.jpg "A national conference will be held to summarize 50 years of Vietnamese literature and art after the country's reunification.")
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Early spring, Lan made an appointment with her friends to go to the pagoda. After struggling since morning, she finally decided to wear a short green dress.
As a teacher, seeing her daughter wearing a skirt that was a bit short and not suitable for going to the temple, Ms. Hang commented:
- In early spring, if you wore this dress to go out with your friends, I wouldn't have objected. But today, if you all go to the temple together, I won't agree.
Hearing his wife, Mr. Hung agreed:
- Your mother is right. Temples and pagodas are sacred places, so you have to dress properly when you go there. Haven't you seen the press recently criticizing a lot of young people who go to temples but still wear revealing, skimpy clothes that are not appropriate for the situation?
Grandfather, a retired teacher, was sitting on the porch enjoying a pot of lotus tea and also joined in the conversation:
- Along with the Lunar New Year, going to the pagoda at the beginning of the year is a long-standing cultural beauty of our nation. Today, the young generation still accepts and preserves those beauties, which is extremely valuable. But he sees many people going to the pagoda with a wrong mindset. Who would go to the pagoda to worship Buddha and think that "the bigger the offering, the better", then bring offerings of sticky rice, chicken, even a big pig, votive paper, alcohol and beer without knowing that the Buddha's gate should be vegetarian offerings. Some people go to temples and pagodas and put real money, fake money on the altars, put offerings in the hands of statues, even put them in the mouths of statues as if "bribing the gods" to make their wishes come true, which is extremely offensive. Not to mention, when entering the temple yard, they see incense smoke billowing and many people calmly burn votive paper right there, causing the ashes of the votive paper to fly everywhere. Then they jostle and push each other to ask for blessings, even taking the offerings. Young people should not learn those bad habits and destroy the beauty of the culture of going to the temple at the beginning of the year!
Listening to everyone, Lan gently said:
- Thank you for your advice, grandpa and mom. I will take it in. I'm going to change my clothes and go to church now, or my friends will be waiting...
NGOC HUNG
