Hoang Van Chi - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Hoàng Văn Chí was one of the first Vietnamese political writers, a prominent intellectual

Intellectual

An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...

who was an opponent of colonialism

Colonialism

Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

and later of communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

in Vietnam. He used the penname Mạc Định. His book, From Colonialism to Communism, was translated into more than 15 languages.

Early life and education

He was educated according to the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

system, attending the Lycée Albert Sarraut

Lycée Albert Sarraut

The Lycée Albert Sarraut was a French lyceum in Hanoi, Vietnam, during the French colonial period. It was one of 69 high schools founded by the French in their colonies worldwide, named for French Albert Sarraut. The school offered high standard academic programs for students between the ages of 11...

in Hanoi

Hanoi

Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...

from 1928 to 1935. Then he went on to the University of Indochina, where he graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Science in 1940.

Already in 1926, at the age of 13, the young Hoàng Văn Chí had joined a protest demanding the end of French occupation which took place at Phan Chu Trinh

Phan Chu Trinh

Phan Chu Trinh also known as Phan Châu Trinh was a famous early 20th century Vietnamese nationalist. He also used the alias Tây Hồ. He sought to end France's brutal occupation of Vietnam...

’s funeral.

In 1940, he married Lê Hằng Phấn, daughter of the Vietnamese scholar, Sở Cuồng Lê Dư. He was at this time preparing to enter medical school and had acquired enough knowledge to treat his wife’s tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

with an advanced technique: letting the affected side of the lung rest by a controlled pneumothorax

Pneumothorax

Pneumothorax is a collection of air or gas in the pleural cavity of the chest between the lung and the chest wall. It may occur spontaneously in people without chronic lung conditions as well as in those with lung disease , and many pneumothoraces occur after physical trauma to the chest, blast...

while treating it with antibiotics. The treatment was successful.

Fighting French colonialism

In 1936, he joined the Le Travail Movement

Le Travail Movement

The Le Travail Movement was an anti-French-colonialism movement led by the intellectuals of Vietnam in 1936 by means of "Le Travail" newspaper. The movement lasted only 7 months, from Sept 1936 to April 1937...

. From 1937-1939, he actively joined and worked for the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO, a socialist party).

In 1946, he officially joined the Việt Minh

Viet Minh

Việt Minh was a national independence coalition formed at Pac Bo on May 19, 1941. The Việt Minh initially formed to seek independence for Vietnam from the French Empire. When the Japanese occupation began, the Việt Minh opposed Japan with support from the United States and the Republic of China...

to fight against the French colonists in Vietnam. With his background in science, he took responsibility for designing currency, making paper, and different kinds of chemicals for use in war

Chemical warfare

Chemical warfare involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. This type of warfare is distinct from Nuclear warfare and Biological warfare, which together make up NBC, the military acronym for Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical...

, as well as setting up hydro-electric systems for the Việt Minh.

Rejection of communism

During this time, Hoàng Văn Chí had many comrades who were idealistic, nationalist fighters who shared his goals of fighting for a Vietnam with freedom

Freedom (political)

Political freedom is a central philosophy in Western history and political thought, and one of the most important features of democratic societies...

, democracy

Democracy

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

, with respect for human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

and civil rights

Civil rights

Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...

. Most of them later became writers and poets for the Nhân Văn and Giai Phẩm papers which in 1956 were suppressed by the Vietnamese Communist Party. They were all either killed or imprisoned for criticizing communism

Communism

, especially after Cải Cách Ruộng Đất (The Land Reform in Vietnam). Their cases later were made known to an international audience in his book The Nhân Văn Affair.

Hoàng Văn Chí came to the conclusion that communism was the wrong choice for Vietnam. He vowed to leave the Viet Minh immediately after the defeat of French colonialism. In 1954, after the Geneva Agreements

Geneva Agreements

The Geneva Agreements of 1954 arranged a settlement which brought about an end to the First Indochina war. The agreement was reached at the end of the Geneva Conference. A ceasefire was signed and France agreed to withdraw its troops from the region. French Indochina was split into three...

, together with another almost 900,000 North Vietnamese, Hoàng Văn Chí left North Vietnam

North Vietnam

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...

for the South

South Vietnam

South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...

.

In 1955, Hoàng Văn Chí joined the government of South Vietnam, under Ngô Đình Diệm. Until 1960, he headed the Mặt Trận Bảo Vệ Tự Do Văn Hóa (Congress of Cultural Freedom), speaking up for those he felt were silenced by Communism in the North. He researched and gathered information about life in the North, and published Phật Rơi Lệ (Buddha Cries) (1956) The New Class in North Vietnam, The Nhân Văn Affair, and Trăm Hoa Đua Nở Trên Đất Bắc (Hundreds of Flowers Competing to Bloom in the North) (1959). These books were all exposés of the oppression of writers in the North, and of violations of freedom of speech.

Declined position in Ngô Đình Diệm’s government

Disappointed with the family-run dictatorship of Ngô Đình Diệm in the South, he tried to go abroad. Hoàng Văn Chí requested reassignment to India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

since he had known a student of Mohandas K. Gandhi, Jaya Prakhash Narayan

Jaya Prakhash Narayan

Jaya Prakhash Narayan was a student of Gandhi, who founded the Congress of Cultural Freedom in India.He did not participate in the Indian government, but was well respected by the Indians.Mr. Hoàng Văn Chí stated his power was as high as Nehru....

, who was the founder of Congress of Cultural Freedom in India. In 1959, he was appointed to work in the South Vietnamese Embassy in New Delhi

New Delhi

New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...

.

Narayan also helped Hoàng Văn Chí to obtain a grant of US$2,000 from the Congress of Cultural Freedom in France to work on his studies about The Land Reform in Vietnam. In 1960, he left the post for France

France

, where he lived until 1965, engaging in writing and cultural activities.

Continued writing and activism

From 1960 to 1962, Hoàng Văn Chí wrote From Colonialism to Communism, an account of events in Vietnam from 1940s to 1955, especially The Land Reform in Vietnam. The book was published first in 1962, at the same time in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and New Delhi

New Delhi

.

This book was well received and was translated into various languages, including Urdu

Urdu

Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...

, Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, and Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

. The book was translated by Mạc Định (penname of Hoàng Văn Chí) into Vietnamese under the title: Từ Thực Dân đến Cộng Sản. It is still cited as a reference for the history of Vietnam during that period.

He also wrote for and contributed to North Vietnam Today and Vietnam Seen from East and West.

In 1965, the United States Department of State

United States Department of State

The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...

invited Hoàng Văn Chí to resettle in America, where he continued working for an independent, free, democratic Vietnam.

From 1965 to 1969, he worked as news editor for the Voice of America

Voice of America

Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...

, specializing in North Vietnam. From 1970 to 1979 he worked for USAID, teaching culture and philosophy to classes of diplomats, U.S. State Department staff, and in universities. He especially enjoyed holding seminars about many different topics related to culture and education for young students in America, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

From 1975, with waves of boat people

Boat people

Boat people is a term that usually refers to refugees, illegal immigrants or asylum seekers who emigrate in numbers in boats that are sometimes old and crudely made...

leaving Vietnam, Hoàng Văn Chí and his wife actively supported the Boat People SOS

Boat People SOS

Boat People SOS is the nation's largest Vietnamese-American 5013 nonprofit organization devoted to Vietnamese-American civic and political activism. It is headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia...

organization, organizing many fund-raising activities and helping newcomers to resettle.

In 1987, Hoàng Văn Chí was invited to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France, to speak about Vietnam at the Paris Peace Accords

Paris Peace Accords

The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 intended to establish peace in Vietnam and an end to the Vietnam War, ended direct U.S. military involvement, and temporarily stopped the fighting between North and South Vietnam...

conference.

In the 1980s, Hoàng Văn Chí started to work on his passion: formulating a direction to help Vietnam change from Communism to an independent, free, and democratic country. He had finished the last chapter of Duy Van Su Quan ("Humanism

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

") in 1988 when he suffered a heart attack and died.

Views

Hoàng Văn Chí represented a class of Vietnamese intellectuals caught between colonialism

Colonialism

, nationalism, communism and capitalism

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

, in a society traditionally run by Confucianism

Confucianism

Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...

with totalitarianism

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...

.

Similar figures were Phan Khoi

Phan Khoi

Phan Khôi was an intellectual leader who inspired a North Vietnamese variety of the Chinese Hundred Flowers Campaign, in which scholars were permitted to criticize the Communist regime, but for which he himself was ultimately persecuted by the Communist Party...

and Nguyễn Tường Tam (whose pen-name was Nhất Linh).

During the fight for independence from the French colonialism, these intellectuals had tried to find new directions for Vietnam. The ideals of democracy, equality

Egalitarianism

Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...

, human rights

Human rights

and civil rights

Civil rights

led them into conflict with the Vietnamese governments of both North and South. Phan Khoi and his Nhan-Van Giai Pham group were oppressed and imprisoned by the communists in North Vietnam. Nguyễn Tường Tam committed suicide the day before Ngô Đình Diệm summoned him to a court hearing due to his political writings. Hoàng Văn Chí was able to escape from both the North and South Vietnamese governments during this time to continue his search for a new direction.

Independent thinking

Hoàng Văn Chí advocated independent thinking, and liberation from previously set rules to help free the Vietnamese from the “obedient” mentality resulting from 1,000 years of Chinese domination of Vietnam.

Humanism and heritage

Hoàng Văn Chí’s answer to communism was Duy Văn Sử Quan or Humanism

Humanism

, defined as preservation of the beauty in humanity and heritage. He believed that harmony of mind and emotion, developed in the right environment (an appropriate mix of political-economic and cultural foundations) would produce the best results and benefit the people and the country, as well as taking their culture to another level of power.

Hoàng Văn Chí believed that this preservation of humanity and heritage in a free and democratic society was the way to counteract what he saw as the destruction caused by communism in Vietnam.

Preserving a traditional Vietnamese lifestyle

While he spent most of his time devoting to writing, researching, and teaching, Hoàng Văn Chí and his wife maintained a simple traditional Vietnamese lifestyle. In the early 1970s, he built a greenhouse where he grew Vietnamese herbs and vegetables. Most remembered by his community are the white eggplants, a part of the traditional North Vietnamese daily meal.

In 1979, Mr. Hoàng and his wife founded the Vietnam Food and Drink Company in Bowie, Maryland, in order to promote Vietnamese food and drink. The first successful product was “Tương Cự Đà”, a sauce made by a fermentation process using soybeans and sweet rice. The second product was “Thính Quê Hương”, a Vietnamese spice made from roasted rice powder, used in Vietnamese cooking to add flavor to roast beef (bò tái) and shredded pork (bì). These two products enjoyed international sales at a time when Vietnam was still closed to the outside world. The Vietnam Food and Drink Company delivered products to Asian and Vietnamese supermarkets in the United States and worldwide, as well as by mail order.

From Colonialism to Communism

From Colonialism to Communism: A Case Study of North Vietnam describes North Vietnam from 1940 to 1955, during the transition from the French colonial rule to communism. It also documents The Land Reform in Vietnam in 1954. The book was written in exile in India

India

and France, between 1960-1962.

The first edition was published in 1962, in New York

New York

, London

London

, and New Delhi

New Delhi

. Between 1962 and 1964, foreign language editions were published in Japanese

Japanese language

, Urdu

Urdu

, Spanish

Spanish language

, Arabic and Vietnamese

Vietnamese language

Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

Select bibliography

1956 - Phật Rơi Lệ (“Buddha Cries”)
1959 - Trăm Hoa Đua Nở Trên Đất Bắc (“A Hundred Flowers Bloom in the North”)
1959 - The New Class in North Vietnam
1959 - The Nhân Văn Affair
1964 - From Colonialism to Communism
1990 - Duy Văn Sử Quan (“Humanism”), published posthumously by his son, Dr.Hoàng Việt Dũng, in association with Cành Nam Publishers

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Early life and education

Fighting French colonialism

Rejection of communism

Declined position in Ngô Đình Diệm’s government

Continued writing and activism

Views

Independent thinking

Humanism and heritage

Preserving a traditional Vietnamese lifestyle

From Colonialism to Communism

Select bibliography

Further reading

External links