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THE WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467) VOLUME 8 NUMBER 1 JAN 2006
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AN INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR NGO
THE VINH CONDUCTED
BY LE QUYNH MAI
Introduction to the interviewee by interviewer Le Quynh
Mai: Ngo The Vinh
was born in 1941 in Thanh Hoa
province. Editor-in-chief of Tinh
Thuong (Compassion),
a monthly magazine of students of the Faculty
of Medicine, University of Saigon. Chief surgeon of the 81st
Airborne Ranger Group in the ARVN. Resident physician in SUNY Downstate
at Brooklyn, New York. Ngo The Vinh
currently lives in Southern California and is a board certified internist, an
attending physician, and an Assistant Clinical Professor at UC-Irvine College
of Medicine. Published
works: --May Bao
(Storm Clouds). Saigon: Song Ma, 1963; California: Van Nghe, 1993. --Bong Dem (Dark of Night). Saigon: Khai Tri,
1964. --Gio Mua (Monsoon
Wind). Saigon: Song Ma, 1965. --Vong Dai Xanh
(The Green Belt). Saigon: Thai Do,
1971; California: Van Nghe, 1987. --Mat Tran o Sai Gon (The Battle of Saigon). California: Van Nghe,
1996. --Cuu Long Can Dong Bien Dong Day Song (Mekong
River Drained Dry, South China Sea
in Turmoil). California: Van Nghe, 2000 & 2001. The
work Cuu Long Can Dong Bien Dong Day Song (CLCD, Van Nghe 2000) by author Ngo The Vinh
is a faction -- fiction drawn from factual events -- about the Mekong River,
the third longest river in Asia and the twelfth longest in the world The
book portrays the Mekong River in its declining years, its past darkly marked
with natural disasters and with human destruction, and its future quite
uncertain. In this work, the author
brings up many important matters, of utmost concern
among them is the environmental issue.
He outlines the history of the Mekong River,
and of the cycle of prosperity and decline experienced by the countries and
civilizations connected with this twelfth longest river in the world. "With regard to the current
circumstance of Vietnam, due to a chain reaction caused by a cascade of dams
built on the tributaries of the Mekong River in Thailand and Laos, and on its
mainstream in Yunnan, there have clearly appeared signs of scorched earth
during the dry season in the Mekong delta.
In order to guarantee enough water for the rice basket in the Delta,
we have no alternative but to urgently investigate the feasibility of
building dams on the tributaries of the Mekong River within the territory of
Vietnam." (CLCD, p.
158). This work of faction is a more absorbing read than Ivo Andic's The Bridge on
the Drina which won the Nobel Prize for
literature in 1961. Embedded in it are
all the sentiments of joy and anger, love and hate, together with all issues
connected with humanity as a whole, especially the environmental issue. However, even against such a dark outlook
for the Mekong River and in face of Beijing's ambition to extend its control
toward the South China Sea, author Ngo The Vinh is
still hopeful for "A global order in the upcoming millennium, wherein
the superpowers will behave with a greater sense of responsibility, not
relying exclusively on their own power as is the case at present. And furthermore, happiness for Chinese and
Vietnamese peoples will be to co-exist in peace, so that they can together
rationally exploit and share natural resources in
both the South China Sea and the Mekong River." (CLCD, p. 373). The
Vietnam question is the major theme in almost all of Ngo The Vinh's works. With
regard to the massacre during the Tet offensive of
1968 as well as that at Son My, he has an appeal to make: "Do not
nurture hatred, but at the same time do not allow any room for deception and
cover-up. Following from that,
Vietnamese forces of the present as well as in the future must keep alive the
memory of the tragedies suffered by the country so that they can avoid
repeating such crimes." (CLCD, p. 330). Thinking about his native land in that
light, he also shows anguish:
"If we do not engage in looking backward and meditate on past events,
won't we again be faced with the irony that Vietnam, after having once
experienced the tragedy of being an outpost of the free world, in a future
not far from now may again be honored, for a second time, as an outpost to
prevent Chinese expansionism?" (MAT TRAN O SAI GON, Van Nghe 1996, p.180).
Not only is he concerned and
worried about the survival of Vietnam, Ngo The Vinh
also has dreams and hope for a good future for his homeland. He says: "In the future, at the start
of the new millennium, the Mekong delta will be like a cradle of Vietnamese
culture." (CLCD, p.387). In the same manner displayed by Herman
Hess in The Glass Bead Game which
won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1946, Ngo The Vinh
is full of humanity when he writes: "In the limited life span within
this impermanent universe, the threat of an uncertain future made me feel
more strongly drawn to life and living." (VONG DAI XANH, Thai Do
1971, p. 171). Ngo
The Vinh is a committed writer. Almost all of his works reflect his care
and concern, and his aspiration to make the human world better. LQM: Aside from published works of literature,
is it correct that you also authored a book on medicine? NTV: In 1971, I received
special training in Rehabilitation Medicine at Letterman Hospital, the
Presidio, San Francisco. After 1975, there was a period when I
worked at the Rehabilitation Center and the School of Physiotherapy in
Saigon. The book titled Handbook of Rehabilation
Medicine, published in 1983, is a condensation of the lectures I
delivered. Rehabilitation Medicine at
that point in time was a relatively new concept, seen as the Third Step in
medicine (after Preventive Medicine and Treatment Medicine). -- What reason
prompted you, during your fourth year of medical school, to consider dropping
out and to become a reporter, with special concern about the ethnic
minorities living in the Central Highlands? -- During those years at medical school, I was not a model
student. Instead of regular attendance
at the lecture hall, laboratory, and hospital, I devoted a lot of time to
student activities, journalism, and even fiction writing. (I completed the
writing of the novel May Bao [Storm Clouds] in my second year of medical
school.) It is true that during my
fourth year there, I even entertained the idea of dropping out and to work in
journalism, an activity which I was very passionate about at that time. Forty years have passed since then, but
each time when I have an occasion to stop by a printing house to check on the
progress of one of my books, or to visit a newspaper office, the smell of
paper and the odor of printer's ink trigger a flashback transporting me to
the time of my virgin passion for journalism (although, as you may know, our
current journalistic activities are quite different from those undertaken on
Nguyen An Ninh and Pham Ngu
Lao streets in Saigon before 1975). As
if confronting an identity crisis, sometimes I wonder if I made the right
choice between a medical career and journalism. -- In
the 1960s there appeared two well-known books written in the form of
"faction" dealing with Viet Nam: The Quiet American by Graham Greene and The Ambassador by Morris West. Why did you
yourself prefer to adopt this genre when writing Vong
Dai Xanh and Cuu Long Can
Dong Bien Dong Day Song? -- I read those two works during my university years, but they
did not have any influence on my decision to choose the faction form when
writing Vong Dai Xanh in
the 1960s and recently Cuu Long Can Dong… In my talk with Nguyen
Manh Trinh in 1996, when discussing the writing of Vong Dai Xanh, I
explained that "…instead of a research book of a dry style, a faction
through the use of literary images will have widespread and more lasting
impact on the reading public." I
am sure your are aware that the director Phillip Noyce is now in Saigon to film the second movie based on
Graham's The Quiet American. -- Do
you think the divisive and impoverished situation of Vietnam today is a karmic
consequence of the cruel and discriminating policies imposed on the Thuong people (1), a payback for the invasion
of the Champa kingdom and the elimination of its
people(2) by our predecessors? -- When one is caught in a protracted war and in utmost
suffering and despair, when one's appeal to the mercy of Heaven or Buddha is
not heard, when one's prayers are rejected by God as portrayed in Richard E.
Kim's The Martyred [1964], one has
nothing else but the notion of Karma to rely on for consolation, or for rationalization, to use a
psychologists' term, of irresolvable conflicts. --
Looking closely at the course of our history which boasts four thousand years
of civilization, is it not an illusion when you dream: "Some day when
there is a solid and strong democratic government [in Vietnam] that respects
human values, it will be time for the leader of the country to publicly
apologize to the Cham people and to other ethnic minorities for all the
suffering and loss caused by our Vietnamese ancestors in their southward
expansion."? (3) -- Southward expansionism is a closed chapter in our history,
and so it's not wrong to refer to it as a fait
accompli. However, the suffering
and loss is still there, heavy in the hearts of those who survived it. Therefore, I don't think a public apology
suffices. What is required is an
integrated plan with a positive intent, which is true concern for security
and happiness of the Cham, the Thuong, as well as
other ethnic minorities. Forty years
after the publication of Vong Dai Xanh, the most recent revolt by the Thuong people clearly shows us that their life has not
improved at all, rather more severely deteriorated. --
Would you give us the name of the Vietnamese princess who, according to
history and legend, bewitched and finally destroyed the last king of the Thuong people? (4) -- Even as one cannot think of a few hundred years back as a
remote past, all that has been kept in memory and come down to us is
legends. We all know the officially
recorded story of Vietnamese Princess Huyen Tran
being married to the Cham King Jaya Simhavarman IV
in 1306. As for the Vietnamese princess that figures in the Thuong's history and legend, her name was Ngoc Khoa. Her father,
Lord Nguyen Phuc Nguyen, gave her in marriage to
King Pô Rômê in
1631. According to Dohamide,
in his study on history of Champa civilization (pp.
147-152), Pô Rômê, a
highlander of the Churu tribe, was one of the last
kings of Champa, the small country also known as Panduranga. He had
three wives: Bia Thanh Chih of Cham origins, Bia Thanh Chanh of Rhade origins, and Bia Ut or the Vietnamese princess Ngoc Khoa. In the town of Phan
Rang today, there still stands a temple for the worship of Pô Rômê, where ceremonial
offerings are presented every year during the traditional Katé
festival, with the participation of the Thuong
people of Raglai origins who bring offerings and
take part in the dance ritual. Inside
the temple, in addition to a statue of Pô Rômê, one sees also a statue of Bia
Thanh Chanh who, in spite
of her different Rhade tribal roots, bore the King
children and was very loyal to him. In
fact, this lady jumped into the funeral pyre to join the king in death. Bia Thanh Chih is worshipped in a
separate temple. The statue of
Princess Ngoc Khoa was excavated in 1956 by Nghiem Tham and Dohamide from an uncultivated field which the Cham call Hamu Bruk, about 3km from Pô Rômê's temple. Every year, villagers living nearby come to
offer gifts and prayers. It is obvious
that a number of Thuong tribes have historical and
kinship relations with the Cham, and so there are similarities or identical
elements in a number of their folk tales and legends. --
"How sad to be a montagnard" (5)
and "How sad to be a Cambodian" (6) . I wonder if we should add: "How sad to
be a Vietnamese" after having read these lines in your most recent book:
"Markets, hotels, banks, post offices are new and magnificent
constructions; only schools remain dilapidated, lagging behind in the
renovation period." ? (7) -- We know that the ethnic minorities live in appalling
conditions, but life for the Vietnamese in rural areas is no better. It breaks your heart to watch children in
the Mekong delta, even a quarter of a century after reunification of the
country, still walking barefoot to their old broken down schools, at a time
when humanity gets ready to step into the 21st century engrossed
in the notion of globalization. --
New dams continue to be built on the Mekong River that flows through seven
countries, even though it is known that "economic gains cannot make up
for widespread and long-term negative impacts on the environment" (8). In your opinion, what source of energy
should be used given the rate of human population increase at a geometric
progression as in the present? -- To a certain extent, with gradual and balanced development
coupled with true concern for environmental protection, and given that
self-regulation and sensible utilization of it is strictly observed, we won't
be able to deny that hydroelectric power is a clean source of energy
bequeathed by nature. A good example
is the Nam Ngun dam, the first hydroelectric dam in
Laos which was built on a tributary of the Mekong River. It has been in operation since 1971, really
bringing the light of civilization to the Lao populace. However, the issue is, people hurriedly and
blindly ran after material gains through stages of destructive development without any consideration for the
consequences, leading to damage of the ecosystem. One outstanding evidence
of this can be seen in the mad rush into "building more and more"
dams on the tributaries as well as the main stream of the Mekong River,
notable among which is a cascade of huge dams in Yunnan. Before construction of these dams, there
had not been any comprehensive study that would address all basic questions
as to whether "the price to be paid" would be acceptable in
relation to the environment and the welfare of the inhabitants of the
involved areas. -- In
your view, what should the Vietnamese Diaspora do in face of "the storm
clouds that forewarn natural disaster coming down from the northern
border"? (9) -- It's imperative to raise awareness and concern among
Vietnamese both inside and outside the country about the real threats from
the northern neighbor. The Paracels in the South China Sea were lost to China in
1974; the fate of the Spratlys is hanging on a
fragile thread; then environmental catastrophe is flowing down from the upper
reaches of the Mekong River, the most worrisome of which is a series of eight
huge dams in Yunnan causing water shortages, loss of [nutrient-laden] silt
deposit, and industrial pollution suffered by the countries in the lower
reaches of the river. Obviously there
is no freedom of the press in Vietnam [to raise any voice of protest]. But look at the overseas press that enjoys
freedom of expression, look at a lot of newspapers
and magazines, radio stations and websites in Vietnamese! The content one finds in all of them is not
focused on news closely related to the future of Vietnam -- I mean the future
of the people, not of a temporary political regime. A concrete example proves my point:
Recently there appeared the inflammatory news about a flare-up in conflict
between China and Vietnam regarding the issue of the Paracel
and Spratly islands. It could have
profoundly moved the hearts of all Vietnamese, but in reality the news
occupied but a tiny humble slot, barely noticeable in Vietnamese language
newspapers which had their eight columns on the front page filled with
inconsequential news items that could be found in any American paper. I don't mean to say that those news items
broadcast in the Vietnamese-language are not useful for the first generation
of immigrant readers who don't know English.
But more important than that are "timeliness and a measure of
content in news items" that are to be disseminated. When information is complete, generally
speaking the Vietnamese will no longer maintain a passive stand which American
people refer to as the "wait-and-see" attitude. I also would like to draw attention to a
noteworthy detail which is that, no matter whether they are nationalists or
communists, when it comes to the matter of the South China Sea, Taiwan is
always quick to concur with the standpoint of mainland China in the name of
"the Chinese people", even though the two countries still very much
differ from each other in terms of political system, and they are not short
of conflicts. (CLCD, p. 377) -- In
order to deal with the "Tibetization of the
South China Sea", you have proposed two solutions: "first is [for
Vietnam] to economize so that she can afford to establish a national defense
force, especially its navy, strong enough to protect its territorial waters and
its air space; second is to develop long-range intellectual weaponry capable
of asserting sovereignty of Vietnam over both the Paracel
and the Spratly island areas".
But how can Vietnam put into practice those suggested solutions amidst
economic and social disunity at present? -- "Tibetization", a new and
suggestive term coined by B. A. Hamzah, Head of the
Malaysian Institute of Maritime Affairs, is being used by the press and in
diplomatic circles when they visualize the circumstance of Southeast Asian
countries waking up one day to find the South China Sea in the hands of
mainland China, a situation not unlike that suffered by Tibet. There have been two operating elements,
destructive and constructive at the same time, which have shaped Vietnamese
society throughout its history on its predestined land: while having to
struggle with and overcome severe impacts of natural disasters, the
Vietnamese have had to defend themselves and safeguard their identity against
threat of assimilation imposed by the strong enemy in the north (It appears
that Sar Desai, when conducting research on
Vietnam, formed a similar opinion).
Peace is always short-lived, while war protracted. It's an irony that, being a poor country,
Vietnam has to carve out a big chunk of national resources to build a solid
national defense force capable of protecting the country's territorial waters
and air space -- which action is unavoidable.
In this new century of globalization, in addition to the power derived
from unity in a democratic system where all Vietnamese citizens are given an
opportunity to participate and contribute, we must also take into account the
potential "gray matter" of the young generations of Vietnamese
living both outside and inside Vietnam.
The latter can provide the very thing which I call "long-range
intellectual weaponry" built on solid knowledge of historical factors
and international law, which can help Vietnam confront China in a UN forum,
not right at this moment, but perhaps far in the future. -- Vietnam's ownership of the Paracel Islands was recorded in the document called An
Nam Dai Quoc Hoa Do (Map
of the Great An Nam Country) printed in 1833 in Calcutta, India (10) . But the world and our ally the USA still
allowed China to seize the Paracels in 1974. Do you think we should erect a memorial to
commemorate the heroic fighters like captain Nguy
Van Tha and the crew members of the patrol craft
escort Nhat Tao HQ10, who "died for the
country" during the Paracel Islands battle? (11)
-- That's a good idea worthy of attention and consideration by
the General Association of the [Vietnamese] Navy. A memorial dedicated to captain Nguy Van Tha and the crew
members of Nhat Tao HQ10, who heroically sacrificed
themselves at the Paracel Islands, will act as a
reminder that those islands are still in the hands of China. Perhaps I should quote a paragraph from an
article by Professor Hoang Xuan Han in Tap san Su Dia
(Journal of History and Geography) in its special issue, No. 29, March 1975,
devoted to the matter of the Paracels and the Spratlys: "An illustrious pattern in our history is
that whenever the country was weakened by disunity and internecine conflict,
neighboring countries invariably attempted to seize our territory. At
present, the fact of the Paracel Islands being
occupied provides concrete proof of disunity among our people…although old
and new historical evidence says that the islands are Vietnam's
territory." A memorial
engraved with that quotation will have the effect of connecting and uniting
Vietnamese people from both sides. -- In
Vong Dai Xanh published
in the 1960s, you discuss the forgotten war closely connected with the
survival of more than thirty Thuong tribes, and
also sovereignty over the immense Central Highlands. In the 1990s, with Cuu
Long Can Dong Bien Dong Day Song you talk about the uncertain future of the
Mekong River and the deterioration of the whole ecosystem in the delta. What will you be
concerned with in the third millennium? -- My concern will be focused on the Thuong
in the Central Highlands, ecology and development of the Mekong River, the
South China Sea and its gas and oil reserves.
All of them are different problematic issues for Vietnam in the first
century of the third millennium. --
How long did you spend collecting data, attending conferences, and visiting
various localities in the Mekong River Basin before you embarked on the
writing of Cuu Long Can Dong Bien Dong Day Song? -- Approximately somewhat more than five years. -- We live in an
age when there is no shortage of people who follow either Yang Zhu's
principle: "I would not try to benefit the world if I have to pluck out
one hair of my body for that"; or Marquise De Pompadour's statement:
"Après nous le Déluge",
generally taken to mean immediate interests taking precedence over those
long-term. Against that mentality, do
you think the Mekong Forum group feels they work in isolation in their goal
to "save the River"? -- I wouldn't say the group feels lonely or isolated in their
goal. But in realization and development of that goal, progress has not been
made as far as expected. The group's
Webpage, www.mekongforum.org, has been online for 5 years now, but it can
only boast a number of visits of over 10 thousand, among which very many are by
members of the group. That's quite a
small number indeed. According to Dr.
Tran Tan Phat, webmaster of Mekong Forum, recently
there have appeared positive signs: new visitors from international
environmental organizations and universities, who asked permission to set up
links with the home page of the Mekong Forum, and even initiated dialogues
with the group. In connection with
this, mention should be made of a person who very early on wrote an article
on "Exploration of the Mekong River". The article was disseminated widely
overseas and also appeared in the magazine Tuoi Tre (Youth) in
Saigon. He is Pham Phan
Long, an engineer. Aside from
organizing workshops and conferences on the Mekong River in 1999 and 2000,
together with like-minded friends Long is tenaciously pursuing the goal of
establishing an NGO organization that will gather together intellectuals and
experts both inside and outside the country, with a view to accumulating and
sharing knowledge, as well as keeping track of development strategies for the
Mekong River, the river which is
the lifeline of a hundred million inhabitants of the river basin who belong
to seven countries, including Vietnam.
This is to ensure that Vietnamese people have a voice in
international forums, the effect of which will be like a warning cry to the
Mekong River Commission, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and big
capitalist companies making investments in the area. Knowing that they are being watched, it is
hoped that these institutions will work by transparent and correct methods
and behave with decency and responsibility.
An independent organization conceived as such by the Pham Phan Long group, with people's support, will help enhance
the capacity of a democratic government in Vietnam to negotiate and discuss
[the Mekong issue]. -- You wrote:
"Memoirs are like smokescreens covering truths. If they are not meant to mythologize the
writer, often they are for self-justification; nobody writes a memoir with
the aim of self-depreciation. It takes
a heroic heart and moral courage for one to engage in self-criticism and also
to accept responsibility for one's mistakes." (12) What do you think when scholar Nguyen Hien Le says: "I was so naïve!",
on page 23 in his Hoi Ky III (Memoir
III), published by Van Nghe in 1988 (13) ? -- I meant to refer to those memoirs with political content, and
in that connection I very much appreciate the statement made by David Halberstam, author of many books on the Vietnam War:
"Memory is often less about the
truth than about what we want it to be." (David Halberstam,
in the New York Times). As to Mr. Nguyen Hien
Le, he has never engaged in politics; rather as a pure scholar he worked
conscientiously for more than 35 years to produce more than 100 books, and
his illustrious personality has been respected by everyone. His memoir written after 1975 captures the
shattered dreams of an intellectual living in South Vietnam who before that
date sympathized with the Resistance and also admired the communists, and who
after only 5 years under the communist regime awoke in hurt and pain to what
he witnessed firsthand. There is no
smokescreen, for his is a memoir of truth. -- Through your
works, you are a writer of dreams, of conscience, and of society. In your view, how must a person live his
life in society in turmoil as it is at present when "the sea of
suffering is so immense that when you turn your head you cannot see the
shores". (14) -- You asked about "how a person must live his life in
society in turmoil as it is at present".
To me, everyone will look for an answer himself in relation to his own
circumstances. If you think to live
means to live with others, let's wait and see how mankind in this new century
will act in face of the catastrophe when "there is no one left in the
whole of Africa". Would we choose
to save dying mothers and children, or to protect the interests of those big
companies that continue to produce AIDS drugs for another two decades until
their patents expire? Your question
also reminds me of my prison days when, outside the time spent in growing
vegetables or chopping firewood, I tried to keep my mind active by studying
classical Chinese from the fellow prisoner who lay next to me, who had been a
math professor at the Military Academy before 1975. He was very smart, his instructions
methodical, moving from basic roots of Chinese characters to analysis of
meaning of new words containing those roots.
Thanks to his methods, by the time I left the re-education camp I had
a fair vocabulary. But now, all such
language skills have been given back to the teacher so to speak, except for a
few words I can never forget because they bear the imprint of a certain state
of mind during that time. "The sea
of suffering is so immense that when you turn your head you cannot see the
shores.” -- You wrote: "The war brought about many pleasant and
accidental encounters." When the
war ended, did you have any other pleasant and accidental encounters? -- In war, love and
death are entwined. Two things greater than all things are:
the first is Love; and the second, War." And war is death. So wrote Rudyard Kipling. Just before Mua
He Do Lua, The Red Fiery Summer of 1972 that
inflicted great damage and suffering on Central Vietnam, a teenage girl who
served coffee in a small shop located in an area bordering the Central
Highlands, as if stricken by lightning fell in love at first sight with 2nd
Lieutenant Hoang in our unit. She
expressed her love through the melodious and sad singing voice of the famed Thai
Thanh in the song "Don't Leave Me
Alone". The next day, Lieutenant
Hoang was inserted into the enemy's terrain to spy on them, and clashed head
on with the enemy as soon as he touched the landing zone. His corpse was not recovered until two days
later. When evening came, in the
coffee shop we heard the same voice of the same singer, but this time choked
with tears in "You Have Returned in a Poncho". If we think of encounters like that as
interesting and pleasant, then it is "Thu Dau Thuong" (The Pleasure of Hurt and Pain, from Duong Kien's poetry) during wartime. But it was not always sorrowful like that:
military operation should have meant homesickness away from home; but for the
sergeant in charge of provisions for our unit, no matter where in all four
corps tactical zones our operations took us, he needed only a very short time
to find a home provided him by a woman! -- In your first work May Bao (Storm
Clouds), on page 58, you wrote: "Perhaps love dreads layers of fat and
measurements of girth." Was the
statement drawn from a medical or an aesthetic point of view? -- As I remember,
when you asked: "Was the writer Doan Quoc Sy himself in pain then?" quoting a sentence in his
work Khu Rung Lau (The Reed Forest Area), the
writer himself answered that it refers only to the emotion of a character in
the book, not expressing the sentiment of the author. In the same manner, "dreading layers of fat and measurements of
girth" is simply a view unfolding in personality development of a
minor character named Hoat in the novel May Bao. All
the more it is not from a medical viewpoint, because that would be unethical
in terms of professional ethics. -- "Trifling skills in language were not what made good
works of literature; what was important was a fiery ardor in writing, which
existed only in the younger generation." (17) In light of that statement
of yours, what do you think about prominent young authors at present like Dinh Linh, Andrew Pham, Le Minh
Ha…? -- It’s true that
trifling skills in language manipulation sometimes create beautiful lines of
words. But truly good and timeless
writings must carry contents full of humanity, which contents demand profound knowledge and vision from the
writer. As for the talented authors
you mention, I hope they will persevere in order to finish great works that
we are waiting for. -- You also wrote elsewhere: "I am very fond of
painting." (18) Would you please tell us about the artists
and the painting schools you like most? -- Painting is
another way of looking at life. I had
a long-standing friend of 40 years who was a painter. We were different from each other in many
ways, but we were close friends. I
love his big oil paintings where, other than brushstrokes, what I like most
are empty spaces marked with impressive delicate blocks of color. "An artist creates the right stroke in his painting from some where between two wrong strokes in life." Only,
it's regrettable that this painter friend
did not create many works. He was
artist Nghieu De, and he is no longer with us. --Please share with us your views concerning the Nobel Prize for
literature in 2000 given to Gao Xingjian for his work
Soul Mountain. -- Those books with
the label Nobel Prize from Stockholm attached to them are not necessarily
among the 100 excellent works produced in the 20th century. I enjoyed reading a few fine excerpts from Soul
Mountain, but the work did not greatly move me. -- From your point of view, what difference is there between a
well-known author who practices medicine and a physician whose works of
literature are recorded in literary history? -- Literature
enriches the medical profession and, conversely, in medical practice
"everyday one is in touch with those selves that are not oneself". The
two fields have reciprocal impact on each other. In his work Viet va
Doc Tieu Thuyet (Writing
and Reading Fiction), when discussing Truth, Goodness and Beauty as aesthetic
values, Nhat Linh
mentions the art of cooking, which implies that in whatever field of activity
one can always bring his job to the level of art, and time provides the most
severe and fair evaluation. -- If there were some power that prevents or forbids you from
writing, how would you react? -- Using force to
stop an author from writing in the long run only begets a reverse
consequence. But
"self-restraint" -- that is, knowing when to stop -- is a form of
freedom for a writer, insuring that he doesn't write meaningless lines of
words having contents disagreeable to himself. "If
one does not oppose something, then at least one should not support whatever
contributes fertile soil for the evils in life." That is a line in a letter written by a
writer friend when he was about to reach 70, after a meeting at the end of
another year. -- You have just completed a journey to Laos. Can you tell us the purpose of the
trip? And what are your thoughts about
that country at the present time? -- It was a field
research trip, or more accurately speaking, the purpose was to see firsthand
the reaches of the Mekong River in upper Laos not very far from the cascade
of giant dams in Yunnan. Deterioration
of the River has been faster than I imagined.
Moreover, given that the country, which is only one third the size of
Texas, is hurriedly embracing "Renovation", receiving more than
600,000 tourists a year, having AIDS and HIV epidemics, and a drug problem,
you come away with the general impression that Lao society is in danger of
becoming damaged by capitalism. --In your opinion, in an interview where the interviewee is a
scientist or an author who has written works focusing on research related to
historical fact, should we pose questions concerning love and happiness in
family life (the human aspect of life)?
If we should pose those questions, would you care to answer them? If we shouldn't, then why not? -- Medical practice
is a busy profession; writing and being passionate about writing, is a second
busy preoccupation. Those two
involvements take up much time from the 24 hours of everyday life. In the hope of being able to continue with
these long chosen paths, surely one needs understanding, cooperation, and to
a certain extent even sacrifice from one's family,
and that is something one cannot have all the time. --Thank you, author Ngo The Vinh. (This is an
introduction to the title Cuu Long Can Dong Bien Dong Day Song and its author Ngo
The Vinh, broadcast in Literature and Arts Program,
The Voice of Vietnam radio station, 103.3 FM- MTL, on March 25th,
2001.) Notes: (Page references are to original Vietnamese texts) (1) Vong Dai Xanh (The
Green Belt), p. 5 (2) Mat Tran o Sai Gon (The Battle of Saigon), p. 80 (3) Cuu Long Can Dong Bien Dong Day Song
(Mekong River Drained Dry, South China
Sea in Turmoil), p. 325 (4) Vong Dai Xanh,
p. 19 (5) Vong Dai Xanh, p.179 (6) Mat Tran o Sai Gon, p. 32 (7) Cuu Long Can Dong, p. 205 (8) Cuu Long Can Dong, p. 304 (9) Cuu Long Can Dong, p. 67 (10) Khoi Hanh, No.
43, p. 7 (11) Cuu Long Can Dong, p.383 (12) Cuu Long Can Dong, p. 562 (13) Hoi Ky III.
California: Van Nghe, 1988, p. 23 (14) Mat Tran o Sai Gon, p. 152 (15) May Bao
(Storm Clouds), p. 28 (16) May Bao, p.
58 (17) Vong Dai Xanh, p.
133 (18) Mat Tran o Sai Gon, p. 183 LE QUYNH MAI Translated by Tam Binh The Writers Post &
literature-in-translation, founded
1999, based in the US. Editorial
note: Works
published in this issue are simultaneously published in the printed Wordbridge magazine (ISSN: 1540-1723). Copyright
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