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Hanoi. City of the Rising Dragon.
Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.,
2002, 187 p.
with G. Boudarel (1926-2003), foreword by William J. Duiker,
translated by Claire Duiker
Hanoi. City of the Rising Dragon.
Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.,
2002, 187 p.
with G. Boudarel (1926-2003), foreword by William J. Duiker,
translated by Claire Duiker
§ A City which Remembers
The Women of Hanoi
During
this same period, women were encouraged by the success of their
sisters in China and in the West, and began to break taboos and
demand their proper place in the family and in society. Taking
advantage of the new freedom of the press, they began to put into
question backward and oppressive customs, such as the commercial
exploitation of feminine virginity, early marriage where children
were regarded solely as objects of exchange, perpetual widowhood,
injustice, and the discrimination found in everyday life. In short,
they demanded equal rights and denounced ancestral practices which
affected them. Free love also made an appearance and young couples
began to assume a European air and go to the movies to see Western
films. They could been seen holding hands and strolling around
Returned Sword Lake, and then slipping into a hotel to spend their
first night of love together.
These
new freedoms had their price, however. Hanoi saw a dramatic increase
in female suicide: women who threw themselves into the river after a
first heartbreak, taking with them their secrets and lost loves. The
phenomenon reached such a height that men in Hanoi cynically began to
call local lakes “Tombs of Beauty” [
Mo hong nhan].
Still other women, led in a different direction, ran aground in
brothels or in dance halls.
Women
also began rejecting traditional constraints placed on fashion.
Vietnamese women had previously bound their breasts with a piece of
cloth (
yem) to hide them from the concupiscent gaze of men.
Modern women rejected what they considered to be both a physical and
moral constriction, provoking a reform in women’s fashion. It
was the designer Nguyen Cat Tuong [Lemur] who invented the tunic [
ao
dai], which then became the national dress of Vietnamese women.
He took inspiration from the traditional tunic with four panels, the
two front ones knotted at the waist; the new one only had two panels,
open at both sides from the waist down, and was fastened by the right
shoulder with snaps. His creation met with enormous success, and
still continues today.
This
emancipation of Vietnamese women and their revolt against the
traditional moral order were due to two factors: changes in the
educational system which began to accept female students, and
especially a change in mentality. In the 1920s, colonization brought
with it the establishment of Franco-Vietnamese education which,
though not a perfect system, still allowed women the opportunity to
obtain even the highest university degrees. In 1924, eleven of these
women from the schools of medicine, law, and literature, were
rewarded by a class trip to France. In 1935, it was ironically a
woman from Hanoi, Hoang Thi Nga, who was the first Vietnamese to
obtain a doctorate in science in Paris, after having finished
secondary school in Vietnam.
In
the time of the emperors, only men studied Chinese characters in the
hopes of passing the literary competitions which were the doorway to
respectability and prestige. Most women, with the exception of
singers and a few individual cases, were raised either to become
housewives or, at most, shopkeepers. For this reason there is not one
woman’s name inscribed on the 82 stone tablets erected at the
Temple of Literature which, since 1442, celebrate the memory and
glory of the valedictorians of each session of the mandarinal
competition. The educational system was solely a machine for
producing scholars imbued with Confucian doctrine, an edifice raised
by men against women, with women forever excluded. Along these same
lines, in the first half of this century it was often said that
“women don’t need much education.” If by chance a
rebellious woman was discovered trying to learn to read in secret by
the light of the hearth, her family would simply tear up her books.
What bothered parents the most was not the fact that their daughter
could read, but that they feared they would find her exchanging love
letters with a young man. It was of ultimate importance that their
progeny didn’t escape their control in matters of love.
In the more popular quarters, however, Confucian principles could not be
observed to the letter, as they ran contrary to many native beliefs
and traditions. Among the beliefs of the common people, for example,
half of all popular spirits were female .
One of the “four immortals” (
tu bat tu) was a
goddess, Lieu Hanh. This pantheon still remains important in the
countryside, having survived the campaign against superstition from
1945 – 1985. On the shores of West Lake, the temple of Phu Tay
Ho is dedicated to this goddess and is the site of a yearly
pilgrimage that attracts worshipers from around the country. Recent
years have seen the return of religious festivities, and the weeks
preceding Tet are often animated by the spirit of times gone by.
During
the war with America, Vietnamese women showed to the world that they,
too, could fight and defend their country. In a way, they were just
carrying on the tradition of their ancestors. History reveals that
some of the first historical figures in Vietnam are women, like the
Trung sisters. Throughout the North you can find temples dedicated to
these two national heroines, like the one in Hanoi mentioned above.
In recent years, the novelist Duong Thu Huong has become the
bête
noire of the regime, which is of course run by men. But she has
done nothing other than dare to say openly what her sisters thought
in silence.
Secret Loves
Despite
its history of combat, Hanoi is also a city of love. The city’s
parks and riverbanks are now swarming with young couples who are no
longer afraid to show their affection in public. This open display
has reached such a pitch that the street-sweepers refrain from
working near places conducive to intimate encounters. In a sense,
love has been forced outside into the streets, by promiscuity,
housing problems, nosy neighbors, and a certain sense of tradition.
The mores advocated by the Stalinist-Maoist reign were those of a
very prudish Confucian tradition whereby rules of conduct were
dictated by the leaders, under threat of severe punishment in case of
transgression. But the public saw that those who advocated this
decent behavior clearly felt above the law themselves. For example,
the former Party Secretary General Le Duan soon earned the reputation
of being a ladies’ man and a sensualist. He didn’t have a
harem, but the nurses assigned to give him daily massages understood
the situation clearly. So, while such dignitaries—clearly
disciples of Mao—could indulge in any pleasure they liked, the
common man had to hide any scandal for fear of being accused of
criminal licentiousness. In this moral universe women only had two
options: to be “virtuous,” i.e., live in denial of their
bodies and their passions; or to act on their impulses and be
considered as no better than common prostitutes.
In
Vietnam, as in the West, prostitution tends to reflect the society in
which it develops—including persecution under repressive
regimes. In the past, scholars often took singers as lovers, just as
some young people today find love with hostesses who work in bars
called
bia om, or “love cafés.” As a direct
consequence of social taboos, many live out their romantic adventures
in secret, outside of the traditional family circles. The most
cautious meet their lovers in cafés that are set up precisely
to facilitate discreet, amorous encounters. In general, behavior has
changed radically. It is no longer surprising to see couples holding
hands or walking arm-in-arm in public, something that would have been
unimaginable just ten years ago.
The
city of Hanoi itself is loved by its citizens, especially those who
have had to flee persecution. From books to poetry to songs, the
Vietnamese sing the praises of their capital city. As testimonial to
this city of love, there are many songs which celebrate Hanoi’s
spirit of romance. The following excerpt, for example, evokes the
good-byes of a young couple from Hanoi whom destiny has separated:
Giac mo hoi huong, [The Dream of the Return] by Vu Thanh.
He left his dear city one morning
When the autumn winds returned
The heart of the traveler was smitten with melancholy
He watched as his beloved
Disappeared into the smoky haze
Retreating into the distance with uncertain steps
Tears in her eyes, tears of bitterness
Good-bye
One day, even if I am lost in the four corners of the world
I will return towards the horizon
To find once more my dreams of springtime
And forget the days, the months which fade
In sobs I think of her
Oh Hanoi!
Vu Bang
and The Twelve Nostalgias
Like
many of his generation, Vu Bang made his literary debut in the world
of journalism in Hanoi and Saigon in the 1930s. He then left Hanoi in
1954, part of the exodus towards Saigon, where he resided for the
rest of his life. The following tale, in homage to Hanoi and the
North, was begun in 1960. He finished it eleven years later, at the
height of the Vietnam war.
At
first, no one could believe it. Why should it matter whether you’re
here or somewhere else—it’s all the same country, what’s
the difference? Don’t you find everywhere, from the North to
the Center, eyes that speak with a sea of emotion and affection; and
from the Center to the South, laughter which is held back but still
reveals ardent charms?
But
no, when you are far from home you feel like a piece of rotten and
worm-eaten wood as old as time immemorial. . . .
The
wind in the night made you cold, water pounded the shore in squalls;
it is always sad to be on the docks. We loved each other and we
wanted to encourage each other, but we didn’t dare or didn’t
know how to say it. The woman only knew how to bow her head with a
long sigh, while the man stood silent and looked with sad eyes, like
the eyes of a ghost, the black night cradled by the song of crickets
and the tears of earthworms. Sadness, and lassitude persisted thus.
Until the day . . . when the first rains of the season inundated the
streets, while we were in a little shop tucked away by the edge of
the river Tan Thuan .
Sitting beside us, clients from the North felt dazed and lost. As if
this atmosphere were intolerable to them, to the point where they had
to find a pretext to speak. One
of them said:
- In the North, it’s probably the beginning of the rainy season.
- Another:
- But, Madame, the rain in the North is different.
- And the third:
- Everything is different. Stop talking about it. It makes me want to
cry.
- The fellow adventurer looked at his friend standing next to him; they
were both silent for they couldn’t manage to utter a single
word, yet they felt a kind of electricity which ran through their bodies.
They
didn’t need much, just the exchange of banalities amidst the
rain of a desolate afternoon, to reawaken the melancholic impressions
of a worm-eaten heart . . .
The
more nostalgic it is, the more one loves Hanoi, and the more passion
one feels for the North. This nostalgia is disproportionate,
inexplicable! When you miss Hanoi and the North, it is as if you miss
your beloved: anyone at all can make you start thinking of her, and
she is, of course, the most beautiful of all. . .
I love Hanoi so much, and think so often of the North, that I cannot
appreciate all of the magnificent things that are presented to me
here. This is surely a grand injustice. And I end up loving this
injustice, and the twelve months and their climatic changes, the
harmonious vibrations of passing time, of birds, of beauty, of the
leaves, of sentiments, of love; I thank this injustice which has
allowed me to become aware of my ardent love for Hanoi. Oh Hanoi, you
hear me!
Notes
Illustration :
Phong hóa, n° 15, 20 sept 1932.
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