Feelings of a beautiful friendship.

With adequate material conditions, people can "exist" but if you want a life truly meaningful, people need to have friends.In the old folk treasure, our people have had so many questions about poetry praising friendship:

I remember it like salted small fishI remember as we remember the white pebbleMoon rising from the mountains to wear whiteI love you as the moon with the sun.
Or:
Living in the tank pearl diamondDo not live by love between friends.

Human history has been bold mark of friendship. It is faithful friendship, cohesively, to understand each other through keyboard music notes such as Ba Nha-autism, willing to sacrifice for the common ideal ambition, to work for you, such as Karl Marx - Antenna jealous . Friendship is not the pursuit of fame, despised material things, only deeds and noble soul is, precious. In the poem "You come home to play" by Nguyen Extension, the national poet tells of his misery, do not need another alcohol treatment of meat, vegetables and melons, even a "betel is the story" has no . Just two intimates soul mate, just "I came here to play it with me" is enough.

No coincidence that our forefathers have taught that "Close the ink black, near the dawn light, you do so that people must" Choose friends that play. " People do not all good, that shun evil, good learning, playing with good friends, people we will be better. Good friend to share joys and sorrows not only feeling, feeling with me but also for our progress, always with us whenever we encounter difficult times, always smile when we see success, to comfort every encouragement we stumble on the path of life.

Living life, next to love, we still have friends. Friendships make people understand each other better and thereby improve herself.

In my hometown

“Home sweet home”, Dad says to me as we step out onto the balcony. He tells me that I’ve been enrolled into Viet Duc, a renowned high school in Hanoi. I barely hear what he says next because I am distracted by the expression of joy on his face. It is clear that to my father he is home. Dad finishes talking and steps inside, still with a blissful smile on his face. I peer down at the street below, watching in fascination as hundreds of motorbikes and bikes wriggle pass each other in the morning traffic. This is my first trip back to Vietnam as a teenager. Each time I return, Vietnam itself doesn’t seem to have changed, but yet it still seems different to me. Perhaps that’s because I’ve changed. I spot a group of giggling school girls riding their bikes to school, their traditional white Vietnamese dresses fluttering beautifully in the wind. Nearby, some tourists are preparing to cross the street, though their terrified expressions make them look more like they are getting ready to enter a fighting field. I laugh, though slightly discomfited, by my closer resemblance to the foreigners than the Vietnamese girls.

That afternoon, I realize that my grandmother’s ‘live-in’ maid, Hoa, is exactly the same age as me. As I watch TV, she comes in to sweep the floor and I don’t know whether to keep watching TV or not. Do I lift my feet? Do I leave the room? Not knowing what to do, I remain seated, feeling somewhat uneasy and embarrassed. I am fifteen, my family is always with me and my part-time job pays for my mobile phone bills and lipsticks. She is fifteen, living far away from her family to work as a cleaner while her wages enable her parents to keep her three brothers in school.

Monday comes and Dad pulls me out of bed at six. Hoa has already been at work for the past hour, of course, and has finished preparing breakfast. She serves me noodle soup and as I mutter a thank-you, I catch a surprised look in her eye before she slightly lowers her head at me.

The school bell rings at exactly seven, and I step into the small classroom with the Year Ten Coordinator. “This is Tra My, she is from Australia and will be joining our class for the next few months…,” the coordinator’s voice trails off as the students begin to clap. Feeling a little less nervous, I smile and wave awkwardly hello at the class before sitting down, conscious of the fifty five pairs of curious eyes watching me. The coordinator leaves and the teacher begins the lesson. It is Literature, and she tells me not to worry if I don’t understand everything. She starts to read what sounds like an analysis of a text, while the students frantically try to write down her every word. I take the chance to look around - the walls of the classroom are brown, the seats and tables in perfect rows, also brown. Everything is neat, clean, perfect and in its place. All the heads are down, but mine.

The weeks pass and my classmates have become my friends. They are just as interested in my life as I am in theirs, if not even more. Through their stories, and my observations, I notice a stark difference between the education I have been receiving in Australia and what it is like here. I think about this as I walk home from an exhausting day at school one afternoon, eyes on the grubby grey concrete ahead of me. I am behind these students. Where in Australia, I have been studying one broad subject called ‘science,’ they have already been specializing in chemistry, physics and biology since year seven. Their use of English as a second language is impressive, making my three years study of French look particularly pathetic.

Yet despite their advance knowledge in the technical subjects, even I can see that they are overall divantaged by the system. There are no experiments conducted for science subjects, no excursions, no camps, no oval- not one blade of grass anywhere for that matter. There are never any class discussions, and no student ever disagrees with the teacher. Everything seems to be dictated here, and students are given no chance to create or express their ideas. They are not even given a choice of what subjects to study. “In this rigid system, the curriculum is set by the Government, taught in the same text books, in the same way in every school,” I remember a friend expressing her dissatisfaction. “But at the end of the day, that’s just how things are here, and to survive all we can do is study and study and do as we are told”.

All my friends share an overwhelming common dream of one day being able to study overseas. I’m the embodiment of their dreams. I find that particularly shocking, considering cute boys are the only subjects of my dreams at the moment.

I look up at the street ahead of me, hundreds of metres of cement footpath occasionally interrupted by anonymous faces of kids my age or even younger. They are booksellers, shoe-shiners or beggars. I don’t know anything about their lives, but to me, they all seem to be victims of circumstance. I feel confused. Here I am, pitying the students who, by comparison to these helpless kids, have a vast wealth of opportunity. And me, well, the opportunities I hold are so off their scale that it wouldn’t even register in their wildest dreams. My life and its infinite possibilities are incomprehensible to these kids.


As I reach closer to home, I can see Hoa in the distance, returning from the market and struggling to carry two bamboo baskets that look heavier than her. I want to cry but I don’t, perhaps I can’t. As I turn away, she slowly fades into the backdrop of grey buildings, dying brown trees, and dusty metal scaffolds.

Looking back, I didn’t realize at the time I had changed, but at some point I obviously did. It’s only in retrospect that I can pinpoint the exact moment when I recognized my comparative luxury, and began to wonder why I ever complained about my life at all. Upon my return to Australia, my priorities in life were somewhat rearranged. Of course, however, I wasn’t immediately different. But gradually, I became more focused at school and began to care less and less about the materialistic things that were once the centre of my world. It was only once the transformation was complete that I was aware of, and thankful for, the profound shift that took place in me after my three month stay in Vietnam.

The Pool

Questions swim around unanswered in my head. I don’t know exactly what I came back here to search for, what I hope to find in the ruins of this city. This lake right here used to be filled with wonders and magic. And now it’s just a little pool of dirty water; dull and lifeless like everything else. There is nothing left here, everything is gone, even the birds have fled. I wonder if they will come back, I wonder if I would ever hear them sing here again. A cool breeze touched softly on my face. I sat there watching the misty red of the sky as twilight thickened into darkness. I heard a merest whisper. And silent sounds lapped like waves in my head, stirring the memories of years gone by. The stillness seemed to echo around me. A murky vision of the past lurks in my head, like a shadow casting down on me. I became aware of the sharp presence of my memories and the blurring of the present. I felt the sensation as if I was reliving the past. Deep in my mind I can see a flashback, clear and vivid like it was only yesterday...

 

It was a cloudless day, up high the sun blazed down, its rays burning the atmosphere. The bell rang and the children burst out of their classrooms, into the exhausting heat of a summer’s afternoon. The noise level rises to a crescendo; the children’s chitchatting took over the silence of the awaiting parents. It seemed to be even nosier than usual seeing it was the last day of school. Children ran around wildly excited at the thought of the summer holidays ahead. The big kids jumped onto their bikes and rode circles around the schoolyard before speeding home. I saw my dad and hoped right into his arms, he lifted me up and put me onto his shoulders, we went home laughing together.

Spiraling down the stairs to childhood I remember no where could possibly be higher than my dad’s shoulders. I remember the safety of his arms. No where else in the world could be any warmer. But later on I realize that even my dad’s arms can’t protect me. And I would never be able to feel completely safe again.
After dinner, all the children from the neighborhood would go to the lake to have a clean, like they do every night. Their mothers went there to wash the clothes. The children’s laughter is mixed with the gossiper’s curious voices and the night bird’s song. We played happily in the lake under the stars.

The lake was where I had the some of best times in my life. Times so happy they were painful to remember. Hours upon hours of endless water fights and made-up games filled with laughter and joy. I thought that this would last forever. Obviously I was wrong because that night was the end of my happy days. That night was different. Not because it was the start of the holidays. Not because we decided to play water polo instead of the usual underwater scarecrow. But because something dangerous and unexpected was going to happen. Something occurred that night that was going to be written down in history.

A loud siren sounded in the middle of our game and interrupted the women’s chitchat and the bird’s song. A voice spoke over the town’s speakers telling everyone to stay calm and evacuate the city immediately. My mother found me in the moving crowd, she took my hand and hustled me along, and then she told me everything was going to be fine. But her eyes told me a different story. I knew something was wrong, very wrong. The birds knew it too; they flew away in a rush rather ungracefully.

Everything was chaotic. Everyone was leaving, running to get away, running for their lives. Then flying machines came and raided the sky, shooting down randomly. A bullet blasted past me with horrifying speed and force, the kid next to me fell down into the water. Shots were being fired at a regular rate, one person after another.

That was the first time I witnessed death. The terrifying vision still stay with me up until this day, blood spreading in the lake, infecting it with a colour of death, gradually turning it into a pool filled with blood.
So that was vaguely what had happened. I didn’t understand any of it through my confused young eyes. Everything after that is a blur, a faint memory. But the precious memories of the times I had at the lake with my friends, the warmness of my dad’s arms, I will never want to let go of. And the pool filling up with blood, the intense red of innocent lost lives -I could never be able to forget.

It’s weird, being here after all these years, all these years of the war. The war had changed me, converted me into a totally different person. Grown up, serious and alert. It showed me what it was like to be cold and hungry. Most of all what it was like to be scared. But in some ways the war had taught me a lot about life. It gave me courage. Despite the bombs that we had to run from, the invaders that took over our country and wrecked our homes, life goes on for me.

The sky is now dark; the color of the dirty water is no longer visible. The stars sparkled in the black night sky. The moon had risen, glowing as brightly as ever. The water glistened, reflecting the pearly light and the shadow of a gnarled tree. Well, the pool before me is still the lake filled with magic and wonders. It will always have the happy memories of the playing children. After all, just like us, it has too, suffered from the war. The war has taken its peace and calmness.

The city will be repaired. The homes will be rebuilt. Like a scar, the traces of the war will fade with time, but it will still remain there forever. The lake will always contain blood of the dead. It is absorbed in the earth’s soil and will be there forever. I will go on with my life and eventually my broken heart will be mended. But if you look closer the pain will still be there in my eyes. All the innocent children that have suffered could never have their childhood again.
People watch the news on TV and feel bad when they show pictures of wars, famines or floods. They’d sit there feeling sorry for the people they saw for a while, and after that they’d forget about it.

I think I have found the answers that I am looking for. I can’t change my past; I can’t help my friends that have died. But I can sure change the future. I am lucky enough to have survived, and I am grateful to fate for it. If I have anything it is that a life is precious, I have the chance to live and I’m going to have my say in the world. My opinion will be heard. I hope one day no child from anywhere in the world would have to ever live in fear. I hope they can receive the same chances and opportunities, I hope for equality between the nations.
I sit there beside the pool, enjoying the freshness of the air. Then I spotted something, a movement in the sky. The birds have fluttered back, they have too, come home; they land on a tree. A survivor of the trees. And they begin to sing their night song.