On the bus departing from 130 Nguyen Hue to Bach Ma National Park, our group consisted of Shi, the guide, and 5 strangers who did not know each other. The topic of conversation for the next one or two days would be wild nature - we will talk about it when we get to Bach Ma - right now I need some sleep.

After a few dozen minutes of restless sleep, I heard Shi mention "Vietnam". I woke up immediately.

- What did you just say about Vietnam?

- Ah, - Shi called down from the front bench - what I'm saying is, few young people know, the name Vietnam under King Gia Long meant 'The land south of China belongs to the Vietnamese'.

***

Who is Shi Jang?

In 2015, during a trip to “find” people who preserve Vietnamese culture, when stopping in Da Lat, Shi Jang accidentally discovered the special K'ho coffee brand - created by an American man and a K'ho girl, developed from the 4-generation coffee-making tradition of his people - his family. With the help of Shi Jang, K'ho Coffee from a small farm in the faraway Lang Biang, quickly spread, became popular with international tourists, and was exported to other countries - something that perhaps no K'ho people for many generations had ever thought of.

In early 2021, I visited a small village in the Lang Biang mountains, where the K'ho farm and coffee shop are located. And every time I mentioned the name Shi Jang, anyone - whether it was the people in the coffee shop; the K'ho women and mothers living next door; or the children playing on the street - anyone, immediately smiled brightly and started telling stories and happy memories that Shi Jang left behind in this place.

In 2013, Bach Ma National Park (Hue) reopened after several years of not receiving visitors. The reason for the closure was that the ecosystem in Bach Ma had previously shown signs of degradation due to the impact of tourism, so the Management Board decided to close it for conservation, restoration and upgrading. At the time of reopening, Shi Jang was the first person the Management Board contacted to experience and survey tourism in the Park.

In 2021, I was probably the thousandth tourist that Shi Jang led to Bach Ma mountain. When our group was seated on the white cloud-covered mountain top, Mr. Ky, a long-time friend of Shi's, told us: He is also a tour guide in Hue, he has led countless groups of tourists to visit Bach Ma for many years, "but he never liked or felt this mountain, until the day he went trekking Bach Ma with Shi".

Shi Jang, a member of the 8x generation, is from Quang Binh, but his tourism activities are here and there between Quang Binh and Hue, and also spread from North to South. Shi is called a tour guide, but I guess "tour guide" is just a label for him to legitimize his passion. Since graduating from university, Shi has been focusing on the path of culture - tourism. Shi goes and searches for wild landscapes, "unknown" people who are diligently preserving indigenous culture; then, he will join hands with them to develop and introduce those unique identities to domestic and foreign tourists; just like that, he expands the community of people who share the same appreciation for nature and culture. It is rare to see the "service" of a tour guide, accompanied by so many precious cultural values. For example, back on the Bach Ma trekking journey, we were not only taught how to survive in the forest, how to communicate and behave properly with nature and animals; Shi also told us stories about our Vietnamese history, the K'ho people on Lang Biang, the H'Mong people in Hua Tat village, or arranged for us to enjoy coffee in all kinds of Asian, European, American and Vietnamese styles...

Although he calls himself a Storyteller, Shi never talks about himself. What he tells is actually about nature and his people. That is the energy that can continue to spread without end.

Days without movement

Anyone who knows Shi Jang as a person always on the move must have the same question: What does Shi do during epidemics?

In contrast to the general turmoil of the tourism industry, for Shi, this seems to be an… opportunity. According to him, the epidemic has changed people's travel habits: family travel or small group travel has become more popular; the trend of immersing oneself in nature or participating in outdoor activities when visiting a tourist destination has gradually become a 'keyword' for domestic tourists. As Shi's tours have always focused on exploring and experiencing pristine natural places, this change in tourist trends is clearly a positive sign.

“The emotional experience has been implemented by him and his colleagues for more than 10 years. He also sees that other units in Hue and Quang Binh have recognized that market and offered more diverse products. He is happy that the real values ​​of tourism are now starting to be exploited by many people.”

Luckily, compared to the North and the South, the Central region - Hue, Quang Tri, Quang Binh - where Shi often travels for work, has not been too heavily affected by the Covid-19 epidemic. (However, the impact is not non-existent).

These days, in compliance with the city's anti-epidemic regulations, Shi's tours are all temporarily suspended, but it's still hard to find a moment where he can rest. When he's not "telling stories" to tourists, he turns to "telling stories" to friends and colleagues in the city. Every day, Shi goes back and forth to coffee shops, attends training sessions, and shares with young people about how to make coffee and do tourism. It may seem unrelated, but Shi's two biggest passions are... coffee and tourism.

Improving the service-tourism community is the solution for the present, and for the post-pandemic future, Shi shared that he and his colleagues are also preparing plans to adapt to the new context. Specifically, in the face of the reality that many large and small tourism businesses have had to lay off a part of their employees, the shortage of human resources when these businesses return to work will be an inevitable consequence; in addition, the pandemic has forced tourism businesses to flexibly apply 4.0 technology to their operating systems, many organizations will become confused with this "modernization". Anticipating those possible obstacles, Shi's team is gradually completing a software specifically for tourism organizations. “With the software that his team provides, businesses will have the necessary data about the tourism market in the new normal context; at the same time, this software can also do basic work, replacing the human resources that they had to lay off due to the epidemic,” Shi shared.

“I will only release a limited quantity. I will sell to big businesses, and give away to small businesses.”

What does Shi say on behalf of nature?

"As a person with many emotions, interacting with the nature around me, I think that places with the footprints of tourists in the past, during the time of the pandemic, have had the opportunity to take care of themselves, to return to their original state - before the appearance of tourists. Here, I mean unintentional impacts (stepping hard when walking through a clump of wild plants; killing a bee collecting pollen; throwing leftover food in the wrong place, making monkeys get used to waiting for leftover food and forgetting to go out to find food...) or intentional acts such as littering, singing karaoke in the forest, bathing in streams... by tourists. So, if we say that the pandemic is an opportunity for nature to heal the wounds - or diseases caused by tourists, it is also a way to better understand the relationship between humans and nature for so long, now we have the opportunity to understand each other better, so that people can appreciate nature more. Many of my friends in Saigon, now staying at home, Just looking at a homegrown vegetable growing on my balcony makes me feel 'greener' in my heart."