Reworked product from the Air Force 1 Lows shoe line. Sneakers made of leather with a tongue designed like the wings of the gods. Inside the shoe is an inscription that defines the ancient Greek goddesses. Nike words and palm branches are embroidered on the heel. Photo: Independent. On the heel, the Nike lettering is embroidered with silver thread in an ancient Greek script. The remaining shoes are adorned with thin palm branches symbolizing victory. However, netizens discovered the brand’s mistake when embroidering and arranging the Nike character, when reading the Greek word “Piks”. “I can’t understand a big brand that doesn’t learn how to write Greek when working on a country’s culture. The words on the shoes have absolutely no meaning, it is not read as Nike. This can be considered as Nike. cultural appropriation,” shared social media users. Others said that Nike’s work reminded them of the story Kim Kardashian was once criticized for insulting Indian culture. In May, the beauty released a series of fashion photos showing the hidden personality of modern women. Specifically, she wears tight skirt designs that embrace the dominant red tone and a unique braided hairstyle. Kim quickly faced a wave of criticism from netizens after wearing earrings with the symbol “Om”. According to the Independent This is a sacred sound and spiritual symbol in Indian religious culture including Buddhism and Hinduism. In the three photos, many people find it offensive when Kim lies on the bed wearing a pair of diamond-encrusted silver earrings with the sign “Om” and a charming face. They consider wearing this accessory an insult to the culture and disrespect of Indian beliefs. “This is a symbol of religion. Why is she bringing it out as an accessory? The symbol is sacred, not a fashion aesthetic specifically for her. I hope Kim apologizes to everyone. people”, the social network user commented. Kim Kardashian caused controversy with diamond studded earrings with the sign “Om”. Photo: @sitabellan.

From the electronic dictionaries and point-reading machines at the beginning of the century, to the electronic paper, smart work lights, wrong-question printers, educational robots and even desktop vacuum cleaners that we introduced in another article, it seems that new teaching technology products appear every day. In front of the public.

▲ Picture from: Douyin @阿冠冠

But it is obvious that not any innovation can automatically improve learning efficiency as long as it is named “technology”. On the contrary, as the ridicule video created by Douyin creator @阿冠冠 is ironic, using smart speakers to teach stroke order, using smart watches to take pictures and literacy, or using a desktop vacuum cleaner to clean up eraser and other “high-tech” put into use is not only Did not improve the quality of learning, but made the process of doing the questions become cumbersome and cumbersome. It’s no wonder why people ridicule that this is “the lowest score in the most complicated test.”

The key here is “focus.” Today’s psychological research believes that a person’s working memory can only hold 3 to 5 pieces of information at the same time. For the target group of “technical stationery”, that is, students and children, the curiosity that will be stimulated by external interference at any time will even further Squeeze “available memory” and reduce their multitasking capabilities.

In this way, when constantly switching tools, the overflow of working memory may cause the most important learning information to be cleared out by the brain, making learning more effective. Thus, we can draw a simple conclusion: In terms of learning, tools are not expensive.

The ideal situation should be this: With only one handy tool, most of the needs in the learning process can be met. NetEase Youdao, who has many years of experience in the field of intelligent education, naturally understands this principle. They recently designed Youdao children’s dictionary pen for children aged 3-12. Its goal is to become the omnipotent intelligent “Swiss Army Knife”.

Technology for users

There is indeed a common problem with smart education products: Although the objects they serve are students and children functionally, in the final analysis, it is parents who buy these products. As a result, many manufacturers just package their products as “educational hardware” to attract parents to buy, and never care what the children who really use them think. In fact, many expensive educational hardware even use basic use. It’s hard to guarantee, and its roughness is staggering.

However, as an Internet company in essence, Youdao is not satisfied with this kind of universal ease, but is determined to create a product that is truly designed for children.

In fact, the establishment of Youdao Children’s Dictionary Pen already reflects the team’s stance on the “end user” experience.

Prior to this, Youdao had already launched a third-generation dictionary pen product. In reviewing a check-in activity, the team found that many relatively young children are also using dictionary pens to study and check-in seriously every day, but the product is not friendly enough for them after all: for example, the weight is too heavy, and the child can’t help holding it a little Hard work; or the learning style is too monotonous, children will be easily distracted, and so on.

“A child has worked so hard, why can’t our team force ourselves to polish products that are more comfortable and more usable for children?” In an interview, the product manager of Youdao explained the original intention of developing children’s dictionary pens. .

So after 10 months of intensive research and development, what appeared in front of us was such a dictionary pen: Compared with Youdao Dictionary Pen 3, its shape is more rounded and full, and the large-scale use of white also makes it It adds a bit of liveliness; in order to allow children to better hold, the pen barrel of the children’s dictionary pen has also been shortened, and the weight has been reduced from 72 grams in the third generation to 57 grams. This is a highly integrated dictionary pen that affects the whole body. For high-speed products, this almost means a complete reshaping, and the screen, battery, PCB and even software algorithms have to be redesigned.

Since it is designed for children, “cute” is naturally indispensable. The first time you turn it on, you can see Matti, the little monkey with big eyes gurgling with the surrounding sparkles. As a learning partner, it will appear to guide or encourage children from time to time in the subsequent learning process. The system menu has also changed from the card-like design of the previous generation products to hand-drawn cartoon icons accompanied by animation effects. The goal of all these “brisk” designs is of course to attract children’s attention and provide an opportunity for them to fall in love with learning.

There is no need to worry that children will not learn to use it—the basic function of Youdao Children’s Dictionary Pen, “Line Recognition”, is logically the same as using oily strokes. As long as you stroke the target paragraph a little harder, the recognition result will appear. It is fully in line with the intuitive habits we cultivated in learning. The extremely low threshold for use makes it the same as changing a pen when used by children or adults.

In addition, considering that many parents cannot accompany their children to study for a long time and children are not so familiar with touch screen operations, Youdao Children’s Dictionary Pen pays more attention to the goal of “accompanied learning” when developing it. For example, it has added a large number of voice interactions, AI voice assistant, audio explanation of new words and new words, visual interactive point reading picture books, Oracle game cards and other modules so that children can rely on dictionary pens to learn knowledge even if they are not accompanied by adults. In this way, children will be more focused on learning, and parents will be able to reduce the burden.

Learning to help, go further

While tending to be “cute” as a whole, NetEase Youdao children’s dictionary pens have not lost their “professional skills”, and they are a bit unambiguous in terms of helping learning.

Take the basic scanning function as an example, Youdao has not hesitated to invest a huge amount of software and hardware resources in the product. The result is the speed and accuracy of Youdao Children’s Dictionary Pen in the actual evaluation. Sex is impressive. Even if the speed is increased repeatedly, it only takes less than a second to scan a line of words in the end, the dictionary pen can still easily and accurately identify the content on the paper, and there are very few errors at such a high speed.

The reason why smartwatch or mobile phone word recognition is criticized is that it takes too much time to start the program-photograph-recognition process, which will undoubtedly interrupt thinking and even make people forget for a while. What was originally going to be done.

In contrast, Youdao Children’s Dictionary Pen is always on “standby” after it is turned on, and you can pick it up at any time and quickly scan to get the scan results in real time. Its “non-interrupted” feature allows users to always be immersed in a state of concentration. .

For children who are in a critical period of language learning, pronunciation may be equally important. For this reason, Youdao Children’s Dictionary Pen has built-in pure English and American pronunciations to choose from, and even has a word and sentence scoring function that can be used offline. If there is a pronunciation error during the follow-up reading, the dictionary pen will be marked as red. Wrong phonetic transcription for correction.

In addition, Youdao Children’s Dictionary Pen is also equipped with multiple versions of primary school English textbook listening content including Beijing Normal University Press and Chongqing University Press, so that children can learn where to hear, so as to be more stable. Lay a good pronunciation foundation. Don’t forget that, as a smart device, Youdao Children’s Dictionary Pen will be able to get more dictionaries, picture books and listening materials through OTA push upgrades in the future to further enrich its content.

Long-standing habits may lead people to believe that this type of product is only suitable for English learning. But as mentioned above, Youdao Children’s Dictionary Pen is more like a “Swiss Army Knife” in the field of learning, which means that it can still show its talents in other subjects.

The “Math Correction” function in the menu is specially designed for mathematics. It supports four arithmetic, division with remainder, unit conversion and even simple equation solving and many other types of questions, basically covering elementary school mathematics knowledge points except geometry problems. Of course, since it is called “correction”, it means that it will not directly give the answer, but will tell you if you have done it right after making the answer.

If you make a mistake, the dictionary pen will give a detailed analysis of the wrong question and the idea of ​​solving the problem, so as to cultivate students’ independent problem-solving ability, instead of using the dictionary pen as a problem-making machine instead of thinking about yourself.

As for the cultivation of language ability, naturally it has not fallen behind. When scanning a single word, the dictionary pen will give the pronunciation and stroke order of the word. When encountering a new word, it can save a lot of time for searching the dictionary.

What is more worth mentioning is the appreciation of ancient poems. For example, when scanning the sentence “soft grass and pingsha are new to the rain, light sand walks the road without dust”, the dictionary pen will point out that it comes from Su Shi’s “Huanxisha”, and then give the full text of the poem, annotations, translations, appreciation and equal poetry life Specific information helps children to understand the ties of ancient poetry from the outside to the inside, and cultivate a comprehensive interest in Chinese.

In addition, the “accompanied learning” emphasized by Youdao Children’s Dictionary Pen can be said to be relevant: the friendly shape design and the cute interaction are self-evident, it also has a rich interactive reading content built-in, even if the parents are not around, the children can Use a dictionary pen to independently read picture books and graded reading materials, watch original animations, and use game cards to learn more Chinese characters and English words; at the same time, with the help of AI voice assistants, children can look up words, translate sentences and even ask about weather conditions by speaking , I also exercised my language skills unconsciously. Perhaps just as important is that this companionship will continue to evolve. In the future, Youdao Children’s Dictionary Pen will be upgraded through OTA to add modules such as “Little Elephant Literacy”, “Reading English Word Books”, and “Interactive Pointing Reading Globe” so that children can learn about the great world with a pen.

to sum up

We do not hope that technological progress has only brought us pieces of complex and cold tools, especially for children who need care all the time. Today’s children are indeed not the first generation to be exposed to educational technology products, but they may be regarded as the first “voice aboriginals” to try AI voice interaction. With the blessing of AI and Internet technology, smart education hardware will become more efficient and friendly, and can accompany children through their entire learning career through continuous upgrades.

Photo: CNET Long before the iPhone and iPad came out, Apple had a device called Newton. Accordingly, this is the first effort of “apple defect” in the field of digital user aids. One of the most notable features of Appel Newton is its ability to recognize handwriting. The device comes with a stylus so that the user can write on the screen and then it will convert what you write into electronic characters. Apple also created its own operating system called NewtonOS for this device. After mixed sales reactions and market feedback about the bad handwriting recognition, Steve Jobs quickly canceled the next development project for Newton in 1998. Pippin Photo: CNET Until now, many people still remember Pippin as one of the biggest failures in Apple history. In 1994, Japanese toy maker Bandai approached Apple with the idea of ​​releasing a stripped-down version of the Macintosh for gaming. Apple responded to this idea and released Pippin in 1996. Initially, this machine launched with only four games, but was appreciated for its modern Internet connection. One of the biggest problems with Pippin, though, is the hefty price tag of $599. At the time of Pippin’s launch, the Sony Playstation and Seg Saturn were the market leaders of the same class. With a lower price tag while having more games, Pippin seemed to have lost the game right from the start. A few years after its launch, the total sales of this model still stopped at 42,000 units and Steve Jobs once again canceled this project when he returned to the Apple CEO hat. Apple QuickTake Photo: CNET Launched in 1994, QuickTake was one of the first digital camera devices to be sold on the mass market. Unfortunately, it didn’t work as Apple expected. At $749, no focus, no zoom, preview screen, and memory that can only store 32 images, Apple can’t compete with other camera brands like Kodad, Canon or Fuji. QuickTake actually has three refreshes a short time later, adding a few extra features while keeping the cost down. However, all is still not enough to prevent it from ending “premature death.” MacBook Pro supports cellular connectivity You may not know, back in 2007, Apple once developed a MacBook Pro that supported cellular connectivity. Of course, this machine was never released by Apple. In 2011, such a model was unexpectedly sold on eBay. This device has a SIM slot and a strange part of the antenna mounted on the screen

The software helps to record the thoughts in the brain into writing on the computer. The combination of mental effort and modern technology has allowed a motionless man (T5) to communicate by text at a speed comparable to that of healthy colleagues texting. on smartphone. Study participant (T5) almost lost all mobility below the neck because of a spinal cord injury in 2007. The scientists placed two brain-computer interface chips, each about the same size. an aspirin pill, on the left side of T5’s brain. Each chip has 100 electrodes that pick up signals from trigger neurons in the motor cortex, an area on the outermost surface of the brain that governs hand movements. Those neural signals are sent over wires to a computer, where artificial intelligence algorithms decode the signal and infer the T5’s intended hand and finger movements. Algorithms were designed in Stanford’s Neural Prosthetic Translation Lab. T5 generated text at a rate of about 18 words per minute (the average person can say about 23 words per minute on a smartphone). Even, T5 then reached a record of 40 characters per minute. The study was published online May 12, 2021 in the journal Nature. It offers hope to hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions around the globe, who have lost the ability to use their upper limbs or speak due to spinal cord injury, stroke or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Place to save memories That old life recedes as quickly as possible into the past like a nap. That was the 70s and 80s of the last century, the time we could never forget with the busy days, the “big screen screen projection, earth theatrical performances” was very special. It was so innocently interesting and the “incidents” lingered in the cooperative’s storehouse full of memories. I remember vividly about the warehouse yards of the three villages of Tri Can, Kien Hung and Duong Hoa. The three cooperative warehouses are in three different villages, but the building style is very similar. When we were growing up, the warehouse was ever there. The yard is very large. All three are located in the center of three villages to facilitate collective activities when the village holds games on holidays, New Year and cultural performances between production teams when the planting season begins, The harvest is over … A movie screening session at the cooperative warehouse yard. (Artwork from the internet) Tri Can village is a warehouse of the second team as the center of three production teams: One, Two, Three. Kien Hung village is the warehouse yard belonging to Team Five, which is the center of four production teams: Bon, Nam, Sau, Bay and this is also the central warehouse yard of Thieu Hung commune. There is another yard in Duong Hoa village. This warehouse is centrally located in the production team 10 for 4 teams: Eight, Nine, Ten and Eleven. At that time, the warehouses at that time, during the rice harvest season, all the production teams of the three villages gathered rice for plucking. By the way, this yard is used to dry rice. During the season, rice was spread over the yard and the young men were assigned to guard the whole area. These days, my hometown is happy like the association, I think back to remember and regret it. The warehouse yard is also a place for mobile film projection teams and art troupes of the province to visit and perform for my hometown people to enjoy with neighboring communes whenever there is an emulation movement. Each warehouse yard is a row of solid and solid warehouses. The warehouse was built very big, very big, located inside the yard and arranged very tidily for the convenience of cars, tractors and oxcarts to pull in and out. The warehouse area has many large houses, used to store staple food, the door is tightly closed so that thieves cannot get in and steal, extending a few rows of headlines. The column is made of something that is difficult to peel off. It seems that the warehouse belongs to a rich farmer from a very distant childhood. The roof is tiled with fish scales, this type of tile is difficult to find nowadays, sometimes there are still a few houses left, but the moss is old and old. This tile roof, birds and bats love because this is the quietest place for them to live because the ceiling is very high, no one can play with. Warehouse fence walls are built with bricks, high green stones. On the wall of that fence, people planted many fragments of glass bottles. We dare not play with these glassware for fear of bleeding. Fear of ghosts – an interesting childhood fear At the end of the rice harvest season or there is no event, the warehouse yard will return to a quiet, dull look and only the rice plucking machine is waiting for another harvest season to come. The tranquility of the yard and the ventilation are the ideal places for our children to play. In the afternoon, we gathered to hop on the ground to measure and measure the length of the yard. Remembering the long yard, we jogged from the north to the south end of the yard tired. The yard is tiled with the red ship, the square brick next to the size of 30 cm, straight line. On this brick background, watching the screen projection on the big screen is very interesting. Because the yard was too large, the children gathered together to count how many rows and bricks would take a long time to finish. Tiles are glaring in the eyes. We are also kind of goofy, so we count the number of bricks for sweating to have a quiz about ice cream betting. Yet many of them also gave up, sometimes even adults. My grandmother heard us arguing about winning and losing about the number of bricks in the garlic-stained yard and immediately threatened: “The yard is hiding a lot of ghosts”. Hearing that, we all panicked and did not dare to go there to play anymore, hiding behind her and whispered: “Grandma, people build a very high wall! How can ghosts hide?”. She did not explain any more. Seeing her silent, we feared and skeptically thought of all sorts of things to weave, whispering loud and small. The fear made us feel even more that if anyone in the village died, it would be early evening that we would not dare to pass the door of our room any more. We believe she is right because she is the person with the most image of that warehouse yard. From then on, whenever we walked across that warehouse yard, no one would say anything to each other, so we could not dare to turn around, afraid to turn around and fear that we could not run. We got past the front yard of the courtyard, and we breathed a sigh of relief, our faces rustling. Many of us even came up with a way to walk across the yard by asking the dog to follow to ease our fear. But sometimes when passing by, I kept hearing the birds singing in the warehouse and the wind blowing even more scared. During the day I was scared to wonder what happened at night. Hello! We scrambled to go in the middle. If the ghost clings, there are people who go first and go after. So every mother sent to the edge of the pond to pick vegetables and it was a bit dark, she would make it up like this and that to avoid going through the yard of the warehouse where she said there were “ghosts”. Later we thought “what the hell are you afraid of? Let’s be a hero!” and just invite each other out to the warehouse to play hide and seek to delight. Time passed by, the warehouse yard in my three villages was gone. Instead, they are the homes of the people in my hometown. Now that the decades have passed, we remember forever the storage yard full of memories at that time when we were delighted to play on the drying ground of the cooperative, and also went to the cinema, opera, row … Sometimes I come back and hang around here in the language of my homeland. COMPANION UNIT

This work was designed by a Mexican architect – Javier Senosiain. Part of a sculpture park and part of a housing complex, about 10 rooms are rented out through Airbnb. The hotel has no doors (other than the main entrance), rooms are connected by winding tunnels and guests can climb the stairs from the snake mouth to enter. Each interior room is fully equipped with amenities, a dining area and a spacious bathroom. Round windows with side seats help visitors make the most of the beautiful outward view. There is an inner garden with all kinds of tropical plants and colorful glass windows. Senosiain completed this project in 1998, but it was not until 2015 that the owner of the site took over directly. This person said that every time they brought guests to visit, they uttered in amazement at what was in front of their eyes. Everyone thinks that this place is a perfect place for anyone who loves nature, tranquility, trees, architecture … “Inside this hotel is a botanical garden, a cave, a lake. This is a perfect place for small groups to meditate, write, meditate, yoga, walk, relax, ”said the owner of this hotel. Visitors to this place left a 4.92 rating out of a 5-point scale for cleanliness, location and value for money. “This place has surpassed all expectations,” said Natalie, who visited in February. It is like paradise. It feels special to be able to stay in a place like this. This is a once in a lifetime experience ”. Currently this place costs £ 228 per night (VND 7.2 million).

A manuscript of the “Dead Sea Scroll” is displayed in Hong Kong. The analysis showed that the two scribes wrote in such a way that the difference between the two could not be seen with the naked eye, a detail that the note takers may have had the same training, yes can be at a school or in a social setting. “This is just the first step,” said lead investigator Mladen Popović, professor of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Judaism at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, said. new ability to study all of the scribes behind the “Dead Sea Scroll” and put us in a new position and better able to understand the manuscript collection. ” The “Dead Sea Scroll” was first discovered in the late 1940s, when a young shepherd searching for a stray goat found several manuscripts in a cave in Qumran, on the West Bank. Over the next decade, researchers and local Bedouins found more than 900 manuscripts in 11 caves. These manuscripts are the oldest surviving surviving texts of the Hebrew Bible, dating from the fourth century BC to the second century AD, but who is unknown or even how much. many wrote them, because the scribes did not sign them. That doesn’t stop Bible scholars from guessing how many people participated in writing the various drafts of the Dead Sea Scroll. Researchers will try to find clues in handwriting, such as a very specific feature in a letter that will identify the scribe. Popović, director of the Qumran Institute at the University of Groningen and his colleagues used a different approach: AI and statistics to investigate the Great Isaiah Scroll, one of seven original scroll manuscripts found. by the shepherd Bedouin. The well-preserved scroll, dating to about 125 BC, is 7.3 m long and 26 cm high and contains 54 columns of Hebrew text. In particular, a point caught Popović’s eye; Between columns 27 and 28, there is a small gap in the text and a new “page” where the two sheets have been stitched together. Other researchers have debated whether the scroll was written by one or two scribes, and Popović’s team wants to see if they can solve the mystery. In fact, the team wanted to determine whether slight differences in writing should be considered normal variations in one scribe’s handwriting or similar scripts written by two other scribes. each other or not. The researchers’ methods have uncovered subtle and nuanced differences in handwriting that we cannot discern with the naked eye, Popović said. The discovery of two collaborative notes in the Great Isaiah Scroll, he said, suggests that ancient scribes were working in groups. The ancients knew how to work in groups When designing the algorithm, researchers must train artificial intelligence to distinguish text, or ink, from the background – animal skin or papyrus. This difference, called binarization, was designed by co-researcher Maruf Dhali, a PhD student in the department of artificial intelligence at the University of Groningen, who created an artificial neural network. This neural network recorded early ink traces on the manuscript, even as these ancient letters were transformed into digital images. Senior researcher Lambert Schomaker, professor of computer science and artificial intelligence at the University of Groningen, said: “This is very important because ancient ink traces are directly related to the motor movement of one person and characterize each person ”. Neural network analysis revealed that 54 columns of text in the “Great Book of Isaiah” split into two separate groups, with a half-way transition in the manuscript. In this second analysis, Schomaker looked at small pieces, or sections of letters that would be more precise, distinctive, and informative to find a significant difference in shape compared to the symbols. full order. Next, the team performed a visual analysis by creating a “heat map”. These maps incorporate all variations of a given letter, such as the Hebrew letter aleph (א), found in the scroll. They then create an average version of the letter from the first 27 columns and another from the last 27 columns. They then compared these averaged letters and found that they could easily spot the difference between the two letters. Furthermore, the difference was statistically significant. Popović and his colleagues have other investigative plans, possibly revealing different backgrounds or training different scribes. These analyzes may also shed light on the communities that wrote the “Dead Sea Book”. This helps to better understand the so-called cultural evolution of the Hebrew Bible. The new research was published online April 21 in the journal PLOS One.

Be surprised on the legendary Ho Chi Minh street A Luoi district is located in the west of Truong Son mountain range. This is the revolutionary land of the Pa Ko ethnic group, a resistance base of the army and the Tri Thien people during the fight against the imperialism and independence for the nation. Back then, because the heavy consequences of the war could not be overcome, from Hue, if you wanted to get to A Luoi, you had to go back to Dong Ha (Quang Tri province), turn to the legendary 9th Street, through places like Cam Lo, Huong Hoa … then runs along Ho Chi Minh Road next to the majestic Truong Son range. A Luoi years after the reunification of 1975. (Photo provided by the author) A Luoi today has changed flesh. In the photo: Students come home from school on the streets of A Luoi town Our mission of about 40 people was assigned to remote villages. Morning on the road, Hue was very cold. Before that, we were told that this season, the climate in the mountains was very cold, so we had to bring enough warm clothes, blankets … When the cam-gong drove us across the Dakrong bridge – the suspension bridge was full. When the statue leads into A Luoi area, it rains heavily. The sky was overcast, and dark clouds hung in front of him. The cold air rushed in and out of the cold, unlike when it was on the plain. The majestic Truong Son range is hidden behind a hazy cloud. Large, deep and dense bomb craters on Ho Chi Minh Road were the result of enemy bombing. Every hole is full of water up to half a wheel. Small streams cut across the road, making the car ceaselessly tilting. On both sides of the road, there are houses on stilts of ethnic minorities curled up in the cold wind. Departing from 7 am but not until 5 pm, our delegation arrived at the district center. After a night of rest in the dormitory of a boarding high school, the next morning, I and 3 other colleagues were assigned to a commune nearly 80 km from the district center. It is Hong Van commune, a commune located deep in the Truong Son range. When I arrived in the commune, I was led by a young man named Ho Tau to hamlet 4. Anh Tau is also a teacher at the commune’s primary school. In the voice of the Kinh-speaking ethnic minority, he said: “We have to go through a forest road about 5 kilometers long to reach the residence of the people. In our village, there is only one trail. Only, I try to remember so that if there is a need, the commune will not get lost “. Hearing him say that, I was also a bit shy, Truong Son forest road, if I get lost, I know who to ask. I was brought by Mr. Tau to live in a long house on stilts owned by Uncle Ho Ha and his wife. Uncle Ha is in charge of the culture of the hamlet. His house is long and wide, divided into about 5-6 small houses for each family member to live and live in. In the middle of each apartment, there is a fire with very large sticks of firewood that are always red and buried in ashes. My apartment is on the outside. The center of the house is that of Uncle Ha and his wife, this is also the place where I “stand class”. The class consists of 6-7 tables with chairs, made of pine wood from cartons. After receiving the accommodation, the first thing I did was to send him some rice stamps and food stamps from the commercial level, but Uncle Ha refused. He said: “Whatever our family eats, you will eat it. You can keep these things for later!”. Literacy classes The first night of teaching, I was provided with a hurricane lamp, a blackboard and a chalk box. The first class starts around 7:00 pm. After Uncle Ha’s squeaking sound, from the trails, many small oil lamps scrambled, those were the students who brought lamps, exercises and pens to the “opening”. When I received the list of students, I was very surprised because they all wore the surname Hồ. It turned out to show respect for Uncle Ho, the people here took Uncle Ho’s surname as their surname. My class is about 10 students, most of them are women aged 30-40, only a few are men, most speak Kinh language very poorly and are a bit hard of hearing. Due to the prior instructions, I try to give the lecture very slowly, with a simple and easy-to-understand way of speaking. The first lesson was very fun with the voice of the ladies and uncles loudly reading in unison. Butter (shore), avocado ba. Mechanical, muscle a ca. Dirty, dirty … Then there were very hilarious laughter. Just like that, even if the rain is cold, every night the class will be crowded. In the free mornings, I often follow the practitioners to trim rice, pick corn, dig cassava (tapioca) … Upland rice can only grow one crop a year due to the lack of water. The people here cultivate on a large plot of land that has been cleared, one person goes first, holding two sharp-pointed sticks, walking while thrusting sharp stakes into the ground. The follower took the grain of rice from the small basket and put it in the hole and covered it with soil. But perhaps the most interesting is that according to Uncle Ha, he hunts small animals such as mites, hares, porcupines … or even boars come back to disturb the fields. Every time he hunted one, he shared it with his neighbors to improve the meal together. The food here is mainly corn, cassava, vegetables, dry meat … cooked together in a pot. At that time, the whole country was in the period of overcoming the consequences of the war, so the life of the people here was very difficult. After only 3 months of work, I have seen two students in the neighboring neighborhood get injured when digging up leftover bombs and ammunition. As a rule, on every Saturday at the end of the month, our group of teachers must go to the Commune People’s Committee to meet and report on difficulties and advantages in the working process. The first month I went to the meeting, because I had to go alone early, I was somewhat worried. But then went deep into the shady forest and followed the trail that Mr. Ho Tau took, so he was very confident and spoiled for the view of the mountains and forests. Through the third month, the curriculum reached its end. Students can self-rhyme for reading and writing. At that time, my wife was about to give birth to my first child, so I took 2 nights off to visit home. Uncle Ha gave me a bag of fresh corn to bring back to foster my wife. Hearing the news, Mr. Tau said: “Let me go with you, from childhood to big, I do not know where the street is!”. That morning, I got up early, Mr. Tau came to me and brought me some cassava roots wrapped in banana leaves for breakfast, then we both went to the national highway to take the cam-gong bus ride to Hue. Arriving at the street, I took Mr. Tau to Dong Ba market to eat Hue beef noodle soup. Seeing everything he is also interested, looking intently. I bought him a warm shirt, some scarves. He gave me back the dagger that he always had on hand while on the road. Three months of teaching here also ended. The day I broke up was very sad because I knew that there would rarely be a chance to reunite with everyone. I also know that due to the circumstances and life here, if students only learn to know without the conditions to improve, the risk of re-illiteracy can occur. I know that but how can it be! A Luoi district is not the same as before. The road up here now goes straight from Hue, the distance is only 1/3 of the distance we had to go more than 40 years ago. Now the people of A Luoi are no longer living in stilt houses, but instead are bricked red tiled houses. The village has been planned more neatly. Electric lights illuminate all over deep areas. Many places have become attractive tourist destinations. Thanks to the mechanization and expansion of irrigation, farming is much more efficient. On the two sides of the national highway, many shops sell all kinds of items that do not lack anything like in the town. The revival of this land has been soaked in blood, sweat, and tears of the people here. COMPANION UNIT

Robert Hoge with his beautiful wife and little angel.

Born with a deformed shape

According to the Daily Mail, 44 years ago, science did not have a scanner or ultrasound so Robert was not examined during pregnancy. He was born with a very weak constitution, an abnormal face shape like a “monster” when there was a giant tumor, the size of a tennis ball right between his eyes. Robert’s leg was so deformed that doctors had no choice but to amputate it.

This was a big shock to the family. Robert’s mother, Mary seemed dumbfounded to her eyes, she was scared to look at the baby, unable to come close, to hold him even once. She was so shocked that the whole family left the little boy in the hospital to volunteer to take care of and return home.

In fact, the Australian woman was scared. Mary confided to her sister: “My son is very ugly, I fear even at first glance, it is my obsession, I cannot feed him.” Met with criticism from her sister, being asked about the baby by many people, Mary did not have the courage to admit she left her in the hospital. She realized that she had to take her home, poor little son. She tried to overcome the overwhelming psychological shock, and went to the hospital to pick up her child. Since then, Robert also has another nickname “Ugly” (meaning ugly).

Robert Hoge has an ugly, disfigured face.

When he was interviewed later, Robert Hoge painfully admitted that his mother sometimes only wished that her son died as soon as possible to get her out of the nightmare of life. “In my mother’s diary, she wrote that I wish I had died and told the nurses that she did not want this child. However, overcoming the emotional shock, my mother decided to raise me, a child with serious medical conditions, ”said Robert.

Life is never easy

However, life is never easy for Robert. When he was 4 years old, he was taken to discover a center, he was very happy to go out, explore the world around him. He was bought by his mother for a veil that only reveals his eyes, he is very excited and thanks to his mother’s gift.

At the same time his family went to a strange place, he trembled when he saw all the strange machines, he was measured his face by uncles in white and examined all over his body. Now his mother said that I was going to undergo a surgery, I would look healthier and cuter. He innocently thanked his mother. He just wanted to turn to hug his mother, to be sullen even once, but his mother hurriedly stood up. A little bit sad, but Robert leaned his mouth open again toward his mother, as if thanking her so much.

Despite the pain, he still tried to make his mother happy, he didn’t want to make her worry even once. He told her she was very well, I was fine. Robert Hoge underwent several surgeries after giving birth, one of which was surgery to remove a facial tumor that had grown almost the size of a tennis ball. Unfortunately, the aftermath of the surgery and his physical condition was unbearable, he was forced to amputate both legs to make room for the prosthetic legs. Since then, it has become more difficult for him to walk. Her face was haggard because of the unruly undulations of the gauze.

The young Robert Hoge was a child with his parents.

During the time he was growing up, he constantly received ridicule and alienated words from the people around him. Once his mother let him go out to meet a friend, Robert was very happy to be able to rarely take out his face veil to catch the sun. The neighbor saw him rushing into the house and crying like he had a nightmare. Robert hurriedly covered his towel and wandered into the house.

When he became a boy big enough, Robert realized his difference, it was time to go to school, everyone looked at him scared, the brothers and sisters just played together without playing with him, his mother loved him. but only far away, seldom near. However, instead of self-esteem and embarrassment, Robert cultivates a great source of strength to accept his own ugliness, to deal with the barriers that always separate Robert from others.

From a very young age, Robert always tried to actively study and take care of himself so that people do not have to struggle. He saw that the whole family talked about something about him, he was very happy and innocently thanked everyone who loved him. Robert often watched his brothers and sisters play through the windows, quietly helping his mother pick up vegetables while she was away. He stayed in his room alone, never crying or nagging his mother.

When Robert was 10 years old, his parents spoke openly, honestly about their feelings when Robert was born. Although he knew that at first his parents were reluctant to bring him home, Robert said he did not feel hurt but was happy that his parents were frank with him. Robert believes that the family has brought the best things with love and sincere care.

Appearance doesn’t determine life

After years of struggling with surgeries, painful and endless, when he was most tired, he came back to himself. When Robert was 14 years old, he didn’t want to change any more. After going through 24 surgeries in his life, Robert Hoge decided to stop, he wanted to accept himself, he didn’t want to go through the pain to hide his defects. “I think it’s not worth risking my life just for the sake of getting into the crowd. The difference in appearance is not as important as how you live, ”said Robert.

Whispering words or stares did not discourage Robert, on the contrary, he tried to find more opportunities to interact with people. Robert is the first in his family to go to college, hoping that he will get a good job, regardless of his family in the future. After graduating from school, Robert began writing and publishing books about his own life experiences to inspire and energize others.

Barriers to appearance have never rolled Robert up in life.

Since deciding to live with himself, Robert has removed his veil and come into contact with the plants. He went to the garden, met his neighbors. He bravely did many useful things for the community. When someone panicked when he met him, Robert softly apologized and lowered his head. Every day passed like that, when everyone got used to the deformed face, he was able to raise his head high and see the world around him without fear of making people afraid.

A feeling of happiness crept through each cell, something that he had never experienced such a free, happy feeling before. Maybe for you it is very normal, but for Robert, through the ten spring and summer, the experience was as great as all of his life.

Time passes by, the boy Robert is now grown up. Whenever he had the opportunity to talk to everyone, he was very cheerful, friendly, and his way of sharing was humorous and profound. Everyone turned from fear to compassion, watching his face reappear so much emotional loss and experiencing so much physical pain.

When he turned 30, Robert married a woman named Kate, an ordinary girl who loves a man because of her extraordinary talent and energy. Currently, Robert lives with his wife and two daughters in Wynnum, a beautiful suburb on the shores of Moreton Bay, Australia.

Robert Hoge has also spent time writing, becoming a speaker who delivers a positive message to everyone, even serving as a political advisor to the former Governor and Deputy Governor of Queensland. He wrote “Ugly” (Ugly), released in 2013, detailing his own journey, his different experiences of overcoming difficulties in life.

Robert is now 47 years old, he continues his meaningful path. Today, he has become a famous speaker around the world. Over the years, he realized that the surgeries weren’t helping him, instead it was the joy in his mind, what he could do for everyone was the best thing.