VietNamNet Bridge – The New Lunar Year pen-brush opening ceremony, a long-lasting cultural tradition, turned out to be controversial as the leaders of the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) did not actually write the script.

A solemn pen-brush opening ceremony took place at the Chu Van An’s Temple in Thanh Tri District in Hanoi on February 23 with the participation of MOET’s Deputy Minister Pham Manh Hung, Hanoi’s Vice Mayor Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc and many other high-ranking officials.

Pen-brush opening, or “khai but” in Vietnamese, is a tradition which has existed for thousands of years in Vietnam, when scholars and writers penned a line of prose or poetry to begin a new-year writing period. Some of them only make a few letters, in Han script, while others make complete verse.

The pen brush opening ceremony takes place on the first days of the new lunar year.

The 2015 pen brush opening ceremony was a significant event as it was organized at the Temple of Chu Van An, a Confucian, teacher, physician and high-ranking mandarin of the Tran Dynasty in Dai Viet (the ancient name of Vietnam).

Criticism has been raised as MOET’s leaders did not write the words in Han script themselves, but just overwrote the existing letters prepared for them.

The images of the high-ranking leaders overwriting existing letters have been posted on websites and education forums accompanied by sarcastic remarks.

A member of a education forum commented that the high-ranking educators are just like singers who lip-sync – pretending to write by moving their hands in synchronization with prepared letters.

He also commented that educators obviously could not hold the pen-brush the right way and they wrote letters awkwardly.

“Did the educators applaud the copying, plagiarism and cheating when they copied over the existing letters?” he commented.

The forum  member, who introduced himself as a writer, emphasized that the pen-brush opening ceremony is a significant event that dignifies learning and calls people to learn throughout their entire life. But the ceremony proved to be meaningless as the educators did not write letters themselves, but copied others’ letters.

However, some others do not think the event should be condemned. “The educators are modern people and it is clear that they do not know Han script. This is not their fault,” a teacher at a high school in Hanoi said.

Tran Quoc Chi, deputy chair of the UNESCO Vietnam Calligraphy Club, said the organization board thought it would be a good idea. “They (the officials) had never held a pen brush before,” he said.

Van Chung