Audaces fortuna juvat

I went to a municipal library today :) Despite all the pressure about learning and future, I brought back home only one book: Les expressions latines commentées.

Have you ever thought of learning Latin? I just had a single thought of it when I was in high school, because I thought it could help me to learn advanced English vocabulary easier . But of course I never took it seriously.

Most of people I know or have heard of who went abroad to study usually pick a realistic major: engineering, medecine, management, economy, finance, law... or a little less realistic like make-up, mode & fashion, coiffure... I hardly know anyone study fine arts, music or literature... Everyone knows the reason : you couldn't pay a living with those stuffs in Vietnam. Those very few who were lucky enough to have a real education on these matters since childhood found it really difficult to make a career out of it. Because we are from Vietnam? Because we were so poor to be that "romantic"? Is our culture lack of something really important?

Is our culture ignorant about art, a great achivement of humanity?

Among my friends, I know very few who enjoy museums, art galleries, opera or orchestral music, classic novels... When asking someone to come with me to a museum, I often got refusals and sometimes even mocks. Ok, I'm going too far from what I wanted to say in the beginning :p

Almost everything we want to make efforts to learn is something we think useful for us. Have you ever try to learn anything just for the sake of knowledge, of intellectual satisfaction? I couldn't understand why granddad wanted to learn latin when he was young, and then Chinese when he was 80. Now I'm so proud that I knew someone who devoted himself to satisfy his knowledge hunger.

Do you know that: the real meaning of culture is pleasure? :)





To my beloved grandPa.