“Tombe la merde; tu ne viendras pas ce soir [Shit is falling; you’re not coming tonight]”: an outburst of laughter and applause would inevitably fill the room as my dad, in his deep, mellifluous voice, put his own profane twist on Salvatore Adamo’s ‘Tombe la neige.’ This track, like ‘Paroles… Paroles…’ by Dalida or Christophe’s ‘Aline,’ are widely known and adored in both France and my family in Vietnam. My childhood unfolded against these rhythms, melodies, and lyrics, whose origins were so far removed from me, both temporally and geographically.
After my 15 years in French school in both Hanoi and Saigon, French, alongside English, gradually became the primary vehicle of my thoughts and interactions, in and outside of school. Only recently did I discover that my family’s entanglement with French music dates back four generations, and that it is embedded within a much larger context of French instrumentalization of music as a colonial tool in Vietnam.
Four generations ago, my ancestors — like many Vietnamese households under French rule — spoke the imposed language of administration, business, and higher education, fluently. In the mid 19th century, my paternal great-grandfather served as Minister of Education under Emperor Bảo Đại. The ministry operated on a bilingual basis, with French dominating as the language of official communications and decrees. He was also a scholar who worked closely with French texts. My maternal great-grandfather translated and interpreted for the French administration, while his wife sold silk to French buyers. Outside of work, French culture followed my great-grandparents home primarily through classical romantic compositions unaccompanied by lyrics. I’ve always assumed that the presence of French music in Vietnam was an organic cultural residue from colonization, but the discovery that French musical education in Vietnam was a colonial strategy came as quite a shock.
My paternal great-grandparents, Phạm Quỳnh and Lê Thị Vân
My maternal great-grandmother who did business with French textile buyers
French music as a “civilizing” tool
The genesis of French music in Vietnam can be traced back to the early 20th century. French musical performances began as early as 1883, shortly after the conquest of Hanoi. Military troops sought entertainment in impromptu musical shows, which eventually became more formal musical and theatrical concerts. At the time, only private instruction of western music was available to residents of Hanoi. It was not until the 1920s that official calls for a music school intended to instruct locals were made. The colonial administration realized something crucial: it would be impossible to foster a new generation of Vietnamese — a class of “Francais de couleur,” or Frenchmen of color — without French-organized and -operated schools. This context favored the implementation of French musical pedagogy, set to accompany French academic training, in Hanoi.
The “mission civilisatrice,” the narrative that masks exploitation of colonies as the humanitarian and ethical duty of imperial powers, was the chief justification of French colonization. If the construction of urban infrastructure — buildings, bridges, transportation networks — is often cited as successful “civilizing” efforts, France quickly saw that material embellishments alone failed at molding Vietnamese “with French tastes and habits[,] whose success would encourage the rest of the Vietnamese public to assimilate.”
An excerpt of L’Avenir du Tonkin from April 25, 1925 includes a review of a music recital performed by the pupils of “l’Institut Musical de Hanoi.” Albert Poincignon opened the Institute in 1913 before opening the Conservatory of the Far East in 1927. This review contains the names of (some) participants of the recital: no Vietnamese names appear in the review, which suggests that there might not have been any Vietnamese students.
In 1927, efforts to establish a rigorous and formalized French/Western musical education in Hanoi amounted to the creation of the French Conservatory of the Far East by Albert Poincignon, a customs official for the colonial administration and private music instructor. Its explicit purpose was “to alter the sensibilities and tastes of the Vietnamese.” Although some colonialists believed Vietnamese to be “unmusical and incapable of appreciating western aesthetic traditions,” others saw in Vietnamese an “innate musicality” and instrumentalized this as a means for drawing the Vietnamese majority closer to the French. Thus, formalized French musical pedagogy began in Hanoi with rigorous piano lessons accompanied by intensive training in western musical history and theory.
Initially, the conservatory taught French pupils and a minority of wealthy Vietnamese students; by 1930, the latter had outnumbered the former. It was a short-lived institution, but ultimately achieved its goals with the help of societal forces: knowledge of western classical music became not only trendy, but a marker of belonging to an elite class. My great-grandparents did not have to be enrolled at the conservatory to experience this phenomenon firsthand: their musical taste and sensibilities had indeed been altered, and would be passed down to my grandparents.
My grandparents were born in Hanoi in the 1930s, when French music was just growing in popularity across the country. My maternal grandmother grew up taking private piano lessons and learning western musical theory before becoming a pianist and teaching the curriculum herself after 1954. In the 1930s–1940s, French music maintained a strong presence within urban culture in both North and South Vietnam, particularly amongst the elites and bourgeoisie. At the same time, Vietnamese musicians and composers began embedding French and other western musical elements into tân nhạc, or “new music.” It was in this musical context that my paternal grandfather was completing his study of Medicine in French, before joining the revolution as a military doctor shortly after 1945. In his adolescence, he enjoyed western classical music, which continued playing in his house long after independence, throughout my dad’s childhood.
My maternal grandmother playing the piano (she was in band practice).
When French melodies took on Vietnamese identities
In 1954, Vietnam was officially divided into North and South Vietnam, and a musical split followed. During the 1950s and 1960s, Saigon became a cosmopolitan musical hub where French, American, and Vietnamese musical cultures intermingled and flourished. By the mid 1960s, French artists such as Dalida, Christophe, and Françoise Hardy were well-known amongst the youths of Saigon, far from my family. This decade was also considered to be the golden age of Vietnamese adaptations of French songs: ‘Tombe la neige,’ ‘Histoire d’un amour,’ ‘Viens m’embrasser,’ ‘Bang Bang’ all took on new local lives, respectively becoming ‘Tuyết rơi,’ ‘Chuyện Tình Yêu,’ ‘Lại gần hôn anh’ and ‘Khi xưa ta bé.’ The lyrics of these French-language classics were all rewritten in Vietnamese by Phạm Duy, who is regarded as “the most prolific, varied, and influential of all the tân nhạc composers.” Decades later, I would rediscover these songs, first in French, then in Vietnamese, but more on that later.
These French singers have all had their songs refashioned into Vietnamese tân nhạc hits.
Meanwhile, Hanoi saw French popular music, and some of the Vietnamese tân nhạc that it influenced, gradually succumb to heavy censorship. In the north, the Vietnamese government promoted revolutionary and patriotic music to boost morale during the war — a genre often known as nhạc đỏ (red music). Simultaneously, tân nhạc, deemed a threat to public morale due to its sentimental and nostalgic qualities, was restricted. Surprisingly, French and western music survived the restrictions through conservatory training: classical music continued to be taught and performed, while Vietnamese composers incorporated western compositional techniques into revolutionary songs.
It was during this great musical split that my maternal grandfather served as head of the Cinematography Department, under the Ministry of Culture. His job granted him frequent trips to both Saigon and international destinations. My mom recalls how more often than not, my grandfather returned with CDs of French medleys he either purchased abroad or smuggled in from the south. Thus, my mom grew up to the notes of classical French music and the voice of Dalida, a voice I would grow up to know all too well.
French language skills were not passed down from my grandmother to her daughter, except musically. With no knowledge of the language, my mom knows all of the words to her favorite French pop songs; still today, she sings them, in near perfect pronunciation, instinctively. In comparison, my dad’s childhood saw significantly less French influence. It wasn’t until 1973 that he truly encountered French music, playing on the TV in the Soviet Union, where he studied. When he came home in 1979, western music, and French music in particular, was widely accessible across the country. His homecoming, as is true for his contact with French music in Vietnam, was brief. In 1982, my dad taught himself French while interning in Strasbourg. There, his encounters with French songs multiplied, deepening his connection to and appreciation for them. When he returned home for good, he continued listening to those songs and eventually passed them down to me.
Christophe, Don Hồ, and Thế Sơn perform Christophe’s ‘Aline’ in French and Vietnamese (Paris by Night, Volume 54).
Fast forward to the 2010s, the years of my childhood. Before the age of MTV and the hegemony of American pop princesses, my musical consciousness was largely dominated by Paris by Night. Specifically, the voices of Bằng Kiều, Elvis Phương, Tuấn Ngọc, Thanh Lan left a lasting impression on me, or rather, were insisted upon me. Whenever they came onto the TV screen, my parents would praise not just their voice, but their skillful rendition of French songs. I grew up with these songs in both languages, then quickly forgot about them until my high school years. During this period, my household saw a renaissance of French music, but this time with the original French lyrics. One sunny afternoon, I was passionately screaming “Et j’ai crié, crié, Aline!” with my parents in the car when something strange occurred: I began to remember distant Vietnamese words being sung to this same melody. Where are these songs from? Are they French or Vietnamese? My parents' inconsistent answers fueled my confusion.
Thanh Lan and Elvis Phương performing a medley of French songs (Paris by Night, Volume 50).
As it turns out, they’re both. Many Vietnamese adaptations of French melodies have become so popular in Vietnam that they have taken on lives of their own, almost entirely distinct from their French blueprints. In the couple of decades before and after 1975, the distinction between French pop classics and their Vietnamese adaptations might have been very clear in people’s minds. But today, decades after the golden age of tân nhạc, these Vietnamese adaptations no longer exist strictly as a version of pre-existing French songs, but as staples in their own right. Thus, one would be correct in referring to ‘Aline’ as Christphophe’s song, and also as Phạm Duy’s ‘Gọi Tên Người Yêu.’ Perhaps it is for this reason that I feel rather awkward when receiving comments such as “You must be at least half French” or “You’re as French as our kids,” when I revealed my familiarity with classic French pop. The French adults in my life understood this fluency, in addition to my command of the language, as marks of some “Frenchness” that 15 years of French education must have instilled in me.
The excessively congratulatory tone of the remarks felt misplaced. Their speakers conditioned me to subconsciously view knowing these French songs as a testament to my achievement of becoming “French” in their eyes; I was proud because it seemed like the only appropriate reaction to such praise. Today, my feelings about the same compliments are much clearer: I do not view my perceived fluency in French culture as any achievement, for I never aspired to it. I recognize the history of the songs that my family and I cherish and acknowledge the French influence on those melodies, but I refuse the narrative that they signal any “Frenchness” in me.
In my mind, these tracks’ Vietnamese identities far predate my awareness that they had originated elsewhere. I inherited them as artifacts of both Vietnamese culture and my own family history, so these “compliments” deceived me into thinking that these songs were merely remnants of French culture. This narrative underplays my relationship with these songs as a Vietnamese person; more crucially, it ignores that these songs have Vietnamese lives. These melodies have travelled far and wide; they began as pieces of inherited culture, and eventually underwent significant transformations by Vietnamese talents who made them their own.
