Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 29, 1995 TAG: 9507310123
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ARLINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The words flowed with a lyrical lilt. A picture emerged of verdant mountains, a crystal waterfall and a man playing a flute on a buffalo's back.
Bach Thi Ngo, a slight 82-year-old woman, smiled as she heard the poem being read in Vietnamese. A faraway look came into her eyes, her mind drifting back to her childhood in the southern Vietnamese village of Hung Yen.
``I miss it very much,'' she said softly. ``I want to go back, except I don't want to live with the Communists.''
Ngo and 13 other Vietnamese senior citizens were sitting on metal chairs in a community center room in Arlington. A county outreach librarian, Suong ``Sunny'' Thomas, was reading the folk poems in their native language. The reading group, which meets once a month for an hour, has opened a new world of learning and pleasure for the seniors.
``I feel very happy, very happy,'' said Yen Nguyen, who has written to her children and grandchildren in Vietnam that the reading group gives her a chance to sing and recite poetry. ``It makes me feel like I'm not old anymore.''
The readings transport the seniors, many of whom left Vietnam 20 years ago, back to the old country. They also take Thomas back, to the balcony of her mother's house in Saigon.
``The life here, I have everything I want,'' said Thomas, 53, who lives in a brick colonial house in Arlington. ``But the sentimental things, the inside-myself is still in Vietnam.''
The reading group began a few months ago when Thomas noticed few Vietnamese seniors were checking out books from the senior center library. The print was too small, there are not enough books in Vietnamese, and, well, borrowing books is just a strange notion, they said.
At the first Read-Aloud session at Gunston Senior Center, the seniors were too shy to speak up. But at the second, Ngo was moved to stand and recite a poem that she had learned as a little girl.
After a spirited discussion one recent afternoon about the need to preserve the Vietnamese language among the younger generation, an 82-year-old woman, Van Thi Nguyen, began to sing a folk lullaby. There was applause when she finished. The woman next to her took a turn, as Ngo tapped her foot.
These songs are part of a long oral folk tradition that teaches children the proper way to behave and think. Loosely translated, some of the messages are, ``don't marry for money,'' and ``your honor is worth more than gold,'' Thomas said.
by CNB