vietexplorer0028

THE HANOI TIMES — In the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi, a journalist ventured into a devastated village in northern Vietnam, where he encountered a man perched atop a cracked concrete pillar, the sole remnant of his home. The man had lost his wife and children the previous night, and he sat there, numb with grief, staring at the barren land that was once his home. The journalist introduced himself, and they conversed. The journalist listened intently, bearing witness to the man’s pain. He tried to ask questions, but the weight of the man’s loss rendered them futile. Carrying a notebook filled with words and a mind clouded with doubt, the journalist departed. Back at his desk, the journalist struggled to write the story. He erased draft after draft, leaving the page blank for weeks. It was only months later, during a talk show about disaster reporting, that he shared his experience. “I couldn’t bring myself to write the story,” he confessed, “not because I didn’t want to, but because the...