A Vietnamese Family Chronicle

by Nguyen Trieu Dan

  His appointment as prefect finally removed a stumbling block in grandfather’s career. Realistically, however, he judged that he would advance no further than the middle ranks of the mandarinate. He was close to forty and had just reached a rank that many of his classmates at the School of Administration had held ten years earlier. It could take a prefect something between six and ten years to become a senior prefect. By that time, he would be close to fifty and looking down toward retirement, which was then fixed at fifty-five. He became Tri Huyen, or prefect of Tung Thien in the province of Son Tay and stayed there for three years. As head of a prefecture his strength of character and independence of judgment, which in more subaltern positions had made him appear stubborn, could be fully put to use. He gained the reputation of a good administrator, not afraid to take initiatives and quick to respond to emergencies. After Tung Thien, he was transferred to the prefecture of Phuc Tho in the same province. Two years later, he was nominated for the rank of Tri Phu, or senior prefect, having under his authority three or four prefectures. This time, Governor Hoang did not oppose his promotion. Thus, in a matter of five years, grandfather had achieved what others would take perhaps twice as long. He now held the lower fifth grade and was given charge of the large prefecture of Quoc Oai, also in Son Tay. I believe that it was during his time in Son Tay that an incident occurred which caught the imagination of the local population. He was placed in a situation of extreme danger, but escaped unhurt. People believed that he was saved because Fate had earmarked him for higher things. Every year, the livelihood of the delta people depended on the dikes holding firm when the rivers swelled in the monsoon season. The threat of flood was particularly serious that year and grandfather spent days and nights touring his prefecture, through which flowed the Red River. Here, he exhorted the population to maintain their vigil on the dikes; there, he gave orders that certain sections must be urgently reinforced and all available hands in neighboring villages be conscripted for that task. He was on a dike observing a group of peasants carrying earth from the fields, when ominous rumbling sounds were heard and cracks appeared not far from where he was standing. The peasants, his aides, all fled for their lives. He continued to stand there. Surely, the raging current was going to smash the dike and carry him away. The cracks came nearer, but then they stopped. The dike was holding. Seeing this, the peasants returned and succeeded in making it safe again.

  After two years in Quoc Oai, grandfather moved to Hoai Duc, a pre-fecture in his home province of Ha Dong. He liked Son Tay and enjoyed its splendid highland scenery, something he could only dream of from his village of Kim Bai and from the flatlands of Thai Binh where he worked as a teacher. But Son Tay was not considered an important place to spend one’s career. Lying on the fringe of the delta and next to the highlands, it was a rather poor province with not a lot of population. Ha Dong, on the contrary, was where all mandarins would like to be posted. The township of Ha Dong was so close to the old capital Hanoi that it could be considered one of its suburbs. Although no longer the nation’s capital, Hanoi was still the administrative and political center of the north. Moreover, it remained the cultural heart of Vietnam. People continued to refer to it as dat ngan nam van vat, “the land where for thousands of years culture and learning have flourished.” In former times, to be governor of Hanoi was the highest honor that a mandarin could aspire to. But Hanoi had been ceded to the French and placed under direct French administration. In the absence of Hanoi, Ha Dong became the most coveted place for mandarinal appoint-ments. The man instrumental in bringing grandfather to a prefecture in Ha Dong was Governor Hoang, the same one who for so long had blocked his career. Ha Dong was his fief. He had been a governor there for years, while other mandarins were not allowed to stay in the same place for more than a few years to prevent abuses of power. Grandfather was surprised to be transferred to Hoai Duc. He did not know that Governor Hoang had his eyes on him. But he was happy and proud; to be appointed to a place in one’s home province was considered to be a signal honor for a mandarin. However, it was made clear to him that he was only on trial. Governor Hoang had heard of the good work he did in Son Tay and wanted to observe him more closely.

  Grandfather did not stay long in Hoai Duc. He went there at the be-ginning of 1923. The same year, he left to become Thuong Ta of Ha Dong, or counselor to the province governor. The counselor ranked as the fourth highest mandarin in the province. He functioned as principal assistant and head of the chancery to the governor. All matters requiring a decision from the latter would come first to his desk. It had not taken long for Governor Hoang to observe and promote the “stubborn fellow” to a highly sensitive post. The promotion was a clear recognition of grandfather’s abilities, but nevertheless it caused some concern. Hoang Trong Phu was more feared than liked by the corps of mandarins because he was very close to the French. Grandfather was one of those who stuck to the belief that, as mandarins, they were servants of the emperor in Hue and not of the French protectorate. Being of an independent character, he would have preferred to pursue a career away from the patronage of high and powerful men. But of course, he could not refuse an offer coming from Governor Hoang, who had become a sort of de facto viceroy of the north. As it turned out, the move was not such a good one, for he would stay in the same position in Ha Dong for the next ten years.

  He and his family moved into the official bungalow reserved for the Thuong Ta. By then, he already had five children. His eldest son, my father, was born in 1907, when he was a teacher in Nam Dinh. Grandmother then gave birth to three or more children, who all died in infancy. The old fear came back to the family. Would the line once again have only one male descendant? Fortunately, we were in the twentieth century and modern medicine had been introduced into the country. The scourge of infant mor-tality receded. In 1913, six years after my father, another son was born in Thai Binh. He survived and the string of misfortunes was broken. Six more children followed, the last one in 1930 when grandmother was already forty-five. My parents were married during the time grandfather was Thuong Ta of Ha Dong. They lived with the rest of the family in the official bungalow. It was there that my mother gave birth to her first three children.

  Grandfather took great care in choosing our names, in particular that of my brother, his eldest grandson and the head of a new generation of the family. A name expresses the hopes and aspirations placed in the child and Hong, my brother’s name, says much about grandfather himself. It was taken from a slogan adopted by Sun Yat Sen, the father of modern China, to describe the flag of the new Chinese republic which was established in 1912. Transcribed in the Vietnamese language, the slogan read: “ Thanh thien, bach nhat, man dia hong,” meaning “The sky is blue, the sun is white, the whole earth is red.” Hong, or red, was the traditional color for loyalty, goodness and good fortune. In the struggle led by Sun Yat Sen to bring China out of feudalism and into the twentieth century, it became associated with courage, defiance and revolutionary fervor. The Chinese leader was greatly admired by Vietnamese nationalists, who saw in his Three People’s doctrine of nationalism, democracy and socialism a model for Vietnam’s own struggle to recover its sovereignty and develop into a modern nation. The choice of Hong as a name showed grandfather’s attachment to the nationalist cause, even though he was working as a mandarin under the protectorate. When I was born, grandfather decided to continue with the red color. He named me Dan, meaning the bright red of the cinnabar, a term associated with loyalty and royalty. Thus, dan tam is a loyal and faithful heart, while the red royal courtyard was called dan tri. For his next grandson, my grandfather chose the name Dong, meaning vermilion. When my youngest brother was born, grandfather found that he had run out of red-colored names. There were other Chinese characters for red, but they were not considered auspicious. Just then, a visitor came bearing a gift of freshly picked dao, or peaches. This gave grandfather the idea of naming him Dao, for dao was also the pink of the peach blossoms, a color close enough to red. Moreover, dao was often
alluded to as a symbol of filial piety. According to an ancient legend, the fruit that grew in the Peach Paradise made people live their full span of one hundred years. Therefore, pious sons would slip into the Paradise and steal the fruit for their parents, so that the latter may live longer and they-the sons-may continue to serve and care for them.

  Grandfather was a good chief of staff. He took over most of the day-to-day administration of Ha Dong, leaving Governor Hoang free to deal with the French authorities who were more and more intent on imposing their direct rule on the north. The arrangement suited the governor; as a result, he kept grandfather in Ha Dong for that inordinately long period of ten years. When the time came for him to be promoted to An Sat, or chief judi-cial officer and the third highest ranking mandarin in a province, grandfather received the new grade, but not the appointment; he remained in the same position in Ha Dong. Four years later, he was promoted to the grade of Bo Chanh, or chief executive officer and the second ranking mandarin in a province; yet he went on being Thuong Ta of Ha Dong. It was only in 1933 that that situation was brought to an end and he was appointed Tuan Phu, or governor, of the province of Bac Giang. Bac Giang was a small province bordering the highlands and Tuan Phu a junior rank of governor. Grandfather was then fifty-four. As at that time mandarins retired at fifty-five and as only in special cases would they be retained to serve for a few more years, it looked as if that may well be his last appointment.

  In fact, that was the start of the most successful stage of his career. After only a year in Bac Giang, he was promoted to Ha Nam, a larger and wealthier province in the delta. The departing governor of that province was my maternal grandfather Hoang Huan Trung, and so it was that the handing over of office took place between my two grandfathers, who had been close friends since their youth. I have no recollection of it, but my parents say that my brother and I, then seven and four, were at the ceremony. Instead of waiting for his successor on the perron of his office, as prescribed by protocol, the retiring governor led the two of us to the gate of his mansion and waited there, as he would have done if his friend was coming for a visit. After grandfather arrived, the four of us walked toward the office where the town dignitaries were assembled, holding hands and making the official handing over ceremony look very much like a family occasion. I started going to school in Ha Nam. My parents had by then gone to live in Hanoi, but I continued to stay with my grandparents.

  I do remember the first day and the small state primary school where my uncle and I went, each carrying a new schoolbag in one hand and a pot of purple ink in the other. I liked school and was a diligent student, to the point that I would not even go and see my parents in Hanoi if it meant that I had to miss class. My grandfather stayed for two years in Ha Nam. Besides school, some memories of that period remained with me, in particular a boat trip on the river. We were in summer, a day of the full moon. Grandfather had invited a group of friends for an evening of music and card games. He took my uncle and me with him. The party boarded a large wooden boat. Musicians and a dao were called. The a dao were the Vietnamese equivalent of the Japanese geishas. They could sing, recite poetry, keep up a conversation, even discuss rhyme and verse with scholars. While food was served to the guests, I climbed with the singers on the roof of the boat to enjoy the scenery of sky and river in the soft colors of the sunset. The boat had left its moorings and we were in the middle of the vast river. Villages on the two banks seemed very far away. Soon, it was darkness. Everything disappeared from view and our boat was alone between the water and the sky. Then, the magic moment arrived. The full moon rose and the landscape all around us came back, bathed in a golden light. The river itself was a scintillating mass of gold. In days gone by, one of the most refined pleasures in life was to be:

  With singers in a boat,

  Drifting to where the waves would carry you.

  In 1936, grandfather became a senior governor. He was appointed to the province of Bac Ninh, his wife’s home province. Mandarinal rules would normally prevent such an appointment, for fear that a governor would unduly favor his wife’s relations. The rules were stricter for one’s own home province. Exceptions were made only for those mandarins known for their integrity and whose services were urgently required. The rules were waived for grandfather, in both instances. While in Ha Nam, he was called upon several times to act as governor of Ha Dong, his home province, when Governor Hoang had to be absent for prolonged periods. Then came his appointment to Bac Ninh, which was a special case. He was sent there after a succession of governors had their careers broken by the French representative. Although the protectorate treaty recognized that Vietnamese authorities were responsible for internal administration, many French officials were all too willing to impose direct French rule. When matters came to a head, the Vietnamese mandarin would have to go. As it turned out, grandfather got on very well with his French counterpart. For one thing, he had been to France and could express himself in French reasonably well. For another, he made clear to the Frenchman in their first meeting that he had passed the official retirement age and fully expected that Bac Ninh would be his last appointment. His message got through. The Frenchman knew that he would be dealing with someone who had nothing to lose.

  I continued to live with my grandparents in Bac Ninh, only joining my parents in Hanoi during the holidays. Bac Ninh in the mind of a six-year-old boy was the town with a railway line. The train ran near the governor’s mansion, near my school, and near the municipal park where we went to play. Everyday on my way to school, I waited at the level crossing for it to pass. The train stopped at the small station, where some Saturday evenings I eagerly waited for my father to visit me. Then, it left for the mysterious highlands of the north, where non-Vietnamese tribes people lived. Pushing further, it would arrive at the Chinese border where, so we were told, bandits abounded and kidnapped children-because they went out of their homes by themselves and were drugged by wicked women-and were sold to become slaves in China. But the train also went south to Hanoi and it carried me, at the start of the holidays, home to my family. Before reaching Hanoi, it crossed the mighty Red River on the Doumer bridge, which was several kilometers long and the longest in the country. From the train moving slowly along the narrow bridge, I could observe the many boats going to and fro on the river and, on the next lane, the long line of pedestrians, cyclists and peasants carrying their heavy baskets of produce to the markets of the capital.

  Bac Ninh had also an airport, which served as the airport for Hanoi. There were only a few four-wing planes there. Our people called them chuon chuon, or dragonfly, because from afar, they looked like that insect. It was in one of those dragonflies that grandfather had his first flight. A French aviator arrived with much fanfare; I believe that he was on a flying trip from France or somewhere far away. Grandfather was invited to fly with him and he accepted, causing dismay to his family. Riding an airplane then was perhaps as adventurous as going in a rocket to outer space nowadays. That morning, all of us went outside to watch. We heard the noise first, growing bigger and bigger before the plane appeared, as it flew quite low. It circled the town several times, so that all the townfolk could see their governor “riding the clouds” next to the pilot. Many people said that he was actually waving at them. I only remember seeing his face, but so clearly that I could distinguish his white beard.

  In Bac Ninh, for the first and only time in her life, my grandmother danced at a French ball. The family talked about it for a long time. At evening parties given by French officials, grandfather had sometimes danced with French ladies. We did not find it surprising for he had been to France. But grandmother had been content just to sit and watch. She spoke no French and her contact with French people was limited to those few social evenings. She told us that she liked the music and admired the grace of the dancers. But the thought had certainly never crossed her mind that she might go on the dance floor herself. Yet, she did. One evening, the mood of the party was particularly jovial and there was an im
portant guest from Hanoi who kept asking her to dance. At the end, she could refuse no longer and got up to dance with him, to the delight of the whole assembly. Afterwards, we often teased her by asking how she could dance without having had any lessons. She smiled and said: “That was not difficult at all. I have been telling you that learning the ways of high living was quite easy!”