The Mountains Sing

by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

“The challenges faced by Vietnamese people throughout history are as tall as the tallest mountains. If you stand too close, you won’t be able to see their peaks. Once you step away from the currents of life, you will have the full view.

In times of crisis, people are kind.”

Now, looking back over the years, I still wonder what I would have brought along if I had known what would happen to us.

“Well, in times of war, people are patriotic, ready to sacrifice their lives and their families for the common cause.”

“I don’t believe in violence. None of us has the right to take away the life of another human being.”

My beloved granddaughter, don’t look so shocked. Do you understand why I’ve decided to tell you about our family? If our stories survive, we will not die, even when our bodies are no longer here on this earth.

Perseverance grinds iron into needles.

It seemed only humans waged wars on each other, making each other suffer.

I opened the pages, which transported me to Italy,

She’d always encouraged me to read far and wide, unlike my friends’ parents who pushed their children to memorize textbooks.

I fingered the pages, touching the path that would lead me into the country I knew little about, although its actions were changing my whole life.

We kept the bookshelf next to my study corner and filled it with stories that would take me to faraway places.

I didn’t care what war meant. I just wanted it to return my mother to me, give me back my father and my uncles, and make our family whole again.

The more I read, the more I became afraid of wars. Wars have the power to turn graceful and cultured people into monsters.

Soft and persistent rain penetrates the earth better than a storm. I need to be patient with him.”

“Sơn ca.” “A splendid name.” Grandma smiled at me. “Sơn ca means ‘The Mountain Sings.’” “Believe me, this bird can sing,”

I know now that true love is rare and once we find our true love, we must hold on to it.

Laotians and Cambodians perished in the war known internationally as “the Việt Nam War,” but called by the current Vietnamese government “the Resistance War against America to Save the Nation.”

I had resented America, too. But by reading their books, I saw the other side of them—their humanity. Somehow I was sure that if people were willing to read each other, and see the light of other cultures, there would be no war on earth.

war was monstrous. If it didn’t kill those it touched, it took away a piece of their souls, so they could never be whole again.

I realized that whenever humans failed us, it was nature who could help save us.

My mother used to say, “Good luck hides inside bad luck.”

“Because hope helps to keep us alive,

practicing Nhẫn, the principle of patience, which teaches me how to love other human beings.

Human lives were short and fragile. Time and illnesses consumed us, like flames burning away these pieces of wood. But it didn’t matter how long or short we lived. It mattered more how much light we were able to shed on those we loved and how many people we touched with our compassion.

The turbulent events of our history had not just ripped people apart, they’d imprinted on them a sense of guilt about things over which they had no control.

“Somehow I was sure that if people were willing to read each other, and see the light of other cultures, there would be no war on earth.”