Memories of a teacher

When I was assigned by the Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanities to write about Professor Nguyen Minh Thuyet, I was very honored but also very worried, because Professor Nguyen Minh Thuyet's career is difficult to write about in one article: He is both a professor of Linguistics with valuable works, and a leading expert in general education, having been the editor-in-chief or editor-in-chief of many textbooks at the primary and secondary school levels; he was also the Vice Principal of a large university, and especially was a National Assembly delegate for two consecutive terms with many active parliamentary activities, very popular with the people.

Perhaps, I will write about Professor Nguyen Minh Thuyet in my own way of feeling, as a student of his. Such a way of writing will certainly not "collide" with many other people who have written about him.

Professor, Dr. Nguyen Minh Thuyet/Photo: Thanh Long

I remember one evening a friend took me to house number 28 Yen Ninh street (Hanoi) to meet a PhD in Linguistics who had just returned from Russia, who was very good at Russian, and had a lot of enthusiasm and professional plans. That was teacher Nguyen Minh Thuyet, who was working at the Institute of Educational Sciences. The thing is, at that time I was studying far from home, my parents in the countryside were poor, so the situation of "lack of money" was a constant situation for me, my friends liked me so they wanted to help me find some extra work in the middle of the bustling city. During that meeting, after asking about my abilities, Mr. Thuyet wanted to help me by assigning me to translate some Russian documents into Vietnamese. That made me very touched and encouraged me to study Russian like crazy, and I studied very hard, and the reward later was the first prize in the first Russian Olympiad for students of universities in the capital. Even though I could not translate any pages to earn a little extra money, the love for Russian and the awareness of using foreign languages ​​as a key to open the door to the storehouse of human knowledge that Mr. Thuyet planted in the soul of a country boy who came to the capital have followed me through many stages of my life. Later, when I stood on the university podium, I was always excited to pass on that love to many generations of students.

After graduating from university and transferring to graduate school, I was extremely fortunate to have Professor Thuyet as my co-instructor along with Professor Nguyen Tai Can. The Department of Linguistics invited Professor Can to guide me on my thesis on Vietnamese syntax, as the best way for me to take on this course at the Faculty of Philology, University of General Sciences, succeeding the previous teachers. Professor Can accepted and invited Professor Thuyet to be my co-instructor, because Professor Can commented on me, roughly: He is an intelligent person, but subjective, careless and undisciplined, so I had to ask for another person who is very good at syntax, has a scientific working method, and has labor discipline, to train and tutor him. Professor Can said that if you accept the first page of Mr. Thuyet's thesis, from the second page to the last page, you have to follow him, whatever conclusion he leads you to, you have to accept it, it is rigorous and cannot be refuted. Mr. Can also said: "That Mr. Thuyet, his Russian writing is even better than mine, a man with a Russian wife." He said that by studying with Mr. Thuyet, I would not only learn professional knowledge but also be trained in scientific working methods.

Prof. Dr. Nguyen Minh Thuyet was Vice Head of the Faculty of Literature, Hanoi National University (1992-1995); Vice Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (1995-2002); Secretary of the Party Committee of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (2001-2002).

So every now and then, I got to work with Mr. Thuyet at house number 28 Yen Ninh. His family was a very disciplined family, in the style of civil servant families in the past. Everyone in the family was kind and simple. I remember that his parents always kept me for lunch, those meals with meat and vegetables were too luxurious for a country boy who came to Hanoi to study and stay in a boarding school like me. After eating, I volunteered to wash the dishes, and he went down to the kitchen to wash the dishes with me, because he didn't want the guest to wash the dishes alone, even though the guest was a student. So the two of us washed the dishes and talked more about our profession, it was wonderful. Thinking back now, I understand that it was the way he took advantage of every opportunity to explain his profession to me. I think that nowadays postgraduate training is developing, there are many professors, associate professors, and many graduate students, but it is difficult to have a case where teachers and students can talk about their expertise while washing dishes together, like I was lucky enough to do. I remember one day, after I successfully defended my thesis at the grassroots level and was doing the procedures for the official defense, the teacher came to the dormitory for something, and took the opportunity to visit me. The two of us were sitting drinking hot tea at a deserted cafe, the teacher suddenly said: Hiep, you can be confident in pursuing your research on syntax, I have already taught Hiep everything I know about syntax and Hiep has already grasped it. I was speechless and moved, because the teacher's compliments were few, but because his love for his students was so immense.

Mr. Thuyet is a person whose love and help for his students is always natural, sincere, and touching. And his help is always very delicate. On the day of my official thesis defense, according to the usual practice at that time, I would have a so-called party meal and thank the teachers in the Council. But Mr. Thuyet said that in the Council there were many teachers who had studied in the Soviet Union, so he invited his friends, as if they had not seen each other for a long time. In fact, a "noob" like me had to understand that he invited his friends like that so that I would not have to spend money. After finishing my thesis, to make a living, I had to work at night at the Gia Lam bamboo and rattan furniture factory, as a security team leader and martial arts trainer for the team. Because I worked all night, I was lethargic during the day due to insomnia, and could not read anything (later I still joked with my students that to study linguistics, one must be healthy and not lack sleep, because reading in this subject is very nerve-damaging). Mr. Thuyet knew about the matter, called me and gave me his founding role in a fairly large tutoring center in Hanoi at that time. The job was easy (just keeping track of the books and collecting tuition fees, occasionally walking around the school yard to cool off, seeing how the classes were going) but the salary was high (some months it was double the salary of a newly graduated teaching staff). Thanks to that job, I dared to boldly … get married, because I understood that "a thatched hut with two golden hearts" was very difficult.

He was a National Assembly Delegate of the 11th and 12th terms (2002-2011); Vice Chairman of the Committee for Culture, Education, Youth, Adolescents and Children of the 12th National Assembly (2007-2011).

Later, when reading articles about him as an excellent National Assembly delegate, loved by the people, I learned that he had a difficult childhood. In order to help his parents, he sold newspapers and roasted peanuts on the tram in Hanoi, scraped rust from the iron walls of bridges, and worked as a porter in Thai Nguyen. A teacher with such experiences would easily sympathize, share, and want to help poor students like me. I also learned that his hometown was Sui village (literally Tho Loi village), now Phu Thuy village, Phu Thi commune, Gia Lam district, Hanoi capital, which was the hometown of Cao Ba Quat and many famous Confucian doctors of the time; furthermore, it was also the hometown of Princess Y Lan, a country girl leaning on a mulberry tree that went down in history and legend. In his calm, open and friendly way of speaking and behaving, I could feel the cultural tradition of his family, the proud historical flow of a cultured countryside. Later, when he became Vice Principal of the Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanities, then Vice Chairman of a National Assembly Committee, equivalent to a Deputy Minister, I still saw in him simplicity, sincerity, love for everyone, always knowing how to listen and share.

Mr. Thuyet is a visionary, and my life has had many twists and turns, but thanks to him, I have not been derailed. I remember around 1988, when I had just finished my Russian language course for graduate students, Mr. Dang Duc Nga, Head of the Graduate School of Hanoi University, told me that there was a vacant position for a Russian language teacher under the internship program of the Pushkin Institute, and the school wanted to send me to the Soviet Union under this position. At that time, going to the Soviet Union was the dream of many people, however, when I talked to Mr. Thuyet, he told me not to go, because it was not my major. He said I should focus on my thesis, practice Russian very well so that later I could go to Russia as an intern, and defend my thesis there. He said that was also the reason why he had always asked me to practice writing in Russian to present the problems of my thesis. Accordingly, every few months, I brought the things I wrote to my teacher's house so that he could correct my mistakes in sentence structure and word usage. During the official thesis defense, he stated before the Council that my Russian was not inferior to those who had completed their thesis in Russia. I thought this was a good way to do it. Now, if thesis supervisors also asked graduate students to practice writing in English to present their professional issues, our international publications would certainly be more optimistic, because the first barrier to international publications was foreign language. Later, around the end of the 1990s, when the business and trade of the Vietnamese community in the Soviet Union was going well, some of my friends intended to invite me to go there, because I could speak Russian, was agile, had a steady hand (had a black belt in karate), was hard-working, and did not mind hardships, so I could earn a lot of money in that era of snatching and snatching. However, once again, when I talked to him, he advised me not to go. Now that I think about it, I am very grateful to him for that advice. Because if I had gone to the Soviet Union at that time, and plunged into the game of making a living, I don't know what kind of mishaps might have happened, and today I am not sure I could be sitting here, as a professor, Director of the Institute of Linguistics, writing about my teacher.

Fortunately for me and many generations of linguistics students, in 1990, Mr. Thuyet transferred from the Institute of Educational Sciences to work at the Faculty of Philology, Hanoi University of Science. In addition to doing my thesis, I also had the opportunity to attend Mr. Thuyet's classes. Those were unforgettable lessons, because of his pedagogical ability and profound professional knowledge, along with his ability to be humorous at the right time and place, making the issues of general grammar as well as Vietnamese grammar easy to understand and unusually lively. At that time, every year the Faculty of Philology opened a transition class for people in related fields to get a certificate to do research in linguistics. Among them was Ngo Tu Lap, who had studied at the Maritime University in the Soviet Union, returned to the country to work as a captain, traveling the rivers, writing prose and poetry that were very catchy. Lap was known to be arrogant and rarely respected others. However, after studying with Mr. Thuyet, Lap told me that he admired him very much, his knowledge was extensive and his teaching ability was excellent, his presentation was concise and clear, each problem was on point, not too much or too little. After finishing the conversion class, Ngo Tu Lap passed the doctoral exam and applied to do research with Mr. Thuyet, but unfortunately the procedures had strict regulations that prevented Lap from pursuing his career in Linguistics. As for me, I was lucky to study with him, and was also invited by him to participate in writing some books edited by him, that is the bookVietnamese sentence componentsand two booksPractical Vietnamese, book A is for students of natural sciences, and book B is for students of social sciences, all of which have been reprinted many times by the Education Publishing House and the Hanoi National University Publishing House.

Later, following his activities in the National Assembly, I and many others greatly admired the way he presented, questioned, argued, making complex issues easy to understand and convincing. On TV, when he spoke about the country's major issues, I always saw in him the style of a teacher in a politician, that is, calm, unhurried, and respectful of others. Regarding his contributions to parliamentary activities and to the country's development in many fields, perhaps a whole book should be written. However, it is easy to feel the love of many voters for him through many supportive and admiring comments on major online newspapers such as VietnamNet, Vnexpress, Thanh Nien... Once, I went to Hue and visited my martial arts teacher. In the story about the current situation of the country, when he learned that I was a student of Mr. Nguyen Minh Thuyet, my martial arts teacher asked me to connect him to talk to Mr. Thuyet. And he said very sincerely: Mr. Thuyet, I am a commoner, nameless and famous, I am calling to say that I thank you very much for what you have said which is very beneficial for the country and the people, I wish you good health to continue that glorious and heavy work.

I think Mr. Thuyet is the one who has made a great contribution to the innovation of parliamentary activities, so that our State is truly of the people, by the people and for the people. When he retired, after two terms as a National Assembly delegate, I felt a sense of loss and regret. Many people I know also share this regret. In the process of building a socialist rule of law state, the country needs people with intelligence, heart and courage like my Mr. Thuyet and many generations of students.

Being your student for decades, I know that you have a deep sadness, which I know but still cannot help you. You have a younger brother who sacrificed himself in the fierce Tri Thien battlefield and until now I still do not know where he lies in the homeland. I have only seen the portrait of your younger brother at 28 Yen Ninh, but in your words every time you mention your younger brother, I feel your boundless love for him. I think that you and your younger brother, each with their own path, have contributed to the development of this country and this nation.

When thinking about the contributions of Mr. Thuyet in the career of cultivating people, in linguistic research, in university administration, in the activities of the National Assembly, I thought of the image of small streams tirelessly converging into rivers, so that the river can flow strongly into the ocean, bringing alluvium to enrich the countryside through which it passes. Mr. Thuyet worked tirelessly, was the one who sowed seeds in the fields of work that he had experienced, not hesitating about small things like sitting quietly correcting mistakes in his students' papers, big things like debating or questioning Ministers in the National Assembly, participating in the construction of a new law... In any job, he did it excellently with a compassionate heart and a broad intellect. I remember the year I helped Professor Cho Jae Hyun proofread the translation of his memoirs.There is no mythby President Lee Myung-bak (book published by the Korea-Vietnam Friendship Association). As the name of the memoir suggests, President Lee Myung-bak told his life story simply as the life of a persistent worker, constantly learning to advance, without any so-called mythical elements to help, to make contributions to society, the country, and the people. Mr. Thuyet also had a life "without myths" like that, but that is why I admire his achievements and contributions even more.

                                                                    Hanoi, July 2015