Everybody tends to reach perfection, which includes the truth, the good, and the beauty. But few of the Vietnamese have a true sense of these values, especially sense of beauty. It’s not our fault, though, because it requires of us a good basis of education so as to catch the meaning of a musical piece, to get the message hidden inside a painting. We need educating on arts. We need access to the world of music, of painting, of literature. We need surrounding by arts.
But the Vietnam education system has failed to provide us with such support. As a result, we have become like this - blind to arts, blind to beauty, blind to all humane values. We are not totally responsible for this. We just fall victim to a poor education system of a closed country.
I remember how tormented I was, thinking I had such an absurd taste of beauty, or I had no idea of beauty to be exact. Then one day I met an artist who gave me a good lesson and practice to enhance my sense of beauty. He told me to practise “the lesson of beauty” , which contains several steps as follows:
- make a list of 10 things you find beautiful. These may include anything, a face, a sunset, a landscape, a song, a piece of music, a hand, a smile, a design, a painting, a movie scene, etc;
- search for common characteristics in these items - what you think makes them beautiful; and from this, you
- experiment trying to express your own definition of the essence of beauty.
So nice! Although I’ve never followed what he told me to do (I just am too busy to practise depicting beauty), the lesson has gradually built in me a dim concept of how to enhance our taste of beauty. In brief, we have to get ourselves soaked in beauty, everyday. As victims of the Vietnam education system, all the more we have to do this.
“The Flute Magic”, the masterpiece by Mozart, should be one of the many symbols of beauty, after all. Perhaps I will have to seek words to express its beauty, and this is part of the lesson I was taught. Oh… words… “The words will never show the you I’ve come to know.” Words have always failed to express the harmony and the splendour of music. Once more, the words I have in mind are simply not sufficient for me to talk about the magic of “The Magic Flute”.
"Half of what I say is meaningless
But I say it just to reach you, Eternal Shine"