La, 1 Lucy Hang La HIST 490 – Senior Seminar Professor Glen Kuecker Tự Lực Văn Đoàn and Vietnamese Modernization Dear young friends! …The old life, that emaciated life of the conservatives, which has remained like stagnant waters for millennia, is coming to its demise, like the darkness of the night fading away before light. …One must henceforth begin a new life, with a new mind, a new soul. This is your life, this is our life!1 - Tự Lực Văn Đoàn The following excerpt was written in 1939, during a tumultuous period in the history of Vietnam. Having experienced half a century of French colonialism, the Vietnamese found themselves torn between two modes of life: the “old life” and the “new life.” While the “old life” can be promptly associated with the pre-colonial Vietnamese world, the “new life” appears more elusive. What exactly was this new life? Did it simply attempt to replicate the European civilization, which the French colonizers had imparted along with their guns? Or did it hybridize Eastern and Western cultures? Already Vietnamese contemporaries of the colonial period had been struggling to provide answers to those questions. This paper focuses on a particular group of Vietnamese intellectuals, who represented this new life and who, at the same time, contrived a thorough social, cultural and political vision to promulgate the new life - Tự Lực Văn Đoàn. Tự Lực Văn Đoàn (TLVD), translated into English as the Self-Strength Literary Group, was a Vietnamese literary movement that produced the first modern novels and a new poetry inspired by Western literature. Founded in 1932, the movement lasted until the outbreak of World War II. From 1933 to 1936, the group published close to sixty thousand copies of novels and poetry collections on their two magazines, Mores (Phong Hoá) and Today (Ngày Nay), as

1

Tự Lực Văn Đoàn, preface to Mười Điều Tâm Niệm, Hoàng Đạo (Los Alamitos: Xuân Thu Press, 1989).

La, 2 well as through a publishing house, Life Today [Đời Nay]. 2 Core members included founder Nhất Linh, theoretician and political commentator Hoàng Đạo, novelists Khái Hưng and Thạch Lam, satirist Tú Mỡ, as well as poets Thế Lữ, Xuân Diệu and Huy Cận.3 Not only revolutionizing Vietnamese literature, TLVD used their assorted writings to promote cultural and social change in Vietnamese society.4 By analyzing TLVD’s social and cultural innovations, the paper seeks to answer the central question: What did TLVD contribute to the process of modernization in Vietnam? Here, as commonly understood, modernization refers to the transition from a traditional agrarian society to a society based on trade and industry.5 Most importantly, it involves a transformation in the attitude and the frame of mind.6 That is also the fundamental objective of Tự Lực Văn Đoàn: trying to engender a radical change in the mind of Vietnamese people. In that sense, Tự Lực Văn Đoàn is effectively a conscious, ambitious modernization project. In the first section, I start off by discussing the fundamental forces behind Tự Lực Văn Đoàn’s modernization project: Confucianism and the French civilizing mission. TLVD identified the former as a problem, while the latter as an unrealized solution. Confucianism, characterized by a paternalistic and chauvinistic ideology, dominated Vietnam’s family and village life from the fifteenth century. In the mid-nineteenth century, French colonization undermined Confucian monopoly. Under the banner of a civilizing mission, the French exported the ideals of Western Enlightenment and the French Revolution into Vietnam, mostly through education. Yet the French preserved the political and social structure of Confucianism. This resulted in TLVD’s 2

“Tu Luc Van Doan: Vietnamese Literature,” accessed Oct 3, 2014, http://www.tulucvandoan.net/. Ben Vu Tran, “The Politics of Vietnamese Romanticism and Literary History” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2008), 5. 4 “Tu Luc Van Doan: Vietnamese Literature,” accessed Oct 3, 2014, http://www.tulucvandoan.net/ 5 Bruce Charlton and Peter Andras, The Modernization Imperative (Imprint Academic, 2003), 1. 6 R.C. Sinha, “Modernity, Post-Modernity and Cultural Identity: An Axiological Analysis,” in Modernity and the Problem of Cultural Identity, edited by A.P. Dubey (Northern Book Centre, 2008), 84. 3

La, 3 complicated hybrid background. Ideological products of the French civilizing mission, TLVD still operated in a Confucian society, which the group deemed as an obstacle to their exercise of Western-oriented beliefs. Thus the desire to eradicate this obstacle constituted TLVD’s most important motive. The second theme continues by trying to position TLVD vis-à-vis the French colonial project. For this section, I recognize the difficulty of defining TLVD’s subjectivity as historical agents. Using Roland Barthes and Chela Sandoval’s postcolonial framework, I argue that TLVD, on the one hand, was an extension of the French colonial project. Having imbibed Western ideas, the group sought to imbue the rest of fellow Vietnamese with the same ideas. Yet on the other hand, the group struggled to retain their independent subjectivity by creating a third way, one aligned neither with the traditional imperial authority nor with the French colonial authority. Having established TLVD’s position, the third theme delves into the group’s philosophy. Ultimately, TLVD aimed to replace the system of Confucianism with Western enlightenment ideals of individual freedom, reason and scientific progress. In establishing and rationalizing such an objective, TLVD transported not only the Enlightenment ideas but also the Enlightenment terms of binary division, which allowed the group to de-legitimize Confucianism and discredit other intellectual opponents. The fourth theme explores TLVD’s contribution to modernization in details – beginning with a fundamental aspect, gender. Through novels, TLVD authors proposed a New Woman as an alternative to the woman of the Confucian society. Intriguingly, despite being all male, TLVD’s novelists made women, especially the female urban middle class, the main subject in their literature, as well as target audience.7 As historian Huỳnh Sanh Thông explains, Vietnamese

7

Ben Tran, “I Speak in the Third Person: Women and Language in Colonial Vietnam,” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique vol 21, no. 3 (2013): 581, accessed September 12, 2014, doi: 10.1215/10679847-2144851.

La, 4 male authors, like TLVD, often employ the Vietnamese female figure in order to articulate their visions of morality and nationalism.8 Indeed, the New Woman embodied not only individualistic ideals but also feminine ideals. On the one hand, equal to men in rights, the New Woman claimed the ‘natural’ right to self-ownership. On the other hand, at the same time, she must retain some sort of personal moral basis to prevent the possibility of a larger moral disorder. In particular, by learning the new meanings TLVD attributed to their modern woman through their novels’ heroines, we could understand what the group envisaged as an important basis for a modern Vietnamese society. The last theme analyzes the remaining fundamental aspect of TLVD’s vision: the enlightenment of the Vietnamese peasantry. For this theme, I focus on TLVD’s social and philosophical commentaries on life of the largest group of colonial Vietnam’s population, which also constituted the lowest class within the social hierarchy. Like in the case of the New Woman, TLVD proposed a vision of the New Person, as an alternative to the ignorant and enslaved masses within an oppressive Confucian order. What is noteworthy is that TLVD reconstructed these masses after the group’s image, thus proclaiming the group as a legitimate model for Vietnam’s modernization. This paper occupies a complimentary position within the existing historiography. First, regarding TLVD as a subject, this paper contributes an approach and perspective different from those of major TLVD-related works in the Vietnamese language. In general, Vietnamese experts focused on the literary significance of TLVD rather than the group’s philosophical and sociopolitical implications. Vietnamese historians, such as Trường Chinh, Trương Tửu and Phan Cự Đệ, shared a predominant view of TLVD’s modern vision as one narrowly confined within

8

Huỳnh Sanh Thông, “Main Trends of Vietnamese Literature between the Two World Wars,” Vietnam Forum 3 (Winter-Spring 1984): 105-7.

La, 5 bourgeois and intelligentsia’s interests and lacking in aspirations for larger social and political transformations.9 In contrast, my paper focuses on TLVD’s social and political critiques as the most important aspects of the group’s contribution to modernization. In particular, my paper echoed the line of argument by historian Ben Vu Tran, in his dissertation “The Politics of Vietnamese Romanticism and Literary History”: the crux of TLVD’s writings lies in the “reconfiguration” of the Confucian individuals, social relationships and organization, based the imported ideals of Western enlightenment.10 Second, my paper also employs the postcolonial framework by Roland Barthes and Chela Sandoval, which places TLVD within a complex linguistic relation with the colonial authority and the West. Overall, in this paper, I argue that Tự Lực Văn Đoàn contributed a vision and a universalizing discourse inspired by the Western Enlightenment’s ideals of individual freedom, reason and scientific progress. Specifically, the group constructed Confucianism as a philosophical, social and political system inferior to the Western system, and continued, from colonial efforts, the normalizing process of Western beliefs. Using modern literature as an outlet, the group reimagined the individual as a sovereign mental and moral being, independent from and superior to the collective forces of the family and society. In particular, TLVD proposed the New Woman and the New Person as models for the Vietnamese individuals, as well as new building blocks for national formation. Origins of Tự Lực Văn Đoàn Pre-colonial Vietnam: a Confucian orthodoxy Before French colonization, Confucianism dominated pre-colonial Vietnam’s political, social and moral life. Confucianism originated from the thoughts of Kong Fuzi (551 – 479

9

Cited in Ben Vu Tran, “The Politics of Vietnamese Romanticism,” 51-60. Ben Vu Tran, “The Politics of Vietnamese Romanticism,” 14.

10

La, 6 B.C.E.), a Chinese scholar during the Han dynasty, also known in English as Confucius. His philosophy, recorded into the Analects, infiltrated Vietnam and contributed to the country’s cultural heritage. From the eleventh to the fifteenth century, Confucianism competed with Buddhism and Taoism in shaping Vietnam’s political structures and relationships. However, in the fifteenth century, Chinese scholar Zhu Xi synthesized Confucianism into Neo-Confucianism, which was accepted as the orthodox interpretation of the religion in China, as well as in other East Asian countries.11 In Vietnam, Neo-Confucianism became the only state religion under the Lê dynasty, and reached its zenith as an authoritarian tool by the Nguyễn dynasty to enforce cultural and national unity in the nineteenth century. 12 Henceforth Neo-Confucianism sought to monopolize Vietnamese thought and culture and dictated the formation of a virtuous and harmonious society. Such a virtuous and harmonious society organized itself around a basic building block called chế độ đại gia đình [the grand family or an extended family system]. Its complex hierarchies meant that each family member was assigned with a fixed role “in the order of preference based on generation, age and gender”: those who belonged to the oldest generation (grandparents, parents) and the male sex (father, older brothers) sat at the top of the hierarchy while those of the youngest generation (children) and the female sex (wife, daughters) occupied the lowest positions.13 This paternalistic structure of the family system extended into politics and social relationships. For example, the Emperor often referred to himself as the father, and his subjects his children. Like in the family, the social hierarchy organized people strictly according

11

“The Song Confucian Revival,” Asia for Educators – Columbia University, accessed November 20, 2014, http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/sch/confuc.htm. 12 Mark W. McLeod and Thi Dieu Nguyen, Culture and Customs of Vietnam (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001), 56. 13 Pham Van Bich, The Vietnamese Family in Change: The Case of the Red River Delta (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1999), 22.

La, 7 to their socioeconomic classes (elites vs. peasants) and gender (men vs. women). As such, everyone was born with a pre-made position and function within and outside the family. TLVD’s political commentator Hoàng Đạo described such a world as “simplistic and monotonous”: [Our ancestors] neither questioned nor doubted anything; the purpose of the human life appeared to them self-evident. A long duration of memory weighed upon their minds, molded them into a fixed routine, never changed.14 As Hoàng Đạo argues, pre-colonial Vietnamese knew no viable way of life other than Confucianism. Their dependence on the family system and its control made it impossible for them to extricate themselves individually. Even if they did question it, they would not possess the appropriate knowledge and language to oppose it anyway. Bound by cumbersome, and often irrational, traditions and customs, [many Vietnamese] lived a life of silent suffering as daughters-in-law, as children; in the wider society, a similarly painful life for the laboring class at the lowest rung of an exceedingly austere social order.15 Such a system shaped and controlled the lives and thoughts of the Vietnamese for hundreds of years. However, the advent of French colonialism would shatter Confucianism’s cultural and intellectual monopoly and expose the Vietnamese to possibilities of a new way of thinking and a new way of life. The French civilizing mission: a hybrid colony The period of French colonialism (1887 – 1954) was arguably the beginning of Vietnamese modernity. The French’s importance lies in their creation of a generation of modernminded Vietnamese, to which TLVD belonged, and their laying the groundwork of

14 15

Hoàng Đạo, Mười Điều Tâm Niệm, 31. Ibid., 32.

La, 8 modernization, upon which TLVD would later build. In this section, by showing the impact of French policies on Vietnam’s society, I explain the contradictory environment of the 1930s, which provided TLVD with materials to conceptualize their modernization project. In 1885, in a speech before the Chamber of Deputies, Prime Minister Jules Ferry explicated the objective of French colonialism as a mission civilisatrice [civilizing mission]. We must say openly that indeed the superior races have a right towards the inferior races… I repeat, the superior races have a right, because they have a duty. They have the duty to civilize the inferior races.16 Jules Ferry’s declaration rested on a belief in French superiority and colonial subjects’ inferiority. As the French assumed, Western civilization secured its progress upon Enlightenment ideals of freedom, reason and science. In contrast, colonial civilizations remained backward and unable to govern themselves.17 Thus, by ‘civilizing’ the inferior colonial subjects, the French imposed on them Western Enlightenment ideals. Their civilizing mission practically gave birth to TLVD – Vietnamese colonials with Western-oriented minds. French civilizing mission created an entirely new Vietnamese generation, with an education and living experience completely different from their predecessors’ and their precolonial counterparts’. First, this generation presumed a new identity – urban middle class, which originated in the French need for native intermediaries. These intermediaries not only had to understand French political and economic institutions, but also redirected their loyalty to the French. 18 As such, the French did not use the scholar-gentry class, whom they distrusted for its

16

Jules François Camille Ferry, "Speech Before the French Chamber of Deputies, March 28, 1884," Discours et Opinions de Jules Ferry, ed. Paul Robiquet (Paris: Armand Colin & Cie., 1897), -1. 5, pp. 199-201, 210-11, 215-18. 17 Harald Fischer-Tiné and Michael Mann, Colonialism as Civilizing Mission: Cultural Ideology in British India (Anthem Press, 2004), 4. 18 Pierre Brocheux, Indochina: An Ambiguous Colonization, translated by Ly Lan Dill-Klein (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 73.

La, 9 Confucian roots, but instead, relied on “children of property owners and other lower social groups.” In combination with French-initiated urbanization, this new class of civil servants gradually expanded to a Vietnamese middle class, who resided in the urban setting and who occupied “public functions, trade, industry and liberal profession.”19 TLVD identified precisely with this class, evidenced in their profession as literary authors, journalists and publishers. Better off than the rural classes and oriented towards public service, this urban middle class needed, and were able to afford, a ‘new’ education that complimented their new identity. Education was arguably the most direct transmitter of Western Enlightenment ideals and the greatest threat to Confucianism. Traditionally, pre-colonial Vietnamese education system consisted of village schools that trained students for the civil service examinations.20 In order to become mandarins, students had to demonstrate their memorization and understanding of tứ thư, ngũ kinh [the Four Books and Five Classics of Confucian teachings]. In contrast, French education emphasized knowledge of the arts and sciences, as well as a mode of reasoning based on the scientific methodology.21 By taking over educational administrative services, the colonial authority dismantled central features of the traditional education system, in favor of French features. 22 French and Franco-indigenous institutions replaced village schools. The French language and a new romanized Vietnamese, Quốc Ngữ, replaced Chinese as the language of instruction. An emphasis on science and the arts also replaced Confucian teachings. TLVD members were products of this new Western-oriented education. Nhất Linh, Khái Hưng, Hoàng Đạo and Thạch Lam obtained their baccalauréat [equivalent to high school diplomas] in the

19

Brocheux, Indochina: An Ambiguous Colonization, 212. Bruce M. Lockhart and William J. Duiker, The A to Z of Vietnam (Scarecrow Press, 2006), 124. 21 Ibid. 22 Gail P. Kelly, “Schooling and National Integration: The Case of Interwar Vietnam Schooling and National Integration,” Comparative Education 18(2) (1982): 178, accessed Oct 29, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3098951. 20

La, 10 French Lycée Albert Sarraut in Hanoi. From 1927 to 1930, Nhất Linh graduated with a degree in science and journalism in France.23 People like Nhất Linh, Khái Hưng and Hoàng Đạo belonged to an intellectual force that identified neither with the Vietnamese nor with the French. Despite their clamors for a civilizing mission, the French never attempted to displace Confucianism completely from the Vietnamese life. On the contrary, they merely subdued the traditional ruling class to another equally authoritarian colonial power. For the French, an internal Confucian structure would preserve among the colonial subjects “that sort of fear of superiors, that terror of one’s master, which is in Annam the basis of public order.”24 25 Thus while having lost all their ability to exercise real power, the traditional ruling class still retained the appearance of ruling. In particular, chế độ đại gia đình [the grand family system] persisted into family in the urban context. As a result, the Western-educated generation of TLVD found themselves operating in a world that did not identify with what they were taught, as Hoàng Đạo explained in Mười Điều Tâm Niệm [Ten Points to Bear in Mind]: Thanh niên ngơ ngác, lưỡng lự, không biết hành động ra sao. Họ mất giáo hoá xưa nhưng chưa hấp thụ giáo hoá mới cho đến nơi đến chốn... Giáo dục nhà trường đưa họ đi một nơi. Giáo dục gia đình kéo họ về một nẻo, bao nhiêu nỗi băn khoăn, đau khổ đều vì sự tương phản ấy mà ra. The youth became lost, hesitant, uncertain of what to do. They lost their traditional beliefs but had yet to absorb the new ideas completely. Education in school took them to

23

“Tiểu sử Nhất Linh” [Nhat Linh’s biography], accessed Dec 11, 2014, http://thuykhue.free.fr/tk02/NHLINH01.html 24 Norman G. Owen, The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia: A New History (University of Hawaii Press, 2005), 336. 25 Annam was used as Vietnam’s name prior to 1945.

La, 11 one direction. Education at home pulled them into another direction. All their uncertainty and agony originates from such a contrast.26 The hybrid socio-political structures of Confucianism and French colonialism then opened a vacuum, together with opportunities for self-exploration, as different forces – Vietnamese and French, political and intellectual – contended to fill the vacuum with their own visions. And as one of those forces, TLVD then contributed their own vision for Vietnam – their definition of modernity. Positioning Tự Lực Văn Đoàn as modernizers In order to understand how TLVD contributed to the process of modernization, we must position the group within the larger intellectual debate of the 1930s. The hybrid predicament presented the Vietnamese with several options: first, return to Confucianism – as longed for by the elderly scholar-gentry; second, modernize according to the French civilizing mission; or third, continue with the hybridization. Up to the 1930s, many Vietnamese intellectuals favored the third option, and among them, Phạm Quỳnh was the most influential pro-French traditionalist.27 On the one hand, pro-French in his political preferences, Phạm Quỳnh believed that under the French tutelage, Vietnam would benefit from Western scientific imports and arrive gradually at “a modern, civilized state of grace.”28 On the other hand, Phạm Quỳnh championed the preservation of the Confucian social hierarchy over complete westernization, which he associated with “unbridled individualism” and thus potential social disorder.29 For TLVD, the group distinguished itself completely from Phạm Quỳnh and other traditionalists, by advocating

26

Hoàng Đạo, Mười Điều Tâm Niệm, 33 Lockhart and Duiker, The A to Z of Vietnam, 305. 28 David G. Marr, Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920 – 1945 (University of California Press, 1984), 155. 29 David G. Marr, Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 110. 27

La, 12 the radical, yet seemingly contraditory, option of modernization as a means to eradicate both the Confucian hierarchies and the French authority. TLVD’s staunch anti-traditionalism lies essentially in the group’s de-legitimization of Confucianism as a worldview. As Western-educated natives operating in a traditional system, TLVD used their new worldview to evaluate the world they lived in. As a result, not only did that world appear incompatible with their Western beliefs, but the group also perceived it to be ‘wrong’ in all its aspects by their new moral standards. In absorbing Western ideas, TLVD had inadvertently internalized the very discourse of the Enlightenment that rationalized French civilizing mission. The group authorized Enlightenment as the ‘truth’, the ‘norm’ and the only legitimate worldview, while constructing Confucianism as the opposite – the untruth. This delegitimization of Confucianism is also known as a “signifying process,” as proposed by Chela Sandoval in Methodology of the Oppressed.

Figure 1. Modernization as Signification

La, 13 Based on Sandoval’s model, a process of signification requires a Sign – the meaning, the Signifier (Sr) – the carrier of the meaning, and the Signified (Sd) – the receiver of the meaning. 30 Here, signification refers to French-initiated modernization of Vietnam, where the French, as the Signifier, transmitted ideals of Western Enlightenment into the Vietnamese colonials, the Signified. Result of this exchange was a new Sign – Vietnamese Western-minded individuals. However, this process of signification did not stop but continue when the new Sign became the Signifier: in this case, TLVD seeking to westernize Vietnam completely. Frustrated by French half-baked modernization, TLVD sprang up from their original position as the colonized to that of a colonizer. Indeed, for TLVD, the French were complicit with the Confucian system in oppressing and exploiting the Vietnamese. TLVD’s modernization project then pursued the underlying goal of liberating Vietnam from Confucianism and colonialism, evident in the group’s later politicization. From the mid-1930s onwards, TLVD’s publications became increasingly explicitly anti-French. In 1936, the French forced the group to close their magazine, Phong Hoá [Mores].31 In 1938, Nhất Linh founded Đại Việt Dân Chính Đảng, a branch of the bigger Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng [Vietnamese Nationalist Party or Vietnamese Kuomintang], making TLVD’s political activities public. While my paper does not focus on TLVD’s political activities, the group’s implicit political orientation constituted an important aspect of their prior conceptualization of modernity, as the coming sections explore in details. Tự Lực Văn Đoàn’s modernization philosophy

30

Chela Sandoval, Methodology of the Oppressed (University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 92. Khúc Hà Linh, “Anh em nhà Nguyễn Tường Tam (Nhất Linh): Ánh sáng và bóng tối (3)” [Nguyễn Tường Tam (Nhất Linh) and brothers: Light and dark (3)], retrieved July 27, 2011, accessed December 15, 2014, http://trieuxuan.info/?pg=tpdetail&id=7466&catid=3. 31

La, 14 In Bùn lầy nước đọng [Muddy, Standing Water], Hoàng Đạo, theoretician of TLVD, declared the group’s objective as follows: Cần phải đạp đổ chế độ đại gia đình, đổ xuống biển cái chủ nghĩa kính thượng và cái tư tưởng phục tòng, vứt bỏ những thành kiến, những điều mê tín không hợp với trí não ta nữa. Ta háo hức muốn những bình đẳng, tự do, muốn phát triển bản năng của ta một cách rõ rệt không muốn ai kìm lại nữa. We must overthrow the grand family system, throw away paternalism and servitude, and throw away prejudices and superstitions that no longer suit our mind. We yearn for equality and freedom, and yearn to develop our nature without any hindrance.32 This objective reflected how deeply the ongoing signifying process of Western enlightenment entrenched TLVD’s philosophy. Confucianism and Western enlightenment presented two different concepts of the individual: Confucianism constituted the individual within the collective while the Enlightenment separated the individual from the collective. The Enlightenment grounded its legitimacy in the claim that such a separation of the individual only obeyed human nature, thus de-legitimizing Confucianism, or any other thought system, as against nature. This signifying act effectively rendered Confucianism and Western enlightenment no longer as two equal worldviews, but as binary opposites: the former inferior and irrelevant, the latter superior and modern. TLVD unconsciously embraced this binary division proposed by Western enlightenment. As Hoàng Đạo argued, the advent of Western thoughts “giải phóng tư tưởng” [liberated the human mind] and necessarily exposed “những khuyết điểm của xã hội cũ” [weaknesses of the old society].33 Such a binary division, as TLVD perceived, made it impossible to return to the old society but also to hybridize the two ideologies.

32 33

Hoàng Đạo, Bùn lấy nước đọng (Saigon: Nhà xuất bản Tự Do, 1959), 116. Ibid.

La, 15 Hai văn hoá như hai dòng nước chảy trên một trái núi xuống: nhưng một dòng chảy về phía đông, dòng chảy về phía tây, không sao hợp lại làm một được; văn hoá tây phương hiếu động, luôn luôn thay đổi, không lúc nào ngừng; còn văn hoá Viễn Đông cũ chủ tĩnh, luôn luôn đứng dừng lại một nơi. The two cultures are like two streams from a mountain: but as one flows to the east and the other to the west, they can never unite; western culture is active and constantly evolving, while Eastern culture, old and stationary, always stays at the same place.34 Given the complete incompatibility between the two systems and the superiority of the Western system, any attempt to cling to the past would obstruct “sự tiến bộ” [progress]. As a result, the only conceivable pathway for Vietnam was to “theo mới, hoàn toàn theo mới không chút do dự...và theo mới nghĩa là âu hóa” [modernize, modernize completely without hesitation…and to modernize means to westernize].35 Separating the individual from the family system would return the individual his ‘natural’ sovereign authority over himself, opening him up to possibilities of self-exploration, like “an unsaddled horse.” Con ngựa đã tháo yên, tháo cương, ngước mắt nom ra tứ phía, thấy rộng rãi, man mác, mênh mông, đường lối chi chít... Mới đầu, trước cái tình thế ấy, thanh niên ngơ ngác, lưỡng lự....May thay! Sự đau khổ về tinh thần kia lại chính là nguồn gốc của trật tự mới. The horse has been unsaddled, raising its eyes to span its view over a vast landscape and endless routes… In the beginning, confronting [the newfound freedom], our youth were lost, hesitant… How lucky! Their agony is the origin of a new order.36

34

Hoàng Đạo, Mười Điều Tâm Niệm, 19. Ibid., 17-20. 36 Ibid., 33. 35

La, 16 As TLVD imagined, the inevitable ‘vacuum’ as a result of the separation provided the individual with an opportunity to reimagine and reconstitute himself. The reconstruction of the inner self thus paved the way for the reconstruction of the social order. As we shall see, TLVD used this romantic vision of the sovereign, self-determining individual to signify the two most socially oppressed groups: women and peasantry. The New Woman How should one reconfigure the woman’s position within modernization? This question had inspired the most vivid and complex imagination of TLVD authors. First, as TLVD perceived, meaningful modernization could not happen without reconstituting the woman, whose submission determined the survival of the family system. Confucianism’s paternalistic order defined the woman as a dependent on the man: from her girlhood as daughter dependent on her father, during her marriage as wife dependent on her husband, until her widowhood as mother dependent on her son. This order served as a justification to keep the woman “socially retarded” and protected within the confines of the household.37 On the other hand, Confucian moralism also stressed faithfulness, service and respect towards the husband and his family as the woman’s most important virtue. Confucian scholars often glorified the woman’s virtuousness as the basis for the family’s longevity. A pious, gentle daughter gives her parents peace of mind Brings praise to her family and a thousand years’ continuity.38 Yet it is this idealization that gave the family system an excuse to thoroughly enslave and exploit the woman. Within the grand family, the daughter-in-law, who occupied the bottom rung of the hierarchy, often suffered from her husband’s anger, beating and consorting with other women, as

37 38

David G. Marr, Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 192. Nguyen Trai, Gia Huan Ca (Saigon, 1953), 12, cited in David G. Marr, Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 194.

La, 17 well as “the harsh, intolerant ways of the mother-in-law.”39 As Ben Vu Tran accurately put, for TLVD, the woman “embodied the norms, institutions, rituals, and everyday practices of Confucianism and premodern principles.”40 As a result, TLVD reconstructed the modern woman as an antithesis to these norms, institutions, rituals and practices – a liberated woman regaining sovereign power over her own being. In his novel Lạnh Lùng [Cold], Nhất Linh placed this ‘New Woman’ – an individual awakened to her nature – in a binary opposition with the family system that tried to suppress that nature. Lạnh Lùng told the story of Nhung, a young woman who struggled against the rigid Confucian code of tiết [chastity]. As a widow, Nhung was expected to devote the rest of her life to her dead husband. Confucianism’s emphasis on faithfulness meant that once married, a woman became an exclusive property of her husband and his family. Thus here, tiết [chastity] comprised both a physical component (virginity) and a moral component: a woman who guarded her ‘virginity’ even if her husband was dead was considered virtuous, while a woman who ‘shared’ her body with another man was considered immoral. For Nhung, all her life, like other female constituents of the family system, she accepted her role as a devoted wife and daughterin-law as a ‘natural’ responsibility. ...từ bé nàng sống trong cái xã hội nhỏ như con cá cả đời sống trong một cái ao con... Nàng lấy ông Tú vì hai nhà quen thân với nhau, vì đó là một sự rất tự nhiên, phải thế. Nàng không hề nghĩ ngợi gì và không bao giờ tưởng đến ý nghĩa của ái tình… Chồng nàng – người mà nàng chỉ kính chứ không yêu – mất đi đã gần ba năm; đến nay không còn để lại cho nàng chút nhớ thương gì.

39 40

David G. Marr, Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 193. Ben Vu Tran, The Politics of Vietnamese Romanticism, 94.

La, 18 ...since birth [Nhung] had lived in this small community like a fish lived its whole life within a pond… She married Sir Tú because their families were close, because it was considered an all too natural obligation. She had never questioned it and never thought about the idea of romantic love… Her husband – the person she respected but did not love – had gone for almost three years; leaving her with no longing whatsoever.41 In a Confucian universe, the concept of romantic love did not exist, only individual responsibilities and family interests. Nhung’s chastity did not even benefit her own person, but only served as a pawn for her parents and mother-in-law to preserve the families’ long-held “tiếng thơm” [reputation]: “Tiết hạnh khả phong" [honor bestowed by the Emperor for the virtue of chastity].42 Nhung continued to accept her predestined life as a norm until she fell in love with Nghĩa, the family tutor - an extremely enlightening and liberating moment for the young woman. It made Nhung fully aware, for the first time, of “cái đời ái ân chưa thoả mãn" [her unfulfilled intimate life], while revealing the tempting possibility of remarriage, the pleasing scenario of a married life with Nghĩa.43 Meanwhile, Nhung also began to “nhận thấy cái đời nàng đương sống là một đời thiếu thốn và ngang trái” [realize the life she was living was an incomplete and irrational life].44 Nhưng một người đàn bà góa sao lại không được phép đi lấy chồng như một người con gái? Sao cứ phải ở vậy mới được tiếng thơm cho cha mẹ, cho gia đình?

41 Nhất

Linh, Lạnh Lùng [Cold] (Nam Cường, 1936), 13-25. 16. 43 Ibid., 14. 44 Ibid., 15. 42 Ibid.,

La, 19 Why couldn’t a widow marry another husband, just like when she was as a young girl? Why must staying alone be the only way to protect the honor of her parents, of her husband’s family?45 Tiết [chastity], which disregarded Nhung’s romantic and sexual desires, now ceased to be a norm. Nhung dreamt of an alternative ‘norm’ – “cái cảnh đời sống giản dị, bình thường bên cạnh người yêu, ở một chốn xa xôi không còn liên lạc gì với cái xã hội nặng nề cũ” [a simple, ordinary life beside her lover, at a faraway place completely cut off from that old suffocating society]. 46 The ‘old society’, which prevented Nhung from remarrying, was de-legitimized as “một nền luân lý đã coi rẽ hạnh phúc ‘con người’” [a value system that has cheapened ‘human’ happiness].47 Overall, through the character Nhung, Nhất Linh transmitted a defining aspect of his vision for a New Woman – an individual enlightened of her ‘natural’ right to define her ‘happiness’ and pursue it. Thus, the New Woman was first and foremost equal with her male counterpart as an individual with sovereign self-ownership, yet that was not all. TLVD authors also used the New Woman to address their own and society’s anxieties about a potential moral and gender disintegration caused by women’s liberation. As Confucian scholars believed, women needed to be morally supervised within the family system, or else they would resign to their “lustful fires,” like how Nhung in Lạnh Lùng awakened to her romantic and sexual desires.48 Phạm Quỳnh associated these desires with irrationality and social chaos, “When men lack virtue, it is harmful to society; but not so harmful as when women become unsound, because unsound women

45 Nhất

Linh, Lạnh Lùng [Cold] (Nam Cường, 1936), 134. Ibid., 138. 47 Hoàng Đạo, “Preface,” in Nhất Linh, Lạnh Lùng [Cold] (Nam Cường, 1936). 48 Nguyen Trai, Gia Huan Ca (Saigon, 1953), 12, cited in David G. Marr, Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 194. 46

La, 20 damage the very roots of society.”49 Another traditionalist, Nguyễn Bá Học, argued that the higher women were able to study, they would “act more like men.50 What Phạm Quỳnh and Học feared is what Lynn Hunt calls a masculine anxiety of being feminized, of blurred gender boundaries.51 This fear prompted TLVD to include a redefinition of femininity into their modernization vision: a modern woman was not only new but also virtuous, as depicted by Khái Hưng in the novel Nửa Chừng Xuân [In the Midst of Spring]. In Nửa Chừng Xuân, Khái Hưng, again, created a binary division between the New Woman and the family system, this time in terms of morality. Mai, the New Woman, contrasted sharply with Bà Án, an old matriarch: Mai as the emblem of individual happiness and moral integrity, while Bà Án as everything ruthless and corrupt about the family system. Like Nhung, Mai also grew up in a traditional family but unlike Nhung, Mai already inhabited a ‘Western’ mind. Though Mai’s father was “môn đồ Khổng học” [a follower of Confucianism], “trí thức, tư tưởng cụ, cụ đặt hẳn ra ngoài vòng kiểm toả của nho giáo” [his intellect and thinking was not at all confined within Confucian doctrines].52 Under her father’s influence, Mai imbibed the virtues of “lòng thương người và lòng hy sinh” [compassion and self-sacrifice], which she considered much more important than “lễ nghi” [customs].53 Mai represented what Khái Hưng envisioned as another crucial aspect of the modern individual: the liberation of personal morality. While Mai did not necessarily separate herself physically from Confucianism, her independent ability to

49

Pham Quynh, Nam Phong [Southern wind], 1, 4 (1917): 207-17 (quoted in Wynn Wilcox, “Women, Westernization, and the Origin of Modern Vietnamese Theatre,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 37(2) (2006), 205, accessed Oct 29, 2014, doi: 10.1017/S002246340600052X. 50 David G. Marr, Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 194. 51 Lynn Hunt, “The Many Bodies of Marie Antoinette: Political Pornography and the Problem of the Feminine in the French Revolution,” Eroticism and the Body Politic, edited by Lynn Hunt (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press), 110. 52 Khái Hưng, Nửa Chừng Xuân, 57, accessed August 15, 2014, http://ebooks.vdcmedia.com. 53 Khái Hưng, Nửa Chừng Xuân, 95.

La, 21 define and exercise her own moral principles rendered Mai an “individualist at heart.” 54 In particular, according to Khái Hưng, the capacity for compassion and self-sacrifice “lúc nào cũng chứa chan trong linh hồn Mai” [always brimming Mai’s soul] was actually already an inherent human quality. Từ cổ chí kim ở nước nào cũng có một hạng người giàu lòng cảm động, giàu long trắc ẩn, tin người đến nỗi phải lụy tới mình…những kẻ có linh hồn khô khan, có trái tim khô khan, hiểu sao được? Mắt họ chỉ có thể trông thất sự nhỏ nhen, đê hèn làm cho quên nhãng trong chốc lát, cái bản tính tốt đẹp, cao thượng của Trời đã phú cho. Mai chính là một người đã giữ được bản tính đó. From the beginning of time in every country exists a type of person who suffered form being too kind and trusting…those who harbored an insensitive heart, an insensitive soul, how could they understand? Their eyes could only see the ignoble, ugly side, and they forgot for a moment that noble and beautiful character that God had bestowed. Mai was the type of person who was able to preserve that character.55 Khái Hưng delivered an important argument: human capacity for compassion was universal, but rigid institutions, customs, codes and practices hindered that capacity and de-humanized the human soul. Specifically, Bà Án represented the very opposite character representative of and enslaved by rigid customs. For Bà Án, traditions and customs “ăn sâu vào tâm não, hoà lẫn vào mạch máu, thành một cái di san thiêng liêng về mặt tinh thần bất vong bất diệt" [were deeply rooted in her brain, blended with her blood, became a sacred and immortal cultural heritage].56 The old woman prioritized traditions and customs above anything, even other people’s happiness. Fearing Mai’s impoverished and orphaned background would obstruct her son’s 54 Neil

Jamieson, Understanding Vietnam (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995), 118. Khái Hưng, Nửa Chừng Xuân, 95. 56 Khái Hưng, Nửa Chừng Xuân, 76. 55

La, 22 future and taint her family’s reputation, Bà Án did anything in her power to prevent her son, Lộc, from marrying Mai: deceiving Lộc into believing that Mai had an affair with another man, coaxing Mai into becoming “vợ lẽ” [concubine], and eventually forcing Mai, pregnant with Lộc’s son, out of Mai and Lộc’s private house. No matter how ruthless her actions were, Bà Án justified them as her protection of Lộc’s “con đường thăng quan tiến chức” [route to social promotion] and “danh giá tổ tiên” [family honor].57 The two women’s contrast was also evident in their certain moral choices. For example, Mai chose to follow a Confucian custom - “thủ tiết” [guard her chastity]: Mai decided to never marry again because of Lộc. While this action of Mai seemed to contradict her moral principles, Khái Hưng explained that Mai chose to “thủ tiết” not because Mai believed that Confucianism dictated it as a woman’s responsibility, but simply because she already devoted her entire heart to Lộc. “Bây giờ ta chỉ biết...là ta phải thủ tiết với chồng ta, tuy chồng ta bạc bẽo với ta. Ta cũng chẳng biết vì sao ta phải thế, nhưng hình như lương tâm ta bắt ta phải thế.” [Mai’s voice] Now I only know…that I must guard my chastity for my husband [Lộc], even if my husband mistreated me. I’m not sure why I have to do that, but it seems my conscience forces me to do it.58 On the other hand, Bà Án, as Khái Hưng portrayed, relinquished her conscience to the family system’s moral rigidity. As the household’s matriarch, Bà Án was obsessed with perpetuating the family’s lineage. Thus, when Lộc’s new wife was unable to give birth, Bà Án, again, coerced Mai to give up her son. Such action made Bà Án appear to readers as a not only ruthless but also

57 58

Khái Hưng, Nửa Chừng Xuân, 95. Khái Hưng, Nửa Chừng Xuân, 131.

La, 23 pathetic human being, who glorified the family system to the point of losing her ‘natural’ conscience. Bà Án đưa khăn lên lau nước mắt: -

Nhưng nào tôi có ác nghiệt gì, tôi chỉ là một người bao giờ cũng nghĩ đến hạnh phúc của con, cháu, nghĩa là nghĩ tới bổn phận cuar một người mẹ, một người bà.

Bà Án raised her handkerchief to wipe her tears: -

But I don’t mean to be cruel, I am a person who only thinks about my children and grandchildren’s happiness, I am only acting out of my responsibility as a mother and grandmother.59

Not only did Khái Hưng reinforce the binary division between Mai and Bà Án, but the author also re-femininize the New Woman through the character Mai. Mai’s compassion was not a new virtue but as Khái Hưng claimed, “universally” embraced. In particular, Mai’s complete devotion to her lover was also characteristic of Confucianism’s emphasis for a virtuous wife. In other words, in response to the moral and sexual anxieties that explained the traditionalists’ passionate defense of the family system, Khái Hưng envisaged that the New Woman could only be moral when she had the power over her own conscience. Her independence and commitment to her personal moral principles would allow her to retain even feminine virtues that had been traditionally celebrated. TLVD’s vision of the New Woman, however, was conveyed the most explicitly in Nhất Linh’s novel, Đoạn Tuyệt [Breaking the Ties] (1934-1935). In this work, Nhất Linh delivered a message of radical modernization: the New Woman broke her ties completely with the grand family system. Đoạn Tuyệt employed a setting most characteristic of French-colonized hybridity. The heroine Loan represented the urban middle-class youth: a woman who “nhiễm những tư 59

Khái Hưng, Nửa Chừng Xuân, 177.

La, 24 tưởng mới”[absorbed ‘new’ thoughts].60 Western-educated, Loan believed firmly in Western ideals of individualism – the rights to self-ownership. However, like the hybrid youth, Loan found herself trapped in a Confucian universe. Her parents forced her to marry a man she did not love, into a family, whose beliefs and way of life were too incompatible with Loan’s Western mind. Inevitably, Loan suffered as an oddity within that family system, especially from the constant hassles of her mother-in-law and relatives, who treated her as a property, a slave. Loan’s conflict with the family reached a zenith when her husband and mother-in-law gave Loan a severe beating just because they considered Loan’s retorts disrespectful and improper for a wife and daughter-in-law. Loan vuốt tóc ngửng lên nhìn thẳng vào mặt mẹ chồng: -

Bà cũng là người, tôi cũng là người, không ai hơn kém ai. Bà đánh tôi, tôi không...

Vừa nói hết câu thì một cái đấm mạnh vào ngực làm Loan chau mày, cúi gục đầu vào tường, rồi người nàng bị đẩy ngã lăn xuống đất. Nàng cố sức đứng dậy đi lùi vào góc giường và cảm thấy cái phẩm giá mình lúc ấy không bằng phẩm giá một con vật. Loan looked straight into her mother-in-law’s face: -You are a human being, I am also a human being, we are equal. You hit me, I don’t… The moment she finished her sentence, a huge punch into Loan’s chest caused Loan to frown and lean downwards, then her body was pushed and fell down to the ground. She mustered her remaining strength to stand up and back down to the bed’s corner, feeling no more valued than an animal.61 Loan’s opportunity for liberation came when she accidentally killed her husband in an act of self-defense and as a consequence, was sued for murder in court. When it seemed that there was 60

Nhất Linh, Đoạn Tuyệt, 4, accessed August 14, 2014, http://giaocam.saigonline.com/HTMLN/VSNhatLinh/NhatLinhTDDoanTuyet.pdf. 61 Nhất Linh, Đoạn Tuyệt, 67.

La, 25 no more hope for the New Woman, Loan’s lawyer defended Loan with a poignant speech, which also most explicitly encapsulated TLVD’s philosophy and message for the urban youth: Người có tội chính là bà mẹ chồng Thị Loan và cái luân lý cổ hủ...ở sự xung đột hiện thời đương khốc liệt giữa hai cái mới, cũ... Giữ lấy gia đình! Nhưng xin đừng lầm giữ gia đình với lại giữ nô lệ... Tha cho thị Loan tức là các ngài làm một việc công bằng, tức là tỏ ra rằng cái chế độ gia đình vô nhân đạo kia đã đến ngày tàn và phải nhường chỗ cho chế độ gia đình khác hợp với cái đời mới bây giờ, hợp với quan niệm của những người có học mới. The true criminals are Loan’s mother-in-law and that obsolete value system…as well as the currently intense conflict between the new and the old… Keep the family! But please don’t mistake keeping the family with preserving slavery… By forgiving Loan, we will do a just thing, we need to realize that inhumane family system has come to its demise and must give way to a new family model, more appropriate with our new life, more appropriate with the beliefs of our new generation.62 The lawyer’s speech saved Loan. Having been declared innocent, and given all the suffering she had gone through, the heroine decided to cut off all ties with her in-laws, with the entire family system. Even better, Loan was able to reunite with the man she truly loved, another individual who had also already broken away, and together they began their solitary, albeit hopeful quest for meanings. In the end, Nhất Linh implied that only by a complete separation from the old world could the woman obtain the opportunity to pursue her own happiness and become a New Woman. Overall, through Nhung, Mai and Loan, TLVD elucidated the new way in which they thought the woman should be reconstituted: the woman must inhabit a mentality completely 62

Nhất Linh, Đoạn Tuyệt, 77.

La, 26 separated from the dictates of the family system. By acquiring sovereign power over her life and mentality, the New Woman achieved a meaningful inner life and initiated a new, better social and moral basis. As this applied not only to women but to the urban middle class in general, a question arises: what role should these new individuals play within modernization and a larger social context? Like Loan and her lover, where should their solitary journey lead? TLVD’s answers for these questions lay within another fundamental aspect of the group’s ambitious scheme, which reimagined and recreated the entire Vietnamese masses. Enlightened citizens of a nation For TLVD, modernization did not confine itself to liberating the urban middle class from a regressive Confucian family setting, but transcended socioeconomic boundaries. In fact, the efficacy of a large-scale modernization rested upon the ability to replace the entire patriarchal social structure of Confucianism with another social order in accordance with Enlightenment ideals of freedom, reason and science. This section analyzes another aspect of TLVD’s modernization project, which targeted the broader class of Vietnamese peasantry, specifically through the works of political commentator Hoàng Đạo: Bùn Lầy Nước Đọng [Muddy, Standing Water] and Mười Điều Tâm Niệm [Ten Points to Bear in Mind]. These two works conveyed the group’s ultimate aim: to liberate the masses from their perceived current state of “nô lệ” [slavery], and to “đưa họ ra ánh sáng” [enlighten them].63 By enlightening the masses, Hoàng Đạo delineated criteria for a New Person, an individual empowered by freedom and reason. Most importantly, these New People collectively provided a foundation for a progressive and independent nation.

63 Hoàng

Đạo, Bùn lấy nước đọng (Saigon: Nhà xuất bản Tự Do, 1959), 17.

La, 27 In Bùn Lầy Nước Đọng and Mười Điều Tâm Niệm, Hoàng Đạo continued to articulate TLVD’s terms of binary division, as imported from the Western Enlightenment. According to Adorno and Horkheimer, the Enlightenment perceived the premodern world as “myth.” Myth consisted of three features: “immaturity,” “social domination” and an expression of “fear and barbarism” - contrary to the Enlightenment’s respective features of “maturity,” “freedom” and “security.” Together, these features of myth created a “regressive” society, as opposed to the Enlightenment’s aim of “progress.” As a result, that the project of the Enlightenment must ultimately “dissolve myths” and “substitute knowledge for fancy.”64 For Hoàng Đạo, in the case of Vietnam, that ‘myth’ was Confucianism. The Vietnamese masses must battle the forces of “ngu tối” [darkness and ignorance] - immaturity, social domination and barbarism. First, Hoàng Đạo condemned Confucianism’s fundamental belief in the superiority of the ruling class and the inferiority of the peasant class, which legitimized the rulers’ domination and trapped the peasants in a state of slavery and infancy. One could imagine this as another traditional family drama, this time in the larger setting of “làng,” the Vietnamese village. Since pre-colonial times, the village had existed as a fairly autonomous administrative unit, with an elite mandarin council at the top and the remaining peasantry at the bottom of the hierarchy.65 A patriarchal universe on its own, the village gave the mandarins “quyền làm cha mẹ” [the right to be parents] and thus the right to treat the masses as “đàn trẻ con thơ ấu, cần có người hướng dẫn” [immature children, in need of guidance].66 For Hoàng Đạo, this naive view failed to acknowledge human inherent corruptibility.

64 Adorno

and Horkheimer, cited in Yvonne Sherratt, Adorno’s Positive Dialectics (Cambridge University Press, 2002), 46. 65 Bruce M. Lockhart, William J. Duiker, The A to Z of Vietnam (Scarecrow Press, 2007), 419. 66 Hoàng Đạo, Bùn lấy nước đọng, 24.

La, 28 Các cụ ngày xưa quá tin vào sự nhiệm mầu của đạo Khổng. Họ tưởng rằng lầu thuộc tứ thư, ngũ kinh,...là đủ có đức hạnh để dạy dỗ dân... Nhưng, sự thực, sĩ phu vẫn chỉ là một người, một người với hết thảy dục vọng, hết thảy sự kém hèn của người đời.67 Our predecessors were too trusting of the power of Confucianism. They believed that as long as one memorized the Four Books and the Five Classics [Confucian teachings], one possessed enough virtue to teach the masses. But, in reality, a mandarin is still a human, a human in all his lusts and baseness. Equally, the assumption also failed to acknowledge and respect the peasant masses as full human beings, capable of leading independent lives. As a consequence, it entrusted the mandarins with “quyền hành quá lớn” [too much power], allowing them to “lạm quyền” [abuse power] and even consider such abuse “là một sự thường” [a norm].68 On the other hand, the oppressed masses never grew up from their role as children, and thus resigned to servitude. Cũng vì dân quê thiếu tự do nên người ta đối với những công cuộc cải cách mới lạ mới có cái não ngờ vực… Cũng vì dân quê thiếu tự do nên những sức phản động mới dìm dập dân quê vào nơi ngu tối, mới tạo thành cho họ cái tính nô lệ, cái căn tính “chịu đựng" trước những sự tàn ngược, ức hiếp của kẻ có quyền thế, có của cải. 69 Because the peasant masses lack freedom, they are skeptical towards reforms… Because the peasant masses lack freedom, conservative forces succeed in plunging them in darkness and ignorance, cultivating in them a servile character, an attitude of “resignation” towards the oppressive and exploitative ruling and wealthy class.

67 Hoàng

Đạo, Bùn lấy nước đọng (Saigon: Nhà xuất bản Tự Do, 1959), 24. 24. 69 Ibid., 45. 68 Ibid.,

La, 29 Not only physically enslaved, people were also mentally enslaved. The masses blindly worshipped “những đấng thiêng liêng” [sacred deities], which “các bậc vua chúa” [the rulers] merely created to keep the masses in awe of the ‘myth’ of imperial absolute power.70 As a consequence, the masses relinquished their self-ownership to unreal forces. Sự tối tăm ngu muội nó làm cho nước ta hóa ra một nước của bọn thần, quỉ, ma, quái...Không đâu là bọn quỉ thần không làm vua làm chúa. Bọn ấy...khiến cho thân thể, tinh thần ta không còn của ta, mà là của bọn họ. Ignorance and stupidity turn our country a country of deities, demons, spirits...Those demons and deities reign everywhere. They...make our body and soul no longer ours, but theirs.71 Given such evils, the only solution, Hoàng Đạo proposed, was to bring the masses to light - the light of freedom and reason. Freedom and reason would lift the masses from a subhuman condition to full human condition. First, by freedom, Hoàng Đạo referred explicitly to “những tự do đáng quí của người Pháp” [the French’s precious freedoms].72 Sự tự do lập hội sẽ giúp họ gom tài gom sức để chống lại những sự tệ nhũng, những sự lạm quyền, những điều bất công… Còn tự do ngôn luận đối với dân quê sẽ là phương thuốc tiêu chữa cho họ khỏi bệnh ngu tối. The freedom of association will enable the masses to gather talents and resources to protect themselves from abuses of power and injustices… And the freedom of expression will cure the masses of their ignorance.73

70 Hoàng

Đạo, Bùn lấy nước đọng, 40. Đạo, Mười điều tâm niệm (Los Alamitos: Nhà xuất bản Xuân Thu, 1989), 55-56. 72 Hoàng Đạo, Bùn lấy nước đọng, 45. 73 Ibid., 45. 71 Hoàng

La, 30 For Hoàng Đạo, an awareness of human natural rights to these freedoms was profoundly liberating. Such knowledge would protect the Vietnamese from encroachment upon their rights. In that sense, political freedom would equalize the conditions of the ruling class and the lower class, enabling each Vietnamese person to become “một ‘người’ hoàn toàn” [a complete ‘human’].74 Second, equally important, Hoàng Đạo advocated the spread of reason and scientific thinking, most effectively via education. Reason would enlighten the masses of “những luật thiên nhiên” [natural laws] that actually governed the natural world, liberating them from superstitious fears of “quỉ, thần” [demons and deities]. Dùng những luật ấy để giúp đời, đó là nhiệm vụ của khoa học, khiến cho ta khỏi làm nô lệ quỉ thần, mà đem quỉ thần – hiểu theo nghĩa thông thường – làm nô lệ cho ta, đó là nhiệm vụ của khoa học. Using those laws [natural laws] to improve life, that is the role of science; freeing us from deities and demons’ enslavement, but instead, making ‘demons and deities’ – as commonly understood – our slaves, that is the role of science.75 Here, as characteristic of Western Enlightenment thinking, Hoàng Đạo’s argument reflected his confidence in the power of science to enable human beings to understand everything about the world in which they lived in. Just as freedom allowed the Vietnamese to retrieve their dignity, science allowed them to bring their mind under “rational control.”76 And what could be more effective to spread Western ideals of freedom and science than providing the masses with the same Western education experienced by the urban middle class?

74

Hoàng Đạo, Bùn lấy nước đọng (Saigon: Nhà xuất bản Tự Do, 1959), 45. Hoàng Đạo, Mười điều tâm niệm (Los Alamitos: Nhà xuất bản Xuân Thu, 1989), 57. 76 J.S. McClelland, A History of Western Political Thought (Routledge, 2005), 406. 75

La, 31 Hoàng Đạo recommended that “hạng trí thức” [the intellectuals] should take up the educators’ role by organizing “tự lực học đoàn” [self-study groups] to educate the masses.77 Tự lực học đoàn là một phương pháp nhiệm mầu để đưa hết thảy dân quê ra ngoài nạn ngu tối. Chúng tôi không muốn gì khác là trong trật tự, trong luật pháp, hết thảy người trí thức trong nước có thể hết lòng làm việc cho dân quê lao khổ được hưởng chút ánh sáng của sự văn minh. Self-study group is a miraculous method to lift all the masses from the state of ignorance. We wish nothing but for all the intellectuals in the country, in accordance with law and order, to be able to do their best in bringing, even just a little, light to the miserable peasants.78 Intellectuals here referred exclusively to intellectuals “theo học thuật thái Tây” [oriented towards Western thought].79 In that sense, by recommending Western-educated intellectuals and selfstudy groups, Hoàng Đạo had implicitly presented individuals and groups like himself and TLVD as models to construct the New Person. Even more phenomenally, as the so-called selfstudy group shared the same voluntary nature with TLVD, the group TLVD then embodied the new social formation as they themselves envisaged for the modern society – a democratic formation. Indeed, throughout Bùn lầy nước đọng, Hoàng Đạo repeated the terms “Annam,” “nền dân chủ” [democracy], and “nền văn minh rực rỡ” [an enlightened civilization] to indicate this new collective formation. As Ben Tran argues, by using Annam instead of Indochina, Hoàng Đạo “imagined a nation comprised of a uniform and primary ethnocultural identity, the Việt people” – one “liberated from its traditional past and extant sociopolitical structures propagated

77

Hoàng Đạo, Bùn lấy nước đọng (Saigon: Nhà xuất bản Tự Do, 1959), 102. Ibid. 79 Ibid., 117. 78

La, 32 by Confucianism and French colonialism.”80 81 As such, equal sovereign citizens would govern this nation and propel it forward with the power of scientific progress. Conclusion Tự Lực Văn Đoàn’s modernization project had important implications for Frenchcolonized Vietnam. As part of the emerging Western-educated class, TLVD experienced an irrevocable break from their predecessors: the group harbored a worldview presumably detached from and incompatible with that from pre-colonial times. Through this Westernized worldview, TLVD socially constructed the pre-colonial system of Confucianism as a counter-norm. More importantly, the group also obtained from this worldview an agency, which empowered the group now as a westernizing force, against not only Confucianism but also its very origin, the French colonizers. Overall, TLVD envisioned modernization as the triumph of the moral and reasoning individual over the perceived de-humanizing and regressive sociopolitical forces. At the heart of this vision, regarding gender, TLVD reconceptualized femininity based on the idea of equality, but also out of fears for rampant female individualism. Regarding social classes, TLVD proposed remaking the peasants as Western-minded individuals as the only way to achieve social equality and progress. In conclusion, through this research paper, I have been able to conduct a more in-depth study of Tự Lực Văn Đoàn, not as a purely literary group but primary a vehicle for social and political revolution. My paper has also uncovered the subtle, but crucial process that is the central subject to postcolonial studies: the ongoing and unstoppable signifying process of westernization. TLVD had contributed considerably to this process by acting as a colonizing

80

Indochina indicated the entire French colony in Southeast Asia, which consisted of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, while Annam referred exclusively to Vietnam, divided by the French into three administrative regions: Tonkin protectorate, Annam protectorate and the colony of Cochichina. 81 Ben Vu Tran, “The Politics of Vietnamese Romanticism,” 68.

La, 33 force, which sought to completely eradicate the Confucian worldview and normalize the Enlightenment worldview. Such a finding then provides a glimpse of the extreme intricacy of colonial relationships, as well as ongoinging postcolonial dynamics. As such, issues and themes addressed in this paper contain unimaginable potential for different directions and more in-depth research. First, what the paper reconstructed here only accounted for a small part of TLVD’s overall project. The paper has yet to shed light on TLVD’s political agenda, which only remained subtle within their selected writings here. As TLVD’s later politicization served as an attempt to realize the literary vision, a study of the group’s political activities would enable historians to better evaluate the significance of their contribution to modernization, as well as to de-colonization. Thus, the second issue deals with TLVD’s role in establishing the intellectual roots of Vietnamese nationalism. Since TLVD triggered a permanent de-legitimization of a whole millennium of Vietnamese moral and cultural foundations, how did their work serve as a basis for successive intellectual and national forces? In particular, to what extent was TLVD a precursor to the Communist Revolution in 1945? By signifying Confucianism, TLVD might have exacerbated a ‘vacuum’ which, as they themselves could never foresee, could never be mended – the original sin of modernity which even contemporary Vietnam is still wrestling with.

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