The Vietnamese Ambassador to Brazil (in charge of Peru, Guyana, Bolivia and Suriname) Bùi Văn Nghị writes about the 35th celebration of the establishment of Việt Nam - Brazil diplomatic relationship (May 8, 1989 - May 8, 2024)

Vietnamese ambassador to Brazil Bùi Văn Nghị (right) presents his credential letter to the President of Brazil, Lula da Silva. — Photo courtesy of Vietnamese Embassy in Brazil

I am much moved when I stand at the Vietnamese embassy in the capital of Brazil on May 7 2024 to honour the milestones in the dual event organised there. Perhaps, it is the special night in my diplomacy for I have the opportunity to welcome the big anniversaries in the first year of my term as the Vietnamese ambassador to Brazil, in charge of four other countries in South America.

How can I have the time or the language to express all my thoughts, my passions, my hopes, my plans in some hours of meeting with Brazilian and international friends? There are only 24 hours in a day, 24 lettes in Vietnamese alphabets, 26 letters in English alphabets. The American writer E. Hemingway said that: “The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.”

It's been a full 35 years for our relationship. Among Brazilian friends in this big territory - the people who love Việt Nam - and among my friends, how many of them completely understand the journey of our friendship?

How many people have given the intellect, enthusiasm, strength for that journey?

How many people have witnessed the whole or a part of the journey?

I am nervous to think about the summer of 35 years ago when Việt Nam and Brazil established their diplomatic relationship. At that time Việt Nam issued the open policy for only three years and had to endure the embargo from the US - Việt Nam - the nuclear of Indochina, stands by the shore of the East Sea - has looked to the Southern hemisphere, making friends with a powerful nation in South America.

The friendship is warm although we are far from each other 20 thousand kilometers and 26 hours of flying time, through two continents.

From the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, we have a close friendship, because our governments respect people and honour the labourers.

We all together have the hope to build the future.

Vietnamese ambassador Bùi Văn Nghị presents the book 'Building and Developing Việt Nam's Foreign Diplomacy' by General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng to Secretary-General of the Việt Nam-Brazil Friendship Association, Pedro de Oliveira. — Photo courtesy of Vietnamese Embassy in Brazil

Brazil is the biggest economy in the region, the first partner of Việt Nam in South America. Brazil is far but near in the spirit of Việt Nam. Everyone in Việt Nam knows that Brazil is a superpower in football, the country of fierce Samba dance, with 218 million fiery hearts and most Vietnamese also know Brazil has the biggest Amazon forest, the longest Amazon river, many harbours and an active, optimistic, colourful life. Brazil is an 'attractive world' and looks like huge graffiti pictures that can not measure the area.

Vietnamese people have a proverb, 'You have grown up at the age of 30'. You live half of your life at the middle-aged. Our friendship has gone through some generations and many lives. From 2007, the comprehensive partnership was established. Until now, it has 17 springs - the most beautiful ages of girls and boys.

We are going to celebrate the 134th birthday of Leader Hồ Chí Minh. When he was 22 years old, on the journey to find the way to save the country, Nguyễn Tất Thành went to Rio de Janeiro in a vessel. He didn’t stop but lived six months in the city. Our hero of national liberation had a half year to work, integrating into the lives of workers in this big harbour.

The great man who joined to establish the Communist International, the famous revolutionist of the world proletariat class, Leader Hồ Chí Minh certainly didn’t forget his time in Rio de Janeiro. I think the deep relationship between us started from that time. Between 19 - 20 March 2024 I went to find the place where Uncle Hồ lived and worked. That was the main target of my first business trip to Rio de Janeiro. On March 20 2024, I went to Joaquim Silva and Lapas, the quarters of poor workers, where he used to work and look up the lives, the struggles of Brazilian workers in six months in 1912.

He then went to Boston, New York (America), London (England), Paris (France), Moscow (Russia)... I have met the descendants of the witnesses who used to meet Uncle Hồ. It is moving to see some people and the highest official of the city know that Hồ Chí Minh lived there when he was young.

The deputy mayor Nilton Caldeira confirms that the city pays attention to the journey to Rio de Janeiro of Vietnamese leader, proposing the way to commemorate the journey in La Paz square, use the name Việt Nam for a street, draw the frescoes about the journey of Nguyễn Tất Thành to the city.

Ten years after Nguyễn Tất Thành had come to Rio in 1922, the Brazilian Communist Party. I dropped by to visit Vasco de Gama football club and made a speech at the Red Festival in Salvador (22 - 24 March 2024). With determination to enhance the diplomatic relationship into a strategic partnership, Việt Nam recognises Brazil as a precious friend. We have much potential to develop. As Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính, the head of state, who will attend the G20 Summit said: “If we want to go far, we must go together”.

Vietnamese ambassador Bùi Văn Nghị is pictured with the dancers at the cocktail party of the G20 Agriculture Conference on April 29, 2024. — Photo courtesy of Vietnamese Embassy in Brazil

As for me, I am trying to connect and develop the cultural exchange between the two countries. Portuguese literature in Việt Nam and Vietnamese literature in Brazil are almost 'white areas'.

In fact, more than 60 years ago, Vietnamese readers knew Brazil through The Violent Land by Jorge Amado (1912 - 2001). Dương Tường, a famous translator in Việt Nam, turned the novel from English into Vietnamese at the age of 30. The enterprise of Dương Tường has been connected to the literary works of many Nobel laureates. Amado is a son of a decadent landlord, born in Salvador (the capital of Brazil before 1763 and the capital city of Bahia state, born in a poor quarter. His family lives by planting cocoa. He witnesses the struggle to make Brazil become the basket of cocoa and coffee of the world. Amado wrote more than 100 books, some of them in Salvador, but all based in the real world.

The fierce struggle between the planters and the farmers to gain the 'chernozem', the most ideal growing soil for cocoa, is the main topic of The Violent Land. The book has been translated into more than 50 languages and adapted into movies. As writer I. Erenburg (1891 - 1967), said in the introduction for the Russian translation of The Violent Land said: "Before we knew about Brazil through newspapers and research, we had known Brazil through the works by Jorge Amado”.

Jorge Amado became a communist congressman of Sao Paulo state. He was put in prison, lived in exile for many years in Argentina and France and died on August 6 2001 in Salvador. His death moved readers all over the world while in Bahia state, the local government declared a three day period of mourning.

Inside the covers of The Violent Land published abroad, there is the sentence: “Written by the most famous Brazilian writer”.

In the course to build a strong Brazil from the 20th century to this day, the Brazilian Communist Party and Brazilian Labour Party and 220 million people have had many bumper crops to help strengthen the marvellous friendship between Việt Nam and Brazil. — VNS