Hoai Thanh and his homeland of Nghe An

I remember, when I was in my early elementary school years in Hue, the school had a rule: students had to write their name, year of birth, and hometown on the "etiket" (notebook label). In the hometown section, my father only allowed me to write: "Kim Cam Village, Kim Nguyen Commune, Nghi Loc District, Nghe An Province." That place name was my paternal hometown, where my father was born. Later, that village was also called Hoang Cac Hamlet. Currently, it is Hamlet 22, Nghi Trung Commune, Nghi Loc District.

In the essay "Returning to the Village" (1), Hoai Thanh recalled his old impression of his hometown: "In the past, I always thought my province was one of the poorest in the country, my district was one of the poorest in the province, and my village was one of the poorest in the district." Before the August Revolution and then the two wars along with many other historical changes, that land was probably still ranked at the bottom of the list of poverty.

But poverty could never erase or extinguish the will to overcome the harsh challenges of nature and history, nor could it make the people here bow their heads in resignation to their disadvantaged fate. On the contrary, the people here have held their heads high with the spirit of Nghe An, contributing to the country, to history, and to national culture—many heroes, martyrs, and talented individuals who are remembered by generations of Vietnamese people.

"At the beginning of this century (20th century-TS), there were white Lao winds that blew through the night, turning hair white, continuously throwing in a relentless barrage of fierce warhorses like Mongolian horses across the scorching fields of the villages, burning tiled houses as well as thatched houses. On those nights, our grandfather and Hoai Thanh, after the collapse of the Van Than movement, would spend the whole night burning incense to finish writing the Nam Su Dien Ca (Let's burn incense until morning - Let's see how long the rain and wind last?).(2).

In 1909, on July 15th, in the scorching heat of the Lao wind, Hoai Thanh was born in that poor village. "For many years at the beginning of the century, what I call the people of Nghe An - Tinh Hoa were born through a continuous mixing, molding and tempering, every hour and every minute by the nurturing, education, in general, an endless life according to a predetermined formula of combination... And then, Vietnamese mothers and wives rose up one after another to defeat the barbarians (the invaders - TS.) in the forever heroic Thermophyles battles" (3).

His homeland bestowed upon Hoài Thanh "a unique and very special capital, such as a wealth of knowledge about the gardens, fields, and villages; proficiency in bird hunting, kite flying, separating rice stalks to catch perch, climbing trees to get bird nests, searching for chestnut blossoms by the ponds in the midday summer heat; and finally, allow me to call it the seed of poetry, so that later, if he finds good soil to sow, he can hope to cultivate it into poetry: Sister An! Do you see anything? You only see the setting sun and the lush green grass!"

That's how the two of us

That's how Hoai Thanh

Thus, children were born during the years of national ruin and family destruction" (4).

Hoài Thanh remained connected to his village until he was nineteen years old. During his childhood, he participated in farming to some extent while attending village school. When he went on to study at the primary school level in Vinh, he had to work as a tutor and open summer classes to support himself and help his family. In 1928, he went to Hanoi to study at Buoi School (now Chu Van An School). Before that, in 1927, while studying in Vinh, he participated in the movement demanding amnesty for Phan Boi Chau and the memorial service for Phan Chu Trinh. And, according to Nguyen Duc Binh – his cousin who was in the same class and school as Hoài Thanh at that time – as recounted in the article I quoted above, the student Nguyen Duc Nguyen (Hoài Thanh's real name) always ranked first in his class and received an honorary degree from the school every year. "And one morning, a gentle and timid student was seen transforming into a kind of little leader, launching a vibrant movement that attracted every student in the school to live according to the national spirit: eating, dressing, speaking in Vietnamese, in the Vietnamese style, and speaking in Vietnamese instead of French" (5). Because of such patriotic activities, during his school years in Vinh, Hoai Thanh was recorded in his school record as: "Having a bad mind, must be closely monitored" (6). In the same year, 1927, while still studying in Vinh, Hoai Thanh joined the Tan Viet Revolutionary Party.

While studying at Buoi School, Hoai Thanh continued his activities with the Tan Viet Party. In early 1930, the Tan Viet Party collapsed. Hoai Thanh was arrested by French secret police and imprisoned at the Hanoi secret police headquarters, then transferred to Vinh and imprisoned in Vinh Prison. Hoai Thanh was sentenced to six months of suspended imprisonment and allowed to return to Buoi School to continue his studies. One day, French secret police searched Hoai Thanh's locker and found books on anti-government politics, so they expelled him from school. Hoai Thanh had to tutor privately to support himself and continue his studies until he passed the French baccalaureate exam (at that time, having been expelled from school, one was not allowed to take the local baccalaureate exam). In mid-1930, Hoai Thanh worked for the Pho Thong newspaper in Hanoi. He worked at the same newspaper office as the writer Ngo Tat To and his cousin Nguyen Duc Binh.

Hoài Thanh's writings had an anti-French colonial tone, so they were often censored. At that time, the colonial government's policy was not to censor newspapers published in French. So, Hoài Thanh discussed with the newspaper owner the idea of ​​publishing Le Peuple (The People) to freely criticize the French colonialists and their collaborators. This was the first French-language newspaper in North Vietnam. The newspaper sold very well. Three issues were published, and while issue number 4 was being printed, an order came from the French to deport Nguyễn Đức Bính and Hoài Thanh. Both were imprisoned at the Hanoi secret police headquarters and then taken to Vinh, where they were placed under house arrest by the district and village chiefs. This was at the end of 1930, when the Nghệ-Tĩnh Soviet movement was at its peak. Hoai Thanh wrote in "Autobiography": "I was bewildered and didn't understand anything (meaning I didn't understand the Nghe-Tinh Soviet movement - TS). I only knew one thing: with the suspended prison sentence and the deportation sentence, I could be arrested and very likely killed. At that time, the Foreign Legion's garrisons were densely packed in my hometown, and every day they were killing people without any reason. In addition, famine was raging. I went to Vinh to find work. Billet, the chief secret police of Vinh, called me and offered me to be his henchman. I refused. A short time later, I found a teaching position in the house of a Chinese man, the owner of the Republic Hotel in Vinh. Bui Huy Tin, the owner of the Dac Lap Printing House in Hue, passed by and, knowing I had a high school diploma, negotiated to bring me to Hue to work as a proofreader in the printing house (1931)" (7).

Hoài Thanh worked as a mechanic, then taught privately, wrote for newspapers, and authored the books "Literature and Action" and "Vietnamese Poets" for over 15 years in Hue. At the end of 1945, following a decree by President Ho Chi Minh (signed on October 10, 1945) establishing the Faculty of Literature, Hoài Thanh was transferred to Hanoi to teach at the university. When the nationwide resistance war broke out, Hoài Thanh returned from Viet Bac to his hometown, taking his wife and children with him until 1955, when he returned to Hanoi to take on new responsibilities: Director of the Arts Department, Professor at the University of Pedagogy and General Studies, Vice Director of the Institute of Literature, General Secretary of the Union of Literature and Arts, Editor-in-Chief of the weekly magazine Văn Nghệ (Literature and Arts),... Years passed, and Hoài Thanh often only managed to visit his village briefly, sometimes for a couple of days, or even just a few hours before having to leave again for work. His longing for his village remained a constant ache. It wasn't until 1961, nearly thirty years later, that Hoai Thanh had the opportunity to truly return to his village for a period of time. The emotions and impressions of that trip were vividly recorded in his essay "Returning to the Village," first published in Thong Nhat Newspaper, issue 224, dated September 15, 1961. Hoai Thanh wrote emotionally: "As my feet walked on the fine sandy village road, it felt like I was going back into the past, a distant past, not only because of the passage of time but also because of the great changes that had occurred."

In the distance, I could see the sparse bamboo stalks behind the old garden. How dear those bamboo stalks were to me. In the old days, when I left home to study in the city, looking back at those swaying bamboo stalks, tears would well up in my eyes, I couldn't hold them back. In my young mind back then, amidst a life full of coldness, deceit, and cruelty, only here was there love. Now, life has changed, and my perspective on life has changed too, but those bamboo stalks still hold a special place in my heart.

I know every bamboo grove, every corner of the rice paddies, every bend in the road. I stepped into the old garden. The old house was gone. Only a few of the trees my teacher planted before remained. But amidst the new scenery, I still remembered everything old vividly. It was as if remembering was clearer than seeing, the images of the past more vivid than the scene unfolding before my eyes. I remembered the guava tree by the pond, the well in the corner of the garden where the south wind cooled the air, the hibiscus bushes outside the gate where my younger sibling would rush out to greet me and give me a piece of candy, the crape myrtle trees whose flowers we would string together into purple beads every spring, the honeysuckle bushes behind the house where sparrows often built their nests, the bamboo bed where my mother died, my teacher's reading table, and so many kind, pitiful faces.

Returning to his hometown that year, Hoai Thanh said: "Suddenly, I started speaking in my hometown accent, an accent that is very difficult to understand in other places because not only is there no distinction between heavy and heavy tones, or rising and falling tones, but at first listen, it seems as if there are no distinguishing tones at all. But to me, it sounds light and clear."

In his essay, Hoài Thanh vividly portrays the miserable lives of people in the countryside of yesteryear, depicting scenes of the poor starving to death, thugs demanding debt repayment, and French customs officers, secret agents, and legionnaires tormenting the people "more ferocious than the dogs of the rich." Along with these tragic scenes is an invisible world of malevolent spirits and ghosts weighing heavily on the lives of gentle, powerless people. Hoài Thanh wrote: "Those dark shadows weighed heavily on a whole period of my life, especially on my thoughts during my youth. Therefore, although I regret my lost youth, I would never want to return to my old life... To say that on the way back to my hometown, I felt as if I were going back in time, is actually because I still carry the past within me. My perceptions have changed in many ways. But regarding my village, my perception remains almost the same as before. One can imagine that I slept for thirty years, and now suddenly I wake up to find that the whole life around me has completely changed."

In his memoir, Hoài Thanh carefully recorded the positive changes in the life of his village, despite the hardships of that era. Concluding his memoir, Hoài Thanh joyfully wrote about his overwhelming feelings upon returning to his beloved village: "Life, shrouded in darkness for hundreds, even thousands of years, has suddenly become bathed in light. Certainly, in many other places, our achievements are far greater. But never before have I felt the revolutionary cause so miraculous as when I look back at my village..."

If only my father were granted a hundred years of life (in 2009, Hoai Thanh would be 100 years old), I would definitely hold his hand and we would walk back to our hometown together. I believe that when we get off at Quan Hanh station, after walking a short distance to the site of the old Hoi Temple (now a gas station), he would ask: "Where are the banyan tree and the Hoi Temple?" Without waiting for my answer, he would urge me: "Let's go to the cemetery to light incense for my grandfather, ancestors, relatives in the Nguyen Duc family, my uncle Nguyen Duc Cong (a patriot who participated in founding the Vietnam Restoration Association, executed by the French colonial government along with the patriot Tran Huu Luc at the Bach Mai shooting range in Hanoi in 1916. The two are buried together in one grave in the Nguyen Duc family cemetery, branch of the Hanh Tau family. Nguyen Duc Cong was the father of Nguyen Duc Binh - PhD) and your younger brother Nguyen Duc Kien." I believe that after lighting incense at the family cemetery, my father will visit the family church, light incense, and surely he will insist on going straight into the village to see the old house foundation and garden, chat with relatives and neighbors, and endlessly express his joy, delight, and surprise at the changes that he could not have imagined when he returned to the village in 1961!

Lang Ha, Hanoi, mid-April 2008

PhD

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All quotations from the authors: Nguyen Duc Binh (from footnote 2 to footnote 5), Hoai Chan (footnote 6), and Hoai Thanh (footnotes 1 and 7) in this article are taken from Hoai Thanh's Complete Works (volumes 3 and 4). The book was compiled and edited by Tu Son. Van Hoc Publishing House - Hanoi - 1999.

(1) Ibid. Volume 3, p. 928.

(2) Ibid. Volume 4, p. 1035

(3) Ibid. Volume 4, pp. 1036-1037

(4) Ibid. Volume 4, p. 1038

(5) Ibid. Volume 4, p. 1042

(6) Ibid. Volume 4, p. 1025

(7) Ibid. Volume 4, p. 913.

Writer Tu Son (Hanoi)