Book can be bought from the Youth Publishing House here.
The most beautiful sounds
I’m a ten-year-old boy.
That means I was still inside a womb ten years ago. Mom carried me along wherever she went. I wasn’t crying yet. Of course a baby lying inside a womb couldn’t cry! Imagine this yourself. What was it like inside a womb? You had no friend except your mother. Dad said it was a stroke of good luck when a baby was born. My birthday meant I could now have new friends! How could I get to know Tí and make him my best friend if I hadn’t even come into the world?
Dad also said that when a baby was born, the midwife would gently smack its butt to wake it up. Inside the mother’s womb, it had been fast asleep. Some would need up to four or five smacks, because it thought it was still inside the womb. Isn’t that funny!
I was like that. I was fast, fast asleep. The midwife had to smack me seven times. Mom said I would grow up very stubborn and that proved to be quite true. I lied to all my classmates, and told them the midwife smacked me fifty-nine times!
“My God, your butt must be all red and swollen!” They rolled their eyes.
The next day they boasted to me that their mothers said their midwives had smacked them a hundred times! Some said two hundred. Imagine their butts. Little Hong, who’s a crybaby, said four hundred. We all laughed. Then Toan got honest. “Two smacks,” he said. (He’d said two hundred before). Then the others admitted it was only three or four, while little Hong said she cried as soon as she was born. That saved the midwife the trouble of doing any smacking.
Did you ever ask your mother about this? It’s so interesting to know about your new-born self. Did you open your eyes to welcome your parents? How much did you weigh? How many times did you wake up during the night just to cry? Did you have any hair, and what color was it? There are hundreds of things to find out about yourself! But I have to tell you this – you’ve got to keep them all secret. Those things are personal. Remember – when you keep a secret about yourself, or somebody else, you’ll never forget it. Once you tell it, you’ll forget it. I’m completely sure of this. Also, you should exaggerate the number of smacks, because Dad said there wouldn’t be a second chance to be smacked by a midwife. It only comes once in a lifetime, that loveliest cry!
Dad always remembers the day I first cried, in other words the day I came into the world. Mom said to him, “Darling! The baby’s coming!” Dad hurriedly placed Mom on a wagon, which was half filled with straw. Unfortunately, the cow wasn’t around to pull it because Dad had told my Uncle to take it away to graze. So Dad pulled the wagon to the town all by himself. The whole way Mom bit on the straw so as not to cry. Dad said, “Cry out darling! It’s OK!” But still Mom wouldn’t cry. Dad said Mom was the toughest woman in the world!
