Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Pham Duy, 1982

View online at openvault.wgbh.org

Transcript

Conditions under the French during the colonial period

Pham Duy

SR 3F

Beep tone Vietnam/French, June 11, 1982

Interviewer:

In Vietnamese you are going to tell me why you joined the Resistance in

1945.

Pham Duy:

In 1945, not only I but all Vietnamese in their twenties joined the

Revolution. This was because after one hundred years of French colonial

domination we wanted to have freedom, independence and a new life. We

did not want to be slaves any longer.

Interviewer:

Cut picture and continue sound.

Pham Duy:

In 1945, not only me, but everybody in Vietnam, you know teenagers,

twenty or twenty-five years old, you know, should go, should follow the

resistance! Because after one hundred years under the French

colonialist domination, everybody want to have...to be free. To have

independence is the proud of our nation. We want to have a new life.

Interviewer:

Maybe, maybe I'll ask you one more, one more thing, if we could go a

little tighter on this. If you could describe for me the way the French

were acting, the way life was in Saigon at that time? This is...

Pham Duy:

In Vietnam, not in Saigon...

Interviewer:

Not just in Saigon, but you were in Saigon.

Pham Duy:

Ah, no. I were in Saigon ah...

Beep tone Sound 2

Pham Duy:

During the French colonial period the city inhabitants were perhaps a

little better off. But the rural population was utterly poor and

miserable. Furthermore, they could be arrested and thrown into jail at

any time without any warning. Arrests and frame ups of all kinds. I

think that this was not peculiar to Vietnam. The Indians and the Dutch

I'm sorry the Indonesians under British and Dutch colonial domination

had to suffer the same thing and so they also wanted to have freedom.

Songwriting for the resistance

Beep tone

Sound 3

Second Slate

Pham Duy:

Before the revolution, I was a singer. I was a traveling minstrel going

from north to south. When the Revolution came, I joined the Revolution.

Besides carrying a gun to fight the French colonizers, I also wrote

songs for the soldiers, for young people and for the peasants such as

peasant women and children. For example, I wrote a song for the

soldiers in the National Defense League which was called "Xuat Quan (To

the Front)":

Forward, brave soldiers! The nation is resounded with the words: "Fight

to the end!" March forth bravely under gunfire. The Vietnamese Army is

carving out the soul of its fatherland. March forth to victory. March

forth with the soul of the nation. March to victory. March forth to

show them that we Vietnamese are coming. The echoes of the resounding

footsteps intertwine with earnest trumpet calls, urgings from past

heroes, shouts from fighters and the thud thud of distant cannons. We

are drunk with the blood of the enemies which is flooding the

battlefields. Enemies are all around us. Swords flash, and their heads

roll. (Refrain)

Interviewer:

Would you describe to me how the soldiers would sing with you and how

they would react?

Pham Duy:

When I wrote this song, I was no longer a professional musician. I was

already a soldier at the time. I fought with as well as sang for my

comrades in arms. They liked the song very much and they sang along

with me. This song became very popular. Later on, it became the

official song of the military academy in South Vietnam.

Beep tone

Sound 4

Pham Duy:

Besides the songs for the National Defense forces, I also wrote songs

for young people (thanh nien). Now, "thanh" means green and "nien"

means age. So I wrote a song called "Nhac Tuoi Xanh (Music for Green

Age)":

Last autumn the Revolution broke out. The Vietnamese nation is

resounded with the shouts of thousands of young people flashing their

swords to break up the yoke and the chain of slavery. Young men march

forward and yell: "Fight to the end! Fight to the end!" That Autumn day

young people said goodbye to their daydreams and waved the blood red

banner in the fight for the hungry and the poor. Life is always full of

hardship. But we should fight for the nation while we're still young

(we're still green in age). Youth is like green rice stalks in early

morning.

Youth has a bright future. Victory is in its grasp. Come, march forth

hand in hand and build a memorial to glory. Let our singing fill up the

sky: March forth and color the flag with our blood. March forth and

water the rice fields with our sweat. The fields will be green and you

and I will have Peace. Life will be rosy and you and I will enjoy our

youth (green age). Let's walk our own path, build our own home, plow

our own fields, bide our own time. Tomorrow life will be plentiful, the

French will be destroyed and we will laughing and singing for your

freedom.

Interviewer:

Could you tell us why this became such a famous song? Why do you think

people really liked it?

Pham Duy:

The reason why many people liked this song was because it is much more

idyllic than those blood and iron songs such as "Xuat Quan." It's

bright and it's resolute. For example, "Let's walk our own path, build

our own home, and plow our own fields." This is to say, it expresses

very resolutely the freedom that a colonized people is entitled to.

Besides the songs for soldiers and young people, I also wrote songs for

the peasants, for mothers, rice cultivators and young wives. Here is

one such song. It's called "Dan Do."

[First stanza]

Pham Duy:

This is what a husband says to his wife before going to battle: "I have

to go and fight the enemy. If I get killed, you'll have to avenge my

death." I also wrote a refrain for a father to his son: "I have to go

and fight the enemy. You must try your best to grow up right. If I die,

avenge me with this gun." And I also have a third refrain: "I have to

go and fight for the nation. If I die, my blood smeared gun waits for

your hands."

Beep tone

Sound 6, Second Slate

Pham Duy:

I wrote songs for the Resistance because I realized that the Resistant

fighters needed some kind of entertainment. But most important was the

need to build up the spirit of the people. This was because during the

struggle sometimes people lost their morale. So we had to build up

their morale with meaningful songs. These songs had to lift up their

spirit. They should not be songs which served to depress them and to

make them afraid of the war.

Pham Duy:

Okay. So the reason why I make this song because at first because

people want to be entertained. And then the most important is we have

to build up the moral of the people. Because in the war people

sometimes lose the morale. They can become very easy anti-war. So I

build up the morale. And I did not say, I...it is successful. I cannot

say that.

Rejection of the Viet Minh

Beep tone

Sound 7

Interviewer:

Tell us why you left the Viet Minh in 1951.

Pham Duy:

In 1945 I responded to the call of the Revolution to struggle for the

independence of Vietnam. I thought that this was the struggle of the

entire people. But when I realized that this was a Party which

capitalized on the blood of all those Vietnamese who participated in

the struggle in order to build up this Party this Party is the

Communist Party, I left the Resistance because I did not want to become

a Communist stooge.

Beep tone

Pham Duy:

The signs which indicated the true nature of the Communist Party to me

and which forced me to leave the Resistance were quite simple: First of

all, Ho Chi Minh and his clique said that they were going to disband

the Communist Party. But the Communist Party remained intact with its

three men cells and Party cells in the Army as well as in the entire

administrative machinery. To me, this represented a lie. The second

thing was the land reform in which they arrested landlords and buried

them alive, executed them and killed many of them.

They created a class struggle and revealed their true Communist nature

to me. For this reason, I left. And it should be remembered that when I

left the Resistance area for the Nationalist area I cried. But I did

not have any other choice. I'd rather leave for the Nationalist area

with all its shortcomings than to remain with the Resistance where I

would be considered a hero and a good citizen but where, in reality, I

would only be a Communist stooge.

Beep tone

Transcript

Transcript

Series: Vietnam: A Television History

Raw Footage: Interview with Pham Duy, 1982

Contributing Organization: WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)

AAPB ID: cpb-aacip/15-j09w08wm46

If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/15-j09w08wm46).

Description

Credits: Publisher: WGBH Educational Foundation
Writer: Pham Duy, 1921-

AAPB Contributor Holdings: WGBH
Identifier: 2b06533720d7c7e179b89a7822dfbd6459b19ea1 (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: Color
Duration: 00:14:51;24

Citations: Chicago: “Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Pham Duy, 1982,” 1982-06-11, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed September 19, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-j09w08wm46.; MLA: “Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Pham Duy, 1982.” 1982-06-11. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. September 19, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-j09w08wm46>.; APA: Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Pham Duy, 1982. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-j09w08wm46