W.Minh Tuan
Comrade Vu Mao was a former member of the Party Central Committee, a former Secretary of the Central Youth Union, and later became the Head of the Office of the National Assembly.
Comrade Vu Mao is a cheerful person, has good relationships with journalists, especially journalists serving the National Assembly sessions.
I have been a journalist serving the National Assembly for 15 years, so I am quite familiar with Comrade Vu Mao, and with many other party and state leaders.
Comrade Vu Mao has a rather thick notebook, he always carries it with him, and when there is a National Assembly session, during the break of the National Assembly session, he sometimes comes to meet us journalists, chat, and open that notebook, reading some funny stories to us.
Comrade Vu Mao said that he had a habit of writing like a diary, but only wrote down happy and humorous stories that happened in our party.
Comrade Vu Mao said that when poet To Huu was the Permanent Deputy Prime Minister-a First Vice PM- and when comrade Pham Van Dong was the Prime Minister, poet To Huu seemed to have more power than Prime Minister Pham Van Dong.
And poet To Huu once ordered the Security Department, the Ministry of Public Security to collect folk jokes, humorous stories, and funny stories among the Vietnamese people, print them into a volume, and submit them to comrade To Huu, so that he could read them and understand the hearts, thoughts, feelings, emotions, and true aspirations of the Vietnamese people towards the Party, the State, and the country.
(What is the difference between Truyen and Chuyen? Chuyen mean talking, telling stories. Truyen are stories printed in books, to be read. Therefore, we say “talking”, not “telling stories”,,,)
Continuing the story of Mr. Vu Mao, Truyen cuoi/reading-Chuyen cuoi/telling, talking- is the most honest reflection of the people’s wishes, thoughts, and feelings towards their leaders, towards society, towards the country.
After about two years of collecting, the Public Security submitted to Comrade To Huu a rather thick book, printed with about 200 modern folk jokes.
Then, on his days off, Comrade To Huu took that book of Jokes-funny stories, went by car with a few bodyguards, to the Central Party’s Villa Resort in Ba Vi Mountain, about 60 km from Hanoi, to have time to relax, and have a quiet space, so that he could read Modern Folk Jokes of Vietnam.
And occasionally, Comrade To Huu retold a few of those modern folk jokes to several leaders, including Comrade Vu Mao, and to several journalists, so Comrade Vu Mao also knew a few good jokes stories.
Then one time Comrade Vu Mao asked us journalists:
-Do you know what the four greatest strengths points of our party’s leaders are?
We journalists enthusiastically discussed and gave our ideas.
-Absolute loyalty to the party-a journalist said.
-That’s right, but not enough, not true to the opinion of the Vietnamese people, which is printed in the collection of Modern Folk Jokes by Comrade To Huu – Comrade Vu Mao humorously replied.
-Having good morals, never accepting envelopes of more than 100,000 VND.
-That’s right, but not true to the collection of jokes by Comrade To Huu.
-Being loyal to his wife, only eating rice, never eating pho.
-Good, but not true to Comrade To Huu.
-Having a clean background, poor peasant, proletarian, uneducated, illiterate.
-Good, but still not true to Comrade To Huu.
At this point, we journalists also seem to be stumped, although we Vietnamese journalists are also very humorous, cheerful, witty, intelligent, knowledgeable, deep, and broad-minded, and often think we know everything.
And we silently looked at Comrade Vu Mao, waiting for his answer.
Then Mr. Vu Mao calmly answered, slowly, clearly, but just loud enough to be heard, not too loud:
-The greatest advantage of our party leaders is that, when sitting in the Presidium chair, they don’t often talk privately.
Oh, our whole group of journalists exclaimed happily, then burst out laughing.
The Lao Dong-labor newspaper guy commented:
-Our Vietnamese people are incredibly intelligent.
The Nhan Dan newspaper guy was silent, looking thoughtful, because Nhan Dan-people newspaper is the party’s newspaper, so perhaps he felt it seemed right to him, and right to those in the same boat as him.
The Phu Nu-women newspaper girl smiled subtly.
The Quan Doi-army newspaper guy laughed loudly, looking full of energy, enthusiasm, and strength.
The Cong An-police newspaper guy chuckled, affirming that it was right, the Security department once had went to collect some modern folk jokes.
As for me, Dai Doan Ket -great unity newspaper, I have deeply engraved that joke in my memory, so that I can rewrite it for you to read today for fun.
Then Mr. Vu Mao continued to ask:
-What are the other qualities of our party cadres, do you journalists know?
We journalists are now silent, not daring to have our own opinions anymore, because we know that our opinions are certainly inferior to the opinions of the majority of the Vietnamese people, the gentle, simple, but extremely intelligent and tactful people.
Then comrade Vu Mao opened his small, thick notebook again, and slowly read as follows:
-The second virtue great advantage point of our party leadership is:
-Our party leadership,
Heads capping with policies,
Shoulders bring with principles,
Feet wear with stance sandals,
Mouths shouting “progress, progress”.
We journalists laughed loudly and happily.
Several security officers standing nearby also moved closer, eavesdropping on Mr. Vu Mao’s story, and also smiled gently, without any sign of anger or uneasy.
Then Mr. Vu Mao continued reading:
-The third great advantage point of our party leadership is always having the spirit of revolutionary attack:
“Forward, we are determined to advance,
Forward, we are determined to advance to the forefront,
Forward, then where to advance?
No matter where we go, we just go first.”
Oh my god, the journalists, the security officers, and even the National Assembly delegates, the Ministers, the Provincial Party Secretaries, etc. standing nearby, hearing this, all burst out laughing, laughing heartily, happily, releasing all the fatigue of the boring, tiring days of the National Assembly meetings.
Then Mr. Vu Mao continued reading:
-Our party leaders are very optimistic people, believing in the future, so the fourth great advantage point is that their mouths always say “Oh, is that so, good, good”. That is why a Central leader went down to the locality where he had previously worked, and was warmly welcomed by the local leaders and civil servants. The Central leader always smiled, asking his old colleagues: “How is it, is everything going well?”-“Yes, good”.-“Oh, is that so, good, good”.
Then the leader met the former driver of him, and asked again:-“Oh, is that you? How is it, is everything okay?”.-“Daaa,,,, my wife just passed away.”. “-Oh, really, good, good.”
We journalists, and the security guards protecting the National Assembly session laughed out loud again.
As for the high-ranking National Assembly deputies, they seemed to be quiet, smiling subtly, as if these National Assembly officials felt that this story was familiar to them, or had been heard somewhere before.
The reporter from Tien Phong newspaper concluded:
-The party members of 4 goods, who have all the 4 qualities mentioned above that Mr. Vu Mao just mentioned, are enough to be leaders, right?
-Oh, that’s right-we journalists happily agreed.
The security guards were quiet, smiling discreetly. The National Assembly deputies also smiled subtly.
A few years later, I resigned from Dai Doan Ket, immigrated to Japan under the family reunification program, and became a Vietnamese language teacher at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Occasionally, Vietnamese journalists who came to Tokyo for short trip work contacted me, and we met and chatted happily like when we were still in Vietnam.
A journalist told me in Tokyo:
– Do you still remember the funny stories of Mr. Vu Mao in the National Assembly?
– Oh, yes, the 4 good qualities of our party leaders, right?
– Yes, that’s right. But now there is a 5th quality.
– Oh, is that so? What quality is it? – I was surprised and asked curiously.
– An old provincial party secretary told me, “Being a provincial party secretary, if you can’t earn ten billion a year, what’s the point of doing it?”
– Oh – I was so surprised, it was beyond my imagination.
The level of making money – the quality of making money of some of our party cadres has really increased much more than when I was in Vietnam.
I remember Comrade Cao Sy Kiem, former Secretary of the Ninh Binh Provincial Party Committee, later Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam, when he retired, once told the Vietnamese press that – at that time, I had already been to Japan:
“The level of gifts when I was working at the Bank was still very simple and rustic, like a few kilos of sticky rice, a few chickens, a few bottles of wine, not even a few billions, billions of Vietnamese Dong, or a few hundred thousand, or a few million US dollars like today”.
In fact, the saying: “Being a provincial party secretary, if you can’t earn ten billion each year, why do you do it”, is indeed a biggest jokes, a true reflection of the truth, but it is also very pitiful for our party leaders, because our party leaders have a lot of power, but their salaries are low, the salary of a Minister, a provincial chairman, a provincial secretary is only about 20 million VND/month- a 1000 USSD, so how can they not be corrupt, how can they not receive envelope.
So the five qualities of our party’s leadership are the “stick that beats its own back” of our party, because our party appoints ignorant people, key members, and uneducated people to be leaders, as long as they are members of the Party Central Committee, they can do anything, just like the permission of Sun Wukong in the Chinese story Journey to the West, so how can we not be corrupt, how can we not “Hello the comrades who have not been discovered”?
Most of our party’s leaders are leaders thanks to their clean records, key members, proletarians, uneducated, their mouths only know how to say “good, good”, “heads carrying policies, shoulders carrying principles, feet wearing platform sandals, mouths shouting progress”, shallow-minded, ignorant, but have great power, and low salaries, so they must certainly have excellent money-making skills “Being a secretary of the Party Committee, if you can’t earn ten billion each year, what’s the point of doing it”.
That’s why comrade Vu Mao borrowed the opening verse of Nguyen Du’s Tale of Kieu, instead change a little, to make the concluding verse for the handbook of Modern Folk Tales by Deputy Prime Minister To Huu as follows:
“In the human world for a hundred years,
The word of Money, the word of Fate are cleverly hostile to each other,
Throughout the revolutionaries of pain,
The things we seen are heartbreaking”.
Comrade Vu Mao, if you read the above joke and find anything wrong, please forgive me, just consider it a folk joke.///