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A Vietnamese Family Chronicle

Page 17

by Nguyen Trieu Dan


  In the old tradition, a descendant should not write the chronicle of his own family, but should ask a close friend to do it. The original idea could have been to gain more objectivity, although what a friend may feel freer to do is to praise the family’s merits and achievements; it is hard to see that he would criticize or write bad things about it. In any case, what often happened was that a descendant actually wrote the chronicle and the friend only copied it. To me, this tradition underlined the value of friendship in our culture. Close friends were like brothers; indeed, the culmination of friendship was, as in the case of the three warrior-heroes in the Story of the Three Kingdoms, to take the oath of brotherhood. What better way to link your best friend to your family than by asking him to write its chronicle?

  The cover of the chronicle. The four large characters stand for “Chronicle of the Nguyen family.” The smaller characters stand for “Province of Ha Dong, Prefecture of Thanh Oai, Canton of Phuong Trung, Village of Kim Bai.”

  It was also a nice way to keep a friend’s calligraphy, for scholars considered calligraphy not only as an expression of a man’s personality but also, when it was well executed, a work of art. Moreover, I believe that the tradition may help save some family histories from being lost. Insecurity has often marked our people’s lives. In troubled times, a family may lose all its documents and find itself cut off from its roots; that had happened several times in the history of our own family. It could, therefore, be a useful insurance to have someone else with the knowledge of one’s family lineage. Regrettably, this endearing tradition of ours has vanished. With the onset of the communist revolution in 1945 and several decades of war which followed, how many Vietnamese have had the opportunity to sit down and write their family history, let alone ask a friend to write it?

  Duong Ba Trac, the close friend whom my grandfather asked to write our chronicle, was a leading nationalist figure. A graduate of the License Examination, he was known to us as Licentiate Duong, Duong being his family name. Vietnamese are normally called by their personal name but, as a mark of respect, grandfather’s friends were referred to in our family by their surname. Licentiate Duong and grandfather attended the same school and graduated in the same year. He engaged in political activities against the French regime and was imprisoned in 1907. After his release, he declined to enter the mandarinate and adopted an attitude of noncooperation with the protectorate. Grandfather, for his part, became a mandarin. In spite of their divergent political attitudes, they remained close, as did their families.

  Several younger brothers of Licentiate Duong studied under grand-father. One of them was our prefect-poet of Tet, who married grandfather’s niece. Licentiate Duong was a well-known writer, many of whose poems became so popular that they were mistaken as folk poems. Children learned them at school. His calligraphy was quite different from grandfather’s. Its round and feminine-looking characters showed the sentimental disposition of a poet, whereas grandfather’s were quite lean and angular. I was too young to remember Licentiate Duong. During the Second World War, he and some nationalist leaders fled the country for Singapore, then under Japanese occupation. There, they organized opposition against the French domination and were groomed by the Japanese to take over the leadership of the country when the time would come for them to bring down the French regime. But Licentiate Duong contracted a malady and died in exile.

  After retiring in 1940, my grandfather translated the scholarly text of our family chronicle into the popular language, using the romanized script. In the translation, he added a great deal of information concerning his father’s generation. However, he did not bother to bring the scholarly text up to date for by that time that script had become a relic which only a few of the young generation could read. Also, by then, the friend who “wrote” the original text had left the country and was destined not to return.

  Both scholarly texts were kept in our ancestral home. When French troops began making incursions into our region early in 1947, grandfather gave me the responsibility of keeping them. Kim Bai had become unsafe and our family was preparing to move to a village in the Lichee Field. The last months had been traumatic for him. First, news came that his house in Ha Dong was burned to the ground as the communists implemented their scorched earth policy and set fire to the town. Then, his only surviving brother died. Soon after, my father and brother were captured and taken away by French troops. Kim Bai was attacked by the French who pillaged our ancestral home. Grandfather’s own health deteriorated and now, he was going to have to leave his village.

  I was called to his study and found him sitting at the same place where he used to teach me the Chinese script, with the two copies of the chronicle on the desk in front of him. He looked tired and worried.

  “I want you to take these books and keep them safe,” he said.

  Instead of giving me the books, he opened a copy and started reading. I stood next to him and waited. After a while, he asked me: “Have you read the family chronicle?”

  I was rather surprised by the question and replied quickly: “Yes, I have.”

  “No, I mean this text,” he said, pointing at the copy he was reading which was written in the old scholarly language. “Can you read it?”

  “Yes, I can,” I answered, “although there are a few words that I do not understand.”

  He went back to reading, then told me: “We are lucky that we still have these books. All the documents in Ha Dong have been destroyed. You should take them with you whenever we have to flee. Do not leave them behind. We must not lose them.”

  The chronicle in the new “national script” using the romanized script. This was typed circa 1942. My grandfather added the scholarly characters to the names. The photo shows the first page of the chronicle, starting with these lines: “A tree has countless branches and a dense canopy of leaves, because its roots grow deep into the soil....”

  He appeared now in a more expansive mood and went on: “Several times in the history of our family, chronicles have been destroyed and our ancestors have had to reconstruct them. Your great-grandfather’s generation and mine spent a great deal of effort searching for our roots. When I was young, our first ancestor, the Count, was unknown to us. We could only trace our lineage back to Ancestor Nguyen Uyen who . . ..”

  I cannot remember another occasion when grandfather had talked to me about the chronicle, but he had just started when some guests came to see him. He stopped talking, gave me the books and did not return to that subject.

  At that time everyone of us had, within easy reach, a bag containing valuables and other belongings, ready to be grabbed when the alert was given and we had to flee. The books were constantly kept in my bag. They went with me to our refuge in the Lichee Field, then farther away to the village of Sao. After my grandfather died, the front line moved closer to Kim Bai. My family decided to leave the communist zone and join my father in Hanoi. I took grandfather’s copy with me while the official chronicle was left in the safekeeping of grandfather’s youngest son.

  My uncle and I were of the same age and as close as two brothers. He was, in fact, a few months younger than me. Physically, we could not have been more different. He was tall and strong; when fourteen he already measured five foot nine. As a child, I was very thin and often sick. He left me way behind in martial arts and sporting activities. At school, however, I did quite well, while he often had difficulties passing from one grade to the next. After a few years, we were separated and went to different grades. In spite of all that, we got on very well together. Family members usually call one another by their rank, but being playmates, we could not call each other “uncle” and “nephew” all the time; that sounded so distant and formal. So we borrowed a more informal mode of address from the French: toi and moi. My grandparents and parents all implicitly accepted it, but my great-uncle did not. He often chided us with his acid tongue. “What has the toi and moi got to do with the Vietnamese language?” he asked. “That combination is fit for a pig’s lang
uage.”

  We spent together the last day of my stay in Kim Bai. As we went through grandfather’s bookcases, my heart suddenly swelled with ominous forebodings. All those books that I may never see again! Like someone trying to save a few possessions from a house on fire, I feverishly took out all those which I could not bear to lose: some books in grandfather’s handwriting; the collection of Tang poems with which he had introduced me to the magic of Chinese poetry; The Three Kingdoms, my very first Chinese novel; the Confucian Four Books which grandfather taught me in those hot summer mornings while I slowly pulled the panka fan to and fro. Alas! we were going on a hazardous trip and I had other things to carry than books. My grandmother and mother refused to let me take the additional load. They told me that in wartime, the most precious thing was life: “Even if you can save those books now, one day they will disappear, like all material possessions we have. But under the protection of the Lord in Heaven, Lord Buddha and our own ancestors, our family will continue. It is our first duty to see that it will do so and develop. As long as life remains, everything else will.” Thus, the books were left behind. Afterwards, I sometimes told my mother that I still regretted not having taken those books, at least two of them. One was produced on the occasion of grandfather’s retirement. In it, he wrote poems in scholarly language and friends and colleagues wrote their poems addressed to him. My grandfather was not really a poet. However, in the manner of all scholars in those days, he did have a number of poems and I would have loved to be able to keep some. The other was the record of all texts on the decorative boards received by our family. These could have given us some insights into grandfather’s career and our family’s history. My mother’s reaction was serene. “As Buddhists, we should eliminate the term ‘regret’ from our vocabulary,” she said. “What happened has happened. Let us not dwell in the past.”

  My family left Kim Bai at the end of a winter night. Great-uncle Mayor came to take us to the place where we were to meet with the guide. We took leave of our great-grandmother who was lying in bed in great pain, having broken her leg a few days before. My mother opened the mosquito net and knelt down to talk to her. “Grandmother,” she said softly, “we beg your permission to leave.”

  No reply came. She repeated her words and this time, great-grand-mother uttered a groan. Was she acknowledging our farewell or only groan-ing because of the pain? I could not say. “Please, rest yourself until you are well again,” my mother continued. “We will send medicine home as soon as we can.” We took leave of grandmother, who remained very calm. As my mother cried and could not decide to go, she led us out of the altar house, saying: “Don’t be late and make the guide wait!”

  She patted us on our backs. To me, she said: “You will be able to go to school in Hanoi. Try to do well.”

  She saw us off at the gate of our ancestral home and quickly closed the heavy iron gate wings back, so as not to draw anyone’s attention in the still sleeping village. We made our way in the dark, trying to make as little noise as possible. Fortunately, all dogs in the village had been killed, on order of the authorities, as their barking would reveal the presence of guerrillas to the enemy, and the silence of the night was not disturbed. The Si Gate was closed but our party slipped out, one by one, through a hole made in the bamboo enclosure. We crossed the deserted highway and reached the open fields. All had gone well so far. Then, there came a hitch. The guide was not at the rendezvous. The place was a small brick hut serving as shelter to farmers working out in the open. Instead of the whole group waiting for him, which would make us look too conspicuous, Great-uncle Mayor decided to go ahead with the rest of the family while I stayed back. “He will be here,” he said confidently. “I know him well, he is only late.”

  It was still dark, although dawn was soon going to break. Squatting low on the floor of the empty hut, I saw in the distance a communist patrol heading towards me, their silhouettes clearly visible against the sky. My first reaction was to hide, but the fields around the hut were entirely bare, with not a single tree. I thought that my best bet was to stay just where I was and act normal. The patrol was composed of five or six men, well-armed. I was relieved that they belonged to the regular army, not to the local militia, and no one had recognized me. They were, however, very suspicious of why I happened to be there, so early and so near the front line. I told them that I was going to my maternal village with my father. I had started ahead and was waiting for him. They deliberated and decided that I would have to come along with them. I tried to gain time until I saw our guide approaching. In a loud voice, I called out to him: “What took you so long, father? The maternal village is far away. We are late!” He was an eastern medicine man, fortyish, wearing a black tunic and carrying only an umbrella. He took the cue immediately and shouted back: “A neighbour was ill. I had to stay and give him some medicine.” Thus, posing as father and son, we succeeded in talking our way out. Hurrying our steps, we soon joined the family group. Our guide was in high spirits, having succeeded in “rescuing” me from the communist soldiers. Great-uncle Mayor left us in the care of the guide and returned to Kim Bai. A few months later, we learned that while working in the fields, he was caught up in a crossfire and killed by a French bullet.

  Now reunited, our group made way towards Ha Dong. My youngest brother Dao, who was three, sat in a basket suspended at the end of a pole carried by his nurse over her shoulder. Except for my sister Trinh who was only seven and the guide who had just an umbrella, we were all carrying our belongings in large bags. My eleven-year-old brother Dong had charge of all our wooden clogs which were strung together and quite bulky. For the trip, an uncle gave me a dark flannel “western” suit bought before the communist revolution and still almost brand new. With that suit, which was a bit too long and large for me, I went barefoot, but I had on my head a felt hat made in Paris, also dating from pre-independence days. I was lucky that the communists did not notice my western suit-it was still quite dark when they apprehended me-for they could have wondered how the son of an eastern medicine man in the country could own such a suit. As we approached the front line, gunfire opened up. The French were launching an attack! People were fleeing in our direction, but our guide decided to press on. He said that we should try to reach the Catholic village-the one with the statue of Saint George and the dragon. Once there, we would be safe, for the French would not attack it. Following their usual tactics communist’s troops withdrew before the French and luckily for us, the attack actually followed another direction. So the way was clear towards Ha Dong, which we reached late in the afternoon. The next day, we were in Hanoi. The chronicle was handed over to my father. Meanwhile, one of my uncles had also returned to Hanoi and he had with him the version in Roman script. Thus both versions were now safely in my father’s keeping.

  I went to France for my university studies and was there in 1954 when Vietnam was divided. I did not return to Hanoi. My father moved our family to Saigon. Six years earlier, we had left our village each with a bag. Now the family had to be on the move again, leaving the north for the south of the country, each person carrying a suitcase. All other things gathered by us during those six years were left behind, including the photographs to help us keep the memories of that period of our lives. Once again, we had to start anew. The chronicle, of course, went with the family to Saigon.

  In 1963, on being transferred from London to our diplomatic mission in New Delhi, I spent some time in Saigon. War had flared up again, as communist North Vietnam launched its aggression against South Vietnam. My father gave me the original draft to keep, as it would be safer with me abroad. Also, I was the only member of the family able to read the old script. With it, I took a copy of the modern version which my father had brought up to date with information relating to my grandfather’s generation. Since then, these documents have been with me through my postings in India, France, Japan and following the great calamity of 1975, to our haven in Australia. As I write this story of the Nguyen of Kim Bai, they are t
he only written documents handed down from earlier generations.

  I do not know what happened to the text kept by my uncle. He went into the communist army in 1949. Did he succeed in preserving the chronicle during all those war years lasting until 1954? Since 1948, he and I have not communicated. We had been so close until then. Events beyond our control caused our lives to diverge. He stayed in the communist army, while my life and work were tied to the free regime of South Vietnam.

  In a passage of the chronicle, my grandfather wrote: “We could find in the old chronicle mention only of our second ancestor . . ..” Thus, an older chronicle existed, which he had consulted. I had heard family elders mention that chronicle, but never saw it. It probably dated from the time of our eleventh ancestor, my great-grandfather. In 1862, members of our extended family met to discuss the resumption of our ancestral cult and to reconstruct the chronicles of different branches. These measures were taken following grave events which I shall describe later. The old chronicle would have been the product of that collective effort. I believe that most probably it was kept in our Ancestral Shrine.

  9. The Ancestral Shrine

  Each extended family in Vietnam traditionally had a place to worship its common ancestors called the Ancestral Shrine. The Nguyen Ancestral Shrine in Kim Bai was built on a block close to our ancestral home. All known ancestors of our family were worshipped there, but on the altar was placed a single tablet bearing this inscription in scholarly script: “Our Original Nguyen Ancestor.” This ancestor, whose time lay beyond the reaches of our memory, stood at the center of our cult. At ceremonies, it was his spirit whom we invoked in the first place spirits of known ancestors were invited to join in and to receive the offerings as secondary participants.

 

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