field to provide support for localities in cases of vaccine incidents.

The ministry also appealed to the media to increase coverage of the benefits of vaccines to encourage more people to register for inoculation.

At the meeting, a representative from the WHO office in Việt Nam lauded the country’s pandemic containment efforts, adding that vaccines are key to fighting COVID-19 and their benefits far outweigh their risks, but other prevention measures should still be maintained.

Cold box containing AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines in a hospital in Cần Thơ City, southern Việt Nam. — VNA/VNS Photo

Lessons learned

At Friday’s meeting, health ministry officials and experts also agreed on six main lessons in dealing with the country’s third wave of infections, which has now been contained, so that localities could take note to avoid “stumbling missteps” in the face of possible new outbreaks.

Việt Nam has gone 22 days without new local infections, and life has mostly returned to normal.

First, centralised quarantine of probable COVID-19 cases and direct contacts of the infected – not self-isolation at home – is still the solution to prevent the spread of the virus in the community, as shown in the cases of Hải Dương Province during the last few months and Đà Nẵng in July-August last year, the epicentres of Việt Nam’s third and second waves.

Second, targeted lockdowns – with mass lockdowns still on the table in serious cases – and increased COVID-19 testing kept infections in check while impacts on socio-economic development were minimised.

Third, the involvement of police in contact tracing efforts in Hải Dương proved to be valuable and replicable.

Fourth, preparations and co-ordination between different agencies were needed to ramp up testing (including pooled testing) as fast as possible to contain the outbreaks.

Fifth, the quick establishment of field hospitals using existing facilities to treat COVID-19 patients was a must when cases exploded to ensure medical centres treating other diseases and conditions are not disrupted or overwhelmed.

Sixth, the deployment of central-level health officials to hotspots helped achieve better co-ordination with local authorities in delivering timely and appropriate responses.

At the meeting, health experts called for the continued strict management of borders to prevent risks of new outbreaks, especially given the many repatriation flights bringing citizens home and serious outbreaks in neighbouring countries.

“If our guard is down and imported cases cause infections in the community, especially the South African or the UK variant of the virus, then the containment would be very difficult,” Minister Long said. — VNS

for an intelligent university in Vietnam.

Students of the National University of Hanoi work in a group at the university’s library. — Photo qdnd.vn

What contributions has the Centre for Information and Libraries made to the national education sector?

After 20 years of operation and development, the centre has become a leading library in the country with almost 45,000 textbooks and reference materials which are all in digital format, plus some 33,000 theses and scientific research papers kept available in an open digital format and some 4,100 online electronic magazines. The centre has published 114,000 books and 400 magazines. And what’s more important is the library is now automated and open 24 hours a day. Worthy of note, in May 2020 the library was ranked the 75th leading university library in the world.

Can you tell us about the knowledge that Vietnamese students have acquired from the centre?

In late 2019, the centre conducted a survey of 4,000 school pupils and university students about what they had gained through reading books from the library. They said that they had gained 49 per cent of their knowledge from reading books from the library, 40 per cent from teachers/lecturers, and 11 per cent from other sources. It is reported that in 2019 some 6.6 million people had used library services – an increase of 74 per cent against 2018 and an increase of 717 per cent compared with 2015.

A questionnaire conducted among library users found that more than 90 per cent were satisfied with library services.

What about the digital application of library services?

To meet the demand of over 40,000 students and university staff, there is no other way better for the library than to use digital technology. The centre has set a road map to digitalise all the library data to give users better access to the information they are searching for. In addition, advanced technology has been introduced to help users access most of the books/materials they want through the use of Webometrics or electronic books ScienceDirect, Springer Nature and others. Furthermore, the centre has created an Open Access database free of charge for anyone who wants to retrieve data or information from the Hanoi National University.

Will you please tell us a bit more about the Hanoi National University’s plan to build an intelligent information centre in the Lang Hoa Lac hi-tech zone?

From 2020-2025, the Library Centre will be developed into a centre for digital knowledge, or VNU-LIC. Once the VNU-LIC is in operation, digital knowledge will be available for all readers. If things go smoothly, by 2024 the VNU-LIC in the Lang Hoa Lac hi-tech zone will be put into operation and everything in there will be totally digitalised with Blockchain technology applied in the library. VNS