proud to be a vietnamese + what a sight of 550,000 GI' s in vietnam / poems by the phong
TENGGARA 1969
Dept of English- Univ. of Malaya
kuala Lumput/ Malaysia
Thephong
Translated from the Vietnamese
by Dam Xuân Cân
TRAN CAO LINH
PROUD TO BE A VIETNAMESE
Saigon, September 1968
We are Vietnamese. Be proud
The unbreakable flow of bullets and rockets bruises you, staggers you
singing the praises
You are a beast of burden. Can you not love your country then ?
Do not envy anyone
even if you have to live at subsistence level
Americans are a special lot. They are stinking with money, their arsenal
is fantastic.
Do you believe
that the pay of all of us, including yours
comes from their treasures?
Just as one single dollar is worth, more than two hundred Vietnamese
piasters
So a single word from the advisor-cum-master carries more weight than
a hell lot of our ideas
In the battefields we shed blood
so that our just cause will prevail some day
I say this
although I am pretty sick of hollow words like peace, independence,
and freedom
I also know the two Vietnams are hirelings of world powers
We cannot control our own fate or that of our country
This is because
we are poor and hungry
we are weak and powerless
Even if we are obtained race
we ought to be proud
Be apologetic to the Allied advisers
even when they are to blame
Forget the frustrations sufferings of over twenty years of war
Forget own youth full of scars
I know this
and I ask you never to utter a cry
never, never
Don't be shaken by the reporter who wrote in sorrow
"In Cam Ranh the Allied MP 's stripped Vietnamese girls
to search for smuggled goods
We accept their right of search but can you explain to me
Why they tore down bras and slip, and why they outraged our national
flag"
Close your eyes
forget it
pretend not to see anything
You know danm well you are got in a position to do anything about it
Of course you may blush the weakness of your countrymen
These days we are worse than beats, you you believe it?
(A beast does not stand idle while its mate of partner is bullied.)
We all knew this in kindergarten texbooks of good conduct.
Right ! Right! We are no longer ourselves in our country
I still ask you to be proud to be a Vietnamese
our country will know its days
Our people are used of endless suffering. Come and ruleover us,
O peace!
Of your friends
count the dead
and count the living
Do not forget those who died unburied, do not let them die for nothing
Do not believe an American militiaman
fights because of her goddam salary
None of us can ever bring ourselves to be mercenaries . ...
Be assured! This land of ours
improved today
will be plentful in fun eral ores
"The stratofortresses are doing justthat for us, apart from other things
which I hate to tell you about
When they xome
the mighty erath shakes violently, ceaselessly
As if under the spell of the macabre music you hear in churches on Sundays
I ask you, our sworn enemies, to be proud
that after twenty years of terrible war
You still stand on your feet
while the stratofortresses rain millions of tons of bombs and rockets
You deserve to be called true heroes of endurance
I never question this
I only ask you to open your eyes wide enough
To see your country
being reduced to a happy hunting ground
Should we resign oueselves to this
until doomsday?
Is it not strange
that today, today
there are more GI's in Vietnam than in America?
Is it not fair
to ask
whether the end of the ordeal is near ?
No matter how you feel
do not go all funny
do not show resentment to Allied soldiers
This bunch of whites, browns, blacks and reds
come here in our rescue!
They brought with them
flour
corned beef
and plastic wrapped goods
They are right of you remember out ancestral enemies
the goddam Chinese
Are ready at all times to march in to force domination upon us
It won' t not take long because they are right at our doorstep
Do not be galled by the slight of boards reading "No Admittance to Locals"
My friend
bury your face in your hands
then cast a long glance at the sea
And the mountains and forests and meadows and streams. This country
is ours.
O when will out country to be a baby in the arms of the American nurse
When will regain its place as the second rice exporter in the world ...
I have been in every corners og my country
Wherever I was could not help the pand in my heart
It us paintful to know
we are no longer able to feed ourselves
Every bullet
every toilet roll
every piece of corrugated iron
every piaster of your salary
Do not come from our land
Do not go all funny, man
mountainous sorrow will make you a philosopher
Before long
we will have no taste felt for romantic literature
Instead we will write treatises human despair
I know you
do not want to hear any more talk about it
I only want to tell you
Do not let the foreigners whore your wives
Do not approve of mixed marriages
however justified the motive
Educate your children
on the hardships and misfortunes of today
(To live in suffering is to deserve to live)
When you go out in the streets
when you are on operations in the countryside
Try hard to protect our women and girls
Do not see like cursed strangers
(Nobody can offered to be a foreigner in his own country)
Cool down man
when you are taken as undesirable background in photographs
When you see Yanks coming out of the PX all smiles
Cool down man
When you have not enough to live on
it goes without saying
You should refrain from buying gifts for your girl friend of your own race.
WHAT A SIGHT 550,000 GI'S IN VIETNAM
Saigon, 22nd October 1968
Well ! Wel l!
Our friends
The Americans have arrived in our country
They have manpower
They have money
They have munitions
(the ingredients of the magic formula)
And there are 550,000 of them
Wild places
turn into real estate
Petrified
stupefield
we Vietnamese see American establishments mushrooming
Cam Ranh Bay, Cam Ranh Air Base, Cam Ranh City
Quy Nhon, Chu Lai, Tân Son Nhât, Biên Hoa
Anywhere they set foot
they are followed by our women and girls
the fun makers par excellence
As for us
you must produce passes
when you come down to any of these places
Don 't you see signboards
reading " Local keep out"
I know how do you feel
but don 't let patriotism wall you in
(And I need not tell you true love defies petty jealousy)
In order not to be mad
keep telling yourself
We must choose between the lesser of the two evils
namely the Chinese and the Americans
We all cherish
the freedom of profession
the freedom of life
and the freedom to die of starvation
I urge you to banish all sombre thoughts
which only cloud your knowledge of the real situation of our country
Do you know
hat Vietnam is?
Vietnam the battlefield
Of irrelevant Western style democracy and phony socialist force
We
have been paying
for this
all our lives
but to no avail
Without respite
day and night
our country exposes itself
to rockets and bombs
Hundred of raids are being carried out daily
How many have died ?
We don 't know
the dead never asked to be counted
or even to be remembered
We can only be sure of one thing
we will never suffer from overpopulation
For the survivors
each grain of rice we eat
is imported from vast fields in California
Germany and Korea are divided countries too
but they are doing all right
While we are to suffer in the most cruel and obscene way
What an irony!
I 've been walking all roads of the beloved land
including foothpaths
One afternoon when I stopped terribly hungry
What have I to tell you?
Where can I ask
for a clean breathing space ?
In thousands of bars from muddy Pleiku, Kontum
to dusty Nha Trang, Danang
Our girls brazenly ply their trade with sex- starved GI's
Coloreds!
Whites!
Reds!
Blacks!
Democracy protectors!
Freedom fighters!
I have seen them all!
Right! Right! They are always right with women!
Lovers of a quick buck
our girls are not too bad
after all!
A Negro GI always showers dollars notes on the girl she sleeps with
He pays double everywhere
starting from the borthel
( he does not out of frustration with his white colleagues)
Man to man
I do not object to them
What troubles me
is the fact there are indecent women.
Do you see
my friend
'special advertisements inserted in English language dailies?
With one hundred dollars
one third of the monthly salary of a GI
you can buy two girls from good Vietnamese families
The color of your skin
does not really matter.
Oh my God!
I knew of a family with two girls
For reasons that I dare not elaborate
The elder sister set out to make loves with one GI another
She soon became unfit
and bed-ridden
Her younger sister cried loud
sinking into the deepening darkness
On the following morning
a GI turned up
saying he wanted his money back
He was simply not satisfied
he had not got the right value for his money
How the hell could I believe it?
The frail younger sister hurried to follow him
To a dingy hotel room
in stormy weather
Her parents lost news of her in a month
until one sad evening
The same GI appeared
to ask them to come to the 3 Field Hospital
to claim her corpse
She was lying there
covered by a sheet
her face pallid
She was the wife of a Vietnamese soldier
They were with each other only two days
Out of two years of married life ( You must find this hard to uNderstand)
His battalion fought
at Khe Sanh
Lang Vei
and A shau
He was the only survivor of a whole platoon
he was allowed to come home this time
Nobody dared to tell him the cause of her death
he would not believe it anyway
But for him
she was as dead as an any other dead person
de did not need to know anymore.
We have got
Cam Ranh City, Cam Ranh Air Base
Even in Tân Son Nhât
the main strip has got a foreign name
We are living in our own land
and we feel estranged
as if we are yellow Negroes.
Today
the 22nd October 1068
The radio announced
the change of color of the MPC 's took effect since yesterday
I agree completely
I have unreserved praise
for this just measure
But what did I see?
Since even this morning
a stream of sad-faced women and girls
Cramming the road to Tân Son Nhât Airport
to present a petition
Their property
their savings
their payments for 'services'
had come to nothing ...
In an office there was a Vietnamese woman
whose officer husband was away
She had a very cute son
he could mumble a few words
He wept and screamed
being very scared of his mother 's American visitors
Unlike her
he was not a bit impressed by dollars
Shaking his head
shouting louder
broken in tears
he called his father 's name
Alas
his father had long been denied leave
Now he was leading his troops against the enemy in the highlands
The woman worked for the Americans
to get better money
and that would be that -- she thought
The kinky Anerican officer who employed her thought a bit differently
He said;
" I will help you,
your husband is an army officer
he was my best friend
Not long after that
he felt madly in love with her
One rainy evening
he offered to drive her home
it rained
The car skidded on the road
when he suddenly pressed the brake pedal
The car did not overturn
but she was trapped squarely on his lap
Holding her tight
in his two hairy arm
he kissed her savagely
raped her in the back seat
He gave all the MPC 's he got
a hell lot of money I tell you
That night
the son went to bed early
unaware the officer had taken the place of his father
in the bed of his parents
The next morning
he got up
amazed to see so many MPC 's
He did not like them
he tore them to pieces
calling his mother
Startled
she rushed to him
handed him a wrapped parcel of candies
Telling him it was from his father in the war zone
Jubilant
he held it tight
mumbling his father 's name
Dead tired
after a hellish night of love
she did not bother to go to work
Streching her shoulders
half smiling
she looked at her bad filled with MPC 's
All this from the work of a single night
now she had become a millionairess
She summoned the household
handing out to them all Vietnamese notes left
The 500 piaster note with the hero Tran Hung Dao On
The 200 piaster note with the hero Quang Trung On
The 100 piaster note with Lê van Duyêt On
She said:
"I give you all these cheap things
I do not want them anymore
They are very, very cheap ... "
Today
the 22nd October
she came to work
read about it all in the newspaper
Two days previously
the American authorities announced the change of color of the MPC 's
She wanted to cry
her dream of wealth
remained a dream
Also the Yankee officer departed to the States at five in the morning
Suddenly
she remembered her husband
Suddenly
she remembered her son
She was taken to the hospital
after swallowing an overdose of sleeping pills
And she refused to be brought home
for fear of seeing the worthless pile of dollars
She broke down again
Those around her thought her delirious
When they heard her speaking English to herself:
" Go home
Go home
the Yankee
I disliked ..."
Today I went out
the roads are s good as the highway in the States
I felt gratified to the RMK
and the US Army financed road reconstruction program
Today I went out
and I had I strange feeling --
it was not election time
But I saw
NIXON -AGNEW posters everywhere
I was confined beyond words
I want to ak them what they think
the soldier wife died in the hospital
exhausted from making love with the GI 's
the officer whose wife became delirious after losing 'hard
'earned' money
I have a further question
to sk good Americans like Bernard Fall
Who wrote The Two Vietnams discussing problems in both the North and
the South
And died
on Vietnamese soil
On a field strip with the US Marines in Quang tri
I want to ask good Americans
like the US missionary
Who tried to learn about us
people of strength
But are you honest enough
To admit the stupid mistakes your fellow countrymen in the names of
friendship?
I for one cannot entertain
the purpose of our girls becoming prostitutes and boys pimps
This land of ours counts on you
Men who are not Communists
Men who have convictions
Men who are not servants
Men who have dignity
Men who do not allow wives to work for Americans
Men who have hopes
Men who bring salvation
I know you will feel humiliated
I know you will hate me
I tell you
you must learn American
(If you want to know
what the hell is going on ...)
the phong
TENGGARA
-----
* Military Payment Certificates MPC) are issued to service men as currency for military operated and services provided to Vietnam. They are used in lieu of "the green dollar".
(TENGGARA October 1968 - p. 82 - 92.)
the touring company by shirley lim .
TENGGARE- October 1968
Dept. of English / Univ. of Malaya
Kuala Lumpur/ Malaysia.
Shirley Lim
THE TOURING COMPANY
THE afternoon sun striking against the curtain surged noiselessly round. It was a hot day. A few steps out on the heated road and she had retreated in the negative discomfort of her room. Somewhere, she thought passionately, are wet, cool, running, deep sleep, ease. She saw out the window, clouds hanging torpidly over the red protruding bellies, and turned languid somersault which took much time to complete.
There was no time to watch them all. She returned to her assignment. Oberon and Titania moved lighly through the fantasy coolness of their midsummer's night and purple-blue woods. By constrast her body felt heavy, het flesh already sagging on the bone, while swear ran in uncomfortable pools in hidden joints as hollows. The play had a strange glamour for her, always., Elusive sprites, lovers' quirks, fumbling tradesmen and bureaucratic authority fell toi the quality of night, the distortion of shadow and dream. Reading the volume of criticism on it, her eyes marking went to sleep. Once too, the had been Mustardseed, a ten-year old schoolgirl in stage makeup, in gauze and wings, combing Bottom's rough hair which smelt of horse. It was perhaps then, that night first took on its weight of glamour for her, which even the long and hot days should not entirely dispel. As if she had been enthralled those few nights, or is it awakened; and all the nights after, and the days, she had been asleep in disenchantment.
The arrival of the Shakespearian Touring Company was the most exciting thing to happen in the school in a long time. The girls talked about it all during Recess, and under cover of their books. A few lucky girls had caught a glimpse of some of the actors when the Reverend Mother was showing them round the school. There was a pretty lady with long yellow hair, a handsome young boy and a big lumbering man. Their presence transformed the school. The angsana trees in the front lawn appeared to droop more darkly over the fence, the sunshine outside was dustier and brighter.
Next morning, at Chapel, she looked up to where the tabernacle was and prayed fervently. Not for anything. The quiet building the slow dancing light of the oil-lamp and the statues caught not be contained, and looked up intently towards the altar, dancing inside. So she was not especially surprised when the Reverend Mother came into class, interrupting their reading of Moses on Mt Sinai. The Company needed four fairies for their staging of
A Summer Night's Dream. Surely among this brood of cheery children are four lovely fairies. Everyone smiled and nodded . It was a happy day. She kept her eyes on the principal's black coif. The morning was burning bright. Even the dark angsana trees were leafgreen and the lawn was green with sunlight. It was decided she was to be Mustardseed, and they were to meet the players at 8 that night.
She had never been out so late at night. Cycling though Old Church Street, she heard swallows twittering in the caves of Christ- church. The streetlamps were dim-yellow, hardly lighting any large space along the narrow road. The road along the park was wider, running past the old Fort gate and its companion flame-of-the-forest. The schools on the left were unlighted and deserted. By the time she reached the schoolhall, she was hungry, having some without dinner, and a little frightened. The school corridors were unfamiliar; the holy pictures hanging along the walls, and the crucifix above the hall-door, were newly strange with menace brought on by shadow.
" Thou, hast by moonlight at her window sung,
With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;
And stolen the impression of her fantasy "
The greater part of the hall was empty. A small crowd was gathered below the lit stage. Some were talking loudly. The figure on the stage, with a hand outstrecthed, continued with what he was saying, his voice raised above the others. A few stood listening to him.
"Daphne, Daphne, where are you ?" a huge, bearded man was callingf. She had hardly arrived at the noise and movement when someome frowned vaguely at her direction.
" Oh here you are dear, well we must do something about the fairies now, musn' t we, where are the others, oh yes, xome long now, we shall have to learn a dance, can you do a little something, skip about you know, Joan Joan, come along now and give this fairy a copy. "
This agitated mouth which made a pink hole in the pale face, took charge of her. She was now a fairy, chnting " Lulla, lulla, lullaby, hulla, hulla, hullaby ."
Some distance away from their circle, the butly man was shouting furiously, " Daphne, Daphne. " She was Daphne stepping out of the unlighted wing, her yellow hair swing in the air of the stage lights.
" Yes, yes, yes, " she laughed pirouetting. " I forgot something. " Her skirt balonned and collapsed around her white thights.
Everyone paused in what she was doing to look at them. The vague mouth stopped moving and looked too at the stage, then called out clearly, " Dear, I've finished with the fairies. Do you want to try them out now ."
When he turned round, his eyebrows were in a stright line. " All right over here everybody."
The children buddled together on stage. The lights were too bright. She remembered how her eyes smarted. Also, how angry the bearded men was, walking up and down on the breadth of the hall and striking the air. " No more of your tricks Daphne."
No one paid much attention to the fairies. She could stare at Daphne who smiled on her and showed her where top stand. Beautiful lady with yellow hair, she laid down on the dusty stage floor and stretched her arms out, saying, " What angel wakes me from my flow'ry bed ?" She could not understand half of what was said, only that the words were beautiful as they were spoken by that sweet mouth. Lying on her bed that night, she thought she loved Daphne and wished to be like her. Daphne laughed at everyone except when she was acting. Even the bearded man smiled when she took his hand.
Backstage. on the night of the performance, everyone was talking and stepping out of the way. As she ran up to take a peep at the audience, her fairy's turn her clumsy, and she tripped over Titania's bank of paper flowers. Bending to examine the stiff net for tears, she saw Daphne standing behind the prop. Someones's hand was on her white dress. It was the handsome one called Lysander, talking softly. No one was looking so she twiched the curtains aside and laughed to see the teachers sitting in the front row like boarders at Sunday Maas. Then she was abashed at her excitment when Daphne, who had come up behind her, laughed in her ear. She was to hurry to the dressing room. Didn't she know that even fairies wore make-up on stage ?
Running carefully down the stairs, she found her way blocked by the bent back of the bearded man. He was shouting at Lysander, who was standing a few steps further down, and did not hear her coming. Or rather, he appeared to be shoutingh because his voice was angry, but the words were indistinct. She knew by then that he was the director which Daphne said meant that he should be angry with everyone all the time. All the players kept silent except Daphne who laughed at everyone anyway . She herself was frightened of him and when he drew back scowling for her to pass, she stumbled against Lysander. Lysander was friendly and indifferent to the fairies and she was grateful when he turned and caught her from falling. For a moment, he saw his face close-to, befoe he turned away to face the director again. His eyes had showed no consciouness of her presence. The handsome face was frowning and behind the mouth, the teeth were set tight. She ran ll the way to the dressing-room wishing she could kick the director for frightening her and for making everybody unhappy.
During most of the performance, she and the other fairies stood in the wing out of the way. They each wished secretly that she was plating Puck, or at least, that John were more friendly. They envied her her green tights, and because she had eyebrows drawn up to her forehead. She was twelve-years old and she overawed them all. When it was their cue, the stage-lights did not hurt their eyes anymore. They danced and sang loudly, and though there were mosquitoes, none of them dared scratch herself. Only once was she distracted Daphne was leading the way off-stage, where the director was waiting, smiling at them. Some one else stood some way behind him. Only the pale facec opud be seen in the shadow of the back-stage. It seemed almost asleep, like an old ivory head, and so beautiful she did not recognize who was immediately. As Daphne sweetly intended her last lines ,
"And when she weeps, weep every little flower
Lamenting some enforced chastity
Tie up my love's tongue, bring him silently ."
she was the carving break. A pinkish hole flowered out, disfiguring them oval, and is creamy perfection darkened. Before the face turned away, she recognized the lady who had taught them the dance and knew that she was crying. She put her hand out to tell Daphne this, for perhaps, Daphne would know why and would run to comfort her. Then the curtains drew shut, there was loud applause, and the director was talking to Daphne about some other thing.
At the end of the play, Daphne was given a bouquet of flowers. the children curtsied and the Reverend Mother nodded to them from the audience. Later she came backstage when they were having then make-up removed and patted them on the shoulder, saying they had performed creditably and had been good children. The players seemed to be running everywhere so that the little dressing-room was crowded, warm and noisy with everyone talking and laughing and nobody listening. Outside, the patch of the playground was
criss-crossed with light, coming from the back-entry to the stage , and from the dressing-room. Here and there the light showed the fence of morning-glory with its purple flowers now shut right, the shaky seesaw with one and lifted to the sky, and made humps of shadow on the uneven level of course grass and sand. It was the first time she was in school grounds so late in the night. She looked around her at the room crowded with all sorts, sizes and sharpes of people, cluttered with heaps of costumes on chairs, and make-up stuff falling onto af loor littered with soiled tissues, paperbags and newpaper wrappings. The excitement of the last three days left her. In its place, she left the strangeness of these people, travelling from one unknown town to another, shuttling with their metal trunks down unkown roads. Almost as it forever, she saw them travelling through countries and peoples, shut among themselves in dressing rooms and backstages, talking angry, crying , laughing. She would not the director, who came up and smilingly disimissed them with a tin of sweets each, nor the crying lady with the beautiful pale face, who even now was kneeling quietly in the corner packing the costumes away and did not look up to say goodbye. Outside, walking to the bicycle-stand she saw the stained glass of the chapel flicker with colour, and remembered wonderingly the tabernacle flame burning alone to the shut building.
She summarised the last paragraph of the chapter she was reading, squashing her writing to fit in the blank margin left on the sheet, then looked through the page. How perceptive the writer is, she thought, and yet, how absurd. No, no amount of writing however intelligent, can contain the piay. She was overcome by nostalgia. The tin of butterscotch had lasted two weeks. She had eaten a sweet a day, religiously, and each time, she had recalled the bright, exciting tune among those strange, energetic men and women. Even now, she loved buttersoctch. And somehow, since then, she had always been open to the night, and to its changes on people and things. Its total darknes brought out the colours of lights through curtains. Sometimes, in the day too, she lapsed into these strange musings and she whould grow sulky and restless. She walked up to the window and looked out across the road, to the hills. Perhaps, she thought, she should have a bath. In a few hours it would be dark. He was coming to fetch her, and they would kiss under the trees and talk about their life together. if she could only tell him how, for her, the plants and flowers, the houses drawn against the night and seen from outside. the black roads, were beautiful, but left her disturbed, reaching forward to where he and the place were not.
She did tell him, but diffidently, nor passionately as she thought she would. He was silent. She knew then that the critics were right after all. That fairies were the other side of madness, and as much beings of darkness as she had taken them to be magical and delightsome creatures. She lay back smiling on the grass and let the moon stare into her eyes, seperated from him by his silence till the sound of his unhappiness reached her and she turned back to him. []
shirley lim
----
* SHIRLEY LIM also writes poetry. She is graduate student in the University of Malaya, and is shortly to submit an M.A. thesis on the novels of William Golding. TENGGARA' S CONTRIBUTORS .
from a writer' s diary : the phong / translated from the vietnamese by dam xuân cận
TENGGARA - October 1968
Dept. of English- Univ. of Malaya
Kuala Lumpir- Malaysia
Thephong*
translated from the Vietnamese by Dam Xuân Cân
FROM THE WRITER' S DIARY
---
* A selection of Thephong's poetry appeared in the April 1968 sisue of TENGGARA.
Saigon 1968
I started writing in 1952 in Hanoi - in the first days of the Vietminh-launched autumn winter offensive when the rumble of artillery reached even the capital. My
mother was the last of the Đỗ clan to be reported as lost after the fall of my native town Nghĩa Lộ. I felt compelled to write in my lonely state. Writing then brought me some solace.
As the beginning of 1953 when I ceased to receive any money from my mother, I was obliged to embark on journalism of the humblest sort. I was charged with collecting news tips around the four districts of Hanoi nad the corts as well. I also assumed the duties of a proof-reader in the afternoon and evening. Whereas my colleagues received one thousand five hundred piasters monthly, my boss Vũ Ngọc Các paid me one thousand. I had to earn my daily bread by the sweat of my brow.
I came to South Vietnam before Dien Bien Phu and the subsequent Geneva Agreements. Of my first ten years of my profession as a writer, I was an official on a contractual basis for eighteen months only. I was known under the pen name ThêPhong coined by LTD and myself at the foot of an electric pole in front of my aunt villa in Chợ Đuổi Street. This magical name keeps ringing in my ears.
In those days, there were very few Notherners and life was pretty hard for me. The highest price I enjoyed for a review was one hundred and fifty piasters. At that time, I had in store some memorial novels dealing with life of my montagnards in my homeland in the nothernmost part of North Vietnam. They were Tình sơn nữ
( A Highland Lass's Love) written in Hanoi, Đợi ngày chiến thắng ( Waiting for Day of Victory), and Gái Nghĩa Lộ ( A Girl from Nghĩa Lộ) , written in Saigon. The royalties for this trio were three thousands piasters for the first edition of two thousand copies. It was really great for an apprentice writer like me. The public received my novels with much enthusiasm.
The charge that I held many a critic in slight contempt was partly justified. The so-called critic could not fail to acclaim any book by any influtential man. Take this case. When a book by [Phan Văn] Tạo was released, lots of provincial cadres offered to sell it and some tens of newspapers were quick to comment on it favourably. Even a minister in Bảo Đại' s era wrote a partisan review in his extremely polished style in le journal d' Extrême Orient the prominent French language daily in Saigon. I knew and I still believe he did not write it out of sincere admiration. When Phan Văn Tạo presented his book to Nguyễn Đức Quỳnh, then adviser to the Minister, the latter said, " You're only a writer with half of your being because you're only acquainted with the pink side of things." To quote Jan Kott,
Uniformity of opinion writing intellectuals is always a bad thing. The more complete it is, the worse the ornen is. Uniformity of poorly informed opinions are all the more so. We deplore conformity. It's like witnessing a farce to hear a Minister of Culture Affairs makinga place to writers to work harder while he did not believe in literature.
Although the situation then was not so bad as in Poland where writers were commi- ssioned by the government, we are heading towards such a course of things. After the war many writers who could not put up with privation, hunger, and misery have dropped their sense of mission. Here is another quotation by Jan Kott,
What worrie me is no the fact that many Polish stories are badly written, but the fact that many Polish writers are standing around and telling lies. As a critic, I feel it is any duty to scrutinize the artist's motivation, that is, real behaviour or his attitude towards life. I cannot praise a book if it does not reflect some concern about life. I felt nauseous when literary awards were decided by government officials who had very little knowledge, if any, of literature.
Can government officials become great writer ? Perhaps, but only something like one out of a million. The majority of them only uphold the order of the Town Hall clock, not that of the Eternal Clock.
I was never keen on behaving myself and writing as if I had my head in the clouds. Only those to whom luxury and misery make no difference and who do not compromise with their conscience can understand me. For this I wrote these words by Essenin in capitals : DRINK WITH ME, O SUFFERING FEMALE DOG! DO COME AND DRINK WITH ME ! In alien Paris, after losing his money Mayakovsky aked for help from friends and had to swear, shrugging his shoulders, " How could these lousy bastards dare to think of generosity."
Those who insist on having a tasty breafast with a gulp of delicious coffee, those who enjoy the wishful thinking of having contributed to national culture after attending functions held in luxurious hotels has better and read my books if they wish to avoid disappointment. My sort of rugged literature is definitely not to your taste. Don't torture me any more. Stop giving me the fly-caused itchy sensation to a pussy wound. You can go and pick up pretty girls, suits expertly tailored in cities as far as Paris, a set of wierd buttons, a new pipe, a specially imported on a top bottle of perfume. Sophisticates, you are surely much smarter than I can afford to be. Most of us writers are lucky if we have enough for ourselves to eat, let alone feeding wives and kids. We write because we cannot escape it, being victims of what we may all complexe d' obession .
***
In the last ten years of writing how I did live ? Time and again, I faced hunger, humiliations of all sorts and committed such unsavoury acts as theft and extortion of money from friends. All sorts of queer things. All my enemies can use these to discredit me if they want to; there is no need for them to forge any other accusations. Or, they can just quote from my published autobiography Nửa đường đi xuống ( Midway in my Life' s Journey), wherein the author is never evasive about any issue, however touchy it is. I have never practised blackmail and I am living victim of blackmail; I have never been a vandal and I am branded a literary vandalist un-
honourably. I am just an agnostic - never an atheist. I am condemned of being a Judas, the traitor who sold out Jesus Christ. An innocent I was reported to be chief of the destructive commitee. All this happened to the simple writer that I was when the tempo of my literary activities as an all time low.
In France the great playwright Jean Anouilh swore he would never write for dailies. I cannot but thoroughly agree with him, knowing what rubbish Vietnamese dailies are. As a former journalist, I cannot believe my eyes when I read all the rubbish in the newspapers. Fortunately I am no longer a journalist. I was once a contractual official for eighteen months because of hunger and because of my lack of courage. Afterwards, I served again as an official for six months. According to the contract,
I was to receive five thousand piasters a month. After two months, I was given four thousand only, due to the budget squeeze. I was forced to resign when I learnt there would be a further cut in my salary. And it took me unbelievable patience to realise
a claim for the salary. I was entitled to. At last I was convinced that I could not hang on to the government payroll as long as I wanted to write. Independence of thought is the sine qua non of any conscientious writer.
In my ten years of writing, there are at least three memorable events concerning three of my readers and myself. I am going to ralate them one by one. I did not know the first reader, a Quang Trung Training Center Canteen salesgirl. [Nguyễn Quốc] Toàn, a man who had fed me for some time came to the Center as a national serviceman. He took some of my books there to read and lent her my autobiography Nửa đường đi xuống ( Midway in My Life's Journey) . Upon returning it to him she said, " I think I should lodge a complaint against you. I was so absorbed in reading the Thephong you lent me I forgot to watch the customers. As a result, I lost a couple of fountain pens!". Nguyễn Quốc Toàn also said he was allowed to buy on credit. I felt immensely proud of having such a keen reader. The second reader was a Faculty of Letters student from Central Vietnam who met me in the street. He stopped to say,
" Hello there " and then continued, " I know you because I've read your book Nửa đường đi xuống which my brother bought. I can recognise you from your photo on the jacket."
Heisitatingly, he asked me whether I has lunch. It was around three in the afternoon then. I was deeply moved knowing my account of hunger in the autobiography was very convincing. I have not seen him since and do not even recall his name. But I would will recognise him if I saw him again and I remenber the address he gave me, 66 Phó đức Chính St. I did not go then. The third event occurred during I visit I paid in 1963 to Tùng Nghĩa, the settlement area reserved for the Tháis of Lai Châu , Sơn La and Nghĩa Lộ. I had brought a camera with the intention of taking snapshots of the sweet Thái girls -- the beautiful flowers of my hometown Nghĩa Lộ. I was a bit disappointed because I did not see any girl in the traditional dress. When my friend and I stopped in front of a house next to a well I struck up a conversation with a Thái woman. When her daughter of about seventeen or eighteen overheard me speaking in Thai she came out to join us although she was ill at the time. I asked her in Vietnameses whether she was Thái. She nodded and very graciously she invited us in. We sat around a table made of enough unplaned wood. She asked us where we came from and what we were doing. Before I could reply my friend hastily declared I was a writer. She put out her tongue and frankly confessed she was very much afraid of journalists. Then she sked me about my job. She let me know that she read a "forest" story about Thailand and had enjoyed it very much. I enquired about the title of the book and the name of the author. I also asked her if she had kept it. She went in and brought it out. The cover of the book was torn and covered with signatures of all sizes and descriptions and in all sorts of ink. The student accompanying me was very young and did not know much about me except that I was a writer. Looking at the jacket, he said in surprise, " Here he is, the author of this book." I was deeply touched that my book was appreciated by a girl in this isolated place -- a girl from my hometown. I told her I wrote it a long time ago. She praised and criticized me at the same time. According to her, the description of life in Thailand was accurate; but I had made a mistake in using the word koóng khảu for kóm khảu. I learned that her name is Lò Lệ Thu or La lệ Thu if it is Vietnamesed. But I prefer the first. Later I wrote a dedication to her at the beginning of my book of poetry Trước mắt nhìn thi sĩ ( Under the Poet's Eyes) written in Dalat in this period. Those who cared for me most were poor people.
Let's stop wondering about the innumerable manifestation of hypocrisy in a society like Vietnam. Let's not forget Vietnam has been under a process of disintegration for eighty years under French dominatiuon and twenty years of grinding war.
When I come to their lines it is eleven in the morning. People are battling with each other right next to my boarding house. The cause of it all ? The rubbish from foreign-operated tracks stationed near the rubber plantation. They hope and so I do. But my hope is only that I would be able to write about their hard life, their relentless struggle for life in this hard core prostitute-inferred area. After probing deeper into their motives, I no longer feel nausceous. They are just human beings. Let us struggle for life, no matter how much sweat we will have in shed. I wrote about them in Khu rác ngoại thành ( The Rubbish Tip outside the City ).*
---
* Thephong: Khu rác ngoại thành
( The Rubbish Tip outside the City, Dai Nam Van Hiên, Saigon ( 1963.)
How to sum up my experience in ten years of writing? What makes me so bitter was just the sheer lack of courage on the part of the so-called intecllectruals, writers, artists, enginners of the masses' soul -- in short the backbone of any viable society. What makes me still hate them like hell is simply their hypocritical preaching about humanity's love and so on. And I wrote,
Be assured , intellectual worms who cling to the vegetable tops
When you die, you'll occupy three-meter-long tombs
And these bitter lines of poetry,
Suddenly I was dumb-struck for the fact of my country was in full plight
I live in Saigon the year round without a warm coat
Witnessing my people searching for food around the foreign-operated
rubbish dump
I am standing pensively at the Bảy Hiền crossroads
Watching kids growing on bread scattered on the earth
And the older boy presenting his brother with a piece of chocolate
picked up from the roadside
I cannot contain my anger ...
Why on earth did they dare consider art as mere ornament
The white-collared students by day turned artists by night
The visiting-card supported poets are so numerous
the painters cannot promptly carry out the orders
All of them was using literature the same way as bar hostesses
Look! The millionaire's poet son is expressing his pity for beggers
The ex-sub-prefecture chief is expounding a new way of life
Can we believe in the love for humanity expressed in his book
With a fervid tone which can be matched by a judge's voice
While he keeps giving his dog a daily ration better than a Viet's.
When I visited Thai's settlers in Tùng Nghĩa ( Dalat )
I was struck by this scene:
Thai kids have water in their moths, craving for sticky rice
And they cry because this Têt they won' t have firecrackers
When their parents share their sadness, who is in a position
to tell them to be cheerful
Thinking of what the future holds for them, I give this conclusion:
And this society, this life, this sun is still as dark as night itself
I believe my sane statements scattered here and there will shed
light on reality, and consequently will help politicians to do
something about this shocking state of affairs
O the people who have lived through many years of ordeal due
to the communists and colonialists and the Fanoti rulers:
The million square meters of cultivated land
belong to my countrymen
The million lines of poetry which can become
directives for this nation in the future
Should be preceded by the million lines of poetry
cataloguing the hardship of today ...
( Trước mắt nhìn thi sĩ -
Under the Poet's Eyes )
After a full breakfast considering of steak and casse-croute a friend of mine, aged 50, gave me this 'advice' reassuringly: " Go one like this for someone, man. After you get it won't long before you understand us better and then it's entirely up to you to hate or pity us. " I was really upset, although for a very brief moment only.
A lot of indecent intellectuals who used to be very keen on doing good to the public in pre-war times tried by any means to achieve wealth in the post-war period. And their famous excuse was that they did such and such a thing because of wives and kids. What a shame for them. And what a pity for the women who are their wives and the boys who are their children! Unsucessfully writers have the potential to become efficient censors or alert informers.
I think I will get married. This year I am thirty-two. Accoding to Shin Nai An who wrote that masterpiece of Chinese fiction, All Men Are Brothers. I should not get married at this late age. But if I do, I will strive to feed my wife and children by the sweat of my brow. I am no different from you, nor do I want to be because I still cannot afford any other thing than red rice, dried fish, chilly and pepper. But I' m
a bit different from you because I have the guts to say that I have been a bloody liar or I have robbed needy friend. I am not a coward and I know what I am doing for my country literature. And this is the reason, I could not help writing this short account of my life as a writer. I am not simply a man beset by narcissim.
In 1959 writer Thiên Giang wrote an open letter to Nguiễn Ngu Í dicussing my case. Mr Ngu Í has shown me the letter. He also expressed his desire to see me in his residence at Xóm Chuồng Ngựa, Gia Định Province to have the opportunity to praise my efforts in promoting the national literary output. that isenough for me. I want to say thanks to the journalist who jokingly said, " Never think that there are such word as Thephong in the Vietnamese language. Never mention them ."
thephong
( TENGGARA, Volume II, Number 2 1968 - p. 52 - 57).
