Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Nham Cam, 1981
- Transcript
Working conditions under the landlords
NHAM CAM
172 take l
Clapstick
Interview with Nham Cam, a peasant.
Nham Cam:
When I worked for the landlords, I had to carry excrement and plow the
fields. All I got for my work, I was given only daily meals of roots
and corn and was not paid at all. I never had any meal with rice and
fish or meat. That was how I was treated when I was poor and had to go
to work for the landlords. I had to begin working very early in the
morning and worked continuously for 10 to 12 hours a day, about 8 hours
during daytime and 4 hours during nighttime. They made us work hard but
gave us little to eat, and very bad food too.
Harassing the French
173, take 1
Nham Cam:
During the French occupation of this area, my job was to provoke them
and put them on the alert all the time. I was a squad leader,
commanding a group of twelve men. We would crawl up to a French post at
night and fire a few shots at them now and then, causing them to expend
a lot of bullets and making it difficult for them to sleep and eat.
Sometimes we even crawled our way right up to the walls of the military
posts, such as the one over in Hue-dau, placed explosive charges there
and exploded them one by one throughout the night. And so that night
there was no way any of them could sleep. Our objective was to harass
them and cause them to expend with a lot of ammunition. Our objective
was not to engage them in big battles. We crawled up to the fences and
the walls of the military posts and pasted our propaganda leaflets
there.
Unfair treatment of debtors
174 take 1
Clapstick
Interviewer:
When the landlords came to a peasant family to collect their debts and
the peasants did not have to money to pay the landlords, what happened?
Nham Cam:
When a tenant could not pay back the landlord's loan or was not able to
pay the full rent on time, the landlord would send his people to the
peasant's house and dismantle the house if the amount indebted was
large. If the debt was small, then they would take away household goods
such as pots and pans and baskets. As a tenant, we had to turn all the
rice over to the landlord after the harvests. After that, we had to
hire ourselves out on a daily basis in order to get some food to eat.
The landlords would send their hirelings to the tenants' homes at
harvest time to take all the rice away in oxcarts and baskets. If you
still owed the landlords something after that, they would take
everything of any monetary value, such as pots and pans, from you. You
have to pay all the debts, that's all. So a tenant, after working so
hard for the landlord, had nothing left for himself at all and, as a
result, had to hire himself out as a daily laborer after the harvest in
order to get some food to eat. We had to run around looking for food
for each meal, each day. That was how things were.
- Raw Footage
- Interview with Nham Cam, 1981
- Contributing Organization
- WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/15-wm13n20v1j
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-wm13n20v1j).
- Description
- Episode Description
- Nham Cam was a peasant who lived near Hanoi. He describes the harsh working conditions under the French landlords. Working 12 hours per day, he was paid only in meals. He joined the Viet Minh resistance movement during the Indochinese War, and relates that his main objective was to harass the French, not engage them in actual combat. He then returns to the subject of landlords, detailing their unfair practices, especially regarding debt repayment.
- Date
- 1981-02-10
- Date
- 1981-02-10
- Asset type
- Raw Footage
- Topics
- Global Affairs
- War and Conflict
- Subjects
- Subversive activities; Village communities; Vietnam--Politics and government; rice; Colonization; Indochinese War, 1946-1954; Corvee; Feudalism; France--Colonies--Asia; landlords
- Rights
- Rights Note:1) No materials may be re-used without references to appearance releases and WGBH/UMass Boston contract. 2) It is the responsibility of a production to investigate and re-clear all rights before re-use in any project.,Rights: ,Rights Credit:WGBH Educational Foundat --- ion,Rights Type:,Rights Coverage:,Rights Holder:WGBH Educational Foundation
- Media type
- Moving Image
- Duration
- 00:05:21
- Credits
-
-
Interviewee2: Nham, Cam
Publisher: WGBH Educational Foundation
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
WGBH
Identifier: 92ab65d486de869795bb42f416425e5a590dfb8e (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: Color
Duration: 00:05:20:20
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- Citations
- Chicago: “Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Nham Cam, 1981,” 1981-02-10, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed November 4, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-wm13n20v1j.
- MLA: “Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Nham Cam, 1981.” 1981-02-10. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. November 4, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-wm13n20v1j>.
- APA: Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Nham Cam, 1981. 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-wm13n20v1j