Trích or Triết - Saigoneer

Trần Dần, the Literary Maverick Teaching Us How We Should and Can Be an Artist

2025-08-14T10:00:00+07:00

In the mind of many Vietnamese readers, the name of writer Trần Dần has been inextricably linked with artistic experimentation and innovation. His poetic voice feels nothing like those of writers I learnt back in high school: there is something so different, refreshing and oddly contemporary about it. As I consider every page of his bulky posthumously published anthology Thơ (Poetry), I find his legacy remains inspirational even for contemporary readers — especially other young Vietnamese — on what it means to “be an artist.” This does not only entail one’s appreciation and production of Vietnamese art, but also their adoption of an artist’s mindset into daily life.

Good art confronts life in all its complexity and grittiness

Around 1954, Trần Dần joined the guerrilla forces to fight against the French in the Điện Biên Phủ battle, and was actively involved the artistic scene alongside his revolutionary peers. While they all adopted socialist realism as the ideological paradigm for their works, what set a writer like Trần Dần apart was his desire to confront the current affairs in all their complexity and grittiness.

Trần Dần as a young adult.

In comparison, most poets in this period still adhered to the lyricism of the sentimental pre-Điện Biên Phủ Thơ Mới (New Poetry) movement, and classical Vietnamese epics such as Truyện Kiều (The Tale of Kiều). Their depictions of battles were indirect at best, romanticized at worst, and mostly focused on uplifting, hard-working portrayals of a pastoral Vietnam, as opposed to the soldiers’ internal struggles. “Some people want poetry to be clear, enthusiastic, rosy, melodious,” Trần Dần wrote, “that is why, I instead want a kind of poetry where there’s the enthusiasm of teardrops, sweat, and crimson blood; the enthusiasm of dust, dirt sand, gunpowder, corpses, crematorium, [...]; the enthusiasm of disappointments, separations, disintegration, and failure. I want a dose of sweet medicine from earth’s most bitter and spicy tastes.”

A soldier unit carrying the flag “Quyết chiến, quyết thắng” as they seize Mường Thanh Bridge in 1954.

Soldiers rowing against the stream of Mã River in Thanh Hoá to deliver rice as part of their war effort during the Điện Biên Phủ battle.

This was extracted from Trần Dần – Ghi 1954-1960 (Trần Dần – Writes 1954-1960), a published compilation of the writer’s personal notes. He further added: “I love current affairs poetry, following closely the anticipations and worries of my Party, my fellow citizens, millions and millions of hearts of civilians and army, soldiers and cadres, leaders and populus.” As evaluated by critic Đỗ Lai Thuý, Trần Dần was highly against superficial and clichéd tellings of contemporary life. Instead, he championed honest observations that demonstrated deep empathy for flawed, human experiences. As sentimental as this might sound, Trần Dần’s works actually embraced ambivalence with an astute eye, and via a more impactful and innovative poetic voice than his contemporaries': this was what poetry of the new, revolutionary era should be — as envisioned by Trần Dần and many writers supporting Nhân Văn–Giai Phẩm.

Earlier publication of “Đi! Đây Việt Bắc” under a different name, “Bài thơ Việt Bắc.”

Trần Dần — Ghi 1954-1960.

His epic-poetry collection Đi! Đây Việt Bắc! (Go! Here’s Việt Bắc!), wrote during a brief peaceful era regarding his Điện Biện Phủ’s experiences, exemplified such a spirit — as seen in an excerpt of chapter III:

	[rough translation]
Ở đây manh áo vải chung nhau. Giấc ngủ cùng chung chiếu đất [...] Con muỗi độc chung nhau cơn sốt. Chiến trường chung dầu dãi đạn bom. Tới khi ngã lại chung nhau đất mẹ.	Here cloth shirts’ panels together. Our sleep together on ground's mat. [....] The poisonous mosquito together our fever. Battlefields together weathering bullets & bombs. Until fallen together yet mother earth.

[rough translation]

Ở đây

manh áo vải

chung nhau.

Giấc ngủ

cùng chung

chiếu đất

[...] Con muỗi độc

chung nhau

cơn sốt.

Chiến trường

chung

dầu dãi đạn bom.

Tới khi ngã

lại chung nhau

đất mẹ.

Here

cloth shirts’ panels

together.

Our sleep

together

on ground's mat.

[....] The poisonous mosquito

together

our fever.

Battlefields

together

weathering bullets & bombs.

Until fallen

together yet

mother earth.

The refrain “chung” employs togetherness to connote soldiers’ impoverished state — sharing mats, and even shirts; harsh life-risking conditions in battle, with its malaria-inflicting mosquitoes and deadly bombs. They are traumatic yet real experiences that the cultural zeitgeist would like to forget. However, togetherness also emphasizes the soldiers’ steadfast devotion to the cause amid the hardships. This goes to show Trần Dần’s ability to convey the soldiers’ complex experiences using the most succinct and impactful language, but also how encouraging socio-cultural amnesia risked erasing empathy and understanding towards the beauty that came along with and emerged from life’s ugliness.

Wounded soldiers at Điện Biên Phủ being taken care of.

Trần Dần ends the chapter with aplomb, finding new poetically interesting ways of using concepts “nợ” (debt) to convey the soldiers’ humility and gratefulness to everything, even if they were inanimate beings like the land, its flora and fauna, and of course, their fellow citizens:

	[rough translation]
Ta mắc nợ những rừng xim bát ngát. Nợ bản mường heo hút chiều sương. Nợ củ khoai môn nợ chim muông nương rẫy. [...] Dù quen tay vỗ nợ cũng chớ bao giờ vỗ nợ nhân dân !	We’re indebted to rose-myrtle forests immense. Indebted To indigenous villages, remote in evenings’ mist. Indebted to yams indebted to birds and beasts and highland fields. [...] Even if, for granted, we denied these debts, we would never deny our debts to the people !

[rough translation]

Ta mắc nợ

những rừng xim bát ngát.

Nợ

bản mường heo hút

chiều sương.

Nợ củ khoai môn

nợ

chim muông

nương rẫy.

[...] Dù quen tay vỗ nợ

cũng chớ bao giờ

vỗ nợ

nhân dân !

We’re indebted

to rose-myrtle forests immense.

Indebted

To indigenous villages, remote

in evenings’ mist.

Indebted to yams

indebted

to birds and beasts

and highland fields.

[...] Even if, for granted, we denied these debts,

we would never

deny our debts

to the people !

As such, Đi! Đây Việt Bắc! demonstrated Trần Dần’s socialist realist spirit, but also his rebellious creativity: not just in the idiosyncratic yet apt imageries, but also in the enjambed lines of the stair-case poetic form that he learnt from Russian poet Mayakovsky, whose “poetic form-and-function revolution” practice resonated much with Trần Dần, infusing an accelerating dynamism to the work.

Russian Dadaist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky.

Unfortunately, despite the work’s merits in both craft and content, it didn’t come to light immediately: Trần Dần had been banned from publishing and served a brief jail sentence that was cut short by his suicide attempt. This was in part due to his involvement in Nhân Văn-Giai Phẩm, particularly his criticisms of ‘Việt Bắc,’ a poetry piece written on the same subject matter by Tố Hữu, his literary rival who oversaw the artistic activities at that time. He found Tố Hữu’s work, with its usage of traditional epic poetry’s register to focus on the region’s romantic beauty post-battle, had not dived deep enough into the soldiers’ perspectives, nor had it demonstrated new and strong employment of the Vietnamese language to convey so, thus lacking in power and zest necessary for a revolutionary poetic voice. It did not help that Trần Dần’s artistic approach meant he also decided to address the 1954 exodus of northerners in his poem ‘Nhất định thắng’ (Surefire Victory); this was the nail in the coffin to his literary career, alongside his decision to marry his wife Khuê, even as his peers disapproved because her relatives were among those who left to the south across the divided Vietnam.

Trần Dần (right) and his wife Ngọc Khuê (left).

Up until 1988, many public readers passionately stood by his works; he was even invited for literary talks with them in Huế, admitting: “I became very emotional because of the many direct and honest questions that were posed to me.” His contributions were ultimately formally recognized with a posthumous National Award for Arts and Literature in 2007.

Overall, Trần Dần’s incredible even if tumultuous, journey served as a bittersweet reminder of the difficult yet important endeavors of integrity and sensitivity in life. This wasn’t just a matter of making art, but also adopting in art-making the philosophy of being attuned to contemporary life’s undiscussed social aspects, neither by sugarcoating them nor being “a rebel without a cause.” Only by doing this can we inspire ourselves and others around us to critically reflect on our lives with honesty and acknowledgement.

Challenge yourself and the past, always — because you are alive.

If not for the Điện Biên Phủ Battle against the French, subsequent issues of Dạ Đài would have been produced. The magazine was established by 19-year-old Trần Dần and fellow poets of the Tượng Trưng (Symbolist) group, influenced by Symbolist poetry but also its following artisic movements, such as surrealism and Dadaism — hence the name “Dạ Đài.” “We’ve become tired with shallow poetry, chewing and referencing to death earthly sceneries, and worldly sentimentalism,” their Symbolist Manifesto declared, “we want to dive deep into extraneous bodies, into inner selves, and want to go further than heaven and earth.”

The front and back covers of Thơ.

Trần Dần had been a rebel ever since his formative years. Apart from Russian Dadaist Mayakovsky, in his interview with literary friends, Trần Dần named French Symbolist figures, such as Baudelaire and especially Rimbaud, as his early reads’ writers. This contrasted with the influences of his senior contemporaries, like Xuân Diệu or Thế Lữ, from Thơ Mới, taking cues from the Romanticism of Victor Hugo or Musset. They were thus deemed overly sentimental and melancholic by Trần Dần’s group, who sought to bring in a fresh poetry wave.

Even as Tượng Trưng was disbanded, its manifesto remained in Trần Dần’s core belief. He was determined to break away from previous generations’ established conventions on what was considered acceptable or unacceptable subject matter and aesthetics. Therefore, apart from embracing the country’s multi-faceted current affairs in poetry, and as part of his “all-encompassing revolution” ideal, Trần Dần also tackled subject matters such as sexual liberation and individualism with the same intensity and avant-garde techniques that had since become his signature style, at a time when socialist realism was solely privileged. “I also love Non-Current-Affairs Poetry,” he explained. “Poetry that encompasses the country and time, Poetry that spills over all centuries, and Poetry that even enters the immense dialectic of things.”

For instance, in ‘Đố ai chọc mắt các vì sao’ (Who here pierces the eyes of stars?), he combines quotidian images of the townscape and its flora (such as phố, mưa, lá, cành, nhà, and ngõ) with suggestive word choices (such as khoả thân, khe, toẻ, and xoạc) to create a surrealistic poetic tension:

	[rough translation]
Phố khoả thân mưa In hình võng mạc nước Lập lờ khe lá dọc Toẻ cành xanh nét móc Thẹm nhà đôi ngõ xoạc Khoả thân mưa…	Townstreet naked rained Imprinting shape in water retinae Leaf’s equivocal vertical slit Verdant hook-stroke branches split House front-porzh, with duo paths spread Naked rain…

[rough translation]

Phố khoả thân mưa

In hình võng mạc nước

Lập lờ khe lá dọc

Toẻ cành xanh nét móc

Thẹm nhà đôi ngõ xoạc

Khoả thân mưa…

Townstreet naked rained

Imprinting shape in water retinae

Leaf’s equivocal vertical slit

Verdant hook-stroke branches split

House front-porzh, with duo paths spread

Naked rain…

By juxtaposing the two registers, he invites readers to reframe their perceptions of sexuality from something generally considered taboo into something deserving of normalization, for the presence of such terminologies prevailed among most mundane and natural phenomena. Using this technique, Trần Dần further espoused a world washed clean by the rain, returning to a primordial and arguably pure, “naked” state of being, with rules yet to be placed on it.

In fact, Trần Dần’s exploration is comparable to French philosopher Michel Foucault’s 1976 study The History of Sexuality. In it, Foucault argues that repressive moral values and pathologizing scientific frameworks both exist to control sexuality’s discourse in society. Similarly, many of Trần Dần’s writings frequently disrupt boundaries demarcating certain language uses as inappropriate, thus liberating our modes of expression from their preconceived definitions and social connotations. Furthermore, while Trần Dần is not the first Vietnamese writer to explore sexuality, the fact that such a topic was tackled in folk literature or Hồ Xuân Hương’s poems spoke to the timeless and ever-contemporary nature Trần Dần’s experimentations, especially considering how talks on sexuality have become even more open in contemporary artistic and daily realms.

Various drawings by Trần Dần.

Trần Dần also pushes himself further by exploring the individual’s place within society, playing with spelling rules and other “extended techniques” to visually position words on a page. This can be seen in this extract from ‘Con I’ (Unit I), whereby the letter “i” itself is the subject matter — a letter Trần Dần seemingly considers as the simplest sound particle, and basic visual symbol and building block:

	[rough translation]
NGƯỜI Đi. NGÀY Đi. LỆ KÌA ici Cie i i i i i mọi đồng hồ vẫn khóc như ri ĐỒNG HỒ QUẢ ĐẤT mọi đồng hồ thế jới (nếu đồng hồ) đều tham ja mưa rả ríc .. i CHẠY NHƯ Ri i i [...] THẾ JỚI VẪN KHÓC NHƯ Ri ici i i i i i i i i i i ici KHÔNG i KHÔNG THÍC NGi .	HUMANS FLi. DAYS FLi. TEARS THERE ici Cie i i i i i everi clock still cries like ri THE EARTH CLOCK everi vvorld clock (if clocks) all zhoin rain driz zlin .. i RUNS LIKE Ri i i [...] THE VVORLD STILL CRIES LIKE Ri ici i i i i i i i i i i ici NO i NO ADAP ABiLYTi .

[rough translation]

NGƯỜI Đi. NGÀY Đi. LỆ KÌA

ici Cie i i i i i mọi đồng hồ vẫn khóc như ri

ĐỒNG HỒ QUẢ ĐẤT

mọi đồng hồ thế jới (nếu đồng hồ) đều tham ja mưa rả ríc .. i

CHẠY NHƯ Ri i i

[...]

THẾ JỚI VẪN KHÓC NHƯ Ri

ici i i i i i i i i i i ici

KHÔNG i KHÔNG THÍC NGi .

HUMANS FLi. DAYS FLi. TEARS THERE

ici Cie i i i i i everi clock still cries like ri

THE EARTH CLOCK

everi vvorld clock (if clocks) all zhoin rain driz zlin .. i

RUNS LIKE Ri i i

[...]

THE VVORLD STILL CRIES LIKE Ri

ici i i i i i i i i i i ici

NO i NO ADAP ABiLYTi .

According to researcher Nguyễn Thuỳ Dương, “i”’s shape is evocative of a human icon, thus representing an individual person; while I also find it interestingly resonant as the English first-person pronoun “I.” Just like how phonetically similar letters are replaced to produce idiosyncratic spellings (such as j replacing gi in “jới”), “i” morphed in and out of its upper and lower cases, trying out personas and placements in words, as if to find its belonging. “i” becomes part of words like “Đi” or “NGi”, often with deviating case and spelling rules, before joining the ever-present row of “i i i i i” that conjures sonically drone-like raindrops, or visually a line of humans, etc. — and the cycle continues.

Is Trần Dần trying to convey how the Self constantly fluctuated (and won’t settle: “KHÔNG i KHÔNG THÍC NGi”) between a larger homogenous society symbolized by the line-up of “i” figures, and imperfect even if individualistic cliques symbolized by the differently spelled words? In which case, Trần Dần argues against viewing the concept “us” as an equivocal singularity, and instead calls for the recognition of the individual “I”s that fosters a collective whole. Uncannily, this very conclusion is uttered a decade later in Lưu Quang Vũ’s play ‘Tôi và Chúng ta’ (I and We), in light of Vietnam’s tense zeitgeist towards adopting a socialist-oriented market economy that eventually led to Đổi Mới.

“Trần Dần’s decision to stretch his artistic practice in both form and function, using ways that challenge its pre-established aesthetic conventions, breaks new ground for fellow Vietnamese on what our human experiences could look and feel like, and what subject matters art could and should address.”

It is easy to dismiss any avant-garde experimentations as alienating and pointless art for others. Nevertheless, “all values of Truth, Kindness, and Beauty are difficult to understand — even artistic ice-skating is difficult to understand (!)” Trần Dần expressed. He added: “What’s known is a meaning, what’s not yet known is a word. What’s not known is deep and profound. Your recitation of a beautiful saying like Confucius’s is yet poetry, of a paradox like Lao-tsu’s is also yet poetry. To jump over your shadow is poetry. One’s yet to understand poetry, because they face difficulty jumping over their own shadow.” As such, Trần Dần’s decision to stretch his artistic practice in both form and function, using ways that challenge its pre-established aesthetic conventions, breaks new grounds for fellow Vietnamese on what our human experiences could look and feel like, and what subject matters art could and should address.

In the same interview, Trần Dần commented on ca dao, an antecedent folk literary form: “That’s our national heritage, a teacher must place it at the same level as Nguyễn Du’s, or Cao Bá Quát’s. Must learn it to bury it.” Breaking rules and challenging predecessors were what Trần Dần called for, and he anticipated that the younger Vietnamese at that time would eventually rise to the challenge as well: “The younger generation? I’m still waiting and waiting. They were still being contained in the trap of regal literature. I’m anxiously waiting for the young cohort to gather enough strength, grow up, and bury us, just like how we have buried the pre-war generation.”

Trần Dần (second from left) and Trần Trọng Vũ (second from right) and friends.

It can be safe to say that Trần Dần would be pleasantly surprised to learn about the many independent writing communities in Vietnam nowdays. Even without systematic government support, they host spaces for young Vietnamese willing to experiment with the national language and critically engage with our contemporary experiences. Perhaps this is Trần Dần’s greatest hope for his readers: to live and love life like an artist, in ways that are even more passionate than whatever he had done.

Vũ Bằng's Nostalgic Longings for Hanoi Teach Us How to Love a Place Deeply

2025-01-12T17:00:00+07:00

From Thương Nhớ Mười Hai to Miếng Ngon Hà Nội, Vũ Bằng’s way of lacing Hanoian features with melancholic reminiscence always brings me straight back to the embrace of my hometown, even more so after I moved to Saigon at age 19. Since then, my writing and social media posts about Hanoi have often been accompanied by quotes “stolen” from his books: “My spring — the spring of northern Vietnam, Hanoi's spring — is a season of gentle misty rain, cool tender winds, the sound of swallows calling all jade-dark night, distant chèo drum beats from distant hamlets with maidens lovely as poems singing timeless love songs.” This was how Vũ Bằng’s oeuvre made its way to my heart.

Apart from him being considered one of the greatest writers of Hanoi, Vũ Bằng’s literary and personal portraits were multifaceted. His career spanned all of Vietnam’s three modern historical periods: before 1946, 1946–1954, and after 1954 in the south. Though Vũ Bằng faced decades of suspicion and unjust accusations that were only rectified 16 years after his passing, his literary works remain a testament to love.

Writing, not for a living, but for the reality of life

Vũ Bằng, born Vũ Đăng Bằng in Hanoi in 1913, was a descendant of a renowned scholarly family from Hải Dương Province who moved to Hanoi and ran a large printing house on Hàng Gai Street. Maybe it’s just the personal bias of a girl who also spent her early childhood inside the Old Quarter, but I always feel like growing up in the heart of Hanoi was what blessed Vũ Bằng’s literature with so much tenderness and melancholy — the trademark spirit of the 36 streets.

Thanks to his family having both a scholarly tradition and a profitable business, Vũ Bằng was granted a favorable education and the opportunity to study in France. Despite his mother’s wishes for him to study medicine, he pursued writing and journalism after passing his Tú Tài (high school) exams. While his contemporaries wrote for a living, Vũ Bằng wrote purely for passion, to the point of admitting: “Nếu trở lại làm người, con cứ lại xin làm báo.” (If I were to become a human again, I would ask to be a journalist again.)

Vũ Bằng's portrait.

Vũ Bằng published his first work, Lọ Văn, at age 17 in 1931. From 1930 to 1954, he served as an editor of Tiểu Thuyết Thứ Bảy and a secretary for Trung Bắc Chủ Nhật, while contributing to various other newspapers in Hanoi. In the 1930s and 1940s, he was influential in the literary scene as one of the most talented and active writers focusing on portraying the realistic lives of urban citizens amidst historical turmoils.

Vũ Bằng’s influence on Vietnam’s prose landscape in this era wasn’t limited to his own work. As the editor of several important newspapers before 1945, Vũ Bằng played a pivotal role in discovering debut works by emerging writers, including Tô Hoài and Nam Cao. For example, he “picked up” Nam Cao’s first short novel Cái Lò Gạch Cũ from a pile of rejected manuscripts, and asked a senior, possibly the writer Lê Văn Trương) to write the preface and renamed it Đôi lứa xứng đôi. This work was later renamed again to Chí Phèo, what most Vietnamese today know it by, becoming arguably the most outstanding piece of realism from the literary movement of 1941–1945.

Furthermore, Vũ Bằng’s work left a mark on the development of other younger writers, as revealed by Tô Hoài: “During those years, Nam Cao was living with me in Nghĩa Đô. We were engrossed in reading Vũ Bằng. If any literary scholar pays attention to Vũ Bằng’s short stories from that period, alongside Nam Cao’s and my own, they will easily notice the influence of Vũ Bằng.”

Writing as a silent confession

Vũ Bằng is now honored as one of the greatest names in Vietnam’s literary history, but before this recognition, he experienced a tumultuous fate. During my secondary and high school years of grinding the subject as a Literature-specialized student, I studied my fair share of writers with troubled lives. However, Vũ Bằng was a rare case as he endured a life-long injustice.

Vũ Bằng in a Tạ Tỵ sketch.

Both Vũ Bằng’s personal life and literary career intersect with historical events and political turmoil. In 1946, Vũ Bằng and his family evacuated to the resistance zone, particularly Chợ Đại, Cống Thần (Hà Nam) before returning to Hanoi in 1948, where he discreetly participated in an intelligence network. Acting as someone who “dinh-tê” (abandoned the freedom resistance zone occupied by the Việt Minh, to return to the urban area), Vũ Bằng constructed a cover persona by maintaining the demeanor of a wealthy petite bourgeois. Because of this, many people believe that Vũ Bằng was the original model for the character Hoàng, a writer detached from revolutionary resistance, in Nam Cao's short story ‘Đôi mắt.’

In 1954, Vũ Bằng went south to work as an intelligence agent under the codename X10. Vũ Bằng continued his intelligence work until reunification on April 30, 1975, but didn’t return to the north even once before he passed away. At the time of his death, Vũ Bằng’s dignity hadn’t been restored due to disruptions in the communication network. His superiors had relocated to Hanoi after reunification, making communication with the south difficult, despite the political changes. Vũ Bằng died as someone believed to have “turned his back on the Revolution” and “migrated to the south with the enemy.”

“As the editor of several important newspapers before 1945, Vũ Bằng played a pivotal role in discovering debut works by emerging writers, including Tô Hoài and Nam Cao.”

It was not until the early 1990s, when documents regarding his secret activities were published, that his name and career were finally vindicated. In March 2000, Vũ Bằng was officially confirmed as a military intelligence officer. It was common for “artists to be soldiers, and their artistic works weapons” during the war and Vietnam’s literature even witnessed a generation of soldier poets, but there aren’t many cases of a writer acting as a secret intelligent officer, who never had his identity revealed, like Vũ Bằng.

During his time in Saigon, Vũ Bằng lived in poverty, a stark contrast to his earlier affluence. For the first time in his life, he had to focus on writing to make a living. However, more than just a job, it was also Vũ Bằng’s only way of expressing himself and bearing the multitude of injustice and longing. The writer Nguyễn Xuân Khánh stated that "the pain and loneliness he experienced contributed to the unique qualities of Vũ Bằng's literature.” I like to think that Vũ Bằng’s writings even became the catalyst for his actual vindication.

Writings with, and for, unwavering love

After moving to Saigon, I realized that I always seek the ghost of my beloved city anywhere I go — via vendors selling northern phở, coffee shops in small alleys with “Hanoian vibes,” posts about Hanoi on social media, and Vũ Bằng’s writings. I still recall how, during my first December without wintery coldness, I snuggled under a light blanket and read the e-version of Thương Nhớ Mười Hai, specifically its December chapter. Somehow, the fact that Vũ Bằng wrote it in Saigon, thousands of kilometers from Hanoi, made it even more of a empathetic companion to my longing, as we share the same loneliness and nostalgia:

“I love it all and I say I love it all — the grass swaying in the playful wind beneath drifting clouds, the mountains, the hills of melastoma, the tree sap, the earthen veins, the caterpillars and ants curled up in their nests now emerging to seek new leaves and fresh buds. I love the girl wearing floral silk pants with a rose pinned in her hair, the amorous butterfly dancing over the jasmine trellis, the green velvet dress standing out amid the garden of red tangerines and yellow oranges, and even more so, I love those tiny dewdrops clinging to the velvet, making the beauty glisten like an angel in dreams.”

Like anyone moving away from their hometown, I know how challenging it is to be so far from home and family. But while I still have social media to update me on what happens in Hanoi, Vũ Bằng could only rely on his memories to soothe the nostalgia. Thus, he poured his emotions out on the paper. In Saigon, Vũ Bằng mainly wrote ký (literary essays), particularly tùy bút, producing timeless works such as Miếng Ngon Hà Nội, Bốn mươi năm nói láo, and Thương Nhớ Mười Hai. In these works, Vũ Bằng’s love for Hanoi left an indelible mark on Vietnam’s literary scene.

Two of Vũ Bằng's most celebrated works.

In the faraway land, Vũ Bằng echoed his love for the city, continuing the legacy of pre-1945 Hanoian writers such as Thạch Lam, Nguyễn Tuân, Nguyễn Huy Tưởng, and Tô Hoài. When immersing myself in Vũ Bằng’s words, I often marvel at how a man who had been far away from home for over 30 years could write about Hanoi in such intricate details, lively and vibrant as if he was there, back to the embrace of the city: “I remember the evenings walking along the Court Road, perfumed with the scent of milk flowers, the nights under the moon when we strolled hand in hand on Giảng Võ Street to watch traditional opera… I remember the rainy streets with a gentle drizzle as I strolled with my wife along the shores of Bảy Mẫu Lake. I recall the nights we climbed the hill on the way to Pháp Vân, plucking an orange to eat while the distant sounds of traditional opera echoed back to us, stirring memories within.”

A stroll on Hanoi streets. Photo by An Phạm.

It was challenging for me sometimes to remember every detail of Hanoi after moving to a new city. While certain things never falter in my mind, like strolling around Hoàn Kiếm Lake in Hanoian autumn and munching on roasted corn amid Hanoian winter nights, I’m not sure if I can truly recall and portray each memory in such a loving manner like Vũ Bằng. For me, his power lies the most in the way his memories are personal as well as collective, easily resonating with any Hanoian child. Reading Vũ Bằng makes me feel like I can live two lives at once: his past life in Hanoi of the 1930s and 1940s, alongside my own, nearly 100 years later.

Vũ Bằng wrote about Hanoi extensively and passionately, as if “to reclaim lost time.” Tô Hoài once mentioned Vũ Bằng in a book: “In Thương Nhớ Mười Hai, the author raises his hand to count a month, a day, a year, a lifetime... It took him more than ten years of relentless effort to complete the twelve months of a human life. Each sentence, filled with longing for Hanoi, makes even those currently in Hanoi feel a shared love.”

Hanoi is always charming in the eyes of its residents. Photos by An Phạm.

And if Thương Nhớ Mười Hai paints a Hanoi throughout 12 months and four seasons, Miếng Ngon Hà Nội depicts Hanoian cuisine through 15 famous delicacies, from beef phở, green rice, shrimp paste, to fish cakes, and more. There are renowned delicacies that everyone knows and there are also dishes mostly known to only Hanoians. Nothing can beat a meal offered on any random pages of this book. Whenever my longing for familiar Hanoian flavors comes in full force, Miếng Ngon Hà Nội is the ultimate mental comfort.

Nearly 100 years after Vũ Bằng’s era, his literary legacy remains powerful, because love never goes out of date. Just like Vũ Bằng, I started to write anytime nostalgia emerged, from diaries to short poems, to missives about Hanoi, archived in phone notes or social media. And anytime the adrift feeling of unfamiliarity, a result of being far away from Hanoi for so long, gnawed at my heart, I came back to Vũ Bằng. His writings pulled the adult me to the highschooler me — happily enjoying chè khúc bạch on Trần Hưng Đạo Street and idly flipping the pages of Thương Nhớ Mười Hai — as if I have never left the city. Maybe, home is not simply a physical location but the memories that live on within us, echoing in Vũ Bằng’s quote: “Yêu sao yêu quá thế này! Nhớ sao nhớ quá thế này!” (How deeply I love! How deeply I long!)

Composer Hoàng Việt and a Radical Romance Across the North-South Border

2024-12-22T08:00:00+07:00

In a country fractured by ideology, Hoàng Việt's love for his wife Ngọc Hạnh persisted like a secret melody carried across closed borders by weak radio signals, and letters that had to circle the globe before finding their way home.

Hoàng Việt and his wife, Ngọc Hạnh.

I spent most of my life in a Hanoian neighborhood where great artists made their homes. A few steps from my house, at the old French villa on 65 Nguyễn Thái Học Street, lived some of Vietnam's most influential artists: songwriter Nguyễn Đình Thi, who penned revolutionary anthems like ‘Diệt Phát Xít’ (Killing Fascists); painters Nguyễn Phan Chánh and Nguyễn Tư Nghiêm, towering figures in Vietnam's art history; and writer Vũ Tú Nam, whose short piece ‘Cây Gạo’ (The Kapok Tree) has been memorized by generations of schoolchildren. The neighborhood also housed veterans from different sides of the 1950s “culture war” Nhân Văn-Giai Phẩm, including the poet Trần Dần and his fierce critic, songwriter Đỗ Nhuận.

Just steps away stood a collective house at 13 Cao Bá Quát Street, home to several southern artists now rarely discussed. Among them was Hoàng Việt, composer of the red music masterpiece ‘Tình Ca’ (Love Song). During my childhood, while my grandparents often spoke of the great artists in my textbooks as friends and neighbors, they rarely mentioned Hoàng Việt. Yet whenever the public loudspeaker outside our house played ‘Tình Ca,’ my grandfather would remark that it moved him more than any other song. Perhaps because Hoàng Việt belonged to an earlier generation of revolutionaries, one whose personal struggles often remained unspoken.

From Lê Trực to Hoàng Việt

Born in 1928 as Lê Chí Trực, Hoàng Việt's life spanned just 39 years, yet his career was long and complex. His music resonated on both sides of war, and his journey extended far beyond his mother's hometown of Mỹ Tho. Before becoming a revolutionary musician in 1949, he was a romantic writer in Saigon. Under the pen name Lê Trực, he composed works like the tango ‘Tiếng Còi Trong Sương Đêm’ (The Whistle in the Night Fog), ‘Chị Cả’ (The Eldest Sister) and ‘Biệt Đô Thành’ (Farewell to the Capital City) which South Vietnamese refugees still perform today, even when they're far away from home.

‘Tiếng Còi Trong Sương Đêm’ was particularly controversial. It portrayed mothers holding their children through sleepless nights, waiting for husbands who had joined revolutionary forces fighting French rule. From a non-communist southern perspective, it expressed the awakening of urban youth to patriotism and radicalism. From the north's view, it represented the communist Việt Minh guerrillas led by Hồ Chí Minh.

‘Tiếng Còi Trong Sương Đêm’ performed by Thanh Thuý via Hollywood Night Music.

The song marked Lê Trực's early success in South Vietnam, gaining airplay on Radio Saigon in 1946–1947, and later, on Radio France Asie after 1950. But it also led to his capture by the Việt Minh, who viewed his romantic, westernized style as reactionary. After three months studying dialectical materialism in a re-education camp, Lê Trực joined the Việt Minh and became Hoàng Việt. He initially chose the name Hoàng Việt Hận — “Hoàng” for yellow-skinned, “Việt” for Vietnamese, and “Hận” for hatred — rejecting French colonial attempts to erase the Vietnamese identity and create “Frenchmen in yellow skin.” He later dropped “Hận,” but its brief inclusion would prove prophetic in ways that even he might not have anticipated.

The transition from Lê Trực to Hoàng Việt marked a radical shift. Beyond embracing communism, he began incorporating indigenous elements into his music. In ‘Lên Ngàn’ (Ascending the Hill), he chronicled the devastating 1952 flood in Tây Ninh, where only the upland fields of Trảng Còng remained cultivatable. The song became an artistic symbol of the region, with locals hailing it as a masterpiece. It wasn't just a description of natural disasters but a testament to the resilience of ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances.

‘Nhạc Rừng’ (The Music of the Forest), written in 1953, was inspired by the Southeast region's forests. It captured a breathtaking scene: early sunlight bathing the trees, green branches swaying, leaves dancing in the breeze, winding streams, and graceful bamboo groves. The pure symphony of birdsong, cicadas, murmuring water, and rustling leaves created a dreamlike peace far removed from war. This piece demonstrated his growing ability to blend revolutionary fervor with a profound appreciation for Vietnam's natural beauty.

A love story across borders

But what truly distinguished Hoàng Việt's work was something more intimate: his love for his wife, Lâm Thị Ngọc Hạnh. Their separation after the 1954 Geneva Accords divided Vietnam inspired his masterpiece ‘Tình Ca,’ written in 1957 when he finally received a letter from her after three years of silence. This was more than just another love song; it was a radical statement about the power of personal connection in a time of national division.

A map of North and South Vietnam after the Geneva Accords of 1954.

Love had always been the wellspring of Hoàng Việt's artistry, flowing through his work long before the creation of ‘Tình Ca.’ In ‘Tiếng Còi Trong Sương Đêm,’ he had already given voice to the profound ache of separation, capturing the quiet desperation of mothers waiting for husbands who had answered revolution's call. His verses spoke of promises broken by time and circumstance:

Oh my child, your mother's heart is heavy with sorrow,
Worrying for your father across the distant mountains and rivers.
When he left, he promised to return this autumn,
But now autumn leaves have fallen everywhere.
And winter has passed, yet I wait in endless pain and longing.

A vintage cover of ‘Tiếng Còi Trong Sương Đêm.’

These haunting lines would prove prophetic, foreshadowing his fate with Ngọc Hạnh in the years following their marriage in the late 1940s. The couple met in Saigon amid the tumult of revolution, sharing both love and hardship in a re-education camp, only to be pulled apart by the tides of history: she became an urban liaison while he joined the Military Band Unit of Zone 8, constantly traveling around to create songs for the revolution. Their story of separation echoed again in ‘Lên Ngàn,’ where he wrote of a wife harvesting rice while her husband fought in distant battles: "When victory is ours one day, I'll return, and your dreams will come true."

Unlike other songs about Vietnam's 1954 division, such as Văn Ký's ‘Bài Ca Hy Vọng’ (The Song of Hope) or Phan Huỳnh Điểu's ‘Tình Trong Lá Thiếp’ (Love Within the Letter), which emphasized a rather abstract sense of patriotism and hope, ‘Tình Ca’ expressed an intensely personal love. For Hoàng Việt, the country's division meant concrete loss — he couldn't see his wife's eyes, couldn't know when they'd meet again. The song was inspired by a letter from Ngọc Hạnh that had to travel from South Vietnam to Paris before reaching him in Hanoi, as direct communication between north and south was impossible.

‘Tình Ca,’ performed by Trần Khánh and Hoàng Mãnh. Video via YouTube channel Dzung Vo.

‘Tình Ca’ was Hoàng Việt's response, broadcasting hopes that somehow, against all odds, Ngọc Hạnh might catch the signal in the south. But the song's personal, sentimental nature clashed with northern revolutionary aesthetics. It was banned for ten years, until 1967 — the year Hoàng Việt died in battle. This tension between personal emotion and revolutionary duty perfectly exemplified the struggles many artists faced during this period.

In the shadows of this silenced song, I begin to understand the deeper resonance of the name he chose upon leaving re-education: Hoàng Việt Hận. The “hatred” embedded in this early identity wasn't merely a rejection of his torn country's fate. Rather, it spoke to something more intimate and profound: the exquisite pain of separated lovers. His hatred echoed the same delicate agony that the ancient Chinese poet Li Bai captured in ‘Sadness Over Love’: “Only the tears, filling and falling, who could guess whom the heart harbors its hatred for?”

Radical love

In The Architects of Dignity: Vietnamese Visions of Decolonization, political scientist Kevin Pham presents a compelling analysis of how Vietnamese leaders approached nation-building. He argues that figures like Phan Bội Châu, Phạm Quỳnh, and Hồ Chí Minh employed shame rather than pride as their foundation. While they criticized French colonizers, their harshest criticism was directed inward, deliberately shaming their compatriots for perceived moral, intellectual, and cultural shortcomings. This self-criticism wasn't meant to destroy but to motivate Vietnamese people to fulfill their national duties. They conceptualized dignity not as an inherent individual quality requiring outside recognition, but as a collective property that had to be actively asserted through the nation's unified efforts to improve itself.

To the architects of revolution, Hoàng Việt's deeply personal expressions of love and longing represented dangerous weakness: a betrayal of collective dignity that earned his masterpiece a decade of silence. Yet for artists like him who wielded pens rather than political power, this intimate defiance of tragedy became their salvation. In their hands, personal sorrow transformed into a shield against despair, allowing love to flourish even as American bombs fell and Soviet Kalashnikovs echoed across the divided land.

The music sheet of ‘Tình Ca.’

French philosopher Alain Badiou provides a framework that can help us understand why Hoàng Việt's love was itself revolutionary. Badiou argues that true love is inherently radical, a “minimal communism” where “the real subject of a love is the becoming of the couple and not the mere satisfaction of the individuals.” By this measure, Hoàng Việt's love for Ngọc Hạnh was the pinnacle of radicalism, outlasting the ideological boundaries of his era.

For Badiou, love isn't merely feeling but active construction: two people building a new way of experiencing the world together. When lovers look at a sunset, it's not just that they both see the same sunset, but that their shared gaze creates a new way of experiencing that moment. This is what Badiou means by construction: the ongoing, point-by-point labor of creating a shared world that exists neither in one person's perspective nor the other's, but in the space created by their union while maintaining their difference.

Through their love, Hoàng Việt and Ngọc Hạnh constructed an inseparable country where lovers could reunite. Each challenge they faced, each moment of separation, became part of this constructed world.

We sing together a resounding song from distant lands,
Driving out the enemy, ending the bloody war.
Shattering all the pain and separation,
Hold firm to our enduring faith, my dear,
Keep the heart alive with a love for life.
Let us create a love song of our union,
To offer it wholeheartedly to everyone.

This wasn't just poetic metaphor; it was a radical act of world-building in the face of national division.

Their construction remained unfinished when Hoàng Việt died young. But after years in Hanoi and Sofia, Bulgaria, where he studied music and composed Vietnam's first symphony, ‘Quê Hương’ (Homeland), he returned to South Vietnam in 1966. He crossed the entire Trường Sơn mountain range to fulfill ‘Tình Ca’'s promise and see his wife once more. This journey wasn't just physical; it was the culmination of years of constructing a world where love could triumph over division.

Lâm Thị Ngọc Hạnh (right) and the couple's youngest son Lâm Lê Dũng (left). Photo via Báo Giao Thông.

Hoàng Việt died shortly after reaching his mother's hometown in Cái Bè, Mỹ Tho. But his wish eventually came true. When Quốc Hương performed ‘Tình Ca’ in the north, the weak radio signal somehow reached Ngọc Hạnh in the south, years after her husband's death — a final love letter carried on the airwaves, transcending the divisions of war. In this moment, the world he and Ngọc Hạnh had constructed through their love became real, if only briefly, proving that some forms of revolution outlast both ideology and death itself.

Nam Cao's Radical Sympathy and Pursuit of Happiness Are Still Relevant Even Today

2024-08-15T16:10:55+07:00

What messages would a young writer living in colonial times want to impart to the youth of the 21^st century?

Anyone who’s undergone public high school in Vietnam would find the name Nam Cao (1915–1951) familiar, as his short stories ‘Lão Hạc’ and ‘Chí Phèo’ are both official texts in the Literature syllabus. As a writer, Nam Cao is widely recognized for his deep sympathy for less fortunate members of society, like the farmers and poor intellectuals who were oppressed by the rich and French colonizers. Still, the more I explore his oeuvre, the more I realize that there’s more to Nam Cao than meets the eye.

Nam Cao didn’t merely provide commentary on poverty and class struggles, he transcended these patterns to depict a much more complex universe where institutions oppressed more than assisted. He also ruminated on the root causes of misery and the need to seek happiness even during life’s most turbulent times. These seemingly historical ailments have proven relevant to youths today who also struggle to find answers.

Nam Cao, the voice of young people in modern times

The French began their colonization of Vietnam at the end of the 19^th century. The colonial administration’s exploitations and transformations brought about rapid changes in the local society and economy, heightening the clash between the Europeanization movement and indigenous cultures, widening social inequality in rural areas, and depleting the people’s wealth via tariffs.

That murky historical landscape was the backdrop for Nam Cao’s formative years. He was raised in a middle-class Catholic family in Đại Hoàng Village, Hà Nam Province in northern Vietnam, where the majority of villagers were farmers. Growing up there, he witnessed first-hand the ruthlessness of colonialism and the insatiable exploitation of rural resources that led to the widespread suffering of young people in the countryside. The misery compelled him to craft vivid characters inspired by the real people he knew in Đại Hoàng.

Nam Cao’s personal life was just as grueling as his characters'. He lived with his grandma, a querulous woman who traumatized his wife to the point that she had to run away from home. His constitution was poor, so he was often sick; and he lived in poverty due to the stagnant economy exacerbated by World War II. These tribulations affected how he viewed the world, and dampened his spirits. Timid by nature, Nam Cao rarely shared his struggles with others but chose to express them on the page.

It’s crucial to note that Nam Cao was considered a young writer during this time; most of his works were written from age 20 to 36. Many of his stories revolve around people who are young adults.

'Chí Phèo' and 'Đời Thừa' — Two of Nam Cao's most iconic texts, as published in 1976 by Văn học Giải phóng Publishing House.

How do social confines shape our lived experiences?

There once were two prevailing schools of thought explaining the development of human personality: first, it was believed to form at random; then, people thought it could be the product of lifestyles. Nam Cao offered a different alternative: personalities and behaviors are affected by political, economic, societal, and traditional conditions.

According to French geographer Pierre Gourou, the seemingly bucolic exterior of northern village life in the early 20^th century obscured much livelier dynamics: power plays, wealth disparity, jealousy, and even calculatedness. Such village politics “institutionalized” the inhabitants, pushing them to blend in to survive amongst the unwritten rules, losing themselves in the process. It has never been easy to stay near the fire without getting singed. Nam Cao’s portrayals of two young fictional characters, whom I will discuss below, serve as shining examples of these machinations.

Slices of life in rural northern Vietnam in the late 19^th century and early 20^th century. Images via Flickr user manhhai.

The 27-year-old loan shark of Vũ Đại Village in the iconic short story ‘Chí Phèo’ epitomizes the degradation of humanity due to village politics. Nam Cao reminds readers early that the titular Chí Phèo was once a harmless peasant. Over time, he became obnoxious, quarrelsome, drunken, and even slashed his face to seek sympathy. These shenanigans weren’t expressions of his inherent villainy, but the results of his victimhood. Jealous power figures in the village made false against him to get him jailed and benefit from his misfortunes, while he had adapted to using violence. His behaviors also stemmed from the ostracization and evasive attitudes of other villagers, who sought to excommunicate him from their town by painting him as a demon in the eyes of others. “Perhaps even he wasn’t aware he’s become the demon of Vũ Đại Village, wreaking havoc on the villagers’ livelihood,” Nam Cao wrote.

Chí Phèo and Thị Nở, as depicted in a painting by Hoàng Minh Tường.

A similar example is Lộ from the short ‘Tư Cách Mõ,’ who had to survive in a label-hungry Catholic congregation that was all too eager to practice cancel culture. Lộ was an honest man, so he was assigned town crier (mõ làng) to help with errands for a decent wage and tax exemption. His position stoked the envy of his neighbors, who found ways to exclude him from community events and labeled him “unscrupulous” and “greedy.” Alas, Lộ eventually decides to embrace his notoriety to survive. Nam Cao ended the story on a note of realism:

Oh! As it turns out, our pity, respect can influence the character of others a lot; many know nothing of self-respect, merely because very few respect them; humiliating others is a wonderful way to turn people into a jerk.

The stories of Chí Phèo and Lộ beg the question: How many times have we decided to label someone negatively to remove them from our community?

Portrait of an anguished generation wallowing in a material world

“Amongst the young people living in poverty, woes often get replaced quickly by qualms.”

That was how Nam Cao depicted a generation of young Vietnamese forced to face two inevitabilities in life: anxiety and pain. The pain came from multiple sources: poverty, sickness, betrayal, condescension, and having to bear witness to the pain of loved ones. Lão Hạc was pained by poverty and worry for his son. Chuột in the short story ‘Nghèo’ was depressed because of diseases and debts. Chí Phèo was miserable because of poverty and hatred from the village. Hộ, writers who were the main characters in ‘Đời Thừa,’ and Điền in ‘Trăng Sáng’ were agonizing over their failure to follow their passion when their families were struggling. In contrast, Phúc from ‘Điếu Văn’ bore the pain of being cheated on by his wife. Hồng, the child character from ‘Bài Học Quét Nhà,’ was the target of her mother’s sharp tongue, which could pass for child abuse these days. Tragically, the first three in this list sought relief by attempting suicide.

'Mua Nhà' and 'Trăng Sáng' as printed in a collection of Nam Cao short stories from 1976.

Besides giving voice to the less fortunate, Nam Cao also showcased a society in which materialism was gaining influence rapidly. Community dynamics became self-centered because of the potential for personal benefits and financial gains. A good example of this shift to pragmatism is this sentence from the short story ‘Một Chuyện Xuvơnia’ (A Souvenir Story).

It was only then that Hàn realized, before even thinking about placing kisses on his lover's floral mouth, he should think of pouring rice into it first.

Another instance of society's reverence for material goods is observed in the actions of the impoverished father in ‘Một Đám Cưới’ (A Wedding), who made a secret agreement with his neighbor regarding the marriage between his daughter and her son. This “contract” only revolved around the sizable marital gifts without any concern for the young woman's happiness and agency. The overt reverence of material values in this era turned people into self-serving individuals who brushed aside the discontentment of others.

Humanity has always toiled with the desire for happiness while surviving in a treacherous world. Youths of all eras, born with a yearning for goodness, on a daily basis must face health problems, traumatizing relationships, cutthroat competition for jobs, as well as the general worsening of the economy and living environment. It’s no wonder that generations of readers feel like Nam Cao is speaking their truths even though his writing was published nearly a century ago. Still, he didn’t stop at simply depicting these social ailments, he also provided mentorship on how contemporary readers can seek solace amid life’s vicissitudes.

Guests wearing nón quai thao, a traditional headwear, at a Catholic wedding in Nam Định at the end of the 19th century. Photo via Flickr user manhhai.

“I want to be a good person!”

That poignant exclamation from Chí Phèo is a striking starting point for us to dissect the pursuit of happiness. Could one follow one’s passion and live a contented life in a society rife with misdeeds, restrictions, and pragmatism? According to Nam Cao, the answer was yes. He believed that we can find our peace, and suggested three tools to seek it: acceptance, altruism, and love.

First and foremost, acceptance is the beginning of one's journey to discover happiness. If one is feeling shaky in their career, doing what they detest, or feeling exhausted by family conflicts, they need to stand up to face the hardships head-on. Điền, the writer character in ‘Trăng Sáng,' is believed to be the embodiment of Nam Cao, relishing the sight of a night of full moon outside the window, while his wife was nagging and his baby was crying inside. During trying times, it’s often in our nature to fight or flee. The more he ruminated on the matter, the larger his frustrations and denial grew. Eventually, Điền opted to immerse in his emotions, accept his fate, and even turned that into motivation to write.

Art need not be an illusory moon, art can just be those miserable cries, emitting from star-crossed fates, echoing strongly in Điền's mind. Điền didn't need to go anywhere. Điền didn't have to hide, Điền could just stand amid the suffering, opening his heart to welcome every echo of life...

Next, nurturing a sense of altruism will help mend hurts and appease pains. Nam Cao used the story of ‘Đời Thừa’ to reflect this message via the relationship between Hộ and Từ. Hộ, a struggling writer, hoped to produce meaningful works. He adored Từ and supported both her and her child. Nonetheless, he was prone to angry outbursts every time he felt creatively stuck. Once, he promised to treat the family to some roast pork but forgot and returned home drunk out of his mind. Every time, Hộ felt remorseful when he sobered up. Despite his questionable behaviors, Từ’s affection never wavered; she still loved him, understood him, and pacified him when he cried from his struggles. It was the generosity of Từ that kept the relationship together after all the friction.

Lastly, love is the savior of all, according to Nam Cao. The classic case of this was the romance between Chí Phèo and Thị Nở, both social pariahs. Chí Phèo, the outcast of Vũ Đại Village, received support, affection, and care from Thị Nở, a woman that the village deemed “so ugly that even fiends wouldn’t touch.” It was their love that awakened Chí Phèo’s humanity to reassess his identity and start bettering himself. He felt true happiness while with Thị Nở. Just like that, their connection was a shining example of the most basic factor in human happiness: unconditional love.

Reading the world through Nam Cao’s words

Today, Vietnamese readers are exposed to many Nam Cao works, not just within the confines of textbooks, but also in cinematic adaptations, like Làng Vũ Đại Ngày Ấy. The more one explores his oeuvre, the more his brilliance shines through. Nam Cao examined an ageless hurdle of the human condition: pains we face on the road to happiness. His works highlighted three main themes: how society affected human identity, anxiety and pain in a materialistic world, and the pursuit of happiness. Building off that, Nam Cao provided ways that his characters and readers can heal on their journey by practicing acceptance, nursing their kindness, and building the courage to love.

Làng Vũ Đại Ngày Ấy, a movie adaptation of the short story ‘Chí Phèo.’

Born into an anxiety-ridden world, young people are always susceptible to feelings of precarity and disconnection. Reading Nam Cao might not provide immediate relief, but one might find something that resonates with them, or gain a new outlook on life to rekindle their faith that joy does exist in life.

The Life, Death and Legacy of 7 Pillars of Vietnam's Quốc Ngữ Literary Wealth

2024-04-22T08:00:00+07:00

When I first started as a writer, I noticed that I couldn’t write in Vietnamese very well, despite the fact that I was born here. Most of my English vocabulary comes from books, so in order to improve my mother tongue, I began reading Vietnamese texts. The first one I chose was Hà Nội Băm Sáu Phố Phường, or The 36 Streets of Hanoi, by Thạch Lam. This book had been lying on my bookshelf for a long time, but that day was the first time I picked it up.

Before reading any sentence of Thạch Lam, the foreword written by Khái Hưng already made me cry — partly because of his excellent prose, which was concise yet profound. And I was touched also because they, whom I saw as writing colleagues, had laid out a literary path that I could follow for the rest of my life.

The logo of the Tự Lực Văn Đoàn collective.

A band of literary brothers

Thạch Lam and Khái Hưng were members of Tự Lực Văn Đoàn, or the Self-Reliant Literary Group. The writer collective was founded during the French colonial era with the purpose of "enriching our country's literary wealth.” As a reader loving their works, I was drawn to the story of Tự Lực. This was not just a story about writing and journalism, it was also about the destiny of a country — a story with tragedies that still resonate to this day.

Tự Lực Văn Đoàn's key members.

“The story of Tự Lực Văn Đoàn was a huge conflict of the Vietnamese society,” Nguyễn Đình Huynh tells me. Huynh has studied the Self-Reliant group for over 50 years; he was enraptured with their story because he was born in Cẩm Giàng, the same hometown as three group members — three siblings — Thạch Lam, Hoàng Đạo, and Nhất Linh.

“Around 1925, Vietnamese literature began to shift from the brush to the fountain pen," he explains. “At that time, all French government documents changed from Confucian script [chữ Nho] to Vietnamese script, so the literary world also moved from Chinese to quốc ngữ [modern Vietnamese]."

The newspaper's "Vui Cười" (Humor) section.

Although quốc ngữ has existed since the 17^th century, it was not until the time of Tự Lực that people used it to create literature. “Besides Tự Lực, there were other people writing with quốc ngữ, but they were doing it separately and lacked association. The Group, on the other hand, was the collection of seven people, the seven best writers of all literary genres. Nhất Linh assigned their roles, this one writing essays, that one poetry… Thus, when they published a newspaper, they could cover it all.”

The Group’s work first reached its audience through Phong Hoá — Vietnam’s first satirical newspaper. With an issue in hand, readers could pore over a chapter of Nhất Linh's novel, then move on to Hoàng Đạo's social commentary, stay curious through Thạch Lam's nightlife reportage, laugh along with Tú Mỡ's satirical poetry, criticize the ludicrous mistakes of other newspapers along with Khái Hưng, shiver at Thế Lữ's horror stories, and recite Xuân Diệu's romantic poems. And holding true to the satirical identity, the section “Vui Cười" (Humor) had the most writers, with submissions not only from the whole editorial team, but also the public.

“The Self-reliant Literary Group gained popularity in the 1930s,” said Martina Thục Nhi Nguyễn, an associate professor of history at Baruch College at City University of New York. “They were the first generation who studied completely under the new Franco-Vietnamese education system. Compared to the previous generations of intellectuals, they were completely different. The previous generation of Phạm Quỳnh or Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh, if they wanted to be in academia, they had to study Confucianism. But then the next generation, of Nhất Linh, Thạch Lam, Vũ Trọng Phụng…they all learned western studies.”

In the curriculum of the west, they read foreign literature. Martina continued: “The contribution of the Group to Vietnam’s literature was applying foreign genres to create works in quốc ngữ.” The first principle of the Group was:

“Write our own books of literary value, and not just translate foreign books, if these books are purely literary.”

Instead of translating Les Miserables like Phạm Quỳnh did, the Group read foreign books, then reflected among themselves and created their own works, for their fellow countrymen, in Vietnamese. Take Thế Lữ, for example: he wrote a series of short stories about Lê Phong, a reporter who specializes in solving mysterious cases with Sherlock Holmes’ deductive reasoning.

When it first started, the Group hired a printing house to publish their books and newspapers. After that, they bought printing machines to open Đời Nay, their own publishing house. To see how popular the Group's books were, one can just look at the numbers. In the years from 1925–1945, the average book had 1,000–2,000 copies printed. As for the Group's books, at least 5,000 copies of each title were printed, with some reaching 16,000. Khái Hưng was the best-selling author with a total volume of 87,000 copies.

And then there were none

A portrait of Thạch Lam. Image via Hà Nội Mới.

In 1942, the Group lost its first member, Thạch Lam, to tuberculosis. In his final moment, his brothers in the Group couldn’t be there. Hoàng Đạo and Khái Hưng were imprisoned in Hòa Bình, while Nhất Linh had to flee to China; they had been involved in anti-French activities.

Huynh says: “If the Group had not failed in the revolution, then they would have been praised greatly. But they got into trouble because they were anti-communist. Some people say Tự Lực Văn Đoàn ended in 1942 to avoid talking about what happened after.”

At that time, France was in an inferior position during World War II, and then Japan invaded Vietnam, making the colonial government even weaker. A series of secret organizations were formed with the aim of gaining independence. Thạch Lam, Tú Mỡ and Thế Lữ were not politically active, while Nhất Linh, Khái Hưng and Hoàng Đạo formed their own party. They later joined Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, one of the non-communist parties.

From left to right: Nhất Linh, Khái Hưng, Hoàng Đạo.

Huynh said: “To tell you the truth, at that time the Vietnamese revolution was very complicated. Everybody said they were patriotic, but they were patriotic in their own way. All parties wanted to fight for independence, but this one wanted to crown a king, that one might want a prime minister, the other wanted a head of state, each had their own way.”

With their difference in ideals, the parties got so divided that eventually the Vietnamese not only fought the French, but also each other. In his last novel, Giòng Sông Thanh Thuỷ, Nhất Linh wrote about his revolutionary activities in Vietnam and China from 1944–1945, the time when tensions between Việt Quốc and the Việt Minh came to a murderous boiling point.

Photo via Quán Sách Gia Trinh.

This was also a time of decline for the Group. Phong Hoá had stopped publishing for several years after being accused of mocking the government. Ngày Nay, their "backup" newspaper in case Phong Hóa was suspended, originally focused on social issues, then became a propaganda tool for Việt Quốc. The Group’s time of writing freely had come to an end.

In 1945, the August Revolution succeeded. All the parties temporarily sat together to create the Government of Resistance Coalition, with Hồ Chí Minh at the top. Remembering this time, Tú Mỡ once wrote: “[In the new government], anh Tam [Nhất Linh] was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, anh Long [Hoàng Đạo] the Minister of the Economy. I was happy, Tự Lực Văn Đoàn may be together again. But I was wrong...”

It’s hard to know everything that happened. Not long afterward, Nhất Linh resigned and left for China. Khái Hưng was captured and executed by the Việt Minh after the Ôn Như Hầu incident. Hoàng Đạo died suddenly on a train in China, and his family is still unsure whether he was poisoned or not. Later on, Nhất Linh also drank poison and killed himself.

From left to right: Tú Mỡ, Thế Lữ, Xuân Diệu.

And so among the seven of Tự Lực, only Tú Mỡ, Thế Lữ, and Xuân Diệu lived until old age. The others were called traitors, and their descendants had to flee the country. That is why the tragedy still resonates to this day. Fortunately, the most valuable thing that Tự Lực created, their văn sản, or literary wealth, lives on.

Of the seven members of Tự Lực, only Xuân Diệu was honored with a street in Hanoi. Photos by Linh Phạm.

The book Hà Nội Băm Sáu Phố Phường is an anthology of all the newspaper pieces that Thạch Lam wrote, which were published one year after he was gone. The book has 22 chapters, among which 16 are about the cuisine of Hanoi. But Thạch Lam didn’t just simply write about food, he also described the affection that an opium addict harbors for a piece of giò, or the happiness of a cart driver sipping wine, or the way that the courtesans ate bún ốc: “The sour broth wrinkled the tired faces, the hot pepper burns the wilted lips, and sometimes makes them drop a tear that is more honest than any shed for love.”

Through food, Thạch Lam talked about the daily life of the Vietnamese. In the book's foreword, Khái Hưng writes:

“Thăng Long’s history is not just the rise and fall of dynasties…It is also the daily lives of the people, with all the customs and personalities, with all the unique characters, with all the fleeting joys and sorrows of the tiny souls living in dark corners, leaving behind no name, no legacy.”

When Thạch Lam wrote about “the tiny souls living in the dark,” he contributed to that which Khái Hưng called dã sử, or history written by the people. This part was what made me cry. I became a writer because I want to write down the things I see and hear. And from deep within my soul, I felt the longing to follow in their footsteps.

The headquarters of Tự Lực at 80 Quán Thánh was an imposing villa before, but is now obscured by shops and a bank.

Both Martina and Huynh asked why I cared about Tự Lực. I didn’t have a good answer then, but it is much clearer now. I tell their story to show my respect for the ones who built our quốc ngữ literary wealth, the ones who inspire me to keep on adding to the dã sử of this country.

This feature was first published in May 2022.

In Xuân Diệu's Tender Poetry, a Reminder to Love Honestly and Courageously

2023-06-22T11:00:00+07:00

“Tenderly, fondly, Xuân Diệu held on to my wrist, caressing it up and down. Our eyes locked in affection…Xuân Diệu loved me.”

This emotive sentence is an excerpt from writer Tô Hoài’s memoir Cát Bụi Chân Ai, published in 1992. Most well-known for the children’s book Diary of a Cricket, Hoài is one of Vietnam’s most prolific writers, with over 100 literary works in a range of genres. During the First Indochina War, Tô Hoài and Xuân Diệu were stationed in the remote border areas, where they formed a close bond that might have blossomed into something more, according to Hoài’s recollection in the memoir.

Xuân Diệu.

Across modern history, there are accounts and written records that show Tô Hoài wasn’t Xuân Diệu’s only romantic interest. He also has a relationship with poet Hoàng Cát. Through his tender stanzas, Diệu has professed his love for a number of male contemporaries, despite homosexuality being deemed a deviant illness by much of society at the time. Perhaps that’s a major factor why his poetry is drenched in longing and a hopeless sense of loneliness.

It has been almost four decades since Xuân Diệu passed away, and we can only learn of his life and relationships via poems and anecdotes. A significant portion of Xuân Diệu’s oeuvre belongs to the love poetry genre, so it’s natural that the fragments we can now glean from his life might help soothe a new generation of Vietnamese experiencing love the same way Diệu once did.

The king of love poetry

Ngô Xuân Diệu was born in 1916 in Bình Định. His literary talent flourished early. When he was 21 years old, he became the youngest member of Tự Lực Văn Đoàn, or the Self-Reliant Literary Group in English, a collective of distinguished writers in the mid-20^th century. Diệu was introduced to the public by earlier member Thế Lữ as a “wunderkind” with “a radiant and ardent soul living in gentle yet sensual, passionate yet impulsive verses.”

Xuân Diệu is the only member of Tự Lực Văn Đoàn who was honored with a street in Vietnam. Photos by Linh Phạm.

And what did that “radiant soul” imbue in his poetry? According to Associate Professor Trần Văn Toàn of the Modern Vietnam Literature department at the Hanoi National University of Education, there is ample evidence of same-sex romance in Xuân Diệu’s poems.

Toàn explains: “For example, in the poem ‘Với bàn tay ấy’ [lit: With that hand] dedicated to Huy Cận, the couplet ‘with your hand holding mine / the pain of my days subsides’ has the sentiments of a lover’s sweet nothings. An intimate atmosphere permeates the poem.”

He also quotes a handful of other doting lines such as “On a dark night, full of clouds / a tree seeks a flower, bending down / the flower seeks the grass, while the grass / leans on the moss, night enshrouds” — as if the entire universe is in love, folding in within itself. The passion reaches a crescendo in the last two lines: “Beneath the joyous moon, my gaze still seeking / the trace of that hand within mine.”

It is widely believed that Xuân Diệu (left) and Huy Cận (right) shared something more than friendship. Later on, Huy Cận married Ngô Xuân Như (middle), Diệu's sister.

Professor Toàn shares another example of Xuân Diệu, in the poem ‘Tương tư, chiều…’ [lit: Afternoon longing…], there are lines like:

I miss your face, your shape, your sound.
I miss you, so much! Darling!

One might easily interpret this as the love profession of a heterosexual relationship, but in Xuân Diệu’s first poetry collection Thơ thơ (Poésies), this poem is positioned right before ‘Với bàn tay ấy.’ The last line of ‘Tương tư, chiều…’ seems to have a smooth connection with the first line of ‘Với bàn tay ấy’:

Darling! Come closer! Give me your hand!
— 'Tương tư, chiều...'

With your hand holding mine
— 'Với bàn tay ấy'

Toàn believes that there could be a thematic progression that reflects a same-sex subtext quite clearly. When Thơ thơ was published in 1938, Xuân Diệu was also writing Chàng với chàng, or Man and Man. Unfortunately, this collection was never published.

When Thơ thơ was published in 1938, Xuân Diệu was also writing Chàng với chàng, or Man and Man. Unfortunately, this collection was never published.

However, these traces of same-sex affection were not mentioned when Xuân Diệu was alive. They were only recognized later on after stories of the poet’s private relationships were publicized. According to Professor Toàn, this obfuscation could be explained by the societal context of the time, as for an extended period of time the mindset of Vietnamese readers was entrenched in the depths of heteronormative culture.

A view from education

Each reader can form their own interpretation when faced with literary texts, but in the context of Vietnam’s public institutions, a “standardized” viewpoint is often imposed on students. That perspective can alienate some students who might not belong to the norm.

Trần Nhật Quang, an officer in charge of the LGBTI rights program at the Institute for Studies of Society, Economics and Environment (iSEE), says of his own experience learning about Xuân Diệu in school: “When we were taught his poetry, I heard talk that Xuân Diệu might not be straight. So when my teacher went through the lesson and mentioned how Xuân Diệu was into some lady, I felt a little annoyed inside. Because I thought that it was an incorrect literary interpretation, especially rendered through the teacher’s lens of male-female heterosexuality. Everyone was taught that love is just something between a man and a woman, but to me, love is so much more than that.”

In 2018, Quang collaborated with Hà Nội Queer, a group of young people passionate about changing the public perception of the LGBTQ community in Vietnam. Quang created scripts for the project’s informative videos on Vietnam’s queer history. He explains that after he could hear more stories about his community through history including that of Xuân Diệu, that childhood frustration turns into contentment.

Xuân Diệu (right) and Huy Cận (left).

“I was very happy to learn about such episodes of history, knowing that in actuality, there are many figures in the literature syllabus or elsewhere that were not as heterosexual as the teachers were saying,” Quang recalls. “I could somehow see myself in those lessons in class because they have always referred to heterosexual love when teaching about love, so I never felt myself in those lectures, I didn’t feel that I belonged to whatever was being taught.”

Regarding the vague discussion of Xuân Diệu’s orientation in a pedagogical setting, Professor Toàn says that he could understand the teachers’ reservation in alluding to same-sex love because it still generates polarizing views in the community. But personally, Toàn actively encourages his students to research and discuss this aspect of Xuân Diệu’s life when teaching his poetry.

“When I teach, I myself do mention it [Xuân Diệu’s same-sex relationships],” he shares. “Because I think it’s a factor that will help us gain a deeper understanding into the realm of emotions encapsulated in Xuân Diệu’s poetry.”

“Moreover, this discussion will also help students learn how to behave in an environment with diversity. How we treat people who are different from us defines our culture.”

From forbidden to accepted

During Xuân Diệu’s era, homosexual relationships were marginalized, even demonized. Phạm Khánh Bình, Hà Nội Queer’s co-founder, explains: “Before, the word ‘same sex’ didn’t exist, they [homosexual people] were referred to as ái nam, ái nữ [lit: hermaphrodite]. And it’s in my understanding that people view it as something unscrupulous, deviant, debauched, or even perverted. So there’s no doubt that LGBT people back then would feel suffocated, especially when your own identity is seen as something sick, something sinful.”

In the memoir Cát Bụi Chân Ai, Tô Hoài writes that, for two nights in a row, Xuân Diệu was disciplined for fraternization. He was heavily chastised, and not a single soul, not even his friends or alleged lovers, stood up for him. Xuân Diệu didn’t deny the charges, just “said through his tears 'that’s my man love… my man love…!' At once, he couldn’t speak anymore, tears filled his eyes, but he resolutely did not make any promise to stop.”

The villa at 24 Cột Cờ (now Điện Biên Phủ street) in Hanoi where Xuân Diệu and Huy Cận used to stay.

Perhaps, living through those hardships, to Xuân Diệu, “to love, is to die a little bit inside.” But even then, he continued to love, and to spread that love in his poetry. Such self-honesty turns his story into priceless materials for people like Quang and Bình to share with their community.

“When I learned that there are queer, non-conforming people in our books, in our history, I felt represented, and I realized that Vietnam is actually very diverse,” Quang says. “And when members of our community know that somewhere in our history, there are people who were like them, those who differed from the labels out there, people will feel that they belong — it’s a time-transcending connection.”