GLORIFYING VIETNAM'S WOMEN 

On the FESTIVAL OF VIETNAM'S WOMEN, we glorify

Those who since thousands of years have not ceased to try

To serve and respect their parents, love spouse and kids,

Respond when family sentiment or citizenship obligation bids.

Under the Trung Sisters and the Trieu, the brilliant  heroines

Who wrote the famous historical pages, those kingpins,

Our ancestors founded the country, established the capital

For us, their descendants, to maintain for ever and for all.

The VietnameseWomen abide by family custom understood

Night after night restlessly thinking of means of livelihood,

Do small business, economize, make the most of their nous

Working hard on the land, to create their dwelling-house.

Being virtuous women, gentle, complaisant, of good stock

They follow the examples of sages, quite ideal in wedlock,

Enduring alone the adversities of life, living in clarity,

Industry, appearance, speech, behavior, justice, charity.

Their unshakable love and loyalty constantly overflow;

They are faithful to their husbands, always in life’s glow.

They help their husbands their children bring up and educate

Keep lots of things whole, red silk to cover mirror, so great.

Quite caught in vicissitudes, being exposed to wind and rain

Because of their family situation, they endure deep pain.

Scorching sun and violent storms from above about battered

With endless suffering they are like rose-petals tattered.

In this dusty world, the ocean so vast and the waves so big,

They must try to hold so fast to the steering wheel, all the rig

Until and so that the sea becomes smooth, the weather calm

Though the willow branches crumple, their spirit is in qualm.

The moon sheds light on their thin blankets and lone pillows

While their dear men are at war facing threatening billows.

They pine for them and have recourse to ardent prayers

For them to be safe and sound, fire and sword no one scares.

All of us, male as well as female, inheriting this fatherland

Should rush into danger to happiness to our people expand,

Determined to bring about our Just Cause, the nation’s pride,

As the Trung and the Trieu’s glory well-known far and wide.

With loyalty, righteousness, courage, difficulties will shatter.

Do not worry, we wives at home undertake the family matter.

About the parents, it’s their daughters’ responsibility to serve

Like storks feeding the fledglings, they strain every nerve.

Resolved to fulfill the daughters and daughters-in-law’s duty

These women sacrifice their youth and green years’ beauty.

There is no more flowers and dreams to expect and hope

As in their girlhood, now wishes already beyond their scope.

And those girls with many adversities have to stay in the dew

With female charm fading, adrift into a foreign land threw.

They lonely and silently contemplate the declining moon

Feeling a biting cold, in the easterly wind, melody to swoon.

Taking charge of income, contriving, economizing, strenuous,

They do not care for their own bodies but only for the fetus

Or for the newborn baby that continues to cry and squirm,

They sense desolate on giving birth, impossible to disaffirm.

As other people go out to sea together with so many a friend

Why I have to suffer on my own such great misery no end.

It is quite a bolt from the blue the news that you passed away,

Heaven and earth seem to whirl along your endless way.

Alas, our sacred country was suddenly down on its luck,

By the communist ideology households and nation struck.

The enemy disrupted our spousal relationship and devotion,

Dad still in prison, children had to flee, crossing the ocean.

The Vietnamese women, young, beautiful. virtuous indeed

Travel up hill and down dale, their husbands to visit and feed.

Solitarily in deserted bedrooms, staying up nights through,

They do not care whatever the weather turns bad, so blue.

There are those who hold their life cheap, abashed abroad,

Obliged to get married to invalids or lunatics just out of fraud

By the slave traders, traders in human flesh, girl-smugglers,

Who exploit their lost position, the badly damned jugglers.

All the above-mentioned women have a significant mission

In the times’ bad national, social, family, individual condition.

They pray to heaven and invoke merciful Buddha, Jesus

To bestow the favor of saving mankind, the life of all of us.

Please punish properly any deceptive trick, crafty design,

To bring back peace, justice, prosperity to humans the fine,

And extirpate forever the conscienceless three-Nos doctrine,

Then Vietnam’s Women will infinitely thank You Sovereign.

This community around here is compassionate to commune

And now glorify Vietnam’s Women in this Festival in tune.

The Rose you handed me as an award is of rank and fashion

A reputation of all compatriots for it I have an ardent passion.

What pride! The invaluable award trophy affectionate,

The reception, entertainment party so warmly passionate.

Commendation for Chastity encrusted with gold to be aware

These Women are worthy to be called Queens everywhere.

Translation by THANH-THANH