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Nguyen Thien Anh Tran - My Blog
Nguyen Thien Anh Tran - My Blog


The Little Match Girl
Related to country: Vietnam

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

In this Christmas, I remember the old story about the little match girl....

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Once upon a time . . . a little glrl tried to make a living by selling matches in the street.

It was New Year's Eve and the snowclad streets were deserted. From brightly lit windows came the tinkle of laughter and the sound of singing. People were getting ready to bring in the New Year. But the poor little matchseller sat sadly beside the fountain. Her ragged dress and worn shawl did not keep out the cold and she tried to keep her bare feet from touching the frozen ground. She hadn't sold one box of matches all day and she was frightened to go home, for her father would certainly be angry. It wouldn't be much warmer anyway, in the draughty attic that was her home. The little girl's fingers were stiff with cold. If only she could light a match! But what would her father say at such a waste! Falteringly she took out a match and lit it. What a nice warm flame! The little matchseller cupped her hand over it, and as she did so, she magically saw in its light a big brightly burning stove.


She held out her hands to the heat, but just then the match went out and the vision faded. The night seemed blacker than before and it was getting colder. A shiver ran through the little girl's thin body.

After hesitating for a long time, she struck another match on the wall, and this time, the glimmer turned the wall into a great sheet of crystal. Beyond that stood a fine table laden with food and lit by a candlestick. Holding out her arms towards the plates, the little matchseller seemed to pass through the glass, but then the match went out and the magic faded. Poor thing: in just a few seconds she had caught a glimpse of everything that life had denied her: warmth and good things to eat. Her eyes filled with tears and she lifted her gaze to the lit windows, praying that she too might know a little of such happiness.

She lit the third match and an even more wonderful thing happened. There stood a Christmas tree hung with hundreds of candles, glittering with tinsel and coloured balls. "Oh, how lovely!" exclaimed the little matchseller, holding up the match. Then, the match burned her finger and flickered out. The light from the Christmas candles rose higher and higher, then one of the lights fell, leaving a trail behind it. "Someone is dying," murmured the little girl, as she remembered her beloved Granny who used to say: "When a star falls, a heart stops beating!"

Scarcely aware of what she was doing, the little matchseller lit another match. This time, she saw her grandmother.

"Granny, stay with me!" she pleaded, as she lit one match after the other, so that her grandmother could not disappear like all the other visions. However, Granny did not vanish, but gazed smilingly at her. Then she opened her arms and the little girl hugged her crying: "Granny, take me away with you!"

A cold day dawned and a pale sun shone on the fountain and the icy road. Close by lay the lifeless body of a little girl surrounded by spent matches. "Poor little thing!" exclaimed the passersby. "She was trying to keep warm!"

But by that time, the little matchseller was far away where there is neither cold, hunger nor pain.
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This old story is known fairy tale, but in fact how many children in the world just now are in this situation ?? This story was written many decades ago, but today it still reflects a situation of many children in the world !!

December 24, 2007 | 9:26 PM Comments  0 comments

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The truth in my city
Related to country: Vietnam

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Nha Trang is one of the most famous city in my country, Vietnam. Yes !! It has one of the most beautiful bay in the world. We have plentiful seafood and sea living evironment. People there proud of that, we have a potential reason for developing services, we make many profit every year from tourists. The city is now developing faster and faster. For the nearest 5 years, many luxury hotels and buildings have been built – 5 starts Vinpear land resort, 5 starts Sunsire hotel, the longest telpher in the world, the most beautiful green street … more and more billion has been paid for improving and cleaning a tourist area. Therefore, we have one of the best street and beach in the South of the country.

However, it is just a bright face of the city. Whether everybody is rich and happy as tourists thought, whether the evironment is clean as people can see in the street.

I grew up in Nha Trang city. As a citizen, I proud of its beauty. However, when I realised that the fact is not as bright as what I heard. I know there will be a lot of problems for my city in the future if the government keep developing in the gerneral way.

The first part of the beautiful street near the beach as I mention above. People can see the luxury life with high living standard, they can see how much the state take care for the street… But in the end of the street, when people pass though a big bridge, they can see other lives.

There is a medium village near the seaport under the bridge. People can see a lot of houses – ah not a true house, I think it was made by pieces of sheet ion – and fishing-boats which are used as a house for a family. Children don’t have money to go to school – even the highest price for one year is just 300.000VND ( nearly 20USA or 10 pound). The evironment is polluted seriously as rubbish are thown to the sea and then they return and stagnate under houses on stilts. Moreover, people are not provided any water sluice or any services to help them reject wastes. That means they don’t have toilet and eliminate everything to the sea – under their houses. It may be because the state doesn’t take care of them, but also because they don’t have any money to pay for services.

The 5 starts Vinpear land resort which was built in 2006 is the best pride there. However, not many people know that to build the beautiful and big place like that on an island, 2 hectare of gravelly soil was poured under the sea, how much did it detroy the sea evironment?

There is other funny story. Three or four years ago, when I said good bye to ex-students in my high school, they said that I was very lucky because I could see a “Sea flower” building, which was expected a sign of the city, be finished. However, until now, when it hasn’t happened. It is still a unfinished building – ugly and ridiculous. The state paid more than 18 billion VND but they said it needs more to finish. In my opinion, I though that if they had used these amout of revenue to give children or provide some services as clean water in the above village, the city would have been better.

The state still wants to develop more. When other cities try to be admited as a national beauty of nature, the leaders in my city try to withdraw from that list because it slowdowns or forbids they building more. -.-

There are more building which were ineffective in my city. For example, a water park was built on the beach, it hides a long beautiful beach. I don’t know in other cities they don’t have a sea so they built a water park to attrack tourists then they made profit. Nha Trang has a beautiful sea already, of course people like to swim in the true sea for free rather than go to the water park. Why did they send billions to build it and then now it becomes a coffee bar because nobody goes there ??

I am studying in the UK. Whenever I go back to my city, I hope I can change the state’s mind. They should stop thinking about the short term profit and start taking care of the evironment and human equality. In the future, I just want to help people there are better. I don’t want to give them money because it would make them lazy and it wastes human resourses. However, I hope as an economist I can creat jobs for them.

December 20, 2007 | 5:43 PM Comments  0 comments

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