The Devoted Friend: Literature
By Ha Thuc Sinh

Ha Thuc Sinh is a famous poet, well-known writer, noted songwriter, translator, and playwright. He was a high school teacher before becoming a navy officer in the Vietnamese Armed Forces, Republic of Vietnam. After five years imprisonment (1975-1980), Ha Thuc Sinh and his family successfully escaped by boat to Malaysia. Later, he settled in the US. Thirty-two years of writing has produced twenty-two books, of which ten were published in Vietnam and twelve in the US. In addition to writing in Vietnamese, Ha Thuc Sinh also co-authored Red File: 50 Years of Violation of Human Rights in Communist Vietnam. His novel, Dai Hoc Mau (University of Blood), has been a best seller. Ha Thuc Sinh continues to play a significant role in maintaining the Vietnamese cultural inheritance among overseas Vietnamese. He and his family live in California.

Ladies and gentlemen,

First of all, I would like to thank the organizers of the workshop and everybody who have given me an opportunity to present my humble experience on literature from the standpoint of a Vietnamese who now lives in exile and then, in war. I feel honored with the opportunity to be here, today.

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is perhaps not exaggerated to say writers are born to be loved, regardless of time or location. Their admirers have expressed the love for writers in many different ways. And, I am one among these admirers. Regarding a writer’s dignity, I believe that a writer is truly the one who always stands alongside the good in battles against the evil. Moreover, I often find writers among the vanguards fighting the common enemy of the people. In other words, writers cannot be the henchmen for the oppressor but the advocates for the oppressed. But what has built up such beliefs in me? They probably originated from some distinguished remarks such as "A pen is stronger than three divisions" by Napoleon, or "Tyranny has no enemy so formidable as the pen" by William Cobbett, which I had read somewhere on a newspaper. At the time, frankly, I was still too young to read neither Henry David Thoreau nor Albert Camus.

One day some thirty years ago, I discovered the spirit of a writer entering my dream. Nevertheless, my writing career started with uncertainties. Along the road, I sometimes stopped and asked myself many questions regarding my career choice. Let me tell you the reasons. In Vietnam, most high school students in my generation should have learned some of the poems by Tu Duc, a popular king of the Nguyen Dynasty who reigned during the second half of the nineteenth century. People regard him as a highly intellectual king due to his own works and activities in support and development of literature at the time. As time went by, his poems might have not been memorized, but one of his dictums stands out in my mind. He stated, "To build a man’s feat and fame on literature is the basest way!" Was it a contradiction on his part? It should be remembered that, at the time, my country was being brutally ruled by the French, and many intellectual patriots were sentenced and executed for their resistance against the French rulers. The king probably wanted to convey that it would have been more useful and realistic for young men to build their feat and fame by other ways, such as the military career when the nation faced danger. King Tu Duc’s implication confused me. I once asked myself: Could literature turn out to be worthless? Does it have any value in solving the problems we may face in life? Is literature a mere entertainment?

It is likely that the king’s comment harshly destroyed the writer’s image in me during my late teens. However, the discouragement did not cease there. I was, many times, told by veteran writers about their true life, most summarized with a similar remark: Writing can never sufficiently feed those who make it a career. Nguyen Vy, a poet of my father’s generation, became popular not really because of his poems but because of a remark he made upon his bitter experiences during his writing career. He said, "Annamese writers suffer like dogs!"

Anyway, writing eventually became my soul mate as I reached college. I adored her. I shared my passion and life with her. But, I never expected writing to be a big help in my life, until one day...

Those were the years of the mid-60s when the Vietnam War escalated. Here, I do not mean to waste your time when I grieve over a free land that has died; or to remind you that my countrymen now have bogged down in poverty and backwardness; or to warn you that once a country ruled by the "butchers," the people will sooner or later become a miserable flock of cows if they dare not take absolute measures to protect their own humanity. Those years prompted me to write and keep writing until today.

Ladies and gentlemen,

People experience a war in different ways, but some share the same view. Why were American troops sent to Vietnam? Was it for the benefits of the South Vietnam’s defense war? Why were North Vietnam Army soldiers chained to their heavy weapons in the foxholes? What message did Hanoi want to send to the civilized world through the mass burials such as those found in Hue? What did Nixon discuss with Mao TseTung in Peking? Did they set a new big game? Who was chosen to be the scapegoat? Saigon for Communism, Hanoi for Capitalism, or the whole worn-out Vietnam for an endlessly miserable future?

Such questions disturbed me nearly every day at the dinner table of my three-generation family in Vietnam. As an inferior, I ate silently and could not find any clear answers. Time went by with accumulating bad news, grief, pain, and ruin. I saw, I heard, and I became confused. I got into a tangle of beliefs. I felt tormented. It hurt my mind and my soul so deeply that I lost the spirit of a fighting soldier. Finally, one day I came to a conclusion: Any reasonable thing may suddenly become nonsense in the wartime, including a good cause! But I was sound and sane enough to learn that something went wrong inside me. How can I free myself from this unhealthy state of mind, I wondered. Fortunately, one day, a voice from my heart told me: "Write, and you will be free!"

Not long after that, literature somehow inspirited me and dictated me to write. And, here is one of the poems I wrote at the time:

A NATION OF CHINESE LANTERNS

(Note: Like a Chinese lantern that spins around and around and never ceases, the people of Vietnam spin and race on, never stop. The shape of the country is compared to a bent form always on the run).

Seek each other in hunger and cold.
Seek each other amid the flying bullets.
Seek each other amid the blood and tears of war.
Seek each other along the Annamite mountains
And deep into the South.
But wherever we look, there is only blood and bones!
Seek the father in the maquis
And the children in the cities and towns,
Seek each other on the shore of the Eastern Sea.
Seek each other in the pages of the newspapers,
In messages delivered by words of mouth.
In calamitous times, we keep looking around!
Is it true that my country
Is under the influence of the Star of Motion
for one thousand years?
With a form stooped in misery and constant toil
It seems to keep running.
He seeks her without pause
Across the border and through the jungle.
Seeking him, she sets sail.
Should Vietnam ever came
To sunrise in a new time,
Then my people might enjoy a moment's rest.

Today, we all know how the Vietnam War ended. The South was defeated but she always deserves her pride. She once all alone kept bravely fighting against the whole international communist block after she was abandoned. The shame, if any, of course, belonged to the others. I was one among tens of thousands of prisoners after the war. There are no words to fully described the horror, the inhumane manners with which the "victors" treated us. There is never enough time to tell you all about it for it is a really long story. Have you seen war-horses? Let's imagine them. Yes, we suffered physically and mentally during our imprisonment as terribly as a war-horse agonizing through the eye of a needle. Needless to say, communist labor camps are not Hilton hotels, so sufferings are inevitable. What deserves to be mentioned is how we survive. We survive because we believe in God, we maintain the pride of good cause, and we laugh even in sufferings. Personally, I have an extra asset: Literature. Literature certainly has kept me alive and free. Here is a poem I wrote and memorized during the imprisonment.

FREEDOM AND I

Freedom is like a song sung
From the most exalted love.
It is the tears needed for
A man to live his life.
It is proof to me
That there is a heart in man.
Freedom is like salt.
It is like drinking water,
The nutrient substance of the world,
From the time we are but dust
And a mother shares her body
That we might taste life for ourselves.
Though it is a life of vicissitudes and bitterness,
Of hard labor or exile,
Though the night is black
And I walk the line over the abyss,
Still the words I sing echo only freedom!
And one day when my hair is a cloud of white
And the earth calls out to me
And when my heartbeats become lazy,
Then will freedom leave me with a rosy smile on my lips.

Ladies and gentlemen

By God’s will, I have now lived in exile. And, this time, literature encourages me to write more about the truth, nothing but the truth. There are two books, which reflect a truth, which I would like to present to you, "Red File" and "Religions in Communist Vietnam." Briefly, these books are published as a result of efforts shared by our whole family, father and sons, brothers and sisters. They consist of the truth about the violations of human rights in communist Vietnam over the last 50 years. Some copies are available today, you are invited to take one as a gift from our family.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I have been writing since I was in my twenties. I remember clearly that I neither chose this career for feat nor fame. Is that why I have never regretted choosing it? Frankly, it would be difficult to maintain my writing career if I have not had the support from my readers. But, more frankly, at least to this date, only literature has never abandoned me in time of hardships, not even a single time. It has followed me like a devoted dog, no matter how serious my ups and downs have been. And more lovingly, it has always encouraged me to write something true, good, and beautiful. That is the reason I am here today to praise it with all my heart.

Thank you.
Ha Thuc Sinh