Dr. Nguyen Manh Hung is nicknamed the “PhD of reading culture” in Vietnam as he has been making ceaseless efforts over time to encourage more people to read.
Dr. Nguyen Manh Hung considers books the greatest teachers
“Recently, many said that the reading culture in Vietnam has been fading but I don’t think that the country has a reading culture precisely because there are so few readers,” Dr. Hung told DTiNews in an interview on September 8.
According to Hung, something recognised as a culture should attract the participation of the majority of the population, like using chopsticks at meals. It’s unreasonable to state that Vietnam has a reading culture based on such a small group of readers.
From reading passion to reading festival
Having a reading passion since he was a little boy, Hung tries to read whenever he can. When he was small, he was accidently to blame for two fires in his family’s houses.
“I was reading when I helped my parents cook rice using straw as fuel. I was concentrating on reading so much that I almost cared nothing about my main job, which led to the fire. I wasn’t even aware of the incident until many of our neighbours came to put out the fire,” he recalled.
He continued to nurture his reading passion when he became a student.
“When I was studying abroad in Russia, sometimes I ran short of things to read. Once I was even compelled to search for reading material in the toilet dustbin or old newspapers that were used to wrap sticky rice,” he said.
Even though he worked in the information technology business for 12 years, it’s the reading passion that inspired him to resign from his post at a leading software company, and set up a book company in 2007.
“I realised that I have a special mission at certain periods of time and I wanted to do something to encourage more people in our country to read. I want to share knowledge with as many people as possible and hope that they can learn from books how to improve their lives,” Dr. Hung noted.
According to him, knowledge is a major asset that you can share with others and get a lot back in return. Currently, 10% of young people’s knowledge comes from education at school, 60% from reading and 30% from practical experience. He wants to help people acquire 90% of their knowledge from books they can't read at school.
“I want to learn from Japan’s Emperor Meiji to select the best books from all over the world, including Vietnam, translate and publish them for local readers. I do hope that they'll acquire valuable knowledge which they can apply and maybe change their lives, their families, their hometowns and the country as a whole,” he said.
He decided to form a book and reading culture festival on April 23. This has become an annual event in the country since 2008.
“In Vietnam there are several festivals, including traditional Tet. Why don’t we have a Book Festival? Previously, the late President Ho Chi Minh called on the people to do morning exercises and up to date many have followed his guidance. Now I’m the only one to call on people to read and I do hope that everyone will read more books in the future,” he noted.
Dr. Nguyen Manh Hung was the initiator of Book and Reading Festival in Vietnam since 2008
New bookstores mean less hospitals or prisons
Hung believes that most Vietnamese people still lack the habit of reading books and many just don’t like reading. He said the number of bars in Hanoi is much higher than the number of bookshops and libraries.
“I do think that when a new bookstore is opened it would put an end to a hospital or a prison. This is because more people would read and learn much from books, so they would change their behaviour for a better lifestyle. They would no longer go to bars or start fights or cause accidents or commit crimes or be jailed. I hope that someday in the near future the number of bookshops in our country might outnumber bars,” he commented.
He said that most Vietnamese people don’t know how to read properly as they don’t know how to skim and screen to catch the main idea or summarise the content of a book after reading it to learn the lesson it's teaching.
Having a great passion to share knowledge and develop a reading culture in Vietnam, he has spent a lot of money buying two houses along Hanoi’s To Hieu Road to design a free reading room for people. Unfortunately, only a few people have come to read.
“I was extremely depressed when a famous writer called me an idiot for organisng such a reading room. He told me to lease the space to his daughter who was willing to pay me VND20 million (USD9544.28) per month to open a clothes shop there. I expected the writer, a respectable intellect, would encourage me to overcome this challenging period instead,” Hung admitted.
As part of his effort to nurture a reading culture among Vietnamese, in recent years, he holds at least 50 talks and seminars at colleges and universities nationwide annually, to share experiences about books, reading culture and reading skills.
“Sometimes, I recommend that they invite me to talk. I see that thousands of people have changed their minds. Hundreds of others have been amending their actions for better lives thanks to the knowledge they acquire from books,” he added.