Published by The Center for Asia & Diaspora, Konkuk University120 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, 143-701, Republic of KoreaTel: +82-2-450-3806 Fax: +82-2-456-3807Webpage: http://diaspora.konkuk.ac.kr/Email: [email protected]
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Volume 7 Number 1 January 2017
Diaspora &Cultural Criticism
International Journal of Volume 7 Number 1 January 2017
Diaspora &Cultural CriticismSPECIAL ISSUE
Philippine Diaspora
Introduction: Filipino, Filipinos, EverywhereMaria Luisa Torres Reyes
Re-encodation of GUMIL Hawaii Writers’ Association as a Diacritic Site for Ilocano Hawaiian Representation Maria Socorro Q. Perez
Writing a Personal Archipelago in Luis H. Francia’s The Eye of Fish Francis C. Sollano
The Author as Reader: Gina Apostol and the Third World Metropolitan IntellectualMaria Gabriela P. Martin
Yearning in Carlos Bulosan: Toward a Queer Working Class ConsciousnessJeffrey Arellano Cabusao
ARTICLE
Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world ContextPham Tran Thuy Anh
ISSN 2005-3037 (Print) ISSN 2465-8804 (Online)
The Center for Asia & Diaspora
International Journal of
Intersections of Diasporic Asian-American Literatures: A Comparative study between Zamora Linmark’s and Lois-Ann Yamanka’s Novel John Paolo Sarce
Child of Two Nations: Indonesian Perspectives on the Case of Mary Jane VelosoRamon Guillermo
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EditorsInseop Shin (Konkuk University, Korea)Zhenzhao Nie (Central China Normal University, China)
Associate EditorsDonghyun Kim (Konkuk University, Korea)Seokmin Yoon (Konkuk University, Korea)
Editorial Board MembersEduardo Zachary Albrecht (Mercy College, U.S.A)Michael D. Barr (Flinders University, Australia)James Bilsland (Newcastle University, U.K.)Lung-Chen Chung (Tzu-Chi University, Taiwan)Paul Graham (The University of Buckingham, U.K.)Daniel Hammond (The University of Edinburgh, U.K.)Tze-Ki Hon (The State University of New York, U.S.A.)German Kim (al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Kazakhstan)Guofu Liu (Beijing Institute of Technology, China)Hitoshi Oshima (Fukuoka University, Japan)Hsiao-huei Pan (Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan)Maria Socorro Q. Perez (Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines)Maria Luisa Torres Reyes (Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines)Susanne Schech (Flinders University, Australia)María Jesús De Prada Vicente (Fukuoka University, Japan)Choon-Sung Yim (Mokpo National University, Korea)Sangin Yoon (Seoul National University, Korea)Huang Chieh Yu (Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan)Poppy S. Winanti (Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia)Wojtek Wolfe (Rutgers University, U.S.A.)
Editorial Assistant Florence Kuek (University of Malaya, Malaysia)Hyunji Lee (Konkuk University, Korea)
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SPECIAL ISSUEPhilippine Diaspora
Introduction: Filipino, Filipinos, EverywhereMaria Luisa Torres Reyes
Re-encodation of GUMIL Hawaii Writers’ Association as a Diacritic Site for Ilocano Hawaiian RepresentationMaria Socorro Q. Perez
Writing a Personal Archipelago in Luis H. Francia’s The Eye of Fish Francis C. Sollano
The Author as Reader: Gina Apostol and the Third World Metropolitan IntellectualMaria Gabriela P. Martin
Yearning in Carlos Bulosan: Toward a Queer Working Class ConsciousnessJeffrey Arellano Cabusao
Intersections of Diasporic Asian-American Literatures: A Comparative study between Zamora Linmark’s and Lois-Ann Yamanka’s NovelJohn Paolo Sarce
Child of Two Nations: Indonesian Perspectives on the Case of Mary Jane VelosoRamon Guillermo
ARTICLE
Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world ContextPham Tran Thuy Anh
CALL FOR PAPERS
CONTENTS
International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism Volume 7 Number 1 January 2017
1–10
11–46
47–87
88–117
118–151
152–180
181–206
207–232
206 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017
Abstract: This paper explores the elements constituting humanism
in HCM’s PD as explained in two different sections which explore
how humanism is embodied in five selected poems of PD and how it
underpins the poems’ aesthetics. However, it must be noted that the
politics of his poems also significantly contribute to the “conditions
of possibility” of HCM’s poetics. Therefore, the second section
explores how the aesthetics of PD may be linked to its politics. And the
conclusion of the chapter discusses the factors constituting humanism in
HCM’s PD.
Key words: Aesthetics, Humanism, Postcolonialism, Nationalism, Tang
poetry
ARTICLE
Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context
Pham Tran Thuy AnhHue University- College of Foreign Languages,Hue City, VietnamEmail: [email protected]
Figure 4: “Be Compassionate” (Berbesar Hatilah), Poster and Call to Action of Indonesian Migrant Organizations and NGOs on 27 Apr. 2015
Submitted: November 17, 2016
Reviewed: January 1, 2017
Accepted: January 21, 2017
Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context┃Pham Tran Thuy Anh 209208 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017http://dx.doi.org/10.15519/dcc.2017.01.7.1.207
1. Introduction
It is worth noting that Prison Diary (PD) is the last published Vietnamese
poetry collection of an individual author written in Chinese characters
in the literary history of Vietnam. Moreover, its poetics is different
from the traditional one (Trần 2013: 549) because unlike apolitical
traditional poetry, PD is inseparably linked to the vision of the struggle
for Vietnamese national liberation. It includes 114 poems out of which
dozens deal with nature. Besides, it consists of a variety of genres, styles,
topics, themes, emotional expressions and thoughts (Đặng 2013: 80-88).
It was written during the period from August 29, 1942 to September 10,
1943 when Ho Chi Minh (HCM) was arrested by the Chiang Kai-shek
government and transferred from jail to jail in Guangxi, China, through
the course of fourteen months.
In terms of content, on the one hand, this collection of prison poems
reflected the cruelty of the Chiang Kai-shek prison system and government.
They unreasonably put innocent people to jail like in the poem: “The Baby
in Tan Duong Jail” or “The Wife of a Conscript Deserter.” PD also showed
how injustice and inhumane the prison authorities were in the poems such
as “Gambling,” “No Smoking,” “Entrance Fee.” Moreover, the images of
prisoners who were made to experience unspeakable sufferings all the way
to their brutal death were captured in the poems like “Prison Meals,” “Four
Months Have Passed,” and “A Jailed Gambler Dies.”
On the other hand, it was shown that HCM ― the individual ― was
portrayed in PD as a great soul, a great mind and a great revolutionary.
Firstly, HCM as a great soul was revealed in PD through the depiction
of profound humanism for the lowest class whom HCM met in Chinese
prisons. Besides, the poems “Sleepless Night,” and “Serious Illness” talk
about HCM’s love for the Vietnamese people who were under the French
colonial rule. At the same time, his deep appreciation for nature enriches and
enlivens his poems like in “Moonlight,” “Evening Scenery,” “The Weather
is Clearing Up.” Above all, one of the most important values in PD is the
desire for freedom as in the poem “Restrictions.” Secondly, HCM as a great
mind shows in poems talking about positive life’s laws. Important lessons
are captured in such poems as “Prison Diary,” “Hard is the Road of Life,”
“Learning to Play Chess,” “Advice to Myself.”
In terms of aesthetics, PD shows the specific and unique poetic art
of HCM by innovating Tang poetry, and in the process, modernizing it.
The poems generally look simple in diction but are actually profound in
meaning, as may be gleaned from poems like “Listening to the Sound of
Rice-Pounding,” and “Guards Carry a Pig.” In terms of themes, PD deals
with both ancient and modern topics; the ancient themes are found in “On
the Road,” and “Moonlight,” while the modern themes are explored in
“Regret at Time Lost,” and “Commotion in Vietnam.” Moreover, by the
use of personification, HCM successfully captures his deep appreciation of
nature. It might be said that HCM’s speakers are in harmony with nature
and the universe like in the poems “The Weather is Clearing Up,” and
“Qingming.” And in PD, especially in poems about nature, the tone and
rhythm are beautifully lyrical.
Therefore, this paper focuses on the elements constituting humanism
in HCM’s PD as explained in two different sections which explore how
humanism is embodied in five selected poems of PD and how it underpins
the poems’ aesthetics. However, it must be noted that the politics of his
poems also significantly contribute to the “conditions of possibility” of
210 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017 Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context┃Pham Tran Thuy Anh 211
HCM’s poetics. Therefore, the second section explores how the aesthetics of
PD may be linked to its politics. And the conclusion of the chapter discusses
the factors constituting humanism in HCM’s PD.
2. How Aesthetics is revealed in PD
This section explores how the aesthetics of PD is linked to its politics.
Both Hoàng (2013: 170) and Trần (2013: 52) agree that when talking
about HCM’s poetry, it is important to look into its aesthetics. Notable
is the fact that his poetry might seem on the surface plain in expression
and almost too literal and without metaphorical meaning. But his poetry
which is often characterized by the use of simple description or narration
might seem plain only until the reader realizes that a literary meaning is
embedded in the lines, raising the reader’s interpretation from the literal
to the literary level by its use of poetic techniques like juxtaposition in
order to create irony.
For fourteen months, Ho ChiMinh was kept as a prisoner in China. How
he was being transferred from jail to jail among the 18 districts in Guangxi
province from August 29, 1942 to September 10, 1943 is clearly illustrated
in the poem “On the Road”:
TRÊN ĐƯỜNG ĐI
Mặc dù bị trói chân tay,
Chim ca rộn núi, hương bay ngát rừng;
Vui say, ai cấm ta dừng,
Đường xa, âu cũng bớt chừng quạnh hiu.
ON THE ROAD
Although they have tightly bound my arms and legs,
All over the mountain I hear the songs of birds,
And the forest is filled with the perfume of spring-flowers.
Who can prevent me from freely enjoying these.
Which take from the long journey a little of its loneliness?
Đặng (2013: 83) argues that nature for HCM is an expression of his
revolutionary optimism. It is nature that protects the speaker on the way
from jail to jail. And nature also serves as a poetic inspiration; during
arduous days, the poet feels revitalized by nature, “Although they have
tightly bound my arms and legs”
In terms of literary art, this four-line poem has a rather special structure
in comparison with the others in PD. The first line has six words while the
second one has eight words. This feature is repeated in the last two lines. The
stanza shows a scene in which a prisoner, whose arms and legs are bound,
is on the way to another jail. It can be seen that the speaker has to walk with
his two arms and legs bound; it is thus so painful and uncomfortable for
him. But rather than express extreme discomfort, he expresses joy about
his surroundings: “All over the mountain I hear the songs of birds,/ And the
forest is filled with the perfume of spring-flowers”
Although walking for miles with bound arms and legs in extremely
difficult conditions, his physical suffering is equaled by the great beauty of
nature around him (Hà 2013: 281). The last line reveals that the experience
of comfort is not a matter of physical condition but of a mental state. This
belief gives the speaker the power to survive the “long journey.” The triumph
of the mind over matter through sheer will is a humanistic value in PD.
212 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017 Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context┃Pham Tran Thuy Anh 213
In short, PD, in general, and the poem, “On the Road,” in particular,
concretely show the challenges in the liberation struggle like the difficulties
that the prisoner has to bear, but the appreciation of nature seems to be a
strategy for reinvigorating him in life, and in his fight for his country and his
people. In other words, Đặng (2013: 72) is quite right when he says that in
the midst of the prisoner’s sufferings, freedom is experienced in nature.
Furthermore, in terms of poetic art, the poem differs with the others
in its form because it follows another convention of the Tang poetry. The
repetition of the sound “ay” in the first and second verses and the sound
“ừng” between the third and the last is touching. In other words, although
the poem follows the traditional Chinese form, it still reflects modern
content. The simple vocabulary and popular theme make his poetry more
familiar to ordinary readers.
HCM is said to be an optimistic person. Although he suffered long in
jail – he is quoted to have said “one day in prison seems like a thousand
years outside” ― the speaker in “Moonlight” appreciates the natural beauty
around him:
NGẮM TRĂNG
Trong tù không rượu cũng không hoa,
Cảnh đẹp đêm nay, khó hững hờ;
Người ngắm trăng soi ngoài cửa sổ,
Trăng nhòm khe cửa ngắm nhà thơ.
MOONLIGHT
For prisoners, there is no alcohol nor flowers,
But the night is so lovely, how can we celebrate it?
I go to the air-hole and stare up at the moon,
And through the air-hole the moon smiles at the poet.
At the beginning, the poem shows a fact that every one obviously
knows: there is neither wine nor flower in jail. However, that does not
prevent the speaker from enjoying the “lovely night.” He tells himself
“khó hững hờ” which means that he cannot ignore a nice view like this
as he is moved by the moon shining that night. As the first two lines of
the poem say, “For prisoners, there is no alcohol nor flowers,/ But the
night is so lovely, how can we celebrate it?”
From the perspectives of Eastern aesthetics, it can be said that moon,
flowers and wine are images of comfort and luxury. For the imprisoned
speaker, there is none of those; yet, he is charmed. He feels the beauty of the
nature by the moon light. The enemy could lock his body but they could not
lock his spirit. His body is inside the jail but his soul is free. He, therefore,
can see the moon shining outside, as the poem narrates, “I go to the air-hole
and stare up at the moon,/ And through the air-hole the moon smiles at the
poet.”
In the Vietnamese version, the term “cửa sổ” is equipvelent to “window”
in the English language but it is not the actual window. In the translated
version, the idea is captured more correctly: “the air-hole” of the jail. “The
air-hole” suggests narrower or more cramped space than window. It also
suggests that the prisoner could be below the ground or at least on a low
level looking up. The speaker watches the moon through that hole and
the moon also “smiles” at him. The poem uses personification in order to
portray the two-way communication or the dynamic interaction between the
moon and the speaker. In Vietnamese culture, watching and observing the
214 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017 Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context┃Pham Tran Thuy Anh 215
moon is one of the romantic ways of exploring the beauty of nature.
Besides, Đặng (2013: 74) notes that the moon has a special position in
classical Chinese poetry and it still takes that seat in HCM’s prison poetry.
The moon symbolizes light, coolness, peace, dreams, faithfulness to one’s
promise. The moonlight is able to make the nature around the speaker
more romantic and the thought of the speaker more profound and serene.
Therefore, in the poem, watching the moon is an expression of the speaker’s
desire for freedom, human freedom.
Like the majority of the poems in the PD, “Moonlight,” which is also
a short stanza consisting of only four lines with seven words in each line,
follows the form of Chinese poetry. Đinh (2013: 582-584) observes that
when describing nature at night, HCM’s poetry tends to picture an image of
nature profoundly, pensively and vividly. It is notable that this description
expresses the speaker’s thought and emotion. The first two lines suggest
an opposition and tension but the last two lines suggest a kind of mutuality
and harmony as the moon returns the speaker’s gaze. Therefore, this poem
best illustrates the aesthetics of PD: It moves from objective description
to the subjective expression about the significance of a scene or situation
drawn from prison experience, and observation from nature. Following this
structure, the description of nature is either an “objective correlative” of the
speaker’s feelings or a figural expression of an idea2.
Although the speaker in his poetry suffers from physical pain, his
sympathy for his fellow prisoner illustrates one of the elements of humanism
in PD, which may be found in the following poem in particular:
NGƯỜI BẠN TÙ THỔI SÁO
Bỗng nghe trong ngục sáo vi vu,
Khúc nhạc tình quê chuyển điệu sầu;
Muôn dặm quan hà, khôn xiết nỗi,
Lên lầu ai đó ngóng trông nhau.
THE FLUTE OF THE FELLOW-PRISONER
Suddenly a flute sounds a nostalgic note,
Sadly the music rises, its tune is close to sobbing;
Over a thousand miles, across mountains and rivers, journey’s an aching grief,
We seem to see a woman climbing a far off tower to watch for someone’s
return.
It has been said that HCM devoted his life to the cause of the
Vietnamese revolution. Hoài (2013: 110) cites Mr. Phạm Văn Đồng in the
People newspaper issued on April 14, 1960 who states that “Humanism
as the love and sympathy for other people’s pain is the best and most
significant quality of HCM.” Using a sympathetic voice, the anguish of
an imprisoned fellow prisoner/husband who has been separated from
his wife is unmistakable in “The Flute of the Fellow-Prisoner.” When
this poem is read in Vietnamese language, it really sounds like a sad and
haunting song: “Suddenly a flute sounds a nostalgic note, / Sadly the
music rises, its tune is close to sobbing)
This poem does not begin with a crying sound as in the one entitled “The
Baby in Tan Duong Jail;” instead, it begins with the sound of flute playing a
“nostalgic” melody. The music evokes the sobbing of a husband in prison,
missing his wife, and worryng for her. Nothing is worse than a happy
married couple forced to stay far away from each other. The poem uses
the repetition of the sound “u” in “vi vu, khúc, sầu” in the first two verses
216 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017 Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context┃Pham Tran Thuy Anh 217
making the poem’s tone even sadder. This sadness reaches its pinnacle in the
third line: “Over a thousand miles, across mountains and rivers, journey’s an
aching grief.”
The “aching grief” is a powerful expression of the deep sadness brought
about by their separation. What makes them far from each other is not
only because of the geographical distance but also because of the reality
of imprisonment. They do not know when they can be together again.
Therefore: “We seem to see a woman climbing a far off tower to watch for
someone’s return.”
The use of pronoun “ai” (somebody) by the speaker in this verse is
interesting because the reference may be either a female or a male. The
object “nhau” means “each other.” It can be inferred from this context that
both the husband and wife are missing each other, and they are looking
forward to meeting each other again. In the English translation, however,
the translator seems to generally understand the context and situation of this
couple in the poem but it seems that the translation captures only the sense
of the wife waiting for her husband’s return: “We seem to see a woman,”
as the translation indicates, but not the two of them. In other words, the
English version is able to capture the surface meaning of the last line only
but it does not capture the complexity of the poem, owing to the specific
characteristics of the Vietnamese language. In short, the poem illustrates the
deep humanism of PD in its embodiment of the mutuality of love.
3. How Politics is revealed in PD
This section explores how humanism is inscribed in the selected poems
of PD which underpins the poem’s aesthetics, and how the politics of PD
lay down the necessary foundation or the “conditions of possibility” of
its poetics.
Phong (2013: 473) illustrates that the following poem with no title
printed at the back of PD may be considered the “motto” of HCM. It talks
about how to live a successful life in this four-line poem, as follows.
Thân thể ở trong lao,
Tinh thần ở ngoài lao;
Muốn nên sự nghiệp lớn,
Tinh thần càng phải cao.
Body is in prison,
The spirit is beyond ;
If I want to fulfill a big business,
My spirit has to be more stable.
The poem reveals the strong will of the speaker who is imprisoned
(in China). Although his body is in prison, his spirit is not. The poem is
successful in juxtaposing apparent opposites as in the pairs of “body” vs.
“spirit”, “in” (prison) vs. “beyond” (prison), as the poem says, “Body is
in prison, / The spirit is beyond;”
The poem draws an image of a prisoner whose body is kept in jail
but whose mind is travelling freely elsewhere far from that presumably
disgusting and oppressive prison house. The repetition of the sound “ao” in
the word “lao” between the first and the second line makes this short poem
more meaningful and emphatic in expressing the longing for freedom. It
218 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017 Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context┃Pham Tran Thuy Anh 219
may be inferred from the poem that the speaker’s mind and will are free from
any control or domination: the human body can be confined behind prison
walls, but his or her mind or heart cannot be contained. The contradiction
of the first and second lines seems to illustrate the poem’s humanism in
which imprisonment is not only a question of physical confinement but
also a matter of human determination to be free. Yet, another value may be
found in the last two lines: Overcoming obstacles in human action is about
transcending physical limitations into the realm of spiritual freedom, as
the poem says, “If I want to fulfill a big business, / My spirit has to be more
stable.”
Trần (2013: 52- 53) notes that HCM’s poetry tends to be simple in
terms of form, innocent in terms of voice and lyrical in terms of tone and
rhythm. By depicting a “body in prison” the poem underscores the value of
human freedom. It may be said that humanism in this poem implies having
the strong will (“more stable”) to struggle hard for the sake of freedom
from capitalist foreign domination (“big business”). Hoàng (2013: 166)
suggests that on one level, this short stanza is a mere depiction of prison life.
On another level, it is beyond mere depiction; it is a revolutionary “motto”
for overcoming the difficulties in the process of waging and winning the
Vietnamese revolution.
Thus, it can be said, following Tran, that the colonizer can only keep the
body of the revolutionary in jail but never the spirit and the will. In short,
humanity is something that cannot be imprisoned because the more hardship
a revolutionary suffers, the better he becomes stable in spirit. In this sense,
humanism is affirmed by the poem.
HCM’s humanism is also depicted by the love for innocent people
especially for the baby who has to suffer from prison because his or her
father does not join the army.
CHÁU BÉ TRONG NHÀ LAO TÂN DƯƠNG
Oa...! Oa...! Oa...!
Cha sợ sung quân cứu nước nhà;
Nên nỗi thân em vừa nửa tuổi,
Phải theo mẹ đến ở nhà pha.
THE BABY IN TAN DUONG JAIL
Oa ...! Oa ...! Oa ...!
Father did not join the army force;
His son was half-year old only,
He, thus has to stay in prison with mommy.
Tân Dương is one of the districts of Guangxi Province in China. It is
in the jail of this district that the poem speaks of the inhuman conditions
of the Chinese prison. The poem above uniquely begins not with words;
rather, it begins with a sound, “Oa...! Oa...! Oa...!” ― the crying sound of
an infant, “half-year old only,” who is also imprisoned, with the mother.
Hoài (111) surmises that the cry of the baby is a cry for humanity, a
critique of the Chiang Kai-shek government. In fact, both Trần (2013: 54)
and Hoài (2013: 111) denounce the cruelty of the Chinese government for
putting the mother with her baby in jail because her husband has escaped
from the army: “Father did not join the army force; / His son was just
half-year old only, He, thus has to stay in prison with mommy.”
In this poem, prison has become a place to keep sinners or prisonsers,
the young and the old alike as well as a baby who can not yet even eat, walk,
220 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017 Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context┃Pham Tran Thuy Anh 221
or defend himself. The baby’s crying underscores the ridiculousness of the
government. Due to the fact that the government cannot force the husband or
the father to join the army, his innocent wife and son are put in prison instead.
The speaker seems to pity the infant and his mother. The poet, however, can
not do anything to help them except to use his only weapon ― the pen ― to
describe the injustice and oppression by the government. In this regard, Hac
is right when he argues that HCM does feel anger for what the powerless
people have to suffer in prison. His analysis is that HCM’s humanism is
about the 1Yêu thương vô hạn con người, nhất là người bị áp bức, niiiii
infinite love for people who are especially oppressed, poor and powerless.
In addition, Hoài (2013: 111) states that PD may not have captured in
poetry the many situations in the Chinese prison at length and in depth,
but his criticism of its oppression is so clear. HCM in PD and in his other
writings used his pen as a powerful weapon in criticizing the government for
their hard-hearted, merciless, ridiculous and unreasonable policies.
In short, the poem which only has a four-line stanza with seven words
in each line captures an image of the inhumanity suffered by the infant.
Through poetic expression, the writer succeeds in using very simple
vocabulary to voice out the vehement cry of a baby. The satirical tone of the
poem is a powerful attack on the cruelty and inhumanity of the government.
Hoài (2013: 108) states that the Chiang Kai-shek government maltreated
HCM while in jail in China such as depriving him for months of basic
human necessities such as adequate food, regular baths and a clean change
of clothes, because of which his body was covered with scabies and skin
infection. Worse, during the day, the prison authorities forced him to walk
from jail to jail covering a distance of around 50km long. At night, he could
not sleep but could only sit on the water closet to wait for the next day and to
continue going on foot to another jail. Thus, the poem “Cold Night” speaks
of the speaker’s sufferings because of the harsh prison conditions. It is
shown that the speaker has no mattress and no blanket on a rather cold night,
so he cannot sleep.
ĐÊM LẠNH
Đêm thu không đệm cũng không chăn,
Gối quắp, lưng còng, ngủ chẳng an;
Khóm chuối trăng soi càng thấy lạnh,
Nhòm song, Bắc Đẩu đã nằm ngang
COLD NIGHT
Autumn night. No mattress. No covers.
No sleep. Body and legs huddle up and cramp.
The moon shines on the frost-covered banana leaves.
Beyond my bars the Great Bear swings on the Pole.
The poem uses two short lines with seven words in each line to
portray life inside the jail. Vietnamese expressions tend to “beat around
the bush” but the poem, in this case, is very precise, concrete and direct,
“no mattress, blanket.” It moves the readers to tears because, as Hoài
(2013: 108) asserts, the worst hardship which HCM had to suffer was
not even from the harsh physical conditions but for the time wasted
in prison. HCM had spent 30 years studying and working abroad. He
was determined to return to Vietnam to liberate his people from French
colonization. But while his country was in need of a leader, he could
not return to his country; instead, he was put in jail in China. This kind
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of time wasted was not only the speaker’s personal predicament but a
serious political matter because it was costing not only the speaker’s
individual precious opportunity to win the freedom but also to fight for
national freedom.
In the poem, the cold in autumn makes him sleepless, and the moon
shining during that night makes him feel even colder, as the third line goes,
“the moon shining over the banana makes him feel colder.” Moreover,
“no mattress, blanket, autumn weather and moon” combine to render him
sleepless. On one level, the prison context seems to keep the speaker awake,
but on another level, he is not able to sleep because he has to think of his
mission, vision and strategy for the revolution of Vietnam.
In that condition, the moonlight makes the speaker realize that “Beyond
my bars the Great Bear swings on the Pole.” The last line refers to the way
that the Vietnamese farmers in the olden times would tell the time. Because
they did not have the watch or clock at that time, they looked up to the sky
to check out the positions of the stars in order to guess what time it was.
In this poem, the speaker does not have the watch but the reference to the
moonlight makes him realize that it is four o’clock in the morning; still, he
can not sleep (Xuân 2013: 145).
In short, in a stanza with four lines in which each consists of seven
words, the author depicts an image of a prisoner’s life. In possession not
even of the bare necessities of life, he does not give up, powerfully revealing
his humanism. It can be seen that the writer has a unique poetic art: by
describing an objective condition in prison on one level, he is also able to
speak of the crime of the Chinese government to a delegate of Vietnam like
him, on another level. On both the literal and figurative senses, the value of
revolutionary humanism is embodied in the two levels of the poem.
MỚI ĐẾN NHÀ LAO THIÊN BẢO
Năm mươi ba cây số mỗi ngày
Áo mũ dầm mưa rách hết giày
Lại khổ thâu đêm không chỗ ngũ
Ngồi trên hố xí đợi ngày mai
ARRIVAL AT TIANBAO JAIL
Today I have walked fifty-three kilometers
My hat and clothes are soaking through, my shoes in tatters.
Without a place to sleep, all through the night
I sit by the edge of the latrine, waiting for light
The harshness of the conditions in prison in its extreme manifestation
is described in the poem “Arrival at Tianbao Jail” in which the speaker
has to go on foot for a distance of exactly 53 kilometers in a day. This
may be something unbelievable for readers: It is a very long walk for
a normal person unless he is a marathon runner. The inhumanity of
this punishment is unspeakable, but in the context of the experience
of colonialism of the Vietnamese people, the “long walk” had been
forced upon them for almost a century (1858-1945) under the French
colonialism. Many generations of the Vietnamese people had suffered so
much for so long.
In the poem, the speaker has to walk for a distance of more than 50 km in
a day. At night, the situation becomes worse when he has nowhere to have
a nap and no way to rest except to “to sit by the edge of the latrine.” This
description implies that the cruelty of the prison experience is enough to
kill the prisoner even without a bullet; the inhumanity of the experience is
224 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017 Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context┃Pham Tran Thuy Anh 225
enough to kill a man.
In the Vietnamese translation of the poem, the speaker is sitting on the
latrine to wait for the next day, “tomorrow.” In the English version, the
poem says the speaker is waiting for the light. Either way, “tomorrow” or
“light” may or may not come. In the meantime, time is fore-grounded in this
poem. In PD, time spent in prison is wasted because time is precious only
when it is spent outside prison for the peoples’ national liberation struggle.
It means that the speaker has no future or he is wasting his life.
It has been said that HCM’s poetry often uses the narrative genre.
PD does not have a long poem with complicated vocabulary or difficult
theme to appreciate; instead, as often observed earlier, PD often has only
four lines with simple words. PD simply depicts the concrete situation of
imprisonment, yet the significance may go beyond what is depicted in the
literal content.
In this regard, the poem above, on the one hand, can be read as the
experience of an individual speaker with a revolutionary cause to wage. On
the other hand, following Jameson’s assertion about third-world literature,
“Arrival at Tianbao Jail” may be read as a “national allegory” of the
Vietnamese people on their way to freedom and independence. It is about
the inhumanity they suffered as well as about the revolution as the triumph
of humanity. This idea is embodied further in the next poem.
The speaker in “Restrictions” speaks of the inhuman challenges he has
to face and overcome in prison as he is deprived of freedom.
BỊ HẠN CHẾ
Đau khổ chi bằng mất tự do,
Đến buồn đi ỉa cũng không cho;
Cửa tù khi mở, không đau bụng,
Đau bụng thì không mở cửa tù.
RESTRICTIONS
To live without freedom is a truly wretched state.
Even the calls of nature are governed by restrictions!
When the door is opened, the belly is not ready to ease itself.
When the call of nature is pressing, the door remains shut.
Hoàng (2013: 156) also denounces the Chiang Kai-shek government
for its unreasonable prison polices. In prison, human beings are treated
in the most inhuman ways. It is why later in 1945 in the declaration of
Vietnamese independence, HCM says: “Freedom and Independence are
the most valuable things” (Hoàng 2013: 157). “Restrictions” underscores
the inhumanity of life without freedom and independence by showing
how life in prison deprives human beings of the most basic of needs
such as going to the toilet. The implied analogy to the experience
under French colonialism before the declaration of the Vietnamese
independence is notable.
The reader of this poem is made to imagine a moment in life in which
the “belly is ready to ease,” yet, the speaker is not allowed to go to the toilet.
If the first two lines are descriptive, the last two lines are contrastive. The
poem creates two opposite images by changing the positions of the two
phrases “Cửa tù” (the prison door) and “đau bụng” (the belly is ready to
ease itself). The contrasting images create a paradoxical situation for the
prisoner: when the door is open, he does not need to go to the toilet, but
when he needs to go there, the door is closed. When one reads the poem for
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the first time, he or she might think it is just describing some inconvenience
in jail. But if the audience re-reads it for the second or the third time, he or
she will immediately recognize its implication if associated with the cause
of national freedom.
In terms of theme, PD is able to describe the inhumanity of prison life
and its implication upon the speaker and the national freedom. In terms of
form, it adapts the Tang Dynasty poetic convention for its aesthetic power
of simplicity, subtlety and clarity. In this form, PD is able to poetically
convey the cruelty and sufferings in prison to a wide range of readers. So in
prison, HCM was able to address his people through PD. Dehumanized by
imprisonment, he is able to assert his humanity by speaking about humanism
through poetry.
HCM’s imprisonment ended upon the visit of Mr. Hau who was the
chairman of the local government at that time. How the author felt when he
was released on September 10, 1943 is described in the last poem:
BÀI THƠ CUỐI CÙNG
Sáng suốt, nhờ ơn Hầu chủ nhiệm,
Tự do trở lại với mình rồi;
Ngục trung nhật ký từ đây dứt,
Tái tạo ơn sâu, cảm tạ người.
THE LAST POEM
Million thanks to Chairman Hau who is erspicacious,
For giving me back my freedom;
PD ends from now on,
The deep gratitude is never forgotten.
Thanks to the chaiman’s decision, the poet is given back his freedom,
which implies gratitude for individual freedom in view of the fight for
national freedom. With the speaker’s release, the anti-colonial struggle
now continues beyond prison with HCM.
The adjective “sâu” (deep) together with the verb “cảm tạ”(million
thanks) in the 4th line of the poem expresses his deep and sincere gratitude to
the chairman. Moreover, it is implied that the speaker’s gratitude is eternal.
This deep and sincere gratitude expressed in the poem implies another
humanist quality which is embodied in PD. In fact, HCM has been referred
to as a “revolutionary humanist,” a quality which the speaker in “The Last
Poem” captures. It is the happiest “moment” of PD, and it signals the end of
the collection, the literary embodiment of the speaker’s prison experience,
and the beginning or resumption of life beyond prison.
It can be seen that the humanism of PD is embodied in the spirit and will
of a revolutionary. In addition, it is also about the love for a fellow prisoner
who likewise has to suffer the cruelty of prison authorities. Humanism
is also about the productive use of time for the cause of human freedom
especially national freedom. It is about fulfilling human needs, not the cruel
deprivation of such. It is about gratitude. Therefore, the speaker’s experience
in prison under harsh conditions shows dehumanization and the struggle for
freedom and humanization. In other words, PD’s humanism may be called
“revolutionary humanism.”
In short, this paper is about the features constituting “humanism” in
HCM’s poetry. It can be said that on first reading, PD might seem to be
simply about a prisoner’s everyday life in jail. However, upon closer study,
the poems’ aesthetics may be appreciated more clearly: PD is exceptionally
compact because it does not consist of long lines, rather, it is mostly
228 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017 Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context┃Pham Tran Thuy Anh 229
composed only of a four-line stanza with seven words in each line between
six and eight words. Still, it succeeds in depicting its complex themes. The
apparent simplicity of its language and style has made PD so popular to
people in all classes in the society, especially among the oppressed and
the poor who had little education at that time. It is both the aesthetics and
politics of PD that have made it so appealing to its Vietnamese readers.
Moreover, according to Hoàng (2013: 156), the word “tự do” (freedom),
in the poem “Restrictions,” has been repeated thirteen times in the whole
poetry collection indicating that PD is indeed about the struggle for freedom
for his people and the nation. In other words it is as if PD is a declaration
of freedom by HCM in poetic form. It is the freedom for those who had
been imprisoned by the colonizer, freedom for the people who were being
oppressed by the imperialists, and freedom for the whole people who
accused the Chiang Kai-shek government of their cruel crime.
In other words, due to the experience of imprisonment, in PD, the
speaker confronts his own humanity (his being a human being) and his
relationship with other people (within the actual confines of prison walls
and, as imagined, beyond prison) highlights his sense of belonging to a
community like the nation, even in the speaker’s moments of isolation as
a prisoner. Humanism in PD, therefore, is not just about the individual but
about a national collective ― the Vietnamese people.
4. Conclusion
This study has explored features of humanism in HCM’s PD in the
context of third-world literature. On the one hand, this study has
explored how humanism is embodied in selected poems from PD which
underpins the poems’ aesthetics. On the other hand, it has also explored
how the aesthetics of PD is linked to its politics. Both the politics and the
aesthetics of PD lay down the “conditions of possibility” of the poems
as third-world literature, framing PD’s postcolonial aesthetics. Read
as third-world literature, PD embodies the “national allegory” of the
Vietnamese experience.
PD’s humanism is rooted in the speaker’s sympathy for the marginalized
people, especially those who are disempowered because of their class
or their political views. When this kind of sympathy is portrayed in PD,
it becomes a figure for revolutionary humanism that shares with the
marginalized class or sector, the hardship, misfortunes, oppression, and
unfairness experienced under the ruling class or sectors. PD’s humanism
is meant for the marginalized people to realize that class struggle must be
waged so that freedom and happiness might be achieved. PD gives the
oppressed people a voice and hopes, and leads them to liberation (Hà 2013:
284).
Humanism is expressed in the description and narration of the prisoner’s
daily life in jail. However, upon a closer scrutiny, the poems’ aesthetics may
be appreciated more clearly beyond the use of description and narration.
PD is exceptionally compact because it is composed of poems which,
as mentioned earlier, use only four lines with seven words in each line
or having six or eight words. Although brief, the poems often succeed in
depicting a range of diverse and complex themes. The apparent simplicity of
PD’s language and style makes it so popular to ordinary people especially
among the oppressed and the uneducated at that time. In combination, the
aesthetics and politics of PD have made it appealing to its Vietnamese
230 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017 Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context┃Pham Tran Thuy Anh 231
readers. As Hà (2013: 290) states, humanism in PD is so profound that it
is embedded in many situations that prisoners encounter in their prison as
depicted in the poems.
PD’s humanism differs from the Western humanism in the sense that it
is not just concerned about an individual’s being or in Western humanism’s
language, “self-development.” On the contrary, PD’s humanism is about
self-sacrifice for the sake of the development of the collectivity ― the
Vietnamese people.
HCM himself thought of the development of his whole country as
he once declared, “The fact that Vietnam is able to develop or not is
dependent on the young generation’s educational background.” Clearly,
his fight against the French colonization was not meant for an individual’s
“development” but to pave the way to not only to particular human beings’
freedom but for the freedom of all the oppressed people of the world.
The apparent simplicity of PD’s language and style has made it so
popular among ordinary people. In terms of aesthetics, PD works on both
literal meaning and literary meaning. In a way, in a number of poems, what
may seem narrative is really poetic. This poetic strategy is characteristic of
the poems in PD which makes them seem simple but profound.
In terms of aesthetics, as discussed earlier, the study has found that the
poems in PD are mostly short which may be easy to read quickly because of
their brevity. The use of the Tang poetry form makes the prison collection
of poems popular among the ordinary people because they are rooted in
poetic tradition. It has also been observed that the word choice or vocabulary
is simple, drawn from the everyday language of ordinary people; yet, the
poems are rich in figurative meaning. In the choice of poetic elements, it can
be said that on a literal level, PD’s poems use comprehensible and familiar
images and metaphors; on a literary level, these elements are connotative
and symbolic. Besides, the study shows that PD’s poems often employ the
use of juxtaposition, binary opposition, parallel structures, and comparison
and contrast. Lastly, the poems are compact and easy to read because they
use popular and familiar form, style and techniques. In other words, they
may be said to be simple in diction but they contain complex meanings.
In terms of political content, humanism is politicized with the use of
themes like nationalism and choice of techniques in the prison poems.
PD employs apparently familiar, apolitical and popular topics consistent
with the poetic conventions of the Tang poetry. However, these familiar,
seemingly apolitical and popular topics are de-familiarized as the poems
shift from the literal meaning to the literary or figurative meaning through
the poems’ aesthetic elements and formal features. Thus, what seems at
first reading to be an innocent poem about nature, for example, suddenly
becomes a powerful political commentary in poetry about the struggle for
Vietnamese independence.
It is hoped that this study will pave the way for many other critical
investigations that might help bring further scholarly efforts into the world of
prison literature, an exciting topic for discussions but an unevenly developed
field of research, in order to contribute something truly significant to human
knowledge in the context of third-world literature, from the perspective of
Postcolonialism.
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Submitted: September 16, 2016
Reviewed: December 12, 2016
Accepted: January 12, 2017
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