Retelling her story, Ms. Nguyen Ngoc Huyen – living in Go Vap district, Ho Chi Minh City – wants to share more perspectives on the “innocent stealing” of office workers.
A few days ago, her 6-year-old son needed double-sided A4 paper to decorate Christmas cards for friends and teachers. Her family rarely uses paper, mainly using one-sided paper. Without thinking, she happily said: “Tomorrow I’ll go to the company and get some A4 paper for you.”
The son struggled and responded: “Mom, you have to go buy paper, why did you take paper from the company? It’s not yours, taking paper from the company is stealing!”.
Ms. Huyen was stunned. The mother realized that there were signs of greed, anger and ignorance, ugly actions, taking other people’s things as her own so naturally that the wrong thing became normal. She still “conveniently” picks up a piece of paper and a pen from the company to use like that.
Even though, every day she still teaches her children “to be hungry until it’s clean and ragged”, “to pick up lost things and find someone to return them”…
Taking other people’s things as your own, or frankly “stealing” – an ethical violation – can be seen everywhere. In this act of “stealing”, the perpetrators are not pickpockets, looters, or children who are not aware enough, but are educated adults, managers, employees, and employees. labor…
Students scoop noodles into rice during a meal at Hoang Thu Pho 1 Primary School for Ethnic Minority Boarding (Photo taken from VTV24 clip).
The act of “stealing” has expanded, causing public outrage in recent days, with a series of school meals being cut short. The whole society was just shaken by the incident in Lao Cai of 11 students eating 2 packages of thinly cooked instant noodles mixed with rice.
Theft can also be identified with the construction contractor cutting corners on materials; The repairman reports a machine condition that is not true to reality; The tech motorbike taxi driver asked the customer to cancel the ride on the app to avoid losing a percentage fee to the company and the customer agreed…
However, stealing doesn’t just stop at taking other people’s food, belongings, and money as your own. It is also depriving others of knowledge and time.
Stealing can be when teachers “cut” lessons from regular classes to save them for extra classes.
Or in recent years, that phenomenon can be named when the total number of scientific research publications in Vietnam has continuously increased. Many experts warn that the truth behind this number is that the common risk of violating scientific integrity is naming people who are not involved in the research process as authors or co-authors or plagiarism. It is also a “blind” act that is subtly concealed, labeled… knowledge.
“Stealing” cannot help but mention the incident where the Director of the Bac Ninh Department of Agriculture went golfing with some officials recently during working hours. Such “theft” is actually not a rare thing these days.
VTC news’s image reflects the incident of the Director of the Bac Ninh Department of Agriculture playing golf during work hours.
Being “taught” to steal since childhood?
Mr. Tran Trieu – who opened the fried banana chain Zero7 in Buon Ma Thuat, Dak Lak – said that his store’s gas stove had just had its fire tray taken away. The person who took that round piece of cast iron and sold it for scrap probably only got a few coins, but the loss was huge for the person who was stolen.
From the loss of that item, the man lamented the petty thievery of Vietnamese people. Mr. Trieu listed that people can lift manhole covers, steal railway screws, break logos, wipe car windshields, remove motorbike rearview mirrors, and even carry potted plants in front of other people’s houses…
Mr. Trieu was heartbroken when explaining this petty theft. From a young age, when a child goes to school, he gets used to “picking” samples of writing and copying other people’s exams. The children witnessed that they had become accustomed to “arranging” the observation period, the teacher naturally arranged for the students to sit still, which students would speak and answer… If teachers and students cheated together, the child would grow up. Why don’t you see that cheating and stealing are normal?
Sample literature learned from childhood is said to only equip children with the mindset of… stealing (Illustration: Hoai Nam).
We would like to remind you of the story shared by Dr. Bui Tran Phuong – former Principal of Hoa Sen University – about the case of an outstanding female student in Vietnam who was sent to study abroad in an educational cooperation program.
Recently in a foreign country, her first essay was rated very good, very good but received a score of 1 with a heavy disciplinary warning. The reason is that her essay was discovered to have innocently used many sources.
But like Ms. Ngoc Huyen, the female student did not realize that it was plagiarism or stealing. When I was a child in school, I was used to teachers providing sample, ready-made essays and asking students to memorize them, and on exam day, they just had to copy them down. From then on, students get used to taking other people’s ideas and words.
An educational researcher from Japan, upon returning to Vietnam, shared that the first thing he wanted to do was to talk about the lesson of absolutely not taking other people’s things as your own to everyone. Because it is dignity, morality, self-esteem, self-respect…
