stories that we'd tell in sunset
(this is for hospital entertainment)
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i'll retell a story that my childhood friend told me long time ago. i'll call him X. (if you read this, please dont punch me, i do this in the name of science :).
that was 1991, the year we both were born. both our parents were recently wed and a whole new life was waiting them ahead. at that time, people all lived in village far from the main road. nobody cared to move out of the small cozy hub of their network to live close to the river or the main road. nobody cared. Committee of People in each town had to encourage people to start new life in wild & untouched place. only young people (newly wed couples for example) moved out of the village to form new-born clusters near the road or the river. (not sure if they did that because they were so eager for new land or just because they were kicked out).
my family didnt have this touching story but X's family had. X told me this as a joke in daily conversation among teenagers in high school. but it keeps coming back to me, i hope he'll know the beauty of his story because i just cant retell it enough.
so, each household used sticks to mark a land as their territory. his parents were among the early birds to claim the new land. they put sticks on the ground to form a perfect rectangle. then after a few days, another household arrived to be their neighbourhood. this was a senior family. the head of that family was older than our parents, in fact, they were equal to our grandparent level. i'll call that Mr Y family. Mr Y claimed a rectangle that was a bit conflicting with X's family. the conflict was at the corners of both lands. what did Mr Y do? he just f*cking lifted the Y's sticks and move it away so that he had a wonderful rectangle.
the next day, X's parents saw that. they secretly moved back their sticks and fixed their perfect rectangle. the day after that, Mr Y did that again. and this time X's parent gave up.
(the story was told by X's parents to him among the days that land price rocketed. that's why i could know about this masterpiece.)
not long after that small event of conflicting among early birds, the law arrived and it brought some social institutions: money, market and the contract. a market was allowed to sell/resell land at good price. my parents had to f*cking pay for a rectangle land that some first move claimaints (brokers) just sticking it for free.
2
our chemistry teacher was a modest woman. she knew what she did, and noticed useful stories to retell students. she told about the begining days of our communism society and described what had lost in memories of many people. one day she told this funny story about us and our big neighbour. the conflicts she told was just like conflicts between two households. it was about the border markers between two nations. we have a range of border markers between two nations to draw the line. it was the old time, border markers were not very solid built into the ground. so, what did we do? at night, the guards from the other countries secretly lifted the border markers and moved it toward us so that they expanded their land a little more. the next night, our guards digged up the border markers again and moved it back...
how did this kind of story end? the border moved until it reached a natural focal point, a natural border like: a mountain or a fall, right? we lost the famous Ban Gioc fall like that. i dont mean to say this to start a ridiculous war. i dont even feel angry at that fact i just stated. if i can avoid saying this but still convey the story, i would. but it seems like a vivid example. so i want to respect the story.
comment
i couldnt start to write about this stuff because it's so huge and so beautiful my clumsy writing cant do it justice. if i want to say about focal point, it's like i'm trying to walk with Schelling. if i want to say about conflict and bargaining, it's like i'm trying to walk with Schelling again, plus Nash in the middle. if i want to say about power of seniority in some society, it'd be insulting not mention biologists (hawk-dove game) in the process. if i want to start from convention or social institutions founded on some beliefs that we desire to carry on, i'd summon a whole new range of moral philosophers in the strolling with us. if i want to use a vivid example of resource conflict, i open up a firery volcano of politics onto the evening tea table..
do i suppose i can do that? in this lovely sunset veiling above the mountain?