Columbia East Asia Review
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BEYOND BETRAYAL: COLLABORATORS IN EARLY
20TH CENTURY FRENCH COLONIAL VIETNAM
Cindy Nguyen, University of California- Los Angeles
The history of Vietnam’s encounter with French colonialism has often been
told as a simple struggle between “patriots” and “collaborators,” in which
the former are described as national heroes and the latter are cast as traitors
to the nation. This paper subjects these binaries to critical examination by
exploring the life and works of Nguy!n Văn V"nh, a colonial clerk, translator
and writer whose accommodationist views toward the French have traditionally earned him the title of “collaborator.” By reassessing the meaning of
Nguy!n’s literary contributions and situating him within the wider context
of changing linguistic, social and political currents, this paper reveals the
serious problems inherent in the use of simple labels like “traitor” and “hero.”
R
eturning from the Marseille Colonial Exposition of 1906, Nguy!n Văn
V"nh, who would later become a controversial figure in the reform
movement, was infatuated with the civilization of the West. His flamboyant exaltations of artifacts from French culture infuriated his contemporaries, and
by 1913 he had decisively adopted a platform of accommodation with the French
colonial authorities, lashing out at militant Vietnamese revolutionaries in the pages of
the Indochina Journal. While the attack on his country was, and continues to be, interpreted as an act of betrayal, Nguy!n nevertheless believed he had the best interests
of Vietnam in mind. Only through cooperation with the French, he argued, could
Vietnam hope to raise itself out of corruption, superstition, and barbarism.
How clear is the divide between resistance and collaboration, between “traitor”
and “patriot” in the history of colonial Vietnam? These questions stem directly from
the continued prevalence of nationalist assumptions and narratives in Vietnamese
history. The category “collaborator” inevitably obscures the legitimacy of responses to
colonialism beyond overt resistance; it also distorts the character of the period itself.
This paper questions the simple binaries of “collaborator” and “hero,” “patriot”
and “traitor” as rubrics for understanding Vietnam’s colonial situation in the early decades of the twentieth century. In particular, I seek to provoke some reconsideration
of the term “collaborator” as it is applied to those who, for various reasons, adopted
methods or postures other than armed resistance to colonial rule. In doing so, I hope
to encourage a move away from the nationalist assumptions that continue to dominate the writing of Vietnamese history, and thereby suggest a more comprehensive
definition of “patriot” than these narratives permit.
In Vietnam’s postcolonial period, the dichotomy between collaboration and
resistance was reinforced by attempts to produce modern versions of national history, as distinct from previous dynastic histories, Confucian records and colonial
44 1JX\HQ‡%H\RQG%HWUD\DO
literature.1 In 1959, the Communist Party established the Vi#n S$ H%c (Institute of
History) to construct a new version of general Vietnamese history (&'ch s( m)i). Historical studies were henceforth institutionalized by the Communist state, and politics
dictated the direction of research and education. Historians were then responsible
for what Patricia M. Pelley has described as writing “a new collective memory of the
past” and developing the “foundation for new rituals of state.”2 These new histories
emphasized a unified trajectory of personalities, movements and events that harmonized knowledge into a narrative, which spoke to the political imperatives of the day.3
Historical figures and opinions that strayed from the state-sanctioned consensus were
either muted or reworked to fit within the nationalist story.
This essay attempts to resuscitate the life and work of Nguy!n Văn V"nh, a
scholar who has commonly been dismissed as a political and cultural “collaborator” to the French. By examining his intellectual and literary contributions and the
context in which he lived, I attempt to retrieve a more nuanced history of a wider
class of “collaborators” whose role has so often been reduced to caricature. Primarily
urban, educated in French colonial schools, and influenced by the West, this group
of intellectuals advocated moderate reformism rather than open political resistance.
They were pre-eminent between 1917 and 1926, and during this decade many of
these scholars called for active cooperation with the French. Like other members in
this group, Nguy!n Văn V"nh came of age in a transitional period of Vietnam’s history, during which traditional ideas and forms of social organization gave way to new
processes, technologies and means of dealing with the colonial predicament.
LIFE AND TRAVELS: FROM HÀ ÐÔNG TO MARSEILLE
Nguy!n Văn V"nh (1882-1936) was a reformer whose ideas and work were far more
complex than the title of “collaborator” would suggest. Born in the northern Vietnamese province of Hà Ðông in 1882, Nguy!n struggled in a large, poor, and rural
family, and worked as a classroom fan-operator at a school for French interpreters
in the nearby province of Yên Ph*.4 His exceptional language skills quickly got
the attention of the teachers, who then offered Nguy!n a full scholarship to further
his language studies. He later excelled at the College of Interpreters and worked as
a secretary and translator within the colonial administration. From 1893 to 1905,
Nguy!n climbed the ranks within the colonial administration as an interpreter in
Lào Kay, H+i Phòng, and B,c Giang. His talents for translation and his commitment
1 Prior to Vietnam’s independence in 1954, general histories of Vietnam were very limited and those that existed were
mainly products of French colonial officials or dynastic imperial records.
2 Patricia M. Pelley, “Chapter One: Constructing History” in Postcolonial Vietnam: New Histories of the National Past
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), 20.
3 Pelley, Postcolonial Vietnam, 26. For more information on these state-sponsored discourses, see the Tr-n Huy Li#u et al.,
L'ch S( Vi#t Nam (History of Vietnam), 2 vols. (Hanoi: Social Sciences, 1971, 1985) and the journal Nghiên C#u L$ch
S% (NCLS) (Journal of Historical Studies).
4 This narrative of Vinh’s early life draws mainly from my translation of selections from Ti.n Hoàng, D'ch Gi+/Nguy!n
Văn V"nh - Chi.c C-u N0i Văn Hóa Đông Tây (Translator Nguy!n Văn V"nh - A Bridge Linking the Culture of the West
and East), 07/28/2009, http://chungta.com/Desktop.aspx/ChungTa-SuyNgam/Van-Hoa/Nguyen_Van_Vinh_cau_noi_
van_hoa_Dong_Tay/# (accessed 08/01/2010).
Columbia East Asia Review
45
earned the praise of some colonial officials who entrusted Nguy!n with many duties,
including reviewing applications for translation societies, and H1i giúp đ2 ng34i
Vi#t sang Pháp h%c (Society to Help Vietnamese Study in France).
Nguy!n’s career, however, took place in a transition period when the traditional system of Confucian education, administration, and learning was in decline to
the advantage of new foreign ideas and a class of urban scholars trained under the colonial system. While Confucian scholars were still held in high esteem within society,
others found technical careers such as trade and translation to be a more realistic path
toward socioeconomic advancement. Adapting to the new colonial environment,
younger Vietnamese scholars aspiring to obtain government positions had found it
beneficial or necessary to supplement their Confucian education with training in
language translation and French law. By Nguy!n’s time, many individuals who had
acquired a French colonial education had reached a peak in their professional careers
in the fields of administration, education, translation, and the print media.
One of the more striking consequences of French colonial rule in Vietnam was
the process of urbanization. In order to maximize profits from its colonial venture,
France sought to turn the closed rural Vietnamese communities into a network of
commercial and export-oriented enterprises. Through this process, the movement of
goods and people accelerated the formation of urban centers around places such as
Saigon and Hanoi and in areas of colonial economic and political interest.5 By the
twentieth century, the emergence of new markets and trade as well as the economic
displacement of peasants brought waves of migration to the newly formed cities.
The centralization of colonial administrative apparatuses in the fields of education,
development, and trade also exacerbated the divide between the poorer villages and
the commercial urban centers.
The divide between the villages and the cities was also evident in the educational sphere. The break from the pre-colonial Confucian education uprooted the livelihood of many traditional teachers and elders within the villages. With the gradual
emergence of urban areas as centers of education and governance, the exchange of
information, news, and scholarly discussion about reform transitioned to a different
stage with new actors. Cities became the legitimate stage for the new colonial education and administrative recruitment, while urban youths were the modern actors who
emerged with the skill sets and educational background necessary for social ascension
in a colonial environment. Apart from this emphasis on urban centers and new actors, the transformation of education also included a distinct model of teaching and
subject material.
While people from previous generations learned both traditional Confucian
doctrines and colonial skills such as language and technical training, scholars of the
1920s obtained their formal instruction entirely through the French colonial system.
According to the recommendations made by the Council for the Improvement of
Native Education between 1906 and 1913, three primary guidelines were applied in
5 For a discussion of the transformation of Indochina’s urban landscape, the cultural transmissions of French motifs
within colonial architecture, and the policy of urban development, see Gwendolyn Wright, “The Folly of Grandeur,” in
The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).
46 1JX\HQ‡%H\RQG%HWUD\DO
structuring colonial education: first, education would be based upon the current socioeconomic conditions of Vietnam; second, colonial education must avoid the earlier emphasis on Vietnamese traditions and Chinese language; and third, Vietnamese
schools must also be distinct from French systems in substance and structure.6 These
three guidelines were part of France’s strategy of controlling its political and cultural
relations with its colony.
One of the most significant products of this political strategy was the colonial
policy on language instruction. According to the director of internal affairs at the
colonial headquarter in Cochinchina, the use of traditional Chinese script in Vietnam “…presents nothing but difficulties in transmitting to the population those
diverse ideas which are necessary at the level of their new commercial and political
situation.”7 Colonial authorities hence perceived Chinese influence within Vietnamese culture as a force that could undermine the already strained authority of French
colonialism over the region. More specifically, the Council found the prevalence of
Chinese characters not only “politically dangerous” but also archaic, inefficient, and
too exclusive. Similarly, they considered that the Chinese script-based language (ch&
nôm) was difficult to use within the administration and was a barrier to large-scale
Catholic evangelization.8 Thus, as historian David Marr argues, “to eliminate the
Chinese language was simultaneously to isolate Vietnam from its heritage and to
neutralize the traditional elite.”
Under the banner of modernity and civilization, new programs of language
instruction using the Romanized Vietnamese language system, qu'c ng&, were introduced into the colonial educational system.9 Colonial officials saw the new national
language as politically useful, pedagogically practical, and modern. Not only would
its implementation be a tool of cultural and literary control by France, but it could
also function as a more efficient and simpler way for French colonial schools to learn
and teach language. But the repercussions of introducing qu'c ng& as the primary
language of instruction were far greater than the French had ever imagined. Beyond
its role in increasing basic literacy and improving administrative efficiency, it soon
became an instrument for liberalizing education, empowering popular political participation, and revolutionizing communications. At the forefront of that movement
were urban Vietnamese scholars, publishers, and teachers, including the reformer,
scholar and ‘collaborator,’ Nguy!n Văn V"nh.
Nguy!n Văn V"nh was part of the new distinctive group of Vietnamese intellectuals that dominated the sociopolitical scene for about a decade (1917-1926) and
embodied an intellectual interchange between traditional that was characteristic of
the period. In August 1906, with a plethora of language skills such as French, qu'c
ng&, Chinese, and ch&(nôm under his belt, Nguy!n went to France to work on the
6 Gail P. Kelly, Franco-Vietnamese Schools, 1918-1936 (Ann Arbor, WI: University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1975), 15.
7 Quoted in Pham The Ngu, Viet Nam Van Hoc Su Gian Uoc Tan Bien, 1862-1945, Vol. 3, 3 vols. (Glendale, CA: Co So
Huat Ban Dai Nam, 1965). 1965, 66, translated and cited in Neil L. Jamieson, Understanding Vietnam, 68.
8 David Marr, Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920-1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 145.
9 Qu'c ng& used the Roman alphabet for Vietnamese sounds and consonants instead of the word-based ch& nôm system.
Portuguese Christian missionaries initiated Qu'c ng& in the early sixteeth century in order to spread Christianity through
education and evangelization. The College of Interpreters was the first colonial-sponsored school in French Indochina.
Columbia East Asia Review
47
“Tonkinese” exhibit at the Marseille Colonial Exposition. During his four-month
stay, Nguy!n was swept away by the technological advances, material prosperity and
culture of France. While he was stationed at the Tonkinese pavilion, he studied the
nearby display of the French newspaper Le Petit Marseillais. “Every day,” he wrote,
“I watched that scene of activity with hungry eyes, the humming presses, reporters
dashing off to gather news. I became infatuated with the newspaper business.”10 From
his encounters with what he perceived to be the epitome of modern civilization,
Nguy!n widened his perspectives beyond Vietnam’s colonial condition and instead
focused on the opportunity of the West. On his return to Vietnam, he shed his traditional dress and hairstyle, wore Western attire and leather shoes, and sported a Terrot
motorbike from France, all to the disdain of his anti-colonial contemporaries.11 Beyond the material changes, Nguy!n’s ideas about politics and culture changed in two
significant ways. Firstly, like other reformist scholars of previous generation, Nguy!n
was now captivated by the ideas of progress, civilization, and self-determination; and
secondly, he decided that the key to bringing Vietnam to an age of cultural modernity
and freedom, were the powerful tools of newspaper and print.
THE INDOCHINA JOURNAL AND SCHOLAR RADICALISM
After returning to Vietnam, Nguy!n began his efforts to modernize Vietnam through
a “cultural revolution” by way of print and qu'c ng&. Between 1908 and 1910, he
served as editor-in chief of several French publications in Cochinchina, including Notre Journal and Notre Revue. Under their motto “The greatest invention of
mankind is printing,”12 Schneider and Nguy!n openly declared their belief in the
modernizing quality of literature, upon which, especially believed by Nguy!n, could
provide Vietnam the opportunity to culturally In 1913, he returned to Hanoi and
opened up a small printing house and translation bureau to expand the qu'c ng&
readership and newsprint in the more conservative of the three regions of Vietnam,
the North.
Despite the initial obstacles to popularize qu'c ng&, the great concentration of
skilled and well-educated individuals in urban centers eased the process of increasing
literacy in the new language and expanded the potential readership. In this context,
Nguy!n ultimately strove to create a qu'c ng& newspaper that would provide an intellectual and cultural forum for spreading Western culture, thus raising Vietnamese
out of “…their benighted state of cultural stagnation.” The formation of the Indochina Journal in 1913, however, coincided with a series of acts of supposed sedition, including anti-colonial associations and various assassination attempts against colonial
officials in 1912. Against this background, Nguy!n adopted a markedly conservative
line in the journal, and spoke out strongly against such acts of colonial resistance. He
10 Tan Van Interview, March 28, 1935 as quoted in Neil L. Jamieson, Understanding Vietnam, 66.
11 Ti.n Hoàng, D'ch Gi+ Nguy!n Văn V"nh - Chi.c C-u N0i Văn Hóa Đông Tây, 07/28/2009, http://chungta.com/
Desktop.aspx/ChungTa-SuyNgam/Van-Hoa/Nguyen_Van_V140
1nh_cau_noi_van_hoa_Dong_Tay/# (accessed 08/01/2010).
12 La plus grande invention de l’homme c’est l’imprimerie” (Ngh) in là s* phát minh l+n nh,t c-a loài ng./i).
48 1JX\HQ‡%H\RQG%HWUD\DO
publicly declared that the purpose of the magazine was “…to use literature and art, to
use the cultural benefits of France to shut out seditious noises, so that the explosions
caused by the rebels will not drown out the drums of civilization.”13 By condemning one of the most influential anti-colonial figures, Nguy!n secured for himself a
position of colonial support and was thereby able to pursue more moderate cultural
and educational programs. This political maneuver, among Nguy!n’s other public
displays of French affinity such as his dress, mannerisms, and publications, also led
to his being described as a “traitor” and “collaborator,” a social and political identity
that Nguy!n carried throughout his life and after his death.
Furthermore, Nguy!n’s criticisms of widely respected fellow contemporaries
reinforced the label of collaborator that he carried throughout history. Nguy!n Văn
V"nh’s immense contributions to modern Vietnamese literature, translation, and interpretation have been relatively muted by his overt support to French culture and
colonialism during the early twentieth century. Perhaps the historical disregard of
Nguy!n’s accomplishments stemmed from the post-1945 nationalist disdain for
Nguy!n’s criticism of widely respected revolutionary heroes, such as Phan B1i Châu.
In an argument with revolutionary scholar Hu5nh Thúc Khángin 1932, Nguy!n
ripped apart Phan’s “The New Vietnam” as well as calling Phan a “failed revolutionary
and pitiful collaborator.”14 This hostile treatment of Phan B1i Châu’s work contributes to the perspective of contempt for Nguy!n Văn V"nh’s history. Nevertheless,
by carefully analyzing Nguy!n’s writings, we can more clearly understand the significance of his proposals and also see how Nguy!n’s reforms, interestingly enough,
closely parallel those suggested by so-called “patriotic” Phan B1i Châu and Phan
Châu Trinh.
TRANSLATION AS CULTURAL POLITICS
Like other reformist scholars of the time, Nguy!n Văn V"nh accepted that French
culture was superior to Vietnamese and even preferred a colonial society with a sense
of French “democracy” to a society dominated by a Chinese-influenced conservative
elite.15 To that end, Nguy!n sought to spread French culture and values to Vietnamese through translations into qu'c ng&.16 Aided by urbanization, technological
improvements in printing, the growing community of urban scholars, and a larger
qu'c ng& reading base, Nguy!n built upon and extended the foundations of earlier
Vietnamese translators. Nguy!n’s translations were not purely literary in intent, not
were they simply acts of pro-colonial collaboration—rather, they reflected his own
social and political ideas of reform for Vietnam.
13 Ng0 Ph1m Th2, Vi3t Nam Văn H4c S% Gi5n 6+c Tân Biên : Văn H4c Hi3n Đ1i 1862-1945, Vol. 3, 3 vols. (Glendale,
CA: Đ6i Nam, 1965), as cited in Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese
Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 28.
14 Christopher E. Goscha, “’The Modern “’The Modern Barbarian’: Nguy n Văn V nh and the Complexity of Colonial
Modernity in Vietnam,” European Journal of East Asian Studies 3, no. 1 (2003): 135-7.
15 Ibid., 74.
16 Christopher Goscha provides a thorough analysis of Nguy n Văn V nh as a cultural broker, reformist scholar, and
modernizer in “The Modern Barbarian.” The analysis presented here draws significantly on Goscha’s work.
Columbia East Asia Review
49
Although limited by colonial censorship, Nguy!n had a measure of freedom to
select works for translation, and he used that freedom deftly. As a Vietnamese scholar
looking outwards towards French Republican ideals of human rights, individual liberties, and citizenship, Nguy!n occupied a position as a “cultural translator” or, what
one Vietnamese scholar has called a “bridge linking the East and the West.”17 Nguy!n
strove to promote French cultural values of reform and equality, but also wanted to
provide Vietnam an opportunity to attain a sense of ‘modernity’ within the context
of their own culture.
Through his translation of La Fontaine’s Les fables (1668), for example, he
revealed his hatred of the mandarin system.18 The original text was a satirical attack
on the corruption of the French monarchy and court aristocracy, and Nguy!n’s conscious decision to translate the text was a veiled stab at the Vietnamese monarchy
and corrupt mandarin system. Other texts that Nguy!n translated and indirectly
used to critique Vietnamese social and political ills under French colonialism were
Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Fenelon’s Les aventures de telemaque, and Victor
Hugo’s Les misérables.19 These stories depict the plight of the peasants and lower class
at the hands of corrupt ruling authorities. Nguy!n was strongly influenced by French
Republican ideals, and he was steadfast in his belief that a fraternal relationship with
France would modernize, strengthen, and enlighten Vietnam.
While Nguy!n praised French culture and power, he also sought ways to showcase Vietnamese literary tradition and culture through translations from ancient ch&
nôm and Hán-Vi#t to the more widely read qu'c ng&. Nguy!n’s effort to exhibit the
wealth of Vietnam’s literary tradition was reflected, for instance, in his translation of
the Vietnamese classic, The Tale of Ki)u, and in his attempts to make it into a film.
Nguy!n believed that the film would demonstrate to the world that Vietnam was
“part of humanity” and would be a way of getting “Vietnam’s message heard.”20 He
also believed firmly in the importance of language as a reflection of culture, identity,
and power and was one of the first advocates of teaching Vietnamese to the French.
In 1920 Nguy!n set up a small publishing house called the Bibliothèque Franco-Annamite de Vulgarisation which sought to publish translations into qu'c ng&.
By 1922, Nguy!n also partnered with another Frenchmen to form the larger qu'c
ng& publication in hopes of spreading Vietnamese literacy and readership through
translation and newsprint. His partner E. Vayrac commented on the problem of
French ignorance of the Annamese, as well as Annamese ignorance of the French. He
described his friend Monsieur Nguy!n Văn V"nh as “the greatest Annamese writer of
our time.”21 Vayrac saw Nguy!n as a “cultural broker” who made visible the significant cultural, language, and social differences between the French and Vietnamese
17 Ti.n Hoàng, D'ch Gi+ Nguy!n Văn V"nh - Chi.c C-u N0i Văn Hóa Đông Tây, 07/28/2009, http://chungta.
com/Desktop.aspx/ChungTa-SuyNgam/Van-Hoa/Nguyen_Van_Vinh_cau_noi_van_hoa_Dong_Tay/#(accessed
08/01/2010).
18 Goscha, “The Modern Barbarian,” 148-49.
19 Among Nguy!n Văn V"nh’s other translations were Molière’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme, Les femmes savants, L’Avare, and
Le malade imaginaire; and Alexandre Dumas’ Les trios mousequetaires.
20 Goscha, “The Modern Barbarian,” 148-49.
21 Ibid.
50 1JX\HQ‡%H\RQG%HWUD\DO
and inspired the French to propose ways to “bridge this total incomprehension.”22
As his relations with E. Vayrac suggest, Nguy!n Văn V!nh’s connections with the
colonial world, together with his literary talents, placed him in a unique position of
cultural influence.
WRITING AS NATIONAL EVALUATION
Along with his translations, Nguy!n wrote extensively on topics ranging from cultural anachronisms, the role of women, to colonial misrule. His writings show continuing critique of certain aspects of Vietnamese society in light of the French, but
also highlight facets of Vietnamese society that he believed to be unique, and even
superior to Western society. Nguy!n’s writings circulated during a pivotal time in
Vietnamese literary history through the proliferation of qu'c ng&. During this time
of increased print capitalism, newspapers and an emergent literature such as essays,
poems, and novels, spread ideas of the “modern” while also translating traditional
works into this national language. Although published text underwent a process of
censorship and screening, new and influential ideas continued to percolate throughout society in the form of print.
While print provided an avenue for the dissemination of new ideas, the intellectual substance for reform came from a wide range of sources. Vietnamese scholars
found inspiration in the works of Chinese reformists Ch’i-ch’ao and K’ang Yu-wei, in
the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer, and in the biographies of heroic western
leaders such as Abraham Lincoln. They sought to apply these works to their own
experience, not only to comprehend their colonial condition but also to inspire both
individual and collective action.23 With a language of struggle and “survival of the
fittest” in hand, a Vietnamese reformist scholar could ask: Was the colonial condition
due to the superiority of the French or to the inferiority of the Vietnamese? Would
small and fragile Vietnam be “eaten” by the stronger France?24 And how might that
outcome be avoided?
Nguy!n exemplified this sense of social critique and self-analysis in his article,
“Examining Our Faults,” published in 1913 in the Indochina Journal. In this controversial piece, Nguy!n assumed a Western identity and highlights such Vietnamese
shortcomings as gambling, corruption, superstition, barbaric women’s customs, lack
of conversational skills, and a backward educational system.25 His critique of Viet-
22 Ibid.
23 For a thorough discussion of the role of the individual in 1920s Vietnam through the analysis of such texts as the
biography of Abraham Lincoln, commentary on Western civilization, and reportage of Hanoi rickshaw pullers, see Mark
Philip Bradley, “Becoming “Van Minh”: Civilizational Discourse and Visons of the Self in Twenteth-Century Vietnam,”
Journal of World History (University of Hawai’i Press) 15, no. 1 (March 2004): 65-83.
24 Hue-Tam Ho Tai explains how certain individuals perceived the French colonial system as cannibalistic and a “peopleeating system” (ch. đ1 th$c dân) in Hue-Tam Ho Tai, “Introduction” in Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese
Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 2-3.
25 Jamieson, Understanding Vietnam, 77.
Columbia East Asia Review
51
namese society is also seen in his article “Laughing at Everything” in which he targets
the Vietnamese tendency to smile or laugh in situations where, by Western standards,
that would not be an appropriate response.
Our Annam has the strange habit of laughing in every situation. Laughing at praise, laughing at criticism. If it’s good, we chuckle. If it’s bad, we
chuckle … But upon examination there is often unintentional cruelty in
our laughter. There is a kind of insolent contempt for other people in it,
some insulting quality to it. It also implies that the disregard for other’s
thoughts before hearing all they have to say … But if someone asks us a
question and we have listened to them, we owe them a response.26
Nguy!n’s criticism of the Vietnamese manner of conversation provides us with an insight into what he felt were some of the social and cultural shortcomings that seemed
to place Vietnam in an inferior political and cultural position to France. However, his
analysis also reflects the misunderstanding of outsiders toward Vietnam’s Confucian
and conservative manner of communication in which a Vietnamese person’s hesitation to disclose personal opinion is interpreted as rude and insulting. In other words,
Nguy!n evidently despised the Vietnamese habit of “laughing at everything,” but he
was equally concerned here with the way that Vietnam was perceived and the negative consequences of that misunderstanding.
In dozens of other articles, Nguy!n questioned Vietnamese habits and social
norms, and urged Vietnamese to become ‘civilized’ according to what he felt were
now the expectations of the western-dominated world.27 His criticism stemmed from
a deeper goal of strengthening and modernizing Vietnamese society to be competitive
with colonial France. Some of the examples of pre-modern behavior that Nguy!n
criticized concerned the Vietnamese manner of eating, speech, and dress. For example, Nguy!n considered that the transformation from Vietnamese to Western-style
clothes would play a dual role in the civilizing process of Vietnam—the adoption
of more Western-style clothing would reflect the adoption of Western-style thinking and at the same time display a sense of cultural modernity and the potential for
progress in Vietnam.
Nguy!n’s critiques often did not target Vietnamese society and Confucian philosophies themselves, but focused on certain behaviors that he thought needed to be
updated and modernized. For example, Nguy!n perceived the Confucian scholars
and ancient teachings as the foundations “…as a ladder that enables us (Vietnamese)
to climb to a better one….” He continued:
It must be understood that the sages of ancient times were the children
of humanity, while the youth of today must become the adults. The
maturity of the entire race must be taken into account, not just the age
26 Indochina Journal (Đông D37ng T p Chí), no. 22, 1913. This is a section from my own translation from Southeast
Asian Studies Summer Institute 2010, translated with the help of Professor Bac Hoai Tran from University of California
Berkeley. I also referenced Neil Jamieson’s translation in Jamieson, Understanding Vietnam 76-77.
27 Goscha, “The Modern Barbarian,” 155.
52 1JX\HQ‡%H\RQG%HWUD\DO
of an individual. For a race still young knows little, but one which has
matured must know more.28
This article reveals more than a simple inferiority complex of Vietnamese society
toward the French. It appears Nguy!n’s concern to demonstrate that Vietnam was
potentially as civilized as any other nation, including France.29 In that sense, these
pieces of social criticism reveal a reformist strategy characteristic of the time that
sought to analyze, understand, and deal with the colonial condition.
Another common theme in Nguy!n’s writing at this time was his preoccupation with the condition of the rural poor. Despite his reputation as a collaborator, Nguy!n Văn V"nh’s humble roots and republican ideals of equality led him to
sympathize with Vietnamese peasants, and he wrote about their plight extensively
in the newspaper L’Annam Nouveau. In “Misery and Colonization,” Nguy!n called
attention to France’s inability to curb the mandarins’ exploitation of peasants.30 In
addition to his critique, Nguy!n offered concrete plans for the development and
modernization of rural Vietnam. For example, he recommended technological and
administrative changes such as the provision of clean water, the development of local
industries, and the creation of lending associations to finance development projects
in village areas.31
In an article in L’Annam Nouveau published in 1931, Nguy!n depicted the
benefits of a rural system of economic organization within the urban communities
and also highlighted what he believed to be negative aspects of Western society. This
piece, translated as the “Savings and Mutual Lending Societies (H%),” was written for
the purpose of explaining to Westerners the intricacies of a Vietnamese urban economic system that colonial officers and judges had often misunderstood. Within this
article, Nguy!n assumed the role of a neutral cultural arbiter and did not express his
opinions about the systems or about foreigners’ interpretations of the system. Instead
he focused on the reality of these lending societies, while highlighting the considerable success of Vietnamese women in operating them. In a section called “Reasons
for Managing H%”, for example, Nguy!n described cases of Vietnamese women who
held a position in h% not merely for business purposes, but for the opportunities to
welcome guests to their homes, to socialize, and to demonstrate the talents of their
relatives who are at a marriageable-age.32 Nguy!n also portrayed examples of Vietnamese women who excelled as managers of h%, capable of holding meetings that are
“…sufficiently elegant but using up only a reasonable portion of the profits.”33 He
then contrasted this case of gentle hospitality and tactful expertise with the “dubious
28 Ph1m Thê Ng0, Văn H4c Hi3n Đ1i 1862-1945, Vol. 3, 3 vols. (Glendale, CA: Đ6i Nam, 1965), 22-23 as cited in
Jamieson, Understanding Vietnam, 77-78.
29 Goscha, “The Modern Barbarian,” 155.
30 Nguy!n Văn V"nh, ‘Misère et colonisation’ (Misery and Colonization), Annam Nouveau (23 February 1933), cited in
Christopher E. Goscha, “The Modern Barbarian,” 153.
31 ‘Les industries villageoises’ (Village industries), ‘La question d’eau potable dans nos villages’ (The problem of drinking
water in our villages), and ‘Le financement des enterprises d’interit rural’ (Financing rural business) were all articles Nguy!n
Văn V"nh wrote for Annam Nouveau in 1933-1934.
32 Nguy!n Văn V"nh, “Savings and mutual lending societies (H%),” L’Annam Nouveau (Yale University, Southeast Asian
Studies), 1949, 9-10.
33 Ibid.
Columbia East Asia Review
53
bankers of Europe” who exploited housewives or overextended their resources out
of greed and ambition. In this perspective, he described European bankers as selfish,
tactless, and irresponsible. “At first they use up their own money to cover up the holes
which are never admitted; then they drag down them their good friends who had
confidence in them.”34
In short, although French colonialism saw the development of centralized
urban centers, Nguy!n Văn V"nh’s emphasis on the village points to what would
become the central arena for reform and revolution in the decades ahead. In a 1934
article in L’Annam Nouveau titled ‘Le village et la cité’ (The Village and the City),
Nguy!n wrote: “If I take it upon myself to treat all of these questions on the village,
and this in a paper targeting almost exclusively urbanites, it is because the village
is the key to progress in this country which is essentially agricultural.” With this
remark, Nguy!n Văn V"nh sought to draw the attention of the educated urbanites
to their responsibility towards the development of the foundation of Vietnamese
society, the village.
Nguy!n Văn V"nh’s writings and translations reflect much more than a singular “collaborationist” agenda. Instead, they reveal a multifaceted identity in which
the embrace of French culture, a zeal for modernity, and a distinct national pride
are inextricably interwoven. Notably, his works include biting critiques of corrupt
mandarins, the promotion of Vietnam’s own literary heritage, and attention to the
colonial exploitation of Vietnam’s rural poor. Drawing upon ideas of self-criticism
and self-strengthening, he viewed Vietnam’s pre-colonial institutions as outdated
and corrupt, advocating “evolution” towards modernity yet keen to protect what he
saw as noble, uncorrupted aspects of Vietnam society from the baneful influences of
European colonialism. Indeed, like other scholars of the period, Nguy!n straddled
the indistinct line between “traditional” and “modern,” “Vietnamese” and “French,”
“traitor” and “patriot.”
RE-CONTEXTUALIZING NGUYEN VAN VINH
Yet the one-sided portrait of Nguy!n Văn V"nh as arch-collaborator continues to
persist in historical memory, often contrasted against the “heroes” of an earlier generation of scholar-activists. Two important figures in this anti-colonial canon are
the “revolutionary” Phan B1i Châu and the “reformer” Phan Châu Trinh. Accounts
of Phan B1i Châu (1867-1940) have been dominated by his self-proclaimed and
historically ascribed identities as a militant revolutionary, intellectual patriot, and
imperial loyalist.35 He argued that the only realistic solution to Vietnam’s loss of
self-determination or m7t n.+c was active confrontation with France, alluding to
34 Ibid.
35 Some have defined him as the anchor that linked the initial resistance against French colonialism in the nineteenth
century and the later resistance movement in 1950’s to expel the French. The introduction of his autobiography provides
an account of the significance of Phan B1i Châu’s role as the bearer of a “revolutionary spirit,” who continued a tradition
of early resistance movements with later resistance movements. Phan B1i Châu, “Introduction” in Overturned Chariot:
The Autobiography of Phan-Boi Châu, trans. V"nh Sinh and Nicholas Wickenden (Honolulu, Hawaii: University of
Hawai’i Press, 1999).
54 1JX\HQ‡%H\RQG%HWUD\DO
military tactics of rebellion. Phan’s writing was marked by a patriotic fervor calling
the “twenty-five million of our (Vietnamese) compatriots” to become united and
reclaim the self-determination which France had robbed of Vietnam.36 He remained
for many years a strong proponent of the restoration of the imperial Vietnamese line.
Whereas Phan B1i Châu criticized the corruption and failures of French colonial rule, his compatriot Phan Châu Trinh (1872-1926) emphasized the potential
of French educational and social contributions to Vietnam. Recognizing Vietnam’s
comparative weaknesses to Japan and France, Phan Châu Trinh decidedly preferred
an “enlightened” rule by the French rather than a traditional monarchy under the
influence of Japan. Nonetheless, he was a strong proponent of Vietnam’s independence through self-strengthening and believed that “…to depend on foreign help is
foolish and to resort to violence is self-destructive.”37 For example, Phan’s celebration
of modernity precipitated an intriguing “Hair Cutting Movement” in 1906. The
movement, which called upon Vietnamese to cut their hair in a short, modern style,
symbolized a break from a traditional past and became a rebellion against the cultural
norm.38
Phan B1i Châu and Phan Châu Trinh embodied different responses to French
colonialism, yet both unambiguously articulated the goal of reclaiming Vietnam’s
independence. Perhaps this is why they are remembered as revolutionary or reformist patriots. At the same time, however, their writings often bore marked similarities
to the language of modernization through cooperation advocated by “collaborator”
Nguy!n Văn V"nh and other members of his urban milieu. For example, the criticism
of corrupt mandarins and a backward Confucian administrative system were reoccurring themes in the work of all three scholars, even if Nguy!n Văn V"nh presented
these more obliquely through his translation of western novels. Likewise, Nguy!n’s
literary critiques of traditional Vietnamese mannerisms, gender roles, and dress were
similar in many respects to Phan Châu Trinh’s call for modernization through the
“Hair Cutting Movement.” These parallels highlight the problems inherent in the
conventional characterizations of the three scholars as “revolutionary,” “reformer,”
and “collaborator.”
The distinction that did exist between earlier scholars such as Phan B1i Châu
and Phan Châu Trinh, and those who emerged to prominence in the 1920s like
Nguy!n, was largely the artifact of the new political and historical context that existed after the First World War.
First, increasingly harsh French retaliation against anti-colonial dissent profoundly affected the political climate in the country, turning even the most “patri36 Phan B1i Châu, L/i h8i…? các anh êm thanh niên, ed. and trans. Le Phuoc Thanh alias Le Van Thinh, 2nd ed. (Saigon,
1928) cited in Truong Buu Lam, Colonialism Experienced: Vietnamese Writings on Colonialism, 1900-1931, 80.
37 Phan Châu Trinh, “V%ng ngo6i t,c ngu, b6o đ1ng t,c t(.” translated and cited in “Introduction,” Phan Châu Trinh
and His Political Writings, ed. V"nh Sinh, trans. V"nh Sinh (Ithaca, New York: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 2009), 1.
38 Hair has a particularly strong and culturally embedded value in Vietnam. Chinese invasion and cultural diffusion
required the Vietnamese to wear their hair long. Hair was also a significant part of Vietnamese culture as a part of one’s
head and also represented a connection with a symbolic altar where ancestors were worshipped. However after the French
invasion, short hair began to symbolize a different image of modernity and rebellion. Thus many scholars, especially those
who attended the Tonkin Free School would cut their hair as a separation from the Chinese dominated past and conscious
steps towards modernization.
Columbia East Asia Review
55
otic” and “revolutionary” Vietnamese into advocates of some form of “collaboration.”
In February 1916, a failed attack on a Saigon central prison resulted in a series of
arrests and an end to many secret anti-colonial societies. Similarly, in May 1916, Tr-n
Cao Vân (1866-1916) led the “May Duy Tân Affair” in the imperial capital—the last
of the influential scholar-led resistance to restore the emperor. The failure of these
armed movements proved a turning point in the character of resistance. Symbolically, the imprisonment of Phan B1i Châu and Phan Châu Trinh, two of the most
important leaders of the independence movements, marked the end of an era of overt
resistance against the colonial yoke and cleared the way for a more moderate mode
of political and social response based on French constitutional values, modernization
reforms, and non-violent methods.
Just as the old paradigm of armed resistance dissolved under French suppression, the rise of vernacular script, an urbanized reading public and technologies for
the widespread dissemination of text opened up new frontiers of possibility for responding to colonialism. Of course, the increasing power of print allowed the emergent middle class to propagate their ideas as the previous generation of scholars could
not do before. But as the newly vital organ for social and political activism, newsprint
also shaped the very ideas themselves, priming urban scholars to seek specifically
literary and cultural approaches to Vietnam’s colonial situation. Cultural cooperation—implicit if not fully elaborated in the writings of “reformers” like Phan Châu
Trinh—now became a feasible and legitimate solution. Thus, Nguy!n and his contemporaries published tracts of social criticism and turned to the selective translation
of works as the best means to achieve civilizational parity with France. In short, the
confluence of urbanization, linguistic change and print culture enabled and informed
a superficially “collaborationist” but more complex mode of activism.
Third, in the decade after World War I Vietnam faced the danger of falling into
the hands of its neighbors China, Siam, and especially Japan. The potential threat
from Japan even altered the political platform of the infamous “revolutionary” and
“patriot,” Phan B1i Châu. While Phan had initially promoted the immediate expulsion of France, in this new geopolitical context he embraced the “collaborationist”
policy of Franco-Vietnamese Harmony. Articulated by French Governor-General Albert Sarraut (insert dates for governorship 1912 to 1919), this policy harkened back
to the ideas of fraternity and civilization that had justified the colonial program in
the first place. In his pamphlet titled Phap-Viet De Hue Chinh Kien Thu (A Letter
of Opinion on Franco-Vietnamese Harmony), Phan B1i Châu called attention to
the rising threat of Japan to both Vietnam and France. If Japanese regional power
was not curbed, he argued, Vietnam would have to face the Japanese enemy, who was
“…a hundred times more cruel than the French are now.”39 Although this pamphlet
was written in 1915, before the end of World War I, Phan’s accommodating policy
39 This correspondence on the topic of Franco-Vietnamese collaboration and Phan B1i Châu’s booklet can be found in
the extended endnotes and the chapter “The Vietnamese Description of Colonialism” in Truong Buu Lam, Colonialism
Experienced: Vietnamese Writings on Colonialism, 1900-1931 (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2003) 69,
100. The original commentary is found in the preface to Phap-viet de hue chinh kien thu, translated by Nguyen Khac
Hanh (Hanoi, 1926.)
56 1JX\HQ‡%H\RQG%HWUD\DO
was indicative of the wavering colonial perspectives of Vietnamese leaders beyond a
simplified definition of collaborator or patriot. After the war, Phan reemphasized the
imminent danger posed by Japan and renewed his attempts to convince his countrymen to work with the French. In a 1931 letter to French Minister of Colonies,
Paul Reynaud, Phan stated that his pamphlet on Franco-Vietnamese collaboration
was written in earnest hope that “…the French and Vietnamese who lived together
on this land would become like brothers in the same family.” Those ideas, Nguy!n
affirmed, “came from the bottom of my heart, and are not just words to please.”40
Although Phan would later argue in his autobiography that there was a disconnect
between his interpretation of the Franco-Vietnamese Harmony and the reality of
French colonial policy, the fact remains that for some time he had advocated a policy
that is most commonly described as “collaborationist.”
The tone of acquiescence and surrender to French colonial authority was captured in the 1924 editorial of La Cloche Félée (The Broken Bell), an anti-colonial
newspaper: “Providence has willed that France settles down in our country; let us try
to live peacefully with the French because, ultimately, the French will still be the ones
who can give us and assure to us our independence.”41 This statement encapsulated a
critical point of distinction between the prevailing views of the 1920s and the pre-war
years: for a time at least, the new consensus was that independence could be attained
only by working within the colonial system, not through direct resistance against it.
With the new possibilities of print culture and the expediency required by the internal suppression of dissent and the specter of Japanese regional dominance, political
and especially cultural collaboration became attractive, even necessary. Crucially, that
view was expressed not only by those like Nguy!n Văn V"nh, who would later be
described as “collaborators”, but also by figures such as Phan B1i Châu, who would
be enshrined in the history books as “patriots” and “revolutionaries.”
CONCLUSION: REDEFINING REFORMIST IDENTITY
The themes of national unity and resistance against a foreign oppressive rule have
dominated the language of Vietnamese history. The tradition of antagonism against
an “other”—whether Vietnam’s northern colonizer China or Vietnam’s “less civilized”
western neighbors in Cambodia and Laos—has contributed to the construction of a
nationalism defined in juxtaposition to a foreign force. In keeping with this nationalist perspective, Vietnamese popular discourse regarding the country’s interactions
with the French—from the first confrontations with Catholic missionaries in the
seventeenth century to the defeat of the French at Đi#n Biên Ph8 in 1954—has been
characterized by heroic glorification of those who resisted, and the demonization of
those who did not.42 That approach has been the consequence, among other things,
40 Ibid.
41 La Cloche Félée (The Broken Bell), 16 June 1924 cited in Lam, Colonialism Experienced, 79.
42 For an examination of nationalist interpretations of Vietnamese history, see Milton E. Osborne, “Tr37ng V"nh Ký and
Phan Thanh Gi+n: The Problem of a Nationalist Interpretation of Nineteeth century Vietnamese History,” The Journal of
Asian Studies (Association for Asian Studies) 30, no. 1 (1970): 81-93, 84.
Columbia East Asia Review
57
of political bias, an unquestioning use of existing categories, and a lack of attention
to historical accuracy.
In the case of scholar-activists in the early decades of the twentieth century the
description of Nguy!n Văn V"nh as a “collaborator” obscures the many significant
ways in which his ideas and works intersected with those of other “revolutionary”
and “reformist” figures, not to mention the important contributions he made to Vietnamese culture and society. This analysis of Nguy!n’s life and work draws attention
to the dangers of such an approach, and points the way toward a more nuanced
understanding of this historically complex period.
In contrast to scholars like Phan B1i Châu and Phan Châu Trinh who geared
the majority of their proposals to the ultimate goal of gaining Vietnam’s independence, Nguy!n Văn V"nh focused instead on the achievement of a level of cultural
and social “modernity” for Vietnam comparable to that of France and its western
competitors. To Nguy!n and many of his colleagues this necessitated the complete
destruction of the old Confucian system. In its place they imagined limitless possibilities for the development of a modern, educated, and politically active Vietnam,
grounded in a reading and thinking public. Nguy!n pursued this vision by embracing the power of modern print and of qu'c ng& as vehicles for social and political
critique and communication. Thus, Nguy!n was not simply a colonial clerk and
interpreter, as he is sometimes described; he was a virtually independent journalist
and editor. In his role as translator and author, Nguy!n provided a cultural highway
for Vietnamese to understand French and Western ideas, as well as for the French to
better comprehend the Vietnamese.
Nguy!n was emblematic of a new generation of intellectuals, wholly educated
in French colonial schools and deeply immersed in the rapidly urbanizing environment, who emerged to become influential writers, translators, and officials in the pivotal years of the postwar decade. Because they embraced French culture and adopted
decidedly moderate platforms of reform, their critics dismissed them as “collaborators” and “traitors.”
Ironically, these same critics would adopt “collaborationist” positions in the
coming years as the pinch of a colonial crackdown from within and Japanese imperialism from without made cooperation with the French—facilitated by the growing
medium of mass-produced print—the best alternative to radical dissent. However,
accounts of “heroes” from earlier generations of activists like Phan B1i Châu often gloss over their “collaborationist” interlude, whereas figures such as Nguy!n Văn
V"nh, coming to prominence only in this period, are denied this benefit. When put
into perspective, the fine line separating “heroic revolutionary” from shameful “colonial lackey” vanishes when one considers the different paradigms in which each
individual operated.
58 1JX\HQ‡%H\RQG%HWUD\DO
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