From the City Inside the Red River : A Cultural Memoir of Mid Century Vietnam [Library Binding]

Inh Hoa Nguyen (Author), D. Nguyen (Author), Inh Hoa Nguyyen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1999 | ISBN-10: 0786404981 | ISBN-13: 978-0786404988

Born on January 17, 1924, Nguyn-Dnh-Ho grew up in Hanoi never imagining the war that would ultimately divide his country and throw the region into chaos. As he grew into manhood, he witnessed Vietnam gain its independence in 1945, and like many men of his age he was swept up with the revolutionary mood that engulfed the entire country. Eager to do his part for the newly emerging Vietnam, he applied for and received a scholarship to Union College in Schenectady, New York. This resulted in an English degree and a teaching position at the University of Saigon. Since childhood, the author has been keenly observant of everyday life, particularly the interactions between himself, his family and their community. His precise account of mid-century Vietnam provides a detailed picture of a beautiful country with a rich cultural heritage, and serves as a poignant reminder of the devastating effects of the war in Vietnam on its people.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Dr. Ho speaks for all Vietnamese Americans who are transplanted to America's East Coast when he wrote: 'Of course I missed the Tonkin climate of drizzling rains, a climate that offered a cornucopia of juicy fruits, aromatic herbs, fragrant flowers and flavorful leaves, so different from the lawns and shrubberies of the Schnectady campus and the...supermarkets [in] such cities with strange-sounding names [as] Troy, Amsterdam, Albany, Saratoga.' Dr. Ho's cultural memoir is a memoir about change, and thus about loss. Ultimately, it is about the enduring wealth of the Vietnamese culture, history and language"-Dinh T Bch Thy -- George Mason University School of Law

"Nguyn's attention to minutiae, his rigorous studies of customs and mores, and above all his overflowing love for his family and friends as well as his passion for and devotion to what is the quintessence of Vietnamese civilization make this unique memoir utterly rewarding"-Nguyen Khac-Hoach (former dean of the University of Saigon Faculty of Letters); "a moving memoir about Vietnamese life" -- Ly-Chu Ly Minh-Ho, Journalist

About the Author

After emigrating to the United States in 1965, Nguyn-Dnh-Ho was director of the Center for Vietnamese Studies at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. He now lives in San Francisco.

Product Details

• Library Binding: 229 pages
• Publisher: McFarland & Company (January 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786404981
• ISBN-13: 978-0786404988
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,249,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything That Flows Must Converge, April 28, 2000

By 

thuy dinh (Washington, D.C. , U.S.A.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From the City Inside the Red River : A Cultural Memoir of Mid Century Vietnam (Library Binding)

As a linguist, and also someone steeped in the history of Vietnam, no doubt Dr. Nguyen Dinh-Hoa has thought deeply about the symbolic significance of "Ha-Noi," named for Vietnam's northern capital. As the cradle of Vietnamese civilization, it literally means "the city inside the Red River," hence the title of the book. The word "Noi" in Vietnamese denotes "inside" and suggests either insulation or introspection. The word "Ha" on the other hand, means "river" and suggests flow, confluence, and change. In fact, Dutch, Portuguese, and British merchants in the 16th century had referred to the bustling city by the Red River as "Ke Cho" or "The Market Place." Thus, in the very title of Dr. Nguyen's work, "From the City inside the Red River," there exists already a tension between tradition and change--the tension that defines the essence of Vietnamese culture.

In his book, Dr. Nguyen covers at length the history and geography of Hanoi, or "The Old Capital" of Vietnam from the 11th century to the 19th century. At the same time, he weaves his personal history into the larger tapestry of his native city. The street where he was born and lived until early adulthood is at once imbued with rich historical context and future portent. It is called to this day "Pho Hang Bac" meaning "Silver Street." The French called this street "Rue des Changeurs" ("Moneychangers' Street.") It is one of the oldest streets in Hanoi and used to serve as the financial center of ancient Vietnam. Like Hanoi, Silver Street embraces both the Old World, and the change brought by commerce with the New World.

In Dr. Nguyen's memoir, historical changes occurred side by side with personal changes. Dr. Nguyen mentioned the Confucian tradition of "rectifying names," i.e., the formal ritual of changing a person's given birth name to mark the karmic change that transforms his or her personal essence. Dr. Nguyen translates this symbolic tradition into a loose American colloquialism, i.e., "how not to call a spade a spade." Dr. Nguyen's first name, Hoa, was given to him by his father, which means "The Peace-Loving One." In 1948, Dr. Nguyen received a scholarship to study at Union College, in Schenectady, New York. He was sponsored by Delta Upsilon Fraternity through a Union College Program called H.E.L.P. (Higher Education for Lasting Peace.) Delta Upsilon brothers immediately rechristened him "Wing-Ding," possibly a phonetic equivalent of his family name, "Nguyen Dinh." Ironically, the word "Wing-Ding" in American slang means an outburst, or a wild and raucous party, a meaning, and name that represents the direct opposite of Hoa, "the peace-loving one." As a fateful name, however, it captures perfectly the dual nature of Dr. Nguyen--an open, adventurous stranger in a strange land. In the dawn of post-war America, his new name "Wing-Ding" conjured up an aura of singsong childishness--perhaps unintended condescension-- if not racism, from his good-intentioned American brothers. But I cannot help but think that the name Wing-Ding was a liberating "rectification" for Dr. Nguyen. It allowed him to immerse into the piquant mores of mid-century America without losing his uniqueness. Wing-Ding thrived on whole milk and Coca-Cola. Wing-Ding played canasta in the afternoon with American housewives. Wing-Ding hitch-hiked across America.

As time went by, Dr. Nguyen "aka" Wing-Ding became a traveller across cultures, whose personal life adhered closely with the progress of his academic work in linguistics. Names of places and people in his life began to acquire double, finely shaded meanings. His first-born daughter is named Patricia My Huong, which means American Rose, and also Beautiful Rose of the Fatherland.

While Dr. Nguyen's cultural memoir represents a celebration of multi-ethnic confluences, at times his memoir highlights certain aspects of Vietnamese culture that are impossible to translate into an American context. Dr. Nguyen recounts his experience teaching English to a group of Vietnamese students in the 1950s, using a textbook containing words such as "tulips," "central heating," and "the tube"--words that imparted no concrete dimension to citizens of a tropical, then largely agrarian Vietnam. Conversely, Dr. Nguyen could not find any English word that captured the eccentric sensuality of certain Vietnamese fruits or dishes, such as mang cau, du du, banh chung, che dau xanh (custard apple, papaya, rice cake, mung bean pudding).

Tropical fruits and flowers as symbols and landscape signifiers exist throughout the book, creating a sense of Proustian nostalgia, a remembrance of things past that exists dominantly in the hearts and minds of overseas Vietnamese. Ultimately, Dr. Nguyen's cultural memoir represents a dual testament to mutability and survival. His memoir celebrates the endurance of the Vietnamese language through foreign domination, war and peace--enduring in its power to subvert the external into the internal, enduring in its ability to synthesize the cacophonous into the melodious whole. Toward the end of his book, Dr. Nguyen succinctly captures the wisdom of Nguyen Trai, a famous fourteenth century poet:

Let your children and grandchildren not worry about the meagerness of your assets, your poems and books as a treasure trove shall last ten generations !

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vietnam Personalized, December 13, 2000

By 

Thomas J. Barnes (Austin TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From the City Inside the Red River : A Cultural Memoir of Mid Century Vietnam (Library Binding)

In 1954, two members of the Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient published a commendable scholarly work titled: Connaissance du Viet-Nam. Pierre Huard and Maurice Durand meticulously, but not laboriously, capsulized Vietnamese geography, history, education, agriculture, family relations, literature, and music, amid many other topics. Their essential thesis was that this economically impoverished nation has a bountiful cultural heritage.

Almost half a century elapsed before a work of comparable revelation emerged in English. The late and noted lexicographer Nguyen Dinh Hoa's cultural memoir proves the Huard and Durand thesis. The memoir focuses on Vietnamese customs and mores as the author experienced them growing up in Hanoi: Lining up for water at the community well; collection of night soil, a friend's accuracy with the slingshot, sleeping under a mosquito net, introduction to the martial arts at ten, burial of the placenta and umbilical cord, silversmithing techniques, and marketing of the urine of a pre-pubescent boy as a tonic. This personalized approach humanizes and vivifies what otherwise might have been dry text.

Hoa either had total recall or was the most fastidious keeper of a journal since Samuel Pepys. He lists the names and characteristics of his grade school teachers, and describes the menu offered to him on his arrival in New York in 1948. Woe to anyone who met Hoa since Hoa was five years old, and couldn't remember Hoa's name, for he surely would have remembered yours. Particularly for someone who spoke no English until his early twenties, he manifested a remarkable grasp of English idiom and nuance. In all the memoir's two hundred pages, only four slightly infelicitous expressions emerge. None interferes with meaning, and they are all too petty to elaborate on here.

This fabled memoir is an argument for nature over nurture. Hoa came from an illustrious family in which, for several generations, all the males have been named Nguyen Dinh this or that. In fact, in the memoir, the reader sometimes gets lost in the forest of Nguyen Dinh's.

The memoir is wisely non-linear. It does not pass directly from birth through adolescence to maturity, but skips entertainingly back and forth in time. For example, we learn about Mit, Hoa's wife, through her encounter with a stereotypically uncomprehending official of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, long before he tells us of their early betrothal.

Hoa's memoir is a revelation of the richness and humanity of Vietnamese culture, and a a welcome antidote for those whose image of Vietnam is shaped by Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick.