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A guided preview of the book.
Take a quiet walk through the book’s ideas. Use the chapter list to move around, or read the opening excerpts in sequence.
Table of contents
Self-Improvement
- 1A Proposed Way of Life
- 2Moral Education
- 3Growing in Maturity with Age
- 4The Spirit of Progress
- 5Choosing a Field of Study
- 6A Few Secrets to Becoming a Good Student
- 7Living Hygienically
- 8Alcohol, Beer, and Health
- 9Right Practice or Wrong Practice?
A Civilized Way of Life
- 10Should the Vietnamese Language Be Simplified?
- 11The Responsibility of the Media
- 12The Responsibility of the Educated Toward the Less Educated
- 13No More Abandoned Children
- 14The Culture of Violence in Vietnamese Life
- 15How Can We Save a Person on Death Row?
- 16The Habit of Littering Among Vietnamese People
- 17Noise in Vietnam
- 18The Culture of Queuing
- 19Protecting Fisheries Resources
- 20The Habit of Eating Dog Meat
Harmful Social Practices
- 21Gender Equality
- 22Vietnamese Ancestral Death Anniversaries
- 23Marriage and Religion
- 24Good Days – Bad Days
- 25Astrology and the Law of Cause and Effect
- 26My People – Lottery, Lottery Number Betting, Gambling, and Sports Betting
- 27Prophecies, Prophetic Writings, and the End of the World
Unity and Development
- 28One Mother, One Hundred Children
- 29Ideological Hatred
- 30The Needs of the Nation
- 31An Excessive Admiration of Foreign Things and National Pride
- 32How to Become a Great Power
- 33The Path to Reconciliation After the War
- 34A Letter to Vietnamese Intellectuals Overseas
- 35Retirement Age – A Golden Time to Contribute
- 36The Ideal Leader
Excerpt: The work begins with the self
We often speak about changing society as though it were something outside us. But a society is made from the habits we repeat, the standards we accept, and the way we treat the person standing beside us.
The first step is not perfection. It is attention: to learn one more thing, to question one inherited assumption, and to practice a little more care than yesterday.
Excerpt: Patriotism as daily care
Love for a country is not only a flag or a ceremony. It is the patient decision to make a classroom better, keep a public place clean, tell the truth when it is inconvenient, and leave a stronger community for those who come next.
When enough people make these small decisions together, hope becomes something sturdier than a slogan.