Humans from a Cultural and Spiritual Perspective.

"eager for strange things and fond of flowers and leaves" [16; p. 452]. That is Buong in Random Affairs . A forty-year-old woman far from her husband, seeing life as unstable and careless, has sought pleasure in a new love affair. The fire of love throbs in every part of Buong's body, imbued in every gesture and voice. With these characters, the writer's point of view does not defend but also does not completely criticize. Because it is not entirely bad. It is a common habit of life. Moreover, love is always a mysterious land that invites people. Looking at people from the perspective of sexual culture is Ma Van Khang finding the truest part in each person. The culture of the renovation period with its openness and democracy is the condition and premise for the writer to be able to speak the truth, to speak loudly about things that have long been considered "taboo". It is also this approach that helps the writer to consider, conclude and give new meanings about human values.

1.2.3. Human from a spiritual and cultural perspective.

Not only interested in people from the perspective of behavioral culture and sexual culture, Ma Van Khang also exploits human values from the perspective of spiritual culture. The more civilized and modern life is, the more people need to return to nature, to live with the mysterious and mysterious spiritual world. Set in the context of the renovation period, the exchange and integration of spiritual freedom, freedom of belief, the hidden parts in the corners of each person are also more carefully illuminated.

Ms. Thao ( Heo may gio long ) is a city girl who waded upstream to marry a man from the countryside. But every time the wind blows strongly, she returns to the city. Those regular visits all have specific purposes, but the top priority is still to visit and repair the graves of her grandparents and parents. She makes a pilgrimage to her roots, going back to the memory stream, living with her fatherland, with a distant memory. “Life still has a sacred, profound meaning that is difficult to express in words, but everyone can feel it. Spiritual life still has many winding paths. Children still keep a fairyland in their memories.

Paradise and bliss still live in the subconscious of humanity' [16; p. 153]. It's not that she craves a more prosperous material life in the countryside, it's not that she visits Doan's family to beg or plead. No, that once elegant and classically beautiful sister always lives with hidden feelings, the souls of her ancestors become her spiritual support, the strength to overcome the uncertainties of this difficult life.

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With the same spirit of returning to the roots, every year, on the Qingming Festival, the five Dinh sisters, headed by the eldest sister, and their relatives, like a mighty tribe, go to the cemetery to visit the family graves from their parents up to three generations ago, and gather. Also in this short story, Ma Van Khang makes a discovery about the tomb-sweeping day in the East being different from the West. The tomb-sweeping day in the West is often gloomy. In our country, the grass is green and stretches to the horizon, because the concept of death is great, without death there is no life. The cemetery becomes a place where death gathers as a mighty, powerful force because of its eternity. Now, material life is increasingly abundant, on the Qingming Festival, many families go to visit the tombs. That is a good tradition that needs to be revived, preserved and promoted.

For a long time, we have often believed that: the whole year is on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month. This is an occasion to absolve the souls of the dead, to offer rice porridge in banyan leaves to the wandering souls who have no place to rely on. The Vu Lan ceremony on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month every year of the Dai clan is always solemn and methodical. Dai is the head of a large department in the Ministry of Culture, but on this day, no matter how busy he is, he still returns to his hometown. “Dai is moved by the sacred emotion of the family bond on this 7th lunar month holiday. Oh, family, clan, ancestors, the deceased, the living, a stream of affection beyond time, lasting, endless” [19; p. 201]. It is when facing the upper hall filled with the fragrant scent of incense and hearing the temple bell koong koong koong - a mantra of Buddha, the response of a vibration

Primitive, the echo of a powerful being into the core of each person's emotions, incense smoke and temple bells lure people to dive into the deep inner world, live with the ancestors' spirits, and at the same time listen to the burning of the spiritual fire. The full moon of the seventh lunar month has always been important to Vietnamese people. But not everyone understands its meaning. Many times they just follow a habit that has been established for generations.

However, spiritual culture is not just about worship, incense, and incense. It is also the eternal peace in the depths of each person's soul. Living deeply, living truthfully with oneself, with the things one believes in is also when people are gradually approaching spiritual life. Mrs. Han in Trai Chin Cay sometimes has the opposite ear to the point of being strange and extraordinary. That is the mental crisis when old age enters a period of erratic temperament, contrary to character. While the food is good, sometimes she gets angry, lies motionless in one place, has a haunting dream: her husband comes back, hungry and cold: "It turns out that last July, you two were busy working and eating, not holding a ceremony but offering him rice porridge to give him a code... going to the temple to worship the family tree, you two said you held a ceremony to give him a code, but forgot to send the messenger, Mr. Vu Lam, the warehouse manager, so hungry and thirsty ghosts rushed in and stole everything" [19; p. 166]. The older people get, the more they live with hidden feelings, closer to the underworld, and more easily hear the call from their ancestors, from the world of the deceased. Spiritual life for the elderly is both a need and an essential part, like breathing, like life. That is why Mrs. Ninh in Pelican in the Sea tossed and turned at night, unable to sleep, just as she laid down with her hand on her forehead to doze off, she saw her husband appear, dressed in rags, crying and saying: "My house is very dilapidated, my dear." [16; p. 184). Then she told a story, she blamed her son for not bothering to find his father's grave, now in the blink of an eye, more than ten years have passed. Mrs. Ninh lives in a split personality, half sitting here, half drifting somewhere, then appearing through distant voices. The stream of memories is hazy, reflecting the diverse, strange nature of life.

Living spiritually. Or Mrs. Sec also looks for the Land of Eternal Peace . Her grandson understands that an eternal peace is extremely necessary for her old age. But she only compensates for taking care of her grandson when he has an accident, then insists on returning to Lao Cai. In the deep city, she is still just a visitor. She is still a strange cell grafted into another body that has not yet been immunized" [16; p. 342). Perhaps, for Mrs. Sec, spirituality is still a hidden, eternally attached place. She cannot leave the place where she has left all her happy and sad life, where there are the graves of her two unfortunate husbands. In the last years of her life, she became a nun, sincerely taking refuge in the Upper Pagoda, reading the sutras and repenting all day, considering it a means, a raft for her to cross the river of delusion, to the land of eternal peace.

Someone once made an interesting observation that people today always have too much psychology but lack of soul . Digital life, love for instant noodles, disposable items... all those flashy things make people always have to put themselves in a busy cycle. Living inwardly, listening to the call from another, vague dimension of spirituality is not easy, but it should be so, it is very necessary. Because that is also a measure, re-measure and balance yourself in the midst of a noisy, diverse life. That is the humanistic meaning we realize from Ma Van Khang's short story.

1.2.4. Human from a tragic perspective.

Reading Ma Van Khang's short stories during the renovation period, we can easily see this fact: many of his works always contain the haunting image of people being plotted against, harmed, and hunted by evil. A series of his characters always have unexpected, random, and absurd fates. People like Mr. Dung ( Mental patient ), Mr. Huan ( School drummer ), the eldest sister ( Thanh minh troi trong sang ), Mrs. Sec ( Mien an lac vinh hang ) all share the same fate of being harmed by colleagues, subordinates, and those jealous of their status and talent, to the point of falling from the peak of success and fame.

down the last step, becoming small, ordinary characters, often ending their lives with tragic deaths. Looking at people from a tragic perspective, Ma Van Khang discovered many negative aspects that exist right in this life.

1.2.4.1. Tragedy of fate.

In the midst of the impermanence of life, human fate also becomes fragile and unpredictable. Duc ( A Love Affair ) is a talented, intelligent man, with a beautiful wife and a happy family. He is also a person of high status, a high-ranking official, with a car to pick him up and drop him off every day. His career was on the rise. But suddenly a car accident took everything away from him. Not only was he disabled due to a traumatic brain injury, but his career, reputation, and money were also destroyed. His wife turned to having an affair with the driver, his former student. An ironic ending for a man who had reached the pinnacle of everything. But not only famous, successful people like Duc have to bear the tragedy of fate, the lives of unknown, ordinary people like Thieu ( The Locksmith ) are also full of sorrow. He is a talented person, helping life every day with his simple profession: repairing locks. But suddenly, an unjust death came to him. He was stabbed to death by two robbers, "cut off his golden hands, gouged out his eyes, and threw his body, his toolbox, and his bicycle into the river" [16; p. 381). Life is so small, death is so arbitrary and meaningless. Thieu "appeared like a shadow and disappeared without a trace like a wisp of smoke" [16; p. 381). Or the eldest sister ( Thanh minh troi trong sang ) also encountered many ups and downs in life. She had a glorious youth, seven years in a row as a textile industry emulation fighter, rose to the position of department head, and was on the verge of being a labor hero. Finally, she gave up all work and glory to return to a peaceful life, taking care of and repairing the graves of her loved ones and constantly having premonitions and arranging her own graves. Life is fleeting.

Competing, misunderstanding, and gossip only make life more meaningless. Even people like Seoly ( Seoly, the one who stirs up love affairs ). With her natural beauty, she cannot find sympathy in a crowded community. Surrounding her are prejudices, contempt, hatred, and desire to possess. Around her, at first people try to bring down and harm each other, and finally bring down her, bring down beauty. She is exposed to the street with a naked body, beauty also has to suffer a humiliating fate. Nhien ( Nhien, dancer ) is the same. She is a dancer who "takes space as material, uses her beautiful body as a means to harmonize with the freedom of the universe" [16; p. 367]. She symbolizes beauty. She "creates a whole field of excitement and joy around herself" [16; p. 361]. But life is full of uncertainties. Beauty is in danger of being destroyed and cruelly denied. Nhien has never fulfilled her womanly duties as a wife and mother, yet the evil person used a razor blade to slash Nhien's face. Nhien is "lonely in life like the nature of true art" [16; p. 367]. Such tragedies of fate are not rare in Ma Van Khang's short stories. People are small in front of circumstances and many times people also make themselves small just because of temporary mistakes. That is Thuong's lover in Giai nguen , whose easygoing and sentimental nature towards a woman who has failed completely destroyed his family's happiness since the incident, his already incoherent life became even more complicated. He withdrew into a gloomy shadow, was despised by his wife and children, and boycotted by his colleagues. He was hit by a counterattack that made his brain skewed and finally died in sadness and depression. That is Phung ( The Golden-leafed Bo Kep Tree ) a victim of romanticism and fantasy. Phung was originally a handsome, talented young man who knew how to play the guitar and compose poetry, and loved to wander. But since marrying Tam, "instead of Sundays spent catching fish and hunting birds, rare moments of ecstasy and living outside the world, Phung's days were spent toiling in hard labor."

[16; p. 551]. Phung quickly became a real farmer. His two hands were now two bloody hands, no longer able to play poetry. The intellectual husband lived with his peasant wife, was exhausted by her strength and then cheated on him. Phung was now just a crippled, wild, dirty, lonely soul, and mentally ill, wandering around all day, mumbling a few poems... Such tragic fates make us feel heartbroken. It turns out that life is still full of hardships.

1.2.4.2. Cultural tragedy .

From a tragic perspective, Ma Van Khang not only discovered the tragedy of fate but also showed the cultural tragedy that exists in some people. A typical example of this type of tragedy is teacher Khien in the short story of the same name. Teacher Khien is a talented and erudite teacher, who loves his job very much, as revealed through his lectures and interactions with students and friends. But he has a very ironic fate. Fate turns, teacher Khien lives in enemy territory and then settles across the river. He is suspected of being a traitor, and is stalked by the commune chairman Chien - an illiterate boatman. After the night the enemy bombed him, he was arrested, escaped from prison and fell into a life of loneliness in the community, and was fired from the education sector. The father and his four children were left alone, without relatives, without land, without a place to live. The teacher was as bewildered as a person who had lost his soul. The two brothers Chien and Su, who were allergic to intellectuals, tried every way to harm the teacher. But “the teacher still had a neat, dignified, carefree, innocent demeanor, neither good nor evil as innate human nature. Each of his teaching hours was regularly an opportunity for him to show off his brilliance” [16; p. 469]. The anecdote “touching birds and butterflies” demonstrates the flexible talent of teacher Khien. He intentionally teased, mocked, and belittled the miserable ignorance of Chien and Su, at the same time creating humorous and witty laughter and profound satirical meaning. The teacher overcame his circumstances. Later, when his children became successful, he lived a leisurely and frugal life with his hobby of growing bonsai. Thus, the tragedy of his life was the tragedy of an intellectual who was crushed, as well as

is the destruction of culture. But like clear water because the source is not muddy. The teacher still lives happily, considering it the top virtue to deal with all the meanness and evil.

Also a cultural tragedy, but in Moonlight in a Small Yard, the writer exploits the issue from another aspect. Ma Van Khang tells the story of Nam and Ban going on a field trip based on the invitation of a district-level official. Nam is a talented writer with a high salary, who does not want to use his fame to take advantage of true literature lovers. On the contrary, Ban is an intellectual who lives a dissolute, careless, and greedy life, "the fragrant flowers are beaten in clusters, the sweet jackfruit is beaten in fibers, the delicious sugarcane is eaten in skins" [16; p. 202]. Ban turns himself into a slovenly person in front of food and profit. That vulgar, flesh-based profiteering is even more unacceptable in this market economy. Through the image of Ban, the writer aims to send a message: writers must have a firm stance in the face of the temptations of material life, otherwise they will turn themselves into slovenly, unscrupulous people. In this short story, there also appears the image of Thuan - a provincial writer with a shabby appearance and a few toad poems. Thuan is weak and talented but has the illusion of being a great man. That is what makes him pitiful and timid.

In fact, the tragedy of cultured intellectuals or those who bear the name of intellectuals has always existed. However, in this period of innovation, the open atmosphere through exchange and integration is a favorable environment for writers to free their art from the constraints outside of art, to look deeply and far and discover the aspects that have long been hidden. The school drummer continues the source of cultural tragedy in Ma Van Khang's short story, only because of the sad ending, people feel that this is a story about the fate of a human being in the midst of a dark life. Teacher Huan is a teacher and in the long journey of life, he is just a small, remote station and his students are the ones.

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