In recent days, Vietnam’s public has felt sorry for the image of four children in Mong village, village 12, Vu Bon commune, Krong Pak district in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak eating rice with cicadas. But the statements and explanations of all levels of the local government related to this incident not only did not reassure public opinion but also ignited the long-term indignation of the people about a society with too many negative things.
The incident started with a post on the personal Facebook page of Mr. La Van Giang, secretary of the Vu Bon commune’s Youth Communisst Union with pictures of four children in an old kitchen, one holding a bow of white rice using some cicadas as food.
He wrote: “What’s your meal? Just cold rice and cicada. During a survey in Mong village, village 12 to prepare for the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival program, I accidentally met 4 young children who were cooking cicadas and came home to have breakfast (only cooking but not frying because they did not have cooking oil. They dont know the Children’s Day (June 1) nor the square cake and candy.
I did ask them where their parents are and they replied with unfluent Vietnamese that their parents went to fields in early morning, leaving them at home with rice cooked from last night without meat or vegetables.
P/S: Somewhere in Vietnam, there are still many difficult areas and difficult situations that we would not know about without actually going into reality and seeing their lives clearly.”
As the news circulated on social networks, Vice Chairman of Krong Pak district People’s Committee, Ms. Ngo Thi Minh Trinh, said that these children are Mong people, their families have adequate upland fields, and they are not too poor so that their children were forced to eat rice with cicadas as foof.
VTC News quoted Ms. Trinh as saying: “Eating cicadas is the children’s hobby. Every year, every month, the district organizes support to those who are in difficulties. People are not so poor that they have to get cicadas for food. The secretary of the communal union posted the untrusted information online to in a bid to call on the sponsors for further contributions.”
Chairman of Vu Bon commune People’s Committee, Mr. Le Viet Nhuong explained: “Children in the commune often catch cicadas, grasshoppers and locusts to eat with rice, and this is not strange because this is a custom of local people.” Mr. Nhuong also said that he himself ate cicadas like children.
The speech of the people’s ‘servants’ made the public angry.
Anh Dao journalist in the Lao Dong newspaper said: “Customs can be a justification for having a right, so the public will believe that is not strange. But there’s also the other right is hunger, crap, poverty – what the public sees in the picture.”
Facebooker Nguyen Dinh Trong frankly shared: “Reading news articles, looking at pictures of 4 poor children eating cold rice cooked from the previous day with cicadas hurting our hearts. The country in 2020 is like this? Read the answers of his officers frightened and ponder: do children and people in Dak Lak have such a strange hobby?
– Like to eat cold rice with cicadas?
– Like to wear old and dirty clothes?
– Like living at home where the wind blows through it, can collapse when meeting strong winds?
– Like to leave their children to work on the field to plant cassava once a week to go home once, and leave their children take care each others?
– Like poverty?
What a very strange hobby ????
It is necessary to verify clearly that if their families are not poor and leave their children then they must deter them and their children are so guilty. If it is true that because they are poor, and because of livelihood, they must accept to do so, they should immediately remove such cruel and irresponsible spokesman from the state apparatus immediately.
Sad and sorry!
Facebooker Dang Phuoc criticized Ms. Ngo Thi Minh Trinh – vice chairwoman of Krong Pak district and also discovered the irresponsible “speech history” of the district leader.
He wrote: “Who can you deceive when the image of H’Mong children in Vu Bon commune, Krong Pak district, clothes are dirty, their faces are dirty, and live in such a torn house? and eating cicadas is a hobby? Please come and ask your children if they like to dress up like those H’Mong children or like to dress up, stay in big houses, riding in luxury cars and hanging out with friends often?
Remember the case of nearly 600 contract teachers in Krong Pack district losing their jobs in 2018 due to redundant recruitment according to targets, when the public raised the question ‘is there a corruption in recruitment?’ and she answered there has been no clue for wrongdoing. Other cadres reply similarly to other shortcomings in the locality.
Lawyer Luan Le commented on his personal Facebook: “When you see poor and dirty children eating rice with boiled cicadas, if they are leaders of humanity, they will bow their heads and apologize to the people.”
But in fact, they said that the children eat cicadas as a hobby?
In Vietnam, although General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has always boasted the achievement of “incinerator” and fighting crimes in the Communist Party, many people of this country seem to have been forgotten, state officials continue to care for their positions in order to corrupt and steal more people’s properties.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
