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The Asian side of the world - II

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Jean-François Sabouret

Part Two. National challenges and strategies

French traces in Viet Nam

Dominique Rolland

Texte intégral

1May 2012

2Today, the French language has lost its influence in Viet Nam. Being sad or indifferent about it doesn’t change anything. Anglo-Saxon, Chinese and Korean cultural productions have invaded the media space. This process is inevitable, despite the vitality of bilingual classes and the passionate commitment of teachers to French literature, continuing a long tradition. We sometimes hear an echo, fading increasingly as time passes: an old man with a weary body and a lively spirit, sitting on a bench on the shore of Hoan Kiem Lake, recites “Oceano Nox” by Victor Hugo and Lamartine’s “Le Lac” to us without omitting a single verse. I had a grandfather who resembled them. He was of mixed race and he recited Kim Van Kieu and the century legend to me. Like all children and adolescents, I sometimes tired of it. “Cain fleeing from Jehovah, the story of Kieu and Kim again”, I often thought, shrugging my shoulders. The old man was a little bit monotonous and rambling. The first time I came to Viet Nam, walking around with a smile, I thought I saw him, although he was long dead by then, coming to meet me, a fragile silhouette of one of those early morning walkers, when there is still fog on the lake. It was he who approached me, asking if I was French. And he also spoke to me about Voltaire, Victor Hugo and Montaigne; he still had hundreds of verses in his memory and recited them to me with shining eyes, probably those of his youth, when he was a professor, as he told me. I also thought he must have grandchildren, who perhaps also found their grandfather a little bit monotonous but were more polite than French children. I assumed they were not supposed to show anything.

3These little old men that we run into in the parks of Hanoi, Hue and Saigon are becoming fewer and fewer. Today, I am cross that I did not pay more attention to them, didn’t take the time to understand what they wanted to tell us, with their obsession for Racine and Nguyen Du. For not having understood before that we French and Vietnamese people are incredibly lucky in this difficult world of the 21st century to have this fabulous heritage of shared humanity in common. We could say a collateral benefit from nearly a century of French colonization.

  • 1 Now called Hoi An

4In 2010, I went to the archive No. 2 in Dalat, where documents of the Superior Residence of Hue are kept. I discovered a particularly moving document, a story from colonial times, almost nothing, yet it tells us much about the issues among people in 1930 in Annam. It is a letter dated 18 August 1930 from the French Resident in Faifo1, addressed to the Resident Superior of Annam at Hue. The Resident of Faifo warns about the influence of a book that is “very widely read and commented on by native teachers and, I believe, misinterpreted by all these insufficiently prepared young minds”.

5It is a completely forgotten book, and I had great difficulty in finding it. It is entitled “Peasants, the history of a village before the revolution” and was published in 1892. I ended up finding an electronic version on an American university website. The author, Claude Delon, was the publisher of textbooks for schools and popular works. Although this book seems to have had some success in France, as there were several reprints of it, in Annam it seems to have been more than a best-seller in the schools, a real firebrand. It was passed from hand to hand, secretly, revered as a sort of guide, which disturbed the colonial authorities.

6What did it contain? A description of the way of life in the countryside during the old regime. A critical view, of course, with miserable peasants and powerful lords, despised peasants and arrogant nobles, people suffering from famines, epidemics, wars, arbitrary seigniorial justice and ignorance. Although the vision of the author was not Manichean, we also see small landowners, artisans and penniless noblemen. It is more the system that is put into question than the people. In the last part, we see the peasants wondering, discussing, criticizing and analysing the causes of their misery. And finally, after a description of the peasant revolts, the announcement of the abolition of privileges and the moments of joy that follow. In conclusion, because of the Revolution, the emergence of an egalitarian world, where there are neither lords nor servants.

  • 2 “The processions of protesters, who, following old customs, were marching to ask justice from the (...)

7The letter from the Resident of Faifo to the Resident of Hue was written on 18 August 1930. The date is not trivial: it was written only 1 month before the bloody crackdown of peasant uprisings in the region close to the Nghe Anh. On 13 September, a demonstration by starving peasants who came to Vihn to protest against taxes were bombed by aircraft, which caused 3,000 deaths. Thousands of arrests followed, mostly of students and teachers suspected of spreading communist ideas2.

8On reading some passages from the book, I imagined the teacher dressed in a black tunic, from Hue or Quand Nam, who became excited when reading these lines. The human condition in rural France under the old regime was not so different from that of the peasants of Annam. He received it from a colleague, a friend; once read, he will pass it on to another colleague, another friend. They read it fervently. They discover a France distant from them but near in its aspirations for justice, liberty and happiness for all. This is one of those books, like “Les Misérables” or “L’Assomoir”, which will shape his thoughts, make it more lucid and aware. A little teacher in a black tunic, with a heart bursting with generosity and dreams for the future, is holding this book with a pink cover He will probably die 15 years later fighting in the long war ahead for the Vietnamese people. I like to think that it was in one of these books that he learnt the word “people” and the importance of taking control of their destiny.

9This is a powerful image of the French-speaking world for me. A teacher with a pure heart, passionate about his work, a man who deeply loves his country and is just as deeply moved by the universal thought of the Enlightenment. Today, 80 years have passed. The little teacher must have great-grandchildren, who live in Saigon, Danang or Hanoi. Young people like all young people today. Maybe one of them is studying in a bilingual class at the Chu Van An or Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high school. Maybe he was told about this great-grandfather who loved the French language, who knew Victor Hugo and Kim Van Kieu by heart, and who went into hiding one day because he had read a small book with a pink cover in which he read the history of the peasants of France. I imagine this child on his bicycle. He will become a doctor, a lawyer or a teacher; he will sacrifice himself to help his descendants.

10The most beautiful sentence probably ever written on the dual culture of Francophone Vietnamese intellectuals was written by Nguyen An Ninh, who said “The oppression comes from France, but the spirit of freedom, too.”

Notes

1 Now called Hoi An

2 “The processions of protesters, who, following old customs, were marching to ask justice from the great chief, the Resident, who, for them, was the ‘father and mother’, to beg for his help and his mercy, you know how they were welcomed: with guns and bombs... But behaving like that they did not want to threaten French sovereignty. They were unarmed.”: commentary from Pham Boi Chau, questioned by Andrée Viollis (Andrée Viollis, Indochine SOS, 1935).

Auteur

Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales

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