Young Ho Chi Minh in AmericaBy Laura Lam | dtinews.vn | March 12, 2010 18:58 pm Share

He started using the name ‘Van Ba’ for his sea journeys. On the Admiral Latouche-Tréville, his work included cleaning the kitchen, loading the charcoals, lighting the boiler, and collecting buckets of meat, fish, vegetables, and ice from the cold storage -- for the kitchen staffs. There were 800 people on the ship. Dressed in a blue seaman outfit, each day Ba worked diligently from early morning to late evening. His clothes and skin would be covered in dust, fumes, stains and sweat. For the remaining of the evening, Ba would find some quiet time to rest, then read and write, until midnight.

In the autumn of 1911, after a brief gardening job in the city of Le Havre, northwestern France, Ba returned to the sea with the Messageries Maritimes, going to New York. The weather in Le Havre was increasingly cold and he didn’t like working outdoors. It’s not clear what his job was during this ship journey.

Ba was always cautious and skillful and he would find a clever way of eluding and misleading the foreign authorities. What name he was using and what information he had given the US immigration upon arriving in America remain a puzzle to interested historians.

Ba worked briefly as a domestic helper for a wealthy family in Brooklyn. He was attracted to the city of Boston and soon found employment as a baker assistant at the Parker House hotel. He was later promoted to become a baker chef.

Boston is a historic city and the residents are proud of their prestigious literary history. The Parker House was founded in 1855 and became the regular meeting place for America’s distinguished writers. Among them were Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Longfellow, who together had formed the legendary 19th century “Saturday Club” for literary discussions. This period was considered the Golden Age of American literature.

The British author, Charles Dickens, often visited the Parker House and he admired the splendor of Boston's finest hotel and its great cuisine. The Charles Dickens Room was the site of the first American reading of "A Christmas Carol", before the Saturday Club.

The Parker House was where generations of local and national politicians, including Ulysses Grant, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Bill Clinton, assembled for private meetings, press conferences, and power breakfasts.

Since the Parker House is close to Boston's theater district, many of the finest actors of the 19th century made the hotel their home away from home. These included Charlotte Cushman, Sarah Bernhardt, Edwin Booth, and his brother John Wilkes Booth. John Wilkes, the matinee-idol, was seen practicing his pistol near the hotel shortly before he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

During the 20th century, many stage and movie stars, from Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, and William Boyd, to Adam ‘Batman’ West, Kelsey Grammer, and David Shiner, also made the hotel their home.

The Parker House’s kitchen was renowned for its American cuisine. While Van Ba was the baker chef, he would have made the classic Parker House rolls daily. The Parker House was also credited for its techniques to perfect the Boston cream pie and the lemon meringue pie. Ba would

have mastered the pie making skill here as well. On the hotel’s website, it states, “The kitchen of the Parker House has made Americana culinary culture a mainstay, with talented bakers who invented the famed Parker House roll. Parker's has also been the training ground for internationally known chefs.”

While living in Boston, Ba often traveled by train to Harlem, a major African-American residential area in New York. He attended meetings organized by Marcus Garvey, the first African-American who led a political movement against racism. Ba had observed the behaviors of the Ku Klux Klan and was horrified at America’s hatred and persecution of the Blacks. Having earlier seen and admired the Statue of Liberty at New York harbor, this shocking experience of racism would stay with Ba for a long time. He would write about racial discrimination as an eyewitness, in vivid details.

Ba met some Korean nationalists in Boston and he felt most sympathetic towards them. Korea was still under the forced “Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty”. Korean people were experiencing profound suffering. Attempting to destroy their culture, the Japanese rulers forced all families in the occupied territory to adopt Japanese surnames and the Korean language was brutally suppressed. The widespread resistance would lead to a nationalist movement in March1919. Ba compared Korea’s situation to that of Indochina. His first published article on the subject was “Indochine et Corée”, in Le Populaire of September 1919.

From Boston, Ba sent a postcard to Phan Chu Trinh, who was living in exile in Paris. Ba also wrote to his father. He worried that his father’s health was deteriorating. When Ba met again a ship captain at the port of New York, the captain offered to forward a letter from Ba, addressed to the Résident Supérieur in Hue. Ba asked this official for permission to set up a system for sending money to a bank in Indochina for his father. Ba did not know that his sister had been detained and his father was no longer in Hue. Both were under surveillance for their suspected underground activities against the French regime.

With his love of reading, Ba spent a lot of time in the reading room of the great Boston Public Library near Chinatown. Ba read about the American Revolution in 1776 and was deeply impressed with the Declaration of Independence. His knowledge of English was still limited. However, he was fluent in Chinese and was able to understand the full English texts with help from his Chinese friends. Ba had his own perception of the Americans. He thought America had liberated themselves from British rules and, therefore, would be sympathetic towards Viet Nam. He was hoping the Americans would help the Vietnamese in their fight for independence from the French.

Van Ba was the only Vietnamese in Boston. He blended in with the Chinese, living with them and speaking their language. He also enjoyed going to cinemas with his Chinese friends. Several new silent films were released during 1911 and 1912 and one was about the American Revolution, titled, “Hand Across the Sea”. Ba was still in favor of America and would have seen this film.

The Parker House building had gone through extensive renovations in late 1920’s. Although the current staffs do not know the details of Van Ba’s employment in the previous kitchen nearly a hundred years before, they feel proud that he has been there. All guests staying at the hotel are also made aware of the fact that Ho Chi Minh had been a part of their establishment from 1911 to 1913. *

Young Ho Chi Minh with Grand Chef Escoffier

o >>Part 1: Paris, my two worlds>>Part 2: A journey in search of freedom>>Part 3: Nguyen the Patriot>>Part 4: Indochina and little emperors>>Part 5: The rise of patriotism>>Part 6: Finding a compassStanding by the replacement building, my mind returned to the former Carlton Hotel, where Van Ba (Ho Chi Minh) used to work. I visualized the impressive kitchen of Auguste Escoffier and his sixty staff, rushing around in their impeccable white robes and “toque blanches” (white hats).Before moving to the glorious Carlton Hotel, Escoffier had been with the Savoy Hotel, where he built a reputation as the father of French cuisine. Escoffier provided catering to the British royal household, European aristocratic women, celebrities, and super-wealthy people. Being greatly appreciated by the Prince of Wales, when the prince became King Edward VII in 1901, Escoffier was put in charge of the banquet for the coronation. In 1913, he met Emperor Wilhelm II at a state dinner for 146 German dignitaries. The Emperor was most impressed with Escoffier’s cuisine and paid him a compliment, “I am the Emperor of Germany, but you are the Emperor of Chefs.”

Escoffier’s repertoire included many famous recipes. Suprêmes de volailles Jeannette (jellied chicken breasts with foie gras) was created in the memory of the icebound ship Jeannette in 1881; Pêche Melba (peach Melba) was honoring the Australian singer

Nellie Melba; Fraises à la Sarah Bernhardt (strawberries with pineapple and Curaçao sorbet) was a tribute to the famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt. Other creations that became popular French classics were Bombe Néro (flaming ice), Baisers de Vierge (meringue with vanilla cream), and various types of pastries

The Carlton Hotel, 1920

Destruction of Carlton Hotel during London Blitz, 1940

Plaque at new building. No records inside Carlton Hotel survived the Blitz. Russian and Vietnamese historians and other sources suggest that Van Ba worked at the Carlton from 1913 to 1917.

filled with fresh fruits.

The grand chef’s philosophy was the use of freshest and finest ingredients, with high skill and simplicity. He also introduced a hygiene standard in the handling of food. To award Escoffier’s exceptional talent and his promotion of fine French cuisine, President Poincaré presented him with the cross of the Légion d'Honneur in 1919. Three years later he was promoted to Officer of the Legion at a state banquet at the Palais d'Orsay.

The Carlton Hotel was a favorite venue for Winston Churchill, who was sitting in the dining hall on August 4, 1914, when Britain declared war against Germany and her allies. The outbreak of war had begun two days earlier, with German troops attacking France. Escoffier and Ba were present in the hotel during the war declaration. Ba was elated and he secretly hoped the conflict would lead to the collapse of the colonial regime in Indochina. He would be waiting quietly in London for events to unfold. Escoffier would continue to be in charge of the Carlton’s cuisine throughout the First World War (August 1914 - November 1918).

When Ba started his job in the spring of 1913, he was part of the washing and cleaning team in Escoffier’s kitchen. For the staff, it was not unusual to see wealthy and famous clients leaving a lot of food on their plates after their meals. Whenever Ba saw a large chunk of beefsteak or a large piece of chicken untouched, he would transfer them to a clean plate and send them back to the kitchen. One time Escoffier asked Ba, “Why didn’t you throw these into the bins like others do?” Ba answered, “These things shouldn’t be thrown away. You could give them to the poor.” Escoffier was amused and pleased, “My dear young friend, please listen to me! Leave your revolutionary ideas aside for now, and I will teach you the art of cooking, which will bring you a lot of money. Do you agree?”

Shortly after this conversation, Ba was promoted to the pastry and cake section, and Escoffier taught him the art of fine French desserts. He followed the grand chef’s instructions diligently, and with a keen interest. On French pastries, especially the pâte brisé, Ba mastered the skill very quickly. Escoffier had pioneered the techniques on how to mix the ingredients, how to handle the dough, and the key steps in the baking process that would produce a light, fluffy, and crispy crust.

From the beginning, Ba’s mentor had noticed his unusual intelligence, and he always appreciated Ba’s thoughtfulness and polite manners. In 1917, Escoffier was approaching his 71th birthday and he thought about retirement and those who would carry on his legacy. Ba had been with him for four years and was one of his favorite chefs. Escoffier had no doubt that Ba would have a promising career ahead of him in the world of French haute cuisine.

One evening, however, Ba asked Escoffier for some quiet time to talk. Privately, the news of Emperor Duy Tan being overthrown by the French had reached Ba and he felt most disturbed. He told Escoffier that he would leave London and embark on a new mission. It was likely that this decision was triggered by the event in Indochina and also the sudden eruption of the Russian Revolution. Escoffier knew Ba’s political ambition very well. But he would have felt sad and

sentimental, that the frail-looking young man was going to abandon his white robe and toque, to begin a life full of risks and uncertainty.

The Carlton Hotel was completely destroyed by Nazi Germany during the London Blitz in early 1940, after 57 consecutive nights of air raids ordered by Hitler. This was the first phase of the Second World War (September 1939 - August 1945).

Paris, my two worldsBy Laura Lam | dtinews.vn | December 21, 2009 16:00 pm Share Laura Lam tells the story of her tracing the footsteps of Nguyen Ai Quoc, more commonly known as Ho Chi Minh.During my first trip to Paris in the 80’s, the street markets reminded me so much of Sai Gon. That would be natural, given the French legacy in Viet Nam. I had been living in Hong Kong, and France became my new home following the reunification of Hong Kong and China in 1997. A few years later, I found myself tracing the footsteps of a young revolutionary during his years in Paris. He would become the leader of the most powerful independence movement of the twentieth century.My first world of Paris is the Latin Quarter, especially the 5th district. Typical of Paris, it contains lively sidewalk cafes, popular restaurants, bakery shops that fill the air with delicious aromas, and exotic boutiques. The 5th also houses many of France’s universities and one of the world’s highest concentrations of bookshops. It has always been known as the intellectual hub of Paris, and in fact of Europe. This area is where I often spend time with Western expatriates and visitors.My second world of Paris is next door to the Latin Quarter. Up the long sloping avenues going south-east is the 13th district, earlier called Chinatown. In recent years it has been taken over by the Vietnamese. Being part of an Asian women group, we meet once a month for lunch and to share our life experiences. The 13th is where I buy Oriental groceries, and sometimes books in Vietnamese language. Given the vast variety of produce imported from Asia, food shopping here is a thrill to me. I am very fond of cooking and entertaining guests at my country house, on the bank of the Seine, south of Paris. My private world has always been a combination of two contrasting cultures. The 13th district is a small substitute for what’s missing, when Viet Nam is a long distance away. The life of an Oriental expatriate in a Western city often comes with much sacrifice. It’s a big challenge for many Vietnamese. While doing the research for my memoir some years ago, I accidentally learned that the young Nguyen Ai Quoc was closely connected to the 5th and the 13th. He came to France in 1917 and stayed until 1923. I decided to follow his footsteps by visiting places he had lived. A small place on Stockholm street in the 8th district was Quoc’s first home in France. I went by his second place, on a street

 

A cartoon by Nguyen Ai Quoc, published in the journal “Paria”

 

 

Emperor Ham Nghi (age 12)  

 

Emperor Thanh Thai (age 10) and his younger brothers

 

 

Emperor Duy Tan (age 7)  

called Monsieur Le Prince in the 6th district. When Quoc met up with Phan Chu Trinh and Phan van Truong, they shared a place at Villa des Gobelins in the 13th. Despite being pursued by the French secret police for his political activities, he still accomplished a great deal and was constantly learning. He was able to master the French language in a short period of time.A man of many cultures, Quoc was fascinated by the history and the beauty of old Paris. Each afternoon he would take a walk from his home near the Gobelins to Rue Monge leading to the Latin Quarter. He would enjoy a coffee at one of the sidewalk cafés. There, he would meet many Vietnamese university students, who were either on scholarships or from wealthy and prominent families back home. He hoped to stir up their emotions and inspire their patriotic feelings. Every day Quoc visited newspaper stands along Boulevard St Michel. Any newspaper arriving from Indochina would be of particular interest to him. The two left-wing journals of Paris, L’Humanite and Le Populaire, were his main choices. Paris is full of libraries and Quoc’s favorite was the Sainte Genevieve near the Pantheon. He spent a good portion of his time there reading the works of prominent writers of the period. Sometimes Quoc met French sailors returning home from Indochina. He wanted to find out their recent experience and impressions of the Colony. Quiet, dignified, and scholarly, he became highly popular among the Vietnamese community, and soon formed the Association of An Nam’s Patriots. On Sundays he would go to the Cochin hospital to visit his Vietnamese friends.I must have felt some subtle bond – a mixture of admiration and sentiment - towards a unique leader who had liberated Viet Nam after a century of domination, as I ended up buying an apartment near the Pantheon. It’s located in a charming street with several sidewalk cafes. I like to think that they include some of Quoc’s favorites, as it leads to the library. Since medieval times, this particular street is one of the few that has changed very little.A journey in search of freedomIn this next article, Laura Lam traces Ho Chi Minh's life further back, to where he left Viet Nam for France to find a way to rescue his country.My paternal grandmother used to say that French troops had captured Emperor Ham Nghi and sent him into exile in Algeria the year she was born, 1888. She was told by her parents how the colonial army burned the villages and suppressed the Can Vuong resistance movements. Many of the leaders were tortured and executed. The century struggle against the French ended at the great battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Nguyen Ai Quoc, born in

1890, was a man of destiny. Entrance to St. Genevieve library.In central Paris, I often pass by the St Genevieve Library – a great public facility heavily used by students and staff from the surrounding schools and the Sorbonne. Eighty years ago it was also the favorite place of Nguyen Ai Quoc, who lived within walking distance. Like Karl Marx spending all his time in the Reading Room of the British Museum Library, Viet Nam’s liberator spent his time at the St Genevieve. On its long and elegant facade, facing the Pantheon, is carved a list of famous writers. I had wondered what Nguyen Ai Quoc would have read while he was there, so I set about finding the answer.Nguyen Ai Quoc was born as Nguyen Sinh Cung. When he reached age 11, his father was proud of the child's intellectual

ability and Cung was given a new name, Nguyen Tat Thanh, meaning "he will be successful". Thanh was educated at the distinguished National Academy of Hue (Truong Quoc Hoc Hue). His learning included a strong emphasis on Confucian philosophy. As a child, he had a lot of admiration for the West. Thanh once said, “When I was 13 years old, I heard for the first time about Freedom, Equality, and Fraternity… I wanted to make myself acquainted with French culture, to find out what was behind those concepts.”

Contrary to the rules in the Mother country, there was no freedom, equality, or fraternity in Indochina. France’s exploitation was painfully summed up in Phan Chu Trinh’s own words, “Caught in the net, snagged from a hundred angles, what’s left when you peel off the skin and clean the bones?” To suppress a growing reform movement, the colonial regime clamped down on the only free school, Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc, in 1907, and arrested its founders and other progressive intellectuals. Being the first institution giving women equal rights to education, the free school had also advocated political and social reforms.

Photo of carving on library’s wallAt age 21, Thanh began teaching Quoc Ngu and Chinese at the prestigious Duc Thanh School in Phan Thiet. Each day he would arrive at school wearing a white cotton outfit, tied around his waist with a belt, and wooden shoes. Students also wore white uniforms. The school was located on the beautiful south bank of Phan Thiet River. Often the young teacher would bring his students to a beach for classes and a picnic. Sometimes they sat on the rocks and sang patriotic songs composed by themselves. He became a very popular teacher. In such settings, Thanh would introduce the young minds to Western civilization, human rights, equality, individual freedom, and the great thinking of JJ Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire…

At the Paris library, he would have gone beyond such works. And there were plenty of other great writings to attract his attention. Examples included Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, and Emile Zola.

While Thanh was still teaching, the French became suspicious of Duc Thanh School, thinking it would become another Dong Kinh. They were aware of the bookstore right next door, selling works by leading Vietnamese writers promoting reforms, with the slogan, “Leave behind the old and the obsolete. Embrace the new and the modern.”The colonial regime felt this was a criticism of their governing policies in Indochina.

Thanh was restless and thought of abandoning his teaching. He had often witnessed the cruel treatment of the local people by the French and felt deeply humiliated. In one incident, when a typhoon damaged the port of Phan Rang, French officials patrolling the seaside ordered

Vietnamese port workers to dive into the water during the storm to rescue ships. Many Vietnamese drowned and there are stories of the French watching them in amusement.

In early 1911 Thanh went to Sai Gon and changed his name to Van Ba. He was soon hired as a kitchen assistant for a merchant ship, the Admiral Latouche Treville. He would work from the early hours to midnight each day. When accepting the job, he was told that they would pay him 45 francs a month. However, before the ship arrived in Marseille in June 1911, he was given a total salary of 10 francs.

Disembarked with a friend from the ship, they went to a sidewalk café on Rue Cannebiere. A waiter there greeted Thanh, “Bonjour Monsieur!” He was most amused and said to his friend, “French people here are better and more polite than those French in Indochina.”

For several decades that followed, young Thanh would be living in various countries as a fugitive, escaping imprisonment, and a probable death sentence imposed by the French. He worked non-stop trying to mobilize support from fellow Vietnamese to help bring an end to colonialism.

He was constantly on the move, and would adopt at least 45 names and pseudonyms for his identity. By 1939, the name Nguyen Ai Quoc had become too well known. While traveling along the Pearl River in south-west China, he took the identity of a French-speaking journalist with a Chinese background and the name Ho Chi Minh. It would be with this name that he made Viet Nam’s first declaration of independence at Ba Dinh in 1945.

Eight years later at Dien Bien Phu, that declaration would be fulfilled. The declaration itself owed much to what he had learned about freedom in the great library of Paris.Nguyen the PatriotWith the name Nguyen Ai Quoc and his active patriotism, Nguyen Tat Thanh (later to be known as Ho Chi Minh), began building the first stage of his political reputation.Nguyen Tat Thanh arrived in Marseille the first time in June 1911. After a brief visit, he went back to the Amiral Latouche-Tréville. The ship went to Le Havre and Dunkirk and returned to Marseille three months later. He wrote a letter to the President of the French Republic, asking for permission to attend the Colonial School (École coloniale) as an intern. This school had been set up in 1889 to train government officials for posting in Indochina. He was hoping this would be a route towards the liberation of his country.

While waiting for an answer, he returned to Sai Gon, expecting to see his father. But all efforts to find the father failed. His brother and sister had joined the armed resistance movement and the sister had been captured twice by colonial troops. Thanh’s father was also in detention in 1912, and upon release he was put under surveillance by the French.

Going back to the ship, Thanh went to Marseille the third time and learned that his application to the Colonial School had been rejected. He returned to the ship and arrived in Le Havre, where he found a gardening job for a ship owner and also started taking lessons to improve his French.

With help from the ship owner, he got a job with the Messageries Maritimes, traveling around the African colonies. During a stopover in Dakar he saw a group of Africans being ordered by the French to dive into the harbor in a storm to secure small boats. Many of them drowned. Thanh later wrote, “The French in France are all good. The French in the colonies are cruel and inhumane; it’s the same everywhere. I had seen similar treatment in Phan Rang. The French burst out laughing with pleasure while our compatriots were drowning. To the colonists, the life of an Asian or African is worth nothing.”

Thanh spent a lot of time at sea and visited Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, New York, and Boston. While in Boston he wrote to Phan Chu Trinh and reported that he was working as a cook’s assistant at the Parker House Hotel.

In 1913 Thanh left Boston and arrived in London. His first job was sweeping snow at a school but he couldn’t cope with long hours in freezing weather. He found another job making charcoal; from early morning to late night he was feeding coal into a boiler. Working in a dark and extremely hot basement, he thought this was worse than the previous job.

He was soon hired as a kitchen assistant at the Carlton Hotel in the Haymarket. His skill and manner impressed the great chef Escoffier and he was transferred from washing dishes to making pastries and cakes. In his spare time, Thanh studied English and got involved with the Overseas Workers’ Association, whose aim was to improve the working conditions in British factories.

In 1917 he left his job at the Carlton Hotel and went back across the channel to France. Thanh’s political activities during his years in London are still largely unknown to the public.

Arriving in Paris, Thanh began attending meetings at the local chapters of the French Socialist Party. He was to help establish a liaison with workers groups between Great Britain and France. His labor union activities soon put him in touch with many left wing politicians and writers. At their weekly meetings, sometimes Thanh was invited to speak about the conditions in Indochina. He stood out as no ordinary man, and was noted for his “dark eyes that flash with intensity when he speaks, and seem to penetrate the soul of the observer.”

The French authorities in Indochina became very interested in Thanh’s activities. In June 1917 the Governor General of Indochina established the spy agency (Sûreté Générale) to monitor all individuals seen as a security risk to the Asian colony and inside France. They recruited three bilingual Vietnamese as spies to follow Thanh’s daily movements.

The winter of 1918, right after the First World War, was extremely harsh. There was a severe shortage of fuel and charcoal throughout France. At night the curfew was still reinforced. Unemployment was widespread. Thanh was now living with Phan Chu Trinh, and helped Trinh in his photo restoration studio.

In early 1919 Thanh learned about the International Peace Conference to be held in Versailles. He prepared a petition to present to the American Secretary of State, hoping for an intervention to free Viet Nam from the colonial regime. It was at this time that he adopted the name Nguyen Ai Quoc - Nguyen the Patriot, as the author of the petition.

By mid 1919, the French had come to label Nguyen Ai Quoc as “the most dangerous rebel” threatening French security in Indochina.Indochina and little emperorsĐông dương và hoàng đế nhỏ.While French imperialism was in full expansion, Napoleon III authorized the invasion of Viet Nam.Trong khi Đế quốc Pháp đã bành trướng, Napoleon III đã cho phép xâm lược Việt Nam.Mùa hè năm 1858, tầu chiến Catinat đã đến Đà Nẵng. Tầu hải quân của họ đã phóng hoả và phá huỷ thành phố. Bishop Pelerin đã đề suất 1 sự tấn công trên vùng châu thổ sông hồng. Ông ta đã nghĩ với sự giúp đỡ và lòng trung thành của 400000 người đạo thiên chúa ở việt nam sẽ đảm bảo cho chiến thắng của người pháp. bất chấp lời khuyên của Pelerin, sĩ quan hải quân ngay lập tức đã di chuyển quân tới miền bắc.In the summer of 1858, the French warship Catinat arrived in Da Nang. Their naval squadron set fire and destroyed the town. Bishop Pelerin proposed an attack on the Red River delta. He thought the assistance and loyalty of 400,000 converted-Catholic Vietnamese would assure a victory for France. Ignoring Pelerin’s advice, the

commander immediately moved troops to the South.

The royal court in Hue did not order a counter-attack as it was seeking a compromise through diplomatic negotiation. However, the French continued with their violence and further conquests, dishonoring all treaties and concessions. The Imperial Palace soon fell to the hands of European aggression.

French troops attacked Sai Gon one night in February 1859. With their long-range weapons and naval forces operating in the Far East, they defeated royal troops and took over the city in 1860. The following year they gained complete control of all six provinces in the South.

In Can Tho, where my ancestors had lived, people became refugees overnight as French troops burned houses, killed the buffaloes, and destroyed the residents’ rice storages. Most of the land for growing rice and fruits that belonged to tiểu điền chủ (small landowners) were confiscated during the invasion. By 1939, more than half of the peasant population had been left landless, with 5% of the population owning 45% of the land. There was the new class of đại điền chủ (major landowners) with considerable power. The colonialists also obtained ownership of land in the South.

France gave the name “Cochinchina” to South Viet Nam in 1879 – making it their “Colony”. To strengthen their rule, colonial troops repeated their assaults on Sai Gon and Ha Noi with powerful artillery. Vietnamese generals, ill equipped for modern warfare, committed suicide to avoid being captured and executed. The entire North and Central Viet Nam, as well as Cambodia and Laos, became France’s “Protectorates” from 1883. Indochina was born.

The French enthroned Ham Nghi, age 12, in 1884. The young emperor was in favor of an armed uprising led by his senior mandarins. Being informed by spies, General De Courcy arrived at the Imperial Palace in 1885 and demanded the disbanding of the Vietnamese army. Emperor Ham Nghi fled to the remote mountains with his advisors and royal troops. The angry Vietnamese staged a national uprising known as the Can Vuong (Save The Emperor). Captured by colonial troops three years later, Ham Nghi was sent into exile in Algeria. The French had by then already installed Dong Khanh, as a puppet emperor.

Between 1886 and 1887 severe fighting took place at the fortress of Ba Dinh in Thanh Hoa, a stronghold of the Can Vuong’s army. French missionaries mobilized converted- Catholic Vietnamese in Phat Diem to aid French troops. The combined force shelled artillery at Ba Dinh for 35 consecutive days. After the fall of Ba Dinh, colonial troops conquered all pockets of resistance in the Red River delta.

Dong Khanh died in 1889 and the French chose Thanh Thai, age 10, to be the next emperor. When Thanh Thai got involved in plotting against the French, he was sent into exile in the Indian Ocean. The French replaced him with Duy Tan, age 7. In 1916, Emperor Duy Tan called for an uprising and was sent into exile in Reunion. Khai Dinh was enthroned and he would yield to all France’s demands.

By 1900, South Viet Nam was considered the “Pearl of the Far East” and the main source of wealth for a new commercial class of Europeans, Vietnamese collaborators, and ethnic Chinese. Most of the profits came from rubber plantations and rice cultivation. Two decades later Cochinchina became the world’s third largest rice exporter. Sai Gon became the main industrial and commercial centre of Indochina. While the colonial regime was making Sai Gon a fashionable city with French style buildings and tree-lined avenues, more land was confiscated. The Vietnamese were pushed away to set up slums along the canal of Ben Nghe and the outskirts

of the city.Reflections on Lunar New Year in Hanoi Tet is the most celebrated holiday throughout Viet Nam. Hanoian scholar Nguyen Vinh Phuc provides a short history detailing how the holiday has been celebrated in the capital city in the past.Tet (Lunar New Year holiday), also known as Tet ca (biggest festival), is considered as the most important traditional festival in the whole country for people of the Kinh ethnicity. Until the early 20th century, Hanoians from all walks of life celebrated Tet in two stages: the preparatory stage and the enjoyment stage. During the preparatory stage, people brought gifts to important people in their lives and every family tidied up their house, cleaned their altars and objects used for worship, bought offerings, had new clothes made and so on.In families that could afford to, purchased many things for Tet, men went to Hang Ngang and Hang Duong streets to buy thuy tien (narcissus) bulbs. Either the men or their daughters would care for the spring-time bulbs prior to Tet so that they would be in bloom on New Year's Eve. If the men did not write their own couplet for the New Year, they went to Hang Bo Street to buy hand-scripted scrolls from old Confucian teacher, which were displayed in great numbers on the pavement. These paralled scrolls, were always written on red paper, unless the family was in mourning; if this were the case the scrolls had to be on yellow or green paper. Many men also went to Hang Luoc Street, when it was still a flower market in the 1920s, to buy flowers, branches of cherry or apricot blossoms, vases of camellia flowers, chrysanthemums or kumquats to decorate their houses for the holiday.Women went to Hang Duong Street to buy cakes, sweets, sugar and preserved fruits. They also visited Hang Huong Street (now Hang Dau Street) to buy assorted incensesticks and rings of incense such as sandalwood, musk, and eucalyptus. On Hang Buom and Hang Can streets they found vermicelli, bamboo shoots and mushrooms. Many ladies went to Hang Quat Street (now Luong Van Can Street) as early as in the tenth lunar month to order made-to-measure brocade robes or satin tunics. Tailored clothing was also commonly ordered in Trach Xa Village (Ung Hoa District, on the outskirts of Ha Noi now). The women also ventured to Hang Bac Street to have the merchants there give their jewellery a beautiful shine.However, the first thing all families thought about as they prepared for Tet was making their own batches of banh chung (square cakes made of glutinous rice with mung bean and pork as filling). The ritual of preparing the cakes was pure happiness for most families – wrapping the dumplings in rush leaves, boiling them and watching them until they looked just about right, and then breaking open the first one for the first taste test.People also prepared meat pies wrapped in banana leaves. Meticulous people would pound out the lean meat pies themselves, and if they were even more meticulous, they would arranged pieces of boiled chicken eggs in the shape of a lemon flower in the middle of the meat pie. When the pie was later sliced into individual portions, each had a flower in the centre. Meat pies were also available in most markets if people did not have the desire or time to prepare their own. Other culinary preparations included wrapping ham, cooking a pot of braised fish and another of meat, pickling onions to serve with the banh chung in an earthenware jar, and another of pickled mustard-greens to go with the meat.Special items for the Tet banquet also had to be purchased. Even poor families couldn't do without lean meat pies, spring rolls, and moc (steamed lean pork balls). More luxurious items included cooked fish such as conger pike, mackerel, fin, shell-fish, seaweed and salangane.Apart from the cooked food banquet, there was also the confectionery banquet. A pot of green bean compote, an earthenware pan of dumplings, sweet potato cakes and assorted jams such as ginger, kumquat and lotus seed were all considered essential.Poor families worried more about their holiday. If they wanted a pot of must have glutinous rice square cakes, they had to think about how to pay for enough glutinous rice, green beans and pork. They also had to carefully plan how to perform ritual offerings on the three days of Tet and how to buy new clothes for their children. Gifts had to be prepared for both the maternal and paternal sides of the family, for the owners of their homes if they rented, for creditors, and so on. As a folk verse goes: "Whether you are rich or poor, on Tet's Eve, you should have some meat in the house." Another rule of thumb is that whether one is rich or poor, one must have a decent dress to wear to welcome Tet.Whether in Ha Noi or in the country, people enjoyed Tet together. On Tet's Eve, a tray of ritual offerings was prepared for worship.

On the first day of the first lunar month, the offering was the first course of business. Children would then go home and wish their parents and grand-parents a happy New Year. Close friends and kin visited each other's homes to wish each other a happy New Year. Every family, whether rich or poor, was happy at the first dinner of the new year because "they could stay hungry when they organised their fathers' death ceremony, but during the three days of Tet, they had to be full".Because of the celebratory mood, the three days of Tet passed by with best wishes exchanged amid fireworks and firecrackers, and public games around Hoan Kiem Lake. Other family games such as cards and mahjong were also played during these days. Rich families played the songs of famous singers and actress on their gramophones such as Tuu and Tam who performed cheo (traditional opera) or Nam Phi and Phung Ha who performed cai luong (reformed theatre). But the happiest people at Tet were the children, who proudly put on their new clothes and received New Year's wishes and lucky money.Tet lives onOver the past fifty years the customs for welcoming Tet have changed. Some changes were seen during the American War and then post-war period.Despite many difficulties during the war, the Government took care of the people so that they could enjoy their traditional Tet days with additional rations of food and and other necessities. Tet rations included meat, glutinous rice and green beans, more packets of tea, boxes of assorted jams, and even extra dried pig skin. Larger quantities of rush leaves were collected from the forests and distributed to people to wrap their banh chung. At that time, the State also supplied people in urban areas with the fuel they so desperately needed. In short, all of the traditional Tet customs were maintained.These days, people's lives have become even better. Food is plentiful. Banh chung can be purchased in many shops, so people don't need to spend time on its meticulous preparations. In fact, banh chung is now available all year round, not only during Tet as in the past. One can always see people these days wearing good and fashionable dresses all over the city. So now during Tet people spend their time visiting friends and enjoying various forms of entertainment. The old customs that remain are the wishes for a happy New Year, offerings made to ancestors on the morning of the first day of Lunar January, and the ceremony of burning votive money for the dead on the third or fourth day.It is worth noting that for the past decade firecrackers have been banned for safety reasons, to positive response and acceptance by the people. It has also become popular for people from the city to take domestic tours during the holiday and some wealthy families even travel abroad.Another prominent custom appeared in 1955 and has since become a tradition - Hanoians celebrate New Year's Eve around Hoan Kiem Lake. The tradition began when many southerners from various regions of the North, such as Ha Noi and neighbouring provinces wanted a central venue point in the capital city where they could gather together at the weekends.They turned the Khai Tri Tien Duc house on the bank of the lake into the Reunification Club (it is now the headquarters of the grassroots information department at 16 Le Thai To Street). It was here that the southern soldiers and officials who had moved from the South after the war against the French gathered together to enjoy musical performances. On New Year's Eve in particular, everyone who lived far from their home converged on the lake to stroll around and welcome the New Year together. Now, Hanoians also go out to enjoy Tet around Hoan Kiem Lake.The first New Year's Eve fireworks display was also organised on the shores of the lake. After people heard New Year's wishes from President Ho Chi Minh on the radio, the fireworks festival became special to everyone in the city. This event has become a fine custom for people in the city, which sees them flock to Hoan Kiem Lake to welcome spring with all their hearts. Before 1955, people generally stayed in their homes to welcome the New Year. So the New Year's Eve ceremony at Hoan Kiem Lake has become a new and beloved ritual for Hanoians to welcome Tet.