The Trinh Cong Son Phenomenon

The Tri̇nh Công Son Phenomenon
Author(s): John C. Schafer

Source: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 66, No. 3 (Aug., 2007), pp. 597-643
Published by: Association for Asian Studies
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The JournalofAsian StudiesVol. 66, No. 3 (August)2007: 597-643.
? 2007 Association of Asian Studies Inc. doi: 10.1017/S0021911807000915
The Trinh Cong San Phenomenon
JOHN C. SCH?FER
This article attempts to explain the extraordinary popularity ofVietnamese com

poser and singer Trinh Cong Son. Although he attracted attention with love
songs composed in the late 1950s, itwas his antiwar songs, particularly those
collected in Songs of Golden Skin (1966), that created the "Trinh Cong Scm
were banned
phenomenon." Though these songs by the Saigon government,
in the South the war. was distrusted
they circulated widely during Though he
the new Communist government the war, Scm continued to compose
by after
until his death in 2001, and his songs are still popular in Vietnam today.
Some reasons for his popularity are offered, including the freshness of his
early love songs, his evocation of Buddhist themes, his ability to express the
mood of Southerners during thewar, and a mixture of patience and persistence
that enabled him to continue to compose in postwar Vietnam.
Peace is the root of music.1
-Nguy?n Tr?i, fifteenth century
Those who write the songs

are more
important than
those who write the laws.
-Attributedtoboth Pascal and Napoleon
first went to Vietnam in the summer of 1968 as a volunteer with Inter
I national Voluntary Services. Assigned to teach at Phan Chu Trinh Sec

English
School in D? I the task of a new
ondary N?ng, began learning language and
culture. Vietnamese, to put on
especially students, love cultural performances,
and I attended many. At these performances, in
girls who had dissolved
shyness when asked to repeat a simple English phrase in class sang boldly and
for large, appreciative audiences. In the late 1960s, one heard
professionally
music not at school functions but all around D? in other cities
just N?ng and
in South Vietnam. In coffee and restaurants, songs emanating from large
shops
JohnC. Schafer (jcsl@humboldt.edu) is professor emeritus in the Englsh Department at Hum

boldt State University inArcata, California.
xQuotedby Phong T. Nguyen inhis introductiontoNew Perspectiveson VietnameseMusic (1991,
vi). Nguy?n Tr?iwas a poet and a militaryadvisor toLe Loi, who defeated theChinese in 1427 and
proclaimed himselfking in 1428.

598 JohnC. Schafer
roar of Honda
reel-to-reel tape recorders competed with the motorcycles and
on the streets outside.
military trucks passing by dusty
were a
Many of these songs composed by songwriter and singer named Trinh
Cong Son. If the event wasorganized by school officials, performers would
some of his love songs that didn't mention the war, but at unofficial
usually sing
a as "Love
gatherings, they would sing different kind of love song?a song such
a Person," which
Song of Mad begins,
I love someone killed in the Battle of Pleime,

I love someone killed inBattlezone D,
Killed atDong xo?i, killed inHanoi,
Killed suddenly in theDMZ.
It continues in this way,
I want to love you, to love Vietnam?

In the storm I your name,
whispered
A Vietnamese name,
Bound to you our
by golden-skin tongue.
In this song, we see some of the themes that Trinh Cong Son returned to again
and again: the sadness of war, the importance of love?love between
people
and
love for Vietnam, the native land?and a concern for the fate of people?for the
Vietnam and, by extension,
people of for all humankind.
Trinh Cong Som died six years ago, finally succumbing at the age of sixty
two to diabetes and other ailments that clearly had been too
aggravated by
much drink and too many cigarettes. Throughout Vietnam and in the cities
of the Vietnamese Melbourne to Toronto, from Paris to Los
diaspora?from
was an
Angeles
and San Jose?there outpouring of grief at his passing and
an for the approximately 600 songs he had left behind. In Ho
appreciation
Chi Minh City, thousands joined his funeral procession, and everywhere
there were cultural performances, some of them and shown on television,
taped
to say to someone who had
featuring young singers singing his songs good-bye
touched the hearts of millions. After a sold-out "An
attending performance,
of Music to RememberTrinh Cong Son," at the old French opera
Evening
house in Hanoi, the splendidly refurbished "Great Theater," on
April 29,
2001, I decided to seek reasons for what Vietnamese commentators call "The
Trinh Cong Som phenomenon"?that is, the extraordinary of Trinh
popularity
music.
Cong Son and his
is not to in
To call this singer's impact
phenomenal indulge hyperbole. Nh?t
Tien, a writer who now lives inCalifornia, calls Trinh Cong Sans music "the artis
tic work that had the clearest influence" because "it life directly"
penetrated
(1989, 55). Son was most influentialduring the the 1960s and 1970s, and his
most fervent admirers were Vietnamese from the region controlled by the
former Republic of Vietnam. During the war, Northerners were forbidden to

The Trinh Cong San Phenomenon 599
listen to music the country was

from the South.2 After reunified in 1975,
however, Trinh Cong Son developed a national following, and at the time of
his death he was one of the best-known songwriters inVietnam. Though he com
in would be called "popular music"3?songs for people from
posed what English
all walks of life, not just the scholarly elite?well-known writers and critics have
called him a poet and written learned articles about him. The distinguished lit
critic Hi?n considers Trinh Son's song "At I
erary Ho?ng Ngoc Cong Night
Feel Like a Waterfall" one of the best love poems of the twentieth century
(NguyenTrong Tao 2002, 13).

For all these reasons, the Trinh Cong Son merits investigation.
phenomenon
based mostly on
What follows ismy explanationofTrinhCong Son's popularity,
what I have learned from conversations with Vietnamese friends and relatives
over the years and from accounts
published by Vietnamese that have appeared
since his death.4 I conclude that there are at least seven reasons for the Trinh
Cong Scm phenomenon: the freshness of his early love songs, the evocation of Bud
dhist themes, the rhetorical context of South Vietnam during the American war, the
ethos or persona that Trinh Cong Son projected, Son's discovery of the talented
cassette tape recorder, and Trinh Cong
singer Kh?nh Ly, the emergence of the
Son's ability to adapt after the war to a new climate. After providing a
political
briefbiographicalsketchofhisyoungeryears,Iwill develop thesepointsmore fully.
Early Years
Sans home was Minh

Huong, located on the outskirts of Hue in
village
central Vietnam.5'6 This village's name, "village of the Ming," suggests something
about his distant ancestry: Son was descended on his father's side from Chinese
associatedwith theMing dynastythatsettled inVietnam during the seventeenth
can be when the regions of Vietnam. The line of

2Terminology confusing discussing temporary
demarcation at the 17th parallel that separated theDemocratic Republic of Vietnam from the
or theRepublic
Republic ofVietnam from 1954 to 1975 splitthe central region. "SouthVietnam,"
of Vietnam, therefore included Vietnamese from central and south Vietnam (as well as northern
Vietnamese refer to the area south of the 17th as Mien Nam, the
refugees). usually parallel
"southern I will refer to this area as South Vietnam, or the South, and to the southern
region."
of South Vietnam (Nam B?) as south Vietnam. "Southerners" refers to
part Similarly, people
to inNam Bo.
livingsouthof the 17th parallel, "southerners" people living
3See my section on "The Cassette Recorder" for a discussion of how the English term
"popular
singer"applies toTrinh Cong Son.
4Most books about Trinh Cong Son published afterhis death include both newlywritten articles
and of articles. For the latter, in my author-date
reprints previously published parenthetical
citationswithin the body ofmy article, I listfirstthe date of the collection inwhich the article is
reprinted,then the date of originalpublication.
For thisaccount of Son's early life,I have drawn on Dang Tien (2001a), Ho?ng Ph? Ngoc Tu?mg
(2001/1995),Nguyen Dae Xuan (2001), Nguyen Thanh Ty (2001, 2004), Nh?t L? (2001/1999),
Trinh Cung (2001), and Sam Thuong (2004).
6I will sometimes refer to Trinh C?ng Son as Som, his given name, in order to avoid repeating
his full
name. It is not customary to refer to Vietnamese the name.
using only family

600 JohnC. Schafer
century when the Manchus defeated the Ming and established the Ch'ing dynasty.
Son was born in 1939, not, as it turned out, inMinh Huong but inDae Lac Province
in the central a to
highlands, where his father, businessman, had moved the family
toHue in 1943 economic
explore business opportunities. The family returned when
pressuresbroughton byWorldWar II forced his fatherto leave thehighlands.

Son attendedlocal elementary schools and was studying at a French lyc?e in
Hue when tragedy befell the Son's father,who ran a
family. bicycle parts business
and worked secretly for the revolutionary movement, was killed when he crashed
his Vespa returning from Qu?ng Tri. This was 1955, and San, sixteen at the time,
was the oldest of seven children?and his mother was expecting an
eighth.
the death of his father was an emotional and economic blow to Son
Though
and his family, he was able to continue his studies. During the academic year
1956-57, he studied at the Providence School (TrucmgThi?n hiru) runby the

Catholic diocese After passing his exams and receiving his first-level bac
inHue.
calaureate degree, he moved to Saigon, where he studied philosophy at the Lyc?e
So that he could avoid the draft, some friends helped him
Chasseloup-Laubat.
get into the Qui Nhon School of Education. After graduating in 1964, he
in a remote school for ethnic minorities in the
taught for three years primarily
near D? Lat, where he some of his most famous songs.
highlands composed
Son loved music from an He the mandolin and the bamboo
early age. played
flute before getting his firstguitar when he was twelve. "I turned tomusic probably
because I loved life," Son wrote, "but a twist of fate also played a part" (2001/1997a,
202).While studyinginSaigon,Son returnedtoHue on holidayand practiced judo

with his younger brother. He was hurt in the chest, and his recovery took three years.
The accident prevented him from getting his second-level baccalaureate, but itpro
vided time for him to It is clear that he never tomake
practice composing. planned
music his career. He described this time in his life, after his father died, when,
he didn't know it,he was poised on the threshold of fame:
though
I didn't take up music with the idea of making itmy career. I remember I
wrote my first songs to express some inner .... That was in the
feelings
years 56-57, a time of disordered dreams, of frivolous youthful thoughts.
In the greenness of this youthful time, like a fruit at the start of the
season, I loved music but had absolutely no ambition to be a musician.
Early Love Songs
Though theTrinhCong Son phenomenon did not reallybegin until themid

1960s, when Son's antiwar songs became popular, itwas his that
early love songs
first sparked interest in the young composer?songs such as "Wet Eye Lashes,"
7Quoted byDang Tien (2001a, 10). The original source isTrinhC?ng Son: Nhac va d?i (TrinhC?ng
Son: His Music and Life) (H?u Giang: Tong hop).

The Trinh C?ng Son Phenomenon 601
Figure 1. Trinh C?ng Son on the balcony of his home on Nguyen Tnrcmg To Street in
Hue, circa 1969.
"The Sea Remembers," "Di?m

of the Past,"8 and "Sad Love."9 Mystery has
always surrounded
many of Som's songs, prompted by unanswered questions
their and this is true of his love songs.
regarding inspiration, especially People
wanted to know the identity of the girl who inspired the song. Stories circulated,
interest in the
gradually assuming the quality of myth, and they helped generate
singer. In recent years, Son and his close friends have cleared up some of the
a few songs. San, for
mysteries for example, explained that "Wet Eye Lashes"
was written as a for a named Thanh Th?y, whom San had heard
gift singer
as she sang because her mother was at
sing "Autumn Rain Drops,"10 crying
home dying of tuberculosis (2001/1990, 275). And "Di?m of the Past," perhaps
the most famous of all San s love songs and one of the best-known of all
modern Vietnamese love songs, was inspired, San explained, by
a
girl named
Di?m, whom San watched from the balcony of his house in Hue (shown
in as she walked Street to her classes at the
figure 1) along Nguyen Trucrng To
university(2001/1997b,178-80).
What was it about
these early love songs, besides the mysteries surrounding
their inspiration, thatmade them so appealing? San s contemporaries explain that
were his listeners, young people in the Southern
they appealing because they struck
cities
increasingly exposed
to
European and American songs, as newer than (m?i
hon) songs by other Vietnamese composers. Most of these older-sounding songs
8See II for a translation of "Diem of the Past," "A of Cannons for the Night," and
appendix Lullaby
"A Place for and Returning." For translations of fourteen of Son's antiwar songs, see
Leaving Joseph
Do Vinh Tai and Eric Scigliano (1997).
9In appendix I, I give the Vietnamese titles for all the songs I mention.
mira thu) is a "prewar" text.
"Autumn Rain
Drops" (Giot song. See explanation in
subsequent

602 JohnC. Schafer
were what Vietnamese refer to as "prewar" (tien chien) songs, a term that ismislead
reasons. It is it refers not to songs written
ing for several misleading firstbecause only
before the war to songs written soon after the
against the French but also during and
war. It is also because it is
to refer to sentimental love
misleading generally used only
songs composed during this period, not to patriotic songs, for example.
The term "prewar" probably became popular because many songs
composed
in theme and sentiment what were
during this period resembled called
"prewarpoems" (tha tienchien) composed in the 1930s and 1940s (Gibbs 1998a)
a were
by group of poets who heavily influenced by nineteenth-century French
romantic de Larmartine, Alfred Vigny, and Alfred de Musset,
writers?Alphonse
for example. Many prewar songs were prewar poems set to music. Important for
our purposes is the fact that prewar songs were still in the 1950s when
popular
Trinh C?ng San to compose. In fact, "Autumn Rain Drops," the song that
began
Thanh Th?y was singingin 1958 when she inspiredSan to compose his first
famous love song, "Wet Eyelashes," was a prewar song composed The
by Dang
Phong in 1939.11
Trinh C?ng San was certainly not the first composer of what Vietnamese
refer to as "modern music" (t?n nhac) or "renovated" or "reformed music"
(nhac cat each), terms used interchangeably to describe a new

Western-style
music composed by Vietnamese that firstemerged in the late 1930s (Gibbs
1998b). Prewar songs are considered modern or renovated songs; they form a
romantic
subcategory, their quality distinguishing them from other modern
songs, for Vietnamese contrast modern songs with

music?patriotic example.
folk songs, called d?n ca, a category that includes lullabies (ru con), rice-planting
and boat-rowing songs (ho), operatic songs (hat ch?o), and songstress songs (hat
ca triior hat ? d?o) (PhamDuy 1990; Nguyen 1991).
When the French introduced Western
music, Vietnamese composers first
wrote Vietnamese words for French tunes, but in the late 1930s, to
they began
compose modern Vietnamese songs, and that is when the terms t?n nhac
(modern music) and nhac c?i each
(renovated music) to be used.
began
However, because these first composers of modern Vietnamese music wanted
to compose Vietnamese songs, not French songs with Vietnamese
simply
words, worked to make their compositions echo the tunes and
they purposely
rhythms
of traditional folk songs. For this reason, Pham Duy calls these first
modern songsd?n ca m?i (new folk songs) (1990, 1). Both folk songs and reno
vated songs were based on poems. Folk songs were based on folk poems of anon
ymous authorship called ca dao-, some renovated songs were also based on ca dao,
but many were based on poems by known poets, including some who were still
living.
Because of their origin in poems, many renovated or prewar songs contain
nFor a descriptionof thissongand the influenceof itscomposer, see Pham Duy (1994, 80-87); for
an English translation,see Gibbs (1998a).

The Trinh C?ng Scm Phenomenon 603
traces of traditional Vietnamese

poetic forms ?the form lue bat, for example
lines of six and eight words), or the famous seven-word (that
(alternating ng?n)
verse form that was inVietnam, as well as China.
T'ang popular
were not were in the
Though they officially banned, prewar songs rarely heard
North. Engaged inmobilizing themasses firstto defeat theFrench and then the
Americans and their allies, leaders of the Democratic of Vietnam did not
Republic
want to listen to sentimental and romantic songs. Prewar songs were,
people
however,heard often in theSouth:Theywere the songsthatformed thebackdrop
against which Sons innovations stood out. "Entering modern music [tan nhac] with
a new a new
spirit," says Dang Tien, "Trinh Cong Son gradually constructed
musical language that broke the old model of
renovation music [nhac cm each]
that had emerged only twenty years earlier" (2001a, 12-13).
What did Son do tomake his songsappear freshand new?Van Ngoc stresses
Son's new approach to were not restricted to the function of
lyrics,which, he says,
tellinga story
with a beginningand an end. "Theyhad a lifecompletelyindepen
dent, free. They could evoke beautiful images, impressions, and brief thoughts
that sometimes reached the level of surrealism; and between them sometimes
therewas no logical relationshipat all" (2001, 27). Son designed his songs to
make an end run around the conscious intellect in order to reach the heart
To
achieve this effect, he used the same
directly. techniques employed by
is is so a a mere
many modern poets, which why he
frequently called poet, not
songwriter.13
These techniques include purposeful incoherence (at least at the
level of logic); unusual grammar that pushes at the limits of what is
acceptable;
fresh diction, and metaphors;
images, startling word collocations; and rhyme,
both true rhyme and off rhyme.All of these techniques are evident in
"Di?m of thePast" (see appendix II). Though thebasic situationof the song is
in the rain for a visit from someone he loves?the
clear?the singer iswaiting
song is not a coherent narrative. "What does Tlease let the rain pass over this
to do with 'Let the wanderer a wanderer'?"
region' have forget he's asks Le
H?u. "It sounds like The man
talks chickens, the woman talks ducks'; as
a line from another into this one" (2003, 227).
though song has been plugged
Son's use of unusual grammar is seen in line 2: "Dai tay em may thud mat
xanh xao" (Your long arms, your pale eyes). In translating this line, my wife
and I have left out the phrase "may thu?" (many times, many periods of time)
because Son's grammar does not enable one to know for certain how this
phrase relates to the rest of the line.
12The distinction between "renovated music" and music" is not a clear one. As Gibbs
"prewar
(1998a) "In more recent years these songs [renovated music] have come to be called
explains,
nhac tien chien As I suggest, however, most consider to
[prewar music]." people prewar songs
be a romantic of renovated music.
subcategory
Son s is "mere" about
impact proves that there
13Trinh C?ng but
nothing songwriters, traditionally
in Vietnam, have been more than musical
poets respected performers.

604 JohnC. Schafer
Though
in "Diem" (as inmany prewar songs), it is raining, it is autumn, and
leaves are other words and images are not clich?s. References to old
falling,14
temples, gravestones,and stones needing each other were not conventional in
prewar songs. Probably the most famous line of this song, "In the future even
stones will need each other," became famous because it contained a new and
A fourth use of unusual word collocations, is
arresting image. technique, Son's
related to what some critics have identified as a distinguishing feature of Sans
songs, namely, his frequent use of "d?i nghich," or opposition of ideas (Cao
Huy Thu?n 2001b; Tr?n H?n Thuc 2001), a feature that I will saymore about
later. In "Di?m," there is an unusual collocation in the second Une of the
second stanza, translated as "In the afternoon rain I sit San uses
the
waiting."
rain mua to describe the rain, an unusual
phrase "trips of pass" (chuy?n qua)
use of a word that is in such as
chuy?n (trips, flights), usually used phrases
"car or "train not to describe rain (Le
"plane trips," trips," trips" but periods of
Hou 2003, 227). Some better examples occur in the second stanza of another
Sans "Sad Love":
early love song,
Love is like a burningwound on the flesh,

Love is far like the sky,
Love is near like the mist of clouds,
Love is like a tree's shadow,
deep
Love shouts with in the sun,
joy
Love's sadness intoxicates.
stanza love to a burning wound, proof

The begins with the striking comparison of
that the war is beginning to occupy the songwriter. Then come references tomist,
clouds, sky, and sun, which are conventional but are used by Son to counter
rather than to fulfill expectations, as Dang Tien explains: "'Love is far like the
sense, but why 'near like the mist of clouds'? ... 'Love shouts with
sky' makes
in the sun' is it should be to 'Love flies in the
joy right, but opposed sadly
rain.' we
Why do get 'intoxicates' here?" (2001a, 11).
Tien compares "Sad Love" to Do?n Chu?n and Tir Linh's "Send the
Dang
Wind toMake theClouds Fly," a prewar song composed in 1952 or 1953 but
stillpopular inVietnam during the 1960s and 1970s (I heard itmany times in
coffeehouses inHue and D? N?ng during thewar). It begins as follows:
Send thewind tomake the clouds fly,

Send the to the flower,
many-colored butterfly
Send also the blue of a love letter,
moonlight pale
Send them here with the autumn of the world.
14Vietnamese find it hard to resist leaves. to Tao,

songwriters falling According Nguyen Trong
fiftyof themodern songs ranked in the top hundred relyon the repeated phrase l? roi (leaves
fall) (2002, 13).

The Trinh C?ng So'n Phenomenon 605
to stanza from Son's song has fresh

According Dang Tien, although the opposi
tions, these lines consist of conventional images and juxtapositions: wind
cloud, butterfly-flower, moonlight-autumn.
A final poetic true
technique, rhyme?both rhyme and off rhyme?is used
to tie his
skillfully by Son compositions together. Other songwriters used
but itwas an device for San. Tr?n H?u Thuc says
rhyme, especially important
that in some famous Trinh C?ng San songs, one "sings rhyme," one doesn't
"sing meaning" (2003, 56). Iwould put "Di?m" in this category. Though the frag
mented meaning jars the listener, the repetition of similar-sounding words at the
ends of lines unifies the song and has a soothing effect. Because Vietnamese spel
is one can see how much is used in "Di?m"
ling quite phonetic, rhyme by noticing
the similarspellingsof the finalwords in the lines.
In Son to adopt a new to
explaining what motivated approach lyrics, Dang
Tien points to the vibrant and intellectual climate in southern Viet
cosmopolitan
namese cities between the two Indochina Wars (2001a, 13). "People read Fran
?oise in at the same time with Paris," Dang Tien says. "In the cities,
Sagan Saigon
in coffee houses, discussed Malraux, Camus, and also Faulkner,
especially people
Gorki,Husserl, Heidegger" (14). In Hue, Son hung outwith a highlyeducated
group of friendsthat included the artistsDinh Cucmg and B?u Chi, thephiloso
pher andwriterHo?ng Ph? Ngoc Tucmg, thepoet Ng? Kha (whoalso had a law
degree), and the French professor and translator B?u y, head of the French
Department at theFaculty of Pedagogy at Hue University (Dinh Cucmg 2001,

58). San was clearly exposed
to modernism
through
his own
study
of philosophy
and through discussions with his close friends, and sowhen, for
example, he used
words that frustrated expectations, when he disdained easy meanings, when he
an emotional not a he was no doubt moved
opted for logical coherence, by
some of the same forces that had affected Guillaume in France
Apollinaire
and T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound in England and
America.15
Another member of Son's circle of friends, Thai Kim Lan, who in the
early
1960s was at the
University of Hue, the
studying philosophy emphasizes
ofWestern on the youth of Hue
impact philosophy, particularly existentialism,
at this time. Concepts such as "existential angst," and "the
"being nothingness,"
of Ufe," and the myth of she says, hotly debated
meaningless Sisyphus were,
(2001, 84). Though San had studiedphilosophyat a French lyc?e,according to
Thai Kim Lan, he would usually sitback and listenduring these discussions,
but then later, to the surprise of his friends, he would compose a song and
were
"sing philosophy." His songs, Thai Kim Lan argues, simpler
versions of
the ideas theywere discussing,and theyhelped those inher circle cut through
15"When I was still in school," Son told Tu?n Huy, "I would take with me a book of poems
by Apol
linaire and murmur to each word of his poems and gaze out at the
myself outstanding dreamily
white clouds driftingby thewindow" (quoted inTu?n Huy 2001, 31).

606 JohnC. Schafer
the intellectual knots they had tied for themselves. Thai Kim Lan suggests that
when, in a song called "The San sang that "there is no such

Unexpected,"
as the first death, there is no such as the last death," he was
thing thing
on the In
working philosophical problem of defining "beginning" and "end."
"The Words of the River's Current," he was on the problems of
working
to Thai Kim Lan, it is his
"being" and "nothingness." According incorporation
of these newer philosophical notions into his songs that
distinguished
his music
from previous composers and made it to young people (83).
appealing
Son's recently rediscovered "The Song of the Sand Crab" a
provides good
of how Son's in French influenced his composition.
example training philosophy
In this long song (trudngca), clearly inspiredby Albert Camus' "The Myth of
Son uses Vietnam's symbol of endless and futile labor, the sand crab,
Sisyphus,"
to present a view of life that is as bleak as Camus',
although the work does
suggest thepossibilityof salvationthroughlove. Performedchorallyin 1962 by
Son's fellow students at the Qui Nhon School of Education, itwas well received
at the timebutwas never published or recordeduntil theHue historianNguyen
Dae Xu?n interviewed students who remembered it Dae Xu?n 2003,
(Nguy?n
32-33, 39-51; see also Nguyen Thanh Ty 2004, 15-18). Son's philosophical
in
lyrics "Song of the Sand Crab" and other works helped make his songs new,
but he was careful to make sure the ideas they conveyed were not too strange
or "I have Son wrote, "and so I have wanted
foreign. always liked philosophy,"
to put into my But then he was
philosophy songs." specifies that what he aiming
for was "a soft kind of philosophy that everyone can understand, like in a
folkpoem or in a lullabythata mother singsfor her child" (2001/1997a,202).16
But itwas
not only the words of Son's songs that made them appear fresh
and appealing: His songs were more modern sounding than the songs composed
such as Do?n Chu?n and the early works of Van Cao and
by prewar composers
Pham Duy, all contemporaries of San but older. What made Son's songs sound
modern? Son achieved a more modern effect by not echoing?or by echoing
much more faintly?the prosody of declaimed poetry. Avoiding these echoes
was not easy because many prewar songs carry, as I pointed out earlier, the
traces of familiar poetic meters. Dang Tien, for example, argues that
these lines from Do?n Chu?n and T? Linh's's "Send the Clouds" echo the
famous T'ang seven-word (that ng?n) verse form that was in Vietnam
popular
and China:
L? v?ng t?rngc?nh roi t?ng c?nh (sevenwords)

One by one each golden leaf
Roi xu?ng ?m th?m tr?nd?t xua (sevenwords)
Falls silentlyon old ground;
For more informationon Trinh C?ng Son's "soft philosophy," including the influence of
Buddhism and existentialism,see JohnC. Sch?fer (2007).

The Trinh C?ng Sen Phenomenon 607
In San s songs differed from his Van

explaining how predecessors, Ngoc argues
that"whenone sings songs likeThe Sadness ofAutumn Passing' (1940) byVan
Cao or a (1945) by Pham Duy,17 one can't refrain from
'Song of Warrior's Wife'
each line, each word, as if one were a
declaiming singing songstress song (ca
As in the ears, it's as if one can hear the moon
tr?)}8 they sound lute and the
singer's lute, or the drum

and bamboo castanets!"19 (2001, 27). In contrast,
Son's songs verse forms. One reason may be
rarely evoke these well-known
Son's education in a French Viet
lyc?e, where, unlike his friends who attended
namese schools, he was not made to and memorize written in
study poems
traditional Vietnamese and classical Sino-Vietnamese verse forms Tien
(Dang
2001a, 11; Nguyen Thanh Ty 2004, 101).
Buddhist Themes
In comparison toworks were fresh and

by these older composers, Son's songs
new, but theywere not so unusual that they sounded foreign. The mood of Son's
music remained traditional?sad, dreamy, and romantic?and thus his songs
were toVietnamese simi
nicely attuned expectations, which had been shaped by
larlysad lullabiesand prewar songs (VanNgoc 2001, 27). This sadmood and the
messages of many of Son's songs probably reflect the influence of his Buddhist
background. San admitted to the influenceof his faithand of his hometown of

a very Buddhist "Hue
Hue, city ringed by dozens of
pagodas: and Buddhism,"
he wrote, "deeply influencedmy youthfulemotions."20Though his friendThai
Kim Lan says that San was dealing with Western metaphysical problems
in his
songs, his as she herself ends up admitting, could be con

philosophy, probably
sidered Buddhist as well. "Now as I reflect I realize that ... those new ideas
were not new but were found in Buddhism"
(2001, 84).21 When an interviewer
was a
suggested there "strong current of existentialism" in his songs, Son replied,
"The supreme master of existentialism was the Buddha because he us that
taught
we must be mindful of each moment of our lives" (2001/1998,211). San
clearly
drew on bothWestern philosophyand Buddhist thinking. As he said,he aimed
for a simple philosophy, not a one (200171997a, 202).
"systematized"
1
Pham himself finds echoes of inVan Caos and in his own com
Duy T'ang poems early songs early
positions (1993, 13).
8Ca tr?, also called hat a d?o, translated as "chamber music" or was a
usually "songstress songs,"
diversion for learned men who went to houses to hear them sing ancient poems or
songstresses'
poems of their own (the men's) composition.
9These are traditional instruments used to accompany a ca tr?.
songstress singing
20From"Chu t?ichum?nh c?ng l?b? d?u" (TheWords Talent and Fate Both Lead toTurmoil), an
with Son reprinted inNguy?n Trong Tao et al. (2001, 221).
undated interview
21Tr?n H?u new and non
suggests that Son's
Thuc to word collocations
approach lyrics (unusual
canonical for made some familiar Buddhist and Taoist notions fresh
grammar, example) appear
and new (2001, 77). This new "packaging" of traditionalideas may be why Thai Kim Lan and
her circle did not immediatelydetect Buddhist themes in Son's songs.

608 JohnC. Schafer
are not are in

Though they
certainly systematized, Buddhist ideas expressed
many songs, particularly the notion of v? thu?ng, or impermanence, including
the idea that death is an event in a chain of cause and effect that leads to
rebirth, and recognition that, as the Buddha said, "Life is suffering." Imperma
nence is a theme of many songs: In the world of Trinh is
C?ng San, nothing
forever?not not a love not life. We see this theme in
youth, relationship,
"Flowers of Impermanence," an in which San
uncharacteristically long song
sketches the phases of a love relationship: the search for someone, the discovery
of love, and then the inevitable ending. It appears also in the song "To Board," in
which all living things, including the songwriter, are depicted as residing only
in this world, like a boarder in a rooming house:
temporarily
The bird boards on the bamboo branch,

The fish boards in a crevice of water.
spring
I myself am a boarder in thisworld,
In one hundred years I'll return to the edge of the sky.
There is sadness in
impermanence, of course, but also peace of mind if one rea
lizes that the end of a lovingrelationshipand of life itselfis also a beginning; a
is also an arrival. In Son's songs, to
departure always going leads coming?and
vice versa?and of a circle often. "The Sea Remembers," for
images appear
"Tomorrow you leave / The sea remembers your name and
example, begins,
calls you back." A later song, "A Place for Leaving and Returning," is, as the
title suggests, permeated by this idea of the inseparability of arriving and depart
a song about death?it was sung at all Son's
ing. Though commonly considered
memorial concerts and a as his coffin was carried to his
played by saxophonist
grave?in this famous song, the sadness of leaving and death is mitigated by
the linkto returningand to rebirth(Cao Huy Thu?n 2001a).
Some Vietnamese, and some Westerners
listen to his songs and read
who
translations of his lyrics, find Son's songs "weepy," even morbid. It is an under
standable reaction: Most of his songs are sad; many contain references to
death. San admitted to being obsessed with death since an early age, perhaps
because of the earlydeath of his father (2001/1998,207).23 Certainly, too, the
war
heightened every Vietnamese's consciousness of death. "I love someone
just killed last night," San sings

in "Love Song of a Mad Person," "Killed by
chance, killed with no / killed without hate, dead as a dream."

appointment
San is not concerned only with the death of others: His own death is never far
from his mind. He refers to it directly in some songs, for example, in "Next to
a Desolate Life": "Once I dreamed I saw it's true tears
myself die, / Though
so I and the sun was in the
fell I wasn't sad, / Suddenly awakened rising"; and
22See II for a translation.

appendix
23"Inmy childhood Iwas frequentlyobsessed with death. In dreams I often saw the death ofmy
father" (TrinhC?ng Son 200371987b, 182-83).

I In other songs, he
"Unexpected": "Very tired lay down with the eternal earth."
refers somewhat more obliquely to his own from this world?for
departure
in "Sand and Dust," "There'll Be a
example, Day Like This," and "Like Words
of Goodby." In Son's songs, death and life interpenetrate each other, each
to the other. The to many of his songs that he
giving meaning lyrics suggest
livedhis lifewith death inmind.
In as "an
death that affects one's
experiencing anticipatory conception"
earthly
existence
(Kierkegaard 1846, 150), Son was following the recommen
dations of the existentialists. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, young intellectuals
in Southern cities were fascinated existentialism, and Son's close
by European
friends emphasize his intense interest in it.24 It is therefore probably not a coinci
dence that death appears to have been for San what itwas forMartin Heidegger
and Karl Jaspers: a "boundary situation" that gives meaning to life. "I love life
with the heart of someone who despairs," San wrote in the introduction to a
song collection (1972, 6). This despair or sense of desolation (tuyetvong) that
many of Son's songs should be seen, I believe, as similar to
permeates
existential "dread"?an in the face of or
anxiety nonbeing nothingness. Paradoxi
to what called "authentic" existing, as Ren? Muller
cally dread leads Heidegger
explains,
In (das Nichts), the intuition of what

Heidegger's ontology, nothingness
itmeans not to exist, is the basis for authentic
existing. To Heidegger,
onlywhen I recognize and accept that I will lose all I know of my
more to the am it at this very
earthly being?even point, that I losing
moment?can I come to terms with what my life is. I
Only then, when
am free to facemy dying,am I free to livemy fullestlife.
When I can
let go of theworld, I will receive theworld.When Ifeel theVoid ...,
the ground of being appears under my feet. (1998, 32-33)
was not a Buddhist, this is, as M?ller

Though Heidegger points out, "a paradox
worthy of Zen. Tathata (suchness), the true meaning of the world, or more
we concounter, comes
simply, the truth about all only after achieving sunyata
(emptiness)" (33). An appreciation for the transitoriness of life that dread awa
kened in the existentialists resembles the Buddhist idea of vo thucmg, or imper
manance. Thereare many similarities between Buddhism and existentialism, as
scholars have pointed out.2 In his songs, Son blended Buddhist and existentialist
ideas to produce an artistic whole that his listeners found new and a little
24See B?u Y (2003, 18-19, 89-91), Ho?ng Ph? Ngoc Tuong (2004, 23-25, 120), Thai Kim Lan
(2001, 82-86), and Sam Thuong (2005).
25Zen is only one of school of Buddhism, and there are, of course, differences between Zen and
existentialism. For a discussion of the similarities and differences, see (1979) and
George Rupp
Ren? Muller (1998). In "Death, Buddhism, and Existentialism in the Songs of Trinh C?ng Som,"
I argue that Son's "softphilosophy" isprimarilyBuddhist (Sch?fer2007).

610 JohnC. Schafer
not too strange.

strange?but By incorporating Buddhist themes into his songs,
San his listeners, most of whom were Buddhists, accept death and suffer
helped
ing. They found?and still find?his songs not morbid but consoling.
Trjnh C?ng Sew and the War
The songs in Son's firstpublished collection, Songs of Trinh C?ng Son,

released in 1965, were love songs, but we can see the war intruding in some of
them. "Sad Love," the last song in this collection, opens with the line, "Love is
like a [military]shell, a heart that is blind." In his next collection, Songs of
Golden Skin war becomes
(1966-67), not a source of to talk
just metaphors
about love but
the major It is these songs more than any others that
topic.
created the Trinh C?ng San phenomenon, songs such as "Lullaby of Cannons
for the "Vietnamese Girl with Golden Skin," "AWinter's Fable," and
Night,"26
"A Mother's These songs are antiwar in the sense that
Legacy." they express
sadness at the death and destruction the war is causing, but are also love
they
songs that ask listeners to cherish love between lovers, between mothers and chil
dren, and between all people of golden skin. In these songs, to use a phrase that
became a clich? in America, San urges people to "make love, not war."27
But itwas not just the songs, itwas also the public performance of the songs
that sparked the Trinh C?ng San phenomenon. A watershed event was a per
formance at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Saigon in 1965. Organized
by some of Son's friendsand attendedby artists,intellectuals,and high school and

it took in an open space behind the university. This was
college students, place
Son's first performance before a large audience, and he said that he looked on
it as an "experiment to see if he could exist in the hearts of the (2001/
people"
278). He answer in the form of an enthusiastic
1997c, got his response, which
he later described in this way:
with me a of twenty songs about the native land, the

Carrying light load
dream for peace, and songs that now are called "antiwar," I tried my best
to someone who wished to convey his inner to his
play the role of feelings
26See II for a translation.

appendix
27It isdifficulttodistinguishSon's antiwarsongsfromhis songs about love and his native land.Love
such as "Di?m of the Past" and songs about the human condition assumed an antiwar
songs quality
when were the for peace. Michiko Yoshi, a researcher associated with the
they sung during struggle
University
of Paris, finds sixty-nine antiwar songs in the 136 songs that Son composed between
1959 and 1972 (see Dang Tien 2001b, 130). For my purposes, I consider Son's antiwar songs to
be those expressing a desire forpeace that are found in these collections: Ca Kh?c Trinh C?ng
San (Songs of Trinh C?ng Son, 1966), Ca Kh?c Da V?ng (Songs of Golden Skin, 1966-67), Ca
Kh?c Da V?ng 11 (Songs of Golden Skin II, 1968), Kinh Viet Nam (PrayerforVietnam, 1968),
Ta Ph?i Th?y Mat Tren (WeMust See the Sun, 1969), and Phu Kh?c Da V?ng (More Songs of
Golden Skin, 1972).

The Trinh C?ng Sem Phenomenon 611
audience. That concert had a beautiful

effect on both the presenter and
the audience. One was in the end the
song requested eight times, and
to
audience
spontaneously began sing along with the singer. After the
concert I was an
"compensated" by having the privilege of sitting for
hour to sign the dittoed song sheets that were distributed for listeners.
(278)
San took shortunauthorized leaves fromhis teachingjob inBao Loe toperform

at this and other concerts in an to cover his classes
Saigon, forcing aging teacher
and stretchingthe toleranceof his schoolprincipal (NguyenThanh Ty 2004, 41,
96). In the summer of 1967, Sans career ended when he and some of
teaching
his friends, also teachers in Bao Loe, received draft notices. San, however, never
for duty and never served in the army. He moved to Saigon and
reported began
a rather Bohemian life. For two years after receiving his induction notice,
living
San was able to live a life. He avoided army service by a
fairly normal fasting for
month each year and drinking a
powerful purgative called diamox that lowered
his weight enough to make him fail his medical exam. But when the third year
rolled around, he feared his health was not strong enough to fast and purge
himself again, and so he became a draft For several years, he lived like
dodger.
a homeless person in abandoned and dilapidated prefabricated
housing behind
the Faculty of Letters. in amenities, this site had the
Though lacking advantage
ofnotbeing checkedby thepolice.He would sleep on a cot in theprefabhousing
or on the cement floor of a artists that had
meeting place for young sprung up
nearby.As forpersonal hygiene,he washed his face and brushed his teeth in
one of the
nearby coffeehouses.28
When his songs became 1968 Tet Offen
increasingly popular and, after the
sive, increasingly antiwar, the government of Nguyen Van Thieu issued a decree
banning their circulation.29 This brought Son increased attention from Vietna
mese and foreign journalists who pursued him for interviews. una
"Suddenly,
Son wrote, "I became famous... . I'd escape from Saigon to Hue
voidably,"
and a few days later I'd see of different skin colors, from different
people
countries, appear at my door.... I had to live frivolous moments in newspapers
and magazines and before camera lenses until ten
days before the city [Saigon]
was liberated" If
completely (2003/1987a, 181-82). foreign journalists could
a
find San, why couldn't the police? This remains murky and controversial ques
tion. Some say he was an air force officer named Liru Kim a
protected by Cuang,
close friend of Sans who may have been able to issue him some false enlistment
papers (Nguyen Thanh Ty 2004,115). Others say that Liru Kim Cuong was not a
powerfulenough figureto help Son and thathis keyprotectorwas Nguyen Cao
28NhatLe (2001/1999,134-53), Ho?ng Ph? Ngoc Tucmg (2001/1995,23-27), and Nguyen Thanh
Ty (2001, 2004) describe thisperiod of the singer'slife.See also TrinhC?ng Son's interview
with
Ho?i Anh (2001/2000, 119-120) and his "MyDraft Dodging Period" (2003/1987a, 179-82).
to Dae Xuan (2003,100), this was Decree No. 33, issued on 8,1969.
29According Nguyen February

612 JohnC. Schafer
Ky, prime minister from 1965 to 1967 and vice president until 1971. Dang Tien,
citing several sources, says thatNguyen Cao Ky befriendedTrinh C?ng San

because he liked the artist and was eager to garner the support of progressive
intellectuals and to repair relations with the Buddhist movement in Hue,
which he had helped crush in 1966 (2001b, 187).
One cannot understand the Trinh C?ng San phenomenon without under
context in it cities
standing the social which occurred?the of the South. When
Son took the stage at the University of Saigon in 1965, he was operating in a par
ticular rhetorical situation. Young men were being drafted and killed, artillery
batteries boomed in the
night, Russian-made rockets were in
city
landing
streets, and American were These events set the rhetorical
troops everywhere.
tinder, and San the spark. Van Ngoc emphasizes this connection
provided
between Son's and the created the war: "The
songs exigency by phenomenon
of Trinh C?ng San, or more accurately the songs of Trinh C?ng San, can only
be explained in terms of historical and social causes: without the
reality of the
war and the resentment it fostered, without the of confusion that
atmosphere
enveloped the youth of the cities, without the sharing of and emotions
feelings
between and audience, there would never be these
singer songs" (2001, 26).
Of course, one has to know how to seize the rhetorical moment, and San,
in his love songs away from the clich?s of romantic prewar
already moving
songs, was sensitive and talented to know what this new situation
enough
a new kind of love song, a song for the
demanded: suffering land and the
of Vietnam, a such as "A of Cannons for the
people song Lullaby Night,"30
which contains this refrain:
Thousands of bombs rain down on the

village,
Thousands of bombs rain down on the field,
And Vietnamese homes burn bright in the hamlet;
Thousands of trucks with and
Claymores grenades,
Thousands of trucks enter the cities,
Carrying the remains of mothers, sisters, brothers.
As these lines reveal, Son's antiwar songs differed from his earlier songs, not just
in matter but also in attention
subject technique. Whereas he caught people's
sometimes even surreal love songs, the
with illogical, metaphysical, lyrics of
Son's antiwar songs are logical and very realistic. He mentions actual battles
(Battle of Pleime, Dong Xo?i) and weapons (Claymores, grenades). Compared

to his love songs, which do not tell a coherent story, Son's antiwar songs are
much more story-like and
some?"Vietnamese Girl with Golden Skin," for
a story with a clear Htru Thuc suggests
example?tell beginning and end. Tr?n
thatwhen one looks at Son's total oeuvre, his antiwar songs stand out as atypical,
their realism and clear logic distinguishing them from his love songs and songs
30See II for a translation of this song.

appendix complete

The Trinh C?ng ScvnPhenomenon 613
about the human condition. They sound, he says, like "reports on the war" (2003,
63).Why did San changehis approach towriting lyrics?
TranH?u Thuc says it is
because Son wanted to send a "clear about the war and the necessity of
message"
peace (58).
If his message was communicated successfully?and the almost immediate
of his antiwar songs suggests that itwas?it is no doubt because, in
popularity
these songs, Son gave voice to the private in the
thoughts of many, becoming,
process, the for an entire In the tributes to
spokesperson generation. many
San written since his death, the authors thank him for saying what
they could
not themselves express. "He's B?i Bao Truc, in a
gone," says typical tribute,
"but we'll always remember him, always be in his debt, to him for
grateful
us those are hardest to
saying for things that say" (2001, 62). "His voice," says
Biru Chi, "was like an invisible thread that quickly unified the private moods
and destinies of individualslivingin Southern cities" (2001, 30).
In the Son was a talented
public presentation of his songs, greatly aided by
someone so to Sans success that she will
singer named Kh?nh Ly, important
be described in a separate section. San met Kh?nh in 1964 when he visited
Ly
the central
highland city of D? Lat. Nineteen years old at the time, she was
singingat "NightClub D? Lat." Though Kh?nh Ly was not yetwell known,
Son sensed immediatelythat "her singingvoice was right for the songs [he]
was writing" (2001/1998,207). They struckup a partnership,and soonKh?nh
was
Ly singing only his songs and Son began writing songs with her voice and
talents inmind. In 1967, Kh?nh Ly and San at univer
began appearing together
sities in cities and at a or the
Saigon and Hue and other place called "Qu?n Van,"
"Literature Club" in to their fame," Kh?nh Ly
Saigon. Referring "phenomenal
says that "it all at the Literature Club," a venue that she describes in
began
this way:
The Literature Club, with a name easy to remember and so nice, sprang
an .... The roof was made
up in
unprotected spot in the heart of Saigon31
of leaves and old pieces of plywood tied together; the kitchen was smaller
than the one here [an apartment in Montreal]32 and was used only to
make coffee. People had to find a place to sit on the cement floor
amidst pieces of broken bricks and weeds. But when I was young that
place forme was themost beautifulof gatheringplaces (2001, 57).
San was in Hue Tet Offensive and saw the corpses strewn in the
during the
streets and rivers, on the steps of empty homes, and in the famous
berry field
where so many bodies were found, many of them apparently killed by National
31Itwas built on the foundationof a well-known colonial prison called Kh?m Lern ("The Big Jail")
andwas within thegrounds of theFaculty of Letters,Universityof Saigon (PhamDuy 1991, 283).
32Kh?nh lives in Southern California, but she met Son inMontreal in 1992. Son was inMontreal
Ly
visiting some of his siblingswho had settled there.

614 JohnC. Schafer
Front and North Vietnamese execution

Liberation squads. Two of his songs,
on the and "A for the written at this time,
"Singing Corpses" Song Corpses,"
are the most antiwar songs and the most A composer
haunting of all his graphic.
who had begun writing dreamy songs of wet eyelashes and fleeting romances,
San now was writing of corpses and driven mad by the war. In these
people
Nhat Le "It was as if he was
songs, says, toying with the devil and with death,
was he was stunnedby thepain of his country"(2001/1999, 146).
but the truth
The first song has a sprightly cheerful rhythm, but when one focuses on the
words, it becomes clear that it is about people driven mad by the war, like this
mother who claps over the corpse of her child:
Afternoons on the hills, on the

singing corpses?
I have seen, I have seen the
by garden?
A mother clutchingher dead child.
A mother over her child's
claps corpse,
A mother cheers for peace?
Some for
people clap harmony,
Others cheer ...;
catastrophe
I came to Hue after the Tet Offensive and lived with a Vietnamese
family within
the Citadel area. Across a small store that sold music
the street was tapes, and
the owners would these sad songs over and over, to attract
play probably
As a result, they are seared on my memory, especially these lines from
buyers.
"A
Song for the Corpses":
Which corpse ismy love

Lying in that trench,
In the
burning fields,
those potato vines?
Among
The Ethos of Trinh C?ng So'n
Another important ingredient of the rhetorical situation is the ethos of the

or in this case, the a can seize
speaker, singer. In other words, whether singer
the rhetorical moment depends not only on s
the quality of the singer message
but also on the audience's perception of the character of the message deliverer.
In terms of ethos, San had two advantages. First, he was not associated with any
or In the environment of South
political religious faction. heavily politicized
Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, itwas difficultforVietnamese to finda voice
trust. were controlled
they could Newspapers by the government, officials?
both military and civilian?tailored their comments to fit the current propaganda
theme, and teachers were afraid to discuss political issues for fear of being
accused of being Communist Activists on the far left, many
sympathizers.
working underground for the Communist movement, were also suspect. Son,
however, kept his distance from the various political factions, and his name
was never linked to any of them. He had friends, such as the writer Ho?ng

Ph? Ngoc Tir?ng, who joined the Communist movement in 1966 and other
friends,such as TrinhCung (no relation),who were in theArmyof theRepublic
of Vietnam. his friends were active in the Buddhist movement in
Though many of
Hue, San never let himself become a for the Buddhist cause. Son's
spokesperson
friend Biru Chi says Son "didn't act on behalf of any '-ism' unless itwas human
ism ... . In his antiwar music,
he had no political intention at all: was
everything
done on orders from his heart" (2001, 30). In Dang Tiens view, the people's per
no ulterior motives "was the reason for
ception that Son had political primary
Trinh C?ng Son's quick success, for his becoming a almost over
phenomenon
night" (2001b, 188).
Sans second advantage in terms of ethos relates to his
style and personality.
He was of average for a Vietnamese, had a frail build, and wore
height quite large
with horn rims. When he sang in front of audiences, he
glasses, usually large
would introducehimself and Kh?nh Ly verybrieflyand then theywould sing.
He in the soft tones of his native Hue accent, which his audience found
spoke
(Some Vietnamese believe the northernis accent the
appealing. domineering,
southern too free and unrefined.) He was
"the kind of person who
perhaps
not fear," says a voice that was
inspired love Dang Tien, with "friendly, creating
the illusion inmany that they were close to him, not real close but
people maybe
not distant" (2001b, 184). Imet Son several times inHue at his home on
certainly
To Street. I knew wanted to interview him, and so I
Nguyen Tru?ng Journalists
would ask students who knew him tomake the arrangements. At one meeting, his
friend Biru Chi was Son would answer if
present. questions politely and,
a song, on a scratched and battered old
requested, sing strumming guitar. He
struck me to be as his friends describe modest and unas
always just him?very
manner was success because
suming. Sans unaffected important to his in South
Vietnam the 1960s, the young students who first embraced
songs his
during
formed a relatively small community. Performances were small and personal,
and so the ethos of the singer was an important factor.
To appreciate Son's it is instructive to compare him to the compo
advantage,
ser Pham Son's closest rival in terms of fame and influence. There
Duy, perhaps
are several reasons Pham
Duy could not connect with urban youth in Southern
cities as as Son. He was
twenty years older, for
one
effectively thing. By the mid
1960s, he had studied music abroad in Paris and already had an established repu
tation as a In was less modest?that
leading composer. personality, he is, less shy
about And he was a northerner who the Viet Minh move
self-promotion. joined
ment in the 1940s but laterbecame disenchantedwith communismand fled to
the South, where he became a a series of anticommunist
supporter of regimes.
He was a friendof the legendaryCIA agent Edward Lansdale and used to
attend "hootenannies" at Lansdale's
private residence (Pham Duy 1991, 218).
He was also a member
of the Film Center, taught at the National School of
Music, worked weekly with the government radio station, and cooperated with
the U.S. Information Service on various projects. Because they recognized him

616 JohnC. Schafer
as an in Vietnam him to
important cultural figure, U.S. officials arranged for
make several trips to the United States. In short, he was not neutral, and so
some not be trusted.
people felt he could
When Pham Duy's collection Ten Songs of the Heart in the mid
appeared
1960s, it received a mixed reaction. Some young people loved his songs,
which, like Son's, talked of peace and reconciliation, but others reacted with sus
"In his
picion. Dang Tien reports, "Pham Duy sang with
Songs of the Heart,"
next to the old rice field,'33 but
great fervor T will sing louder than the guns
then he put on a black shirt and stood with groups involved in the Rural Recon
struction Program" (an unsuccessful attempt by the Saigon regime to win over
people in the countryside) (2001b, 186). By themid-1960s, Pham Duy had

lost his ability to appeal to
peace-loving students, especially those on the
political
left.Ho?ng Ph? Ngoc Tu?mg, a close friendof Son'swho leftHue before theTet
in 1968 to some students
Offensive join the Communist movement, writes that
loved Pham Duy's Songs of the Heart, but left-wing students considered the col
lection "a piece of warfare designed to soften the blow of American
psychological
troops" (1995, 55). Pham Duy himself appears to admit thathe had a political
in In his memoirs, he
objective writing Songs of the Heart. lumps this collection
in with other works "of a social service nature, songs for the
Ministry of Infor
mation, the Open Arms Program, the Army, and the Rural Reconstruction
Program" (1991, 218-19).

Not all Southerners, of course, Trinh C?ng San and his antiwar
appreciated
His as Biru Chi have real consequences:
songs. songs did, points out, "They got
not a few young to look at the and of the war, and
people inhumanity cruelty
them to hide from the draft or desert. In the eyes of those who
encouraged
held power in the old regime, San was someone who destroyed the will to
of the troops" (2001, 31). This was, of course, why the Saigon regime
fight
a futile conse
made attempt to ban his songs. That his songs had these real
quences endeared him to people like B?u Chi, who painted antiwar paintings
and spent time in prison for his antigovernment views, but the implication that
San was in some way responsible for the Communist victory troubles others
who do not share B?ru Chis radical politics but love his songs. These friends
and fans reveal their uneasiness to the term "antiwar" to
by refusing apply
Son's songs about the war.34 Pham Duy and Trinh Cung, both of whom now
live in California, object to the term. Trinh Cung, an old friend of Son's who
was in the of Vietnam, argues that "antiwar" is not the
Army of the Republic
proper term because "it suggests a the accepting of respon
judgement, suggests
we say that Sans wartime
sibility for the Souths defeat." Trinh Cung suggests
works are about "the fate of the Vietnamese (2001, 79).
people"
Tien the opening line from the second song in Pham collection h?t to"
33Dang quotes Duy's "Ti?ng
(ALoud SingingVoice).
34See, forexample, Trinh Cung (2001, 79).

The Trinh C?ng Son Phenomenon 617
Tr?nh C?ng Sotm and Kh?nh Ly
After 1975, many young female singers sang Son s songs, including his sister,
Trinh V?nh Trinh. But for Vietnamese of Sons generation, Trinh C?ng Son will
to Kh?nh to
always be linked Ly, the singer who presented his songs admiring
fans at the Literature Club in Saigon, at performances at universities, and then on
cassette tapes. Trinh C?ng Son had a good voice, and at concerts, he would sing
half the songs by himself and several duets, and Kh?nh Ly would sing the rest.
But Son's voice was not as strong or as beautiful as Kh?nh Lys. Van Ngoc describes
Kh?nh Lys voice when shewas a young singer just beginning to perform Son s songs:
[It] could drop very low, very deep, but also could rise very high, a strong
voice, strong-winded, rich inmusical quality. Kh?nh Ly always sang with
the correct tone, rhythm, and modulation of the voice ... .It was a voice
that still had the freshness and spontaneity of a twenty-year old, but also
seemed to convey sadness as well. A voice that could be flirtatious in
a lovable way in romantic songs but also become angry and sad in the
antiwar songs. (2001, 26)
Like San, Kh?nh Ly lived an unorthodox life. Her father, like Sans, had been
involved in the resistance and died after a stint in prison when she
four-year
Figure 2. Kh?nh Ly on a 45 RPM record released in 1968 on which she and another
singer,Le Thu, sing four love songs by Trinh C?ng Son. This was a relatively rare release,
as record were too for most Vietnamese. The arrival of the cassette
players expensive
recorder facilitated the circulation of San s songs.

618 JohnC. Schafer
was very young. Unlike San, she does not appear to have been close to her
mother. She has described herself as an orphan, neglected and abandoned by
her family So she set out on her own, singing to make a
living,
with a little help from her friends. "I was searching," she has said of this
period inher life,"livinga vagabond lifesupportedby some kind friends:

one a friend would a little rice, the next
day give day another would give
me half a bottle of fish sauce. Poor but I wasn't sad because my
happy,
didn't treat me well, renounced me." (1988, 16)
family
When she was Ly married and was

Kh?nh as a Catholic.
eighteen, baptized
her husband, the manager of a radio station inD?lat, was understand
Apparently
at least she was able to travel and in
ing; perform with San Saigon and Hue
(NguyenThanh Ty 2004, 93). In a recent interview, mar
Kh?nh Ly calls her first
a mistake and says that, like her current husband, she has lived a life of
riage
several spouses and many lovers (2004, 82). Both San and Kh?nh Ly had no
fathers to guide them into adulthood. Their phenomenal success may be, in
a result of the freedom
part, they had: Their fathers might have insisted they
lead more conventional lives.
San and Kh?nh was
Lys easygoing, free relationship part of their appeal,
another cause of the Trinh C?ng San
contributing phenomenon. They
modeled a new kind of for young who were eager to break away
couple people
from rigid Confucian rules governing relations between the sexes. "They traveled
Tien observes, "and created the image of'a a a
together," Dang couple,' boy and
a natural
girl with and guiltless friendship that reminded young intellectuals of
Nh?t Linh'sfairly
recent novel D?i ban3 Like the couple in this novel they
had their native land, love, fate, duty to the country, and all the while 'Autumn
passes, winter's far away, summer brings clouds, and love's a flying bird against
the Kh?nh Ly, who speaks and writes in a
sky'"36 (2001b, 185). fairlymelodra
matic wrote of her with San in a 1989 article.37
style, movingly relationship
Asked about this article a year later, Son praised it but said that Kh?nh
Ly's
"heartfelt lines about him were for someone else, someone who has died.
Kh?nh Ly and I were just friends.
We loved each other as friends" (2001/1989,
215).
When Kh?nh Ly elected tomove to the United States in 1975 and San
decided to stay in Vietnam, their situation symbolized for many Vietnamese
the pain of separation, the sadness of exile. Around 1977-78, when the
3
named D?ng is in lovewith Loan, a
InDot han (TwoFriends), published in 1936, a revolutionary
modern woman who, with against the rigidities of a feudalistic Confucian
along D?ng, struggles
society.
Tien quotes lines from Son's song the Names of the Four Seasons."
36Dang "Calling
37Thisarticle ismentioned by L? Quynh in an interview
with Son (2001/1989,214).

of Vietnamese San wrote a

number leaving by boat reached record levels, song
called "Do You Still Remember or Have You which
Forgotten?" begins,
Do or have you
you still remember forgotten
Saigon where the rain stops and it's sunny again,
suddenly
Old streets that know the names of passers
by,
Street lightson each sleepless night,
under the green dome of tamarind leaves?
Mornings
Do you still remember or have
you forgotten
The that you often visited no matter the season,
neighbors
The street that lies and listens for rain or for sun?
You are is the same,
gone but this place
Above the small streets the leaves are still green.
San and Kh?nh not lovers, but many

Ly may have been just very close friends,
Vietnamese believe that he wrote this song for her.
The Cassette Recorder
to Gibbs's definition, in theWest, music" is an urban

According "popular
music, usually market based, that is distributed by the mass media (Gibbs
1998b). Trinh Son was a in the sense that his music was
C?ng "popular" singer
modern and urban, but itwas not?at least until the "market
mid-1960s?really
nor was it "distributed the mass media." When the Trinh
based," by C?ng San
his songs were distributed on dittoed song sheets that Son
phenomenon began,
and Kh?nh Ly passed out at concerts. Other students would copy them into
their student notebooks. Later, more professionally printed collections appeared,
each one containing the words and music to around a dozen songs. When the war
escalated in 1964-65, American troops poured in, and with them came consumer
to boost South Vietnams
goods, part of the U.S. plan economy. Japanese Honda
and Akai and Sony tape recorders soon became
motorcycles readily available.
The first tape recorders to be used in Vietnam were the large reel-to-reel
variety, which the Vietnamese called (and still call) Akai, after the brand name.
These were cumbersome and expensive but were soon
replaced by much
more
convenient and considerably cheaper cassette tape recorders.
These developments led to a somewhat paradoxical situation: The same
American escalation of the war that had provoked Trinh C?ng San to write
antiwar also provided him with the means
songs for their distribution and
him a singer, in the American
sense of this
thereby helped make "popular"
term. records were available since French colonial times but were
Phonograph
never widely distributed in Vietnam, probably because they required
to Co southerners this song because itwas the first song after

38According Ngu, many appreciated
April 30, 1975, to referto theirbeloved largestcityas Saigon, notHo Chi Minh City (2001, 9-10).
Circulation of this song was forbidden, as I in the section to a New
explain "Adapting Regime."

620 JohnC. Schafer
to and because both the records and the

sophisticated technology produce
to them on were the means of all but the
phonograph play expensive?beyond
richest Vietnamese consumers. recorders, especially the cassette
Tape type,
however, could be purchased by the middle class. Cassette tapes, which could
easily be duplicated, became

an
important
means of distributing San s songs,
especially after the government banned them.

to circulate in South Vietnam, one had to
In
principal, songs get written
permission fromtheOffice forCoordination ofArtWorks (So Ph?i Hop Nghe
Thuat), a division of theMinistry of Information(Bo Thong Tin).39 After this
ministry officially banned his songs and tapes by Directive No. 33, issued on Feb
ruary8, 1969 (Nguy?nDae Xu?n 2003, 100), Son began to printhis songs and
duplicate his tapes illegally.I have eleven Trinh C?ng San songbooks and half
a dozen tapes that I purchased inVietnam between 1969 and 1973, and only
"Outpouringsof theHeart" (Tu tinhkh?c), a printed collection of politically
safe lullabies and love songs published in 1972, has a
"censorship permission
number" (s? gi?y ph?p ki?m duyet). Publishing illegallywas not easy, as San
Police would come to his to confiscate books and
explained. printer's premises
tapes, so he had to findfourdifferentprinter/distributors:
If the police confis
cated his collectionsat one them at another (2003/
printer, he kept producing
1987a, 181). The ban made it difficult for San to sell his music
government's
and ensured itwould never be heard on the radio, but it could not prevent the
circulation of cassette
tapes.
close association of Trinh C?ng Son's antiwar songs with the cassette tape
The
recorder is supported by comments by Do Ngoc Yen in a 1987 article titled
"Pham Duy's Songs of the Heart and the Folk Song Movement." I argued
earlier that although Pham Duy's Ten Songs of theHeart (1965) resembled
Son's songs in some ways?they had Buddhist themes, promoted reconciliation,
were not as Pham Duy's life
etc.?they popular with young people because
and endowed him with a very different persona or ethos.
history personal style
This is certainly one reason many embraced Son's songs more enthusiastically.
Do Ngoc Yen, a political conservative who dislikes Trinh C?ng Son's antiwar
songs, suggests another:
One of the important musical movements that followed "Songs of the

Heart" was antiwar music, Trinh
C?ng San music. It was very
popular
at that time thanks to the cassette. You never found
"Songs of the
on a cassette because when
Heart" "Songs of the Heart" appeared
the cassette phenomenon had not yet arrived; there were just the large
and cumbersome reel-to-reel machines. Even now [1987] if you want
to listen to antiwar music you can go to "T? Quynh" or "Thanh Lan"
39S?m via an e-mail dated 9, 2004, me with information on how Son

Thuong, May provided
to circulate his songs.
managed

on Bolsa Street [stores in Little Saigon, Orange County, California], buy a

cassette, and listen to it. But ifyou want to listen to "Songs of the Heart,"
forgetit. (1987, 125)
Pham Duy acknowledges the role of the cassette recorder in Trinh C?ng Son's
success in his summary of the Trinh C?ng Son phenomenon: "Trinh
capsule
were propelled by theKh?nh Ly rocket
C?ng Son' songs appeared, then they
into the tea houses, then by cassette, and in a very short time won over
they
everyonewho heard them" (1991, 285).
Adapting to a New Regime
Robert the well-known American war visited Trinh

Shaplen, correspondent,
was beginning to
C?ng San a fewdays before the fallof Saigon. Pandemonium
set in. Americans told where to go to be evacuated.
already had been Shaplen
asked Son whether he intended to remain. "Yes, I will stay here-we are all Viet
namese," he replied. "But if the Communists don't offer me inspiration, I won't

write" (Shaplen 1985, 92). ShortlyafterCommunist troops entered Saigon on
30, 1975, Son an invitation from the new authorities to
sing
April accepted
in a Great Circle" on radio. In this song, which Son had
"Join Hands Saigon
written in the late 1960s, the singer imagines people joining hands and
a circle that encompasses the entire country of Vietnam. For some Viet
forming
namese, this was a traitorous act.When he returned toHue after the Communist
takeover, some residents who did not like the new regime criticized him for
new reality(NguyenDuy 2001, 62).
adapting too quickly to the
invited him to sing after their victory, Communist authorities
Though they
were not certain how to deal with Trinh C?ng Son. They are still struggling to
define their position with regard to his work, particularly his antiwar songs. In
Fragments of thePresent: Searchingfor Modernity inVietnam's South (2001),

in state from 1975 to the late 1990s and
Philip Taylor surveys changes policy
relates them to different notions of modernity. Taylor is interested in how Com
munist authorities regarded the culture of South Vietnam, the old Republic of
Vietnam, after their victory in 1975. Taylor's survey is useful because it shows
how policy changed, each change creating a different climate for artistic pro
duction. Because Trinh C?ng Son's ability to adjust to the policies of the new
is another reason for the Trinh C?ng Son phenomenon, it is useful to
regime
look at Taylor's scheme to get an overview of the challenges that Trinh C?ng
Son faced after the war ended.
we can of three major phases. In
Simplifying Taylor's survey somewhat, speak
1975 to the early 1980s, Communist leaders set out to eradicate all
phase I, from
"cultural vestiges of neo-colonialism" (t?n du van h?a thuc dan mai) and to build
socialism in the former of Vietnam (Taylor 2001, 32). During this phase,
Republic

622 JohnC. Schafer
was associated with socialist societies in the Soviet

modernity (v?n minh, hi?n dai)
Union and the Democratic of Vietnam. Mass mobilization and
Republic
collective effort, viewed as keys to the recent military victory, were seen as the
way to solve postwar problems. The street markets in Saigon and other Southern
cities and weepy love songs, called
"yellow music" (nhac v?ng), were thought to
be corrupting influences on revolutionary soldiers and cadre. Both were viewed
as subversive weapons of the neocolonialists, not as
signifiers of modernity. Phase
II, from the mid-1980s to the when Communist Party leaders
early 1990s, began
realized that mass mobilization and collectivization were not increasing agricul
or
tural production promoting economic growth.
To revitalize the economy,
these leaders launched d?i muH, or renovation, in 1986 and moved the country
toward a market economy. Aspects of Southern (especially
Nam Bo) culture
that had previously
been viewed with suspicion?a passion for commodity
relations and an individualist mentality, for example?began to be seen in a
different as elements of modernity.
light,
In from the early to the late 1990s, modernity, was
phase III, Taylor argues,
"reinvented as threat" (2001, 119). Hanoi-based leaders stopped praising the
Souths engagement with the outside world, fearing that itwas opening up the
were also con
country to subversive influences. Some southern intellectuals
cerned. Renovation, was with it a host of social evils
they argued, bringing
and for were
?corruption, depraved music, foreign videos, example?that
from leaders to eradicate
destroying traditional southern culture. Calls yellow
music and other vestiges of neo-imperialism were heard again, just as in phase
I, but in this third phase, Taylor argues, the analyses were more complex: "The
to awareness of more diffuse factors
simplicity of conspiracy theories gave way
and the language of unintended consequences" (131). Some commentators
out that Vietnam was not the
pointed only country fighting the influence of
mentions
foreign cultures. Taylor encountering "state-employed intellectuals
and cadres" who praised France's determination in the GATT convention of
1993 to protect its film industry from "Hollywood incursions" (132).
In all three in
phases, but particularly phase I, the Communist authorities
were worried about the pernicious effects of what called nhac
they v?ng
in to treat Trinh one of
(yellow music).40 Therefore, deciding how C?ng Son,
the questions had to consider was whether his music fit into this category.
they
The term has an interesting history. It was borrowed from China, where,
begin
at least as as the 1940s, music (in Chinese, in
ning early yellow huangse yinyue;
sac ?m nhac) referred to a
Sino-Vietnamese, ho?ng hybrid of jazz and Chinese
40The Vietnamese word means color and the and It can

v?ng "gold" (the precious metal) "yellow."
have a connotation, as in the title of Trinh Son's most famous Ca
positive C?ng song collection,
Kh?c Da V?ng (Songs ofGolden Skin), or a negative connotation,as inbenh v?ng da (jaundice).
For of nhac has a positive connotation; for those who dislike this kind of
promoters v?ng, "v?ng"
music, a one. I translate as or when it refers to the color of the
negative v?ng "gold" "golden"
skin of the Vietnamese
people.

The Trinh C?ng San Phenomenon 623
folk melody made famous by the composer Li Jinhui. Chinese Communist

authorities linked yellow music to singsong and
girls, prostitution, depravity
and banned it outrightfrom the Chinese mainland in the 1950s and 1960s
to To V?, the term music" to be used
(Jones 2001). According "yellow began
in the Democratic of Vietnam in the mid-1950s to describe music
Republic
thatwas thought
to contain "ideas thatwere not
good,
not
healthy, that required
criticism"(1976, 44). The termcontinues to be used by Communist officialsin
Vietnam to describe
songs that they find too weepy, soft, and sentimental?
love songs, for that "lead people into a state of over love,
example, suffering
the opposite of the ideal happiness thatpeople expect to find in it" (45). For
Communist revolutionaries, the term "yellow music" has always had a pejorative
Some music in as a
meaning. sellers Saigon during the war, however, used it
on their
positive term, stamping "yellow music" tape and records to identify
music theywere peddling (43).
the sentimental
some in the movement
Apparently, revolutionary thought that Trinh C?ng
Son's songs were music, but his friends in the movement argued otherwise.
yellow
"Rightafter liberation,"Son's friendHo?ng Ph? Ngoc Tu?ng toldGiao Vy in a
2002 interview, "students put up a banner at the School of
Pedagogy
in Hue
thatcalled for the overthrowof yellowmusic [da d?o nhac v?ng]." Considering
this banner an attack on his friend Trinh C?ng Son, Hue's most famous composer,
Ho?ng Ph? Ngoc Tu?ng, acted quickly: "I searched for the person responsible in
order to get it removed immediately. In the atmosphere after there
April 30,1975,
were a lot of individual we artists were determined to
opinions about Son, but
a war
protect him" (Giao Vy 2002, 32). Nguyen Duy, poet and reporter from
the North, also became a protector and friend of Trinh C?ng Son's after 1975.
One way he protectedhimwas by carefullydistinguishing
his songs fromyellow
music. He wrote an article inwhich he admits that he to Kh?nh
secretly listened
Ly singing Son's "reactionary" songs, including "Di?m of the Past" and "Like a
on a
Flying Heron," Saigon radio station while accompanying the 308th Division
in the Route 9-Southern Laos operation in 1971:41
My first impression was that these soft songs of intense love did not
to the
belong category of sickly, moaning, complaining songs that at
that time were music." Yes, there was sadness
people calling "yellow
there, and pain, even gut-wrenching agony, but there was something
too. It seems it was in the
healthy sprouting there beauty. Beauty
in the words, both in their form and
rhythm. Beauty poetic quality.
Dim, vague, hard to get a fix on so
meaning, but clearly beautiful, oh
beautiful,and also a littlehaunting. (1987, 59)
41The Army of the of Vietnam and itsAmerican advisors called this operation, a disastrous
Republic
defeat for the Saigon regime,Lam Son 719.

624 JohnC. Schafer
For the agencies in charge of culture and information, however, it seems that the
was not Son's sad love songs. a historian from
major problem Nguy?n Dae Xu?n,
Hue and a Communist a in Hue soon
Party member, describes meeting held
after the liberation to discuss "Do Trinh C?ng Son's contributions
this question:
his offenses?" Those attending were local officials in charge of edu
outweigh
cation and culture and also important writers, some of whom, such as Ho?ng
Ph? Ngoc Tu?ng, were old friendsof Son's who had just returned from the
war zone. to Dae Xu?n, itwas Son's antiwar songs, pri
According Nguy?n early
marilyhis collection Songs ofGolden Skin, thatposed a problem. Some officials
dislikedthe fact that in these songs San opposed war generally (ph?n chien mot
each chung chung), failing to distinguish "a war of invasion from a war to liberate
thepeople" (Nguy?nDae Xu?n 2003, 99). They particularlydisliked Son's refer
ence to was no invasion, in a
"twenty years of civil war," which suggests there song
"A Mother's Another offense was Son's a
called Legacy." writing of song about the
death of Liru Kim Cuang, the air force officer who was a close friend of Son's and
who, to some accounts, used his influence to Son out of the

according keep
In "For Someone Who Has Fallen," San mourns the death of his
Saigon army.
friendwho was killed in an artilleryattackon theT?n Son Nh?t Airportduring
the 1968 Tet Offensive. Obviously,
Communist officials were not enthusiastic
a that fondly remembered an officer who had
about song fought for the
Saigon regime.
On the side, Son's supportersat this meeting out that Son's
plus pointed
antiwar songs had many Republican soldiers to desert, which is
persuaded why
the Saigon governmentbanned them.Ho?ng Ph? Ngoc Tu?ng explained that
Son had written "For Someone Who Has Fallen" not because Liru Kim
was
an officer in the he was a friend who
Cuang Saigon forces but because
had helped him avoid military service. At this meeting, Son's supporters also
called attention to Son's relationship to the poet Kha, who, when he
Ng?
became an officer in the movement the
Saigon army, "provided [revolutionary]
with a great deal of secret internal information"(Nguy?n
D?c Xu?n 2003, 77).
Arrested several times by the Saigon regime, he is believed to have died in cap
in 1973. In 1983, he was given the title "Revolutionary
tivity posthumously
Martyr" (Liet si) by the SocialistRepublic ofVietnam (79).
Son's at this meeting that Ng? Kha had influenced Son's
supporters argued
political views and composing style and that these changes were clearly visible
in the songs he wrote at the end of 1968, songs that appeared in
beginning
Vietnam and We Must See the Sun, such as "Hue Saigon Hanoi,"
Prayer for
which contains these lines:
A million brothers and sisters in all rise up and revolt,

regions
The time has come for young to
people join together,
To take pioneering steps,
From the Center, the South, and the North
People wait to lighttorcheshailing freedom.

Dae Xu?n and other supporters of Trinh C?ng San were able
Apparently, Nguyen
to construct a narrative of the singer's transformation from a neutralist
persuasive
and humanist who opposed all war to a committed advocate of the revolutionary
conclusion of the meeting," Nguyen Dae Xu?n writes, "was that
struggle. "The
before he formed connections to the Revolution the musician Trinh C?ng San
was After he formed these connections with the revolutionary
generally patriotic.
structure(which includedNg? Kha), he stood, in thefinal stageof thepatriotic
struggle,completelywith theRevolution" (100-101).
In Son's mood and the degree of creative freedom he was
evaluating both
allowed after 1975, friends who reside inVietnam paint a rosier picture than over
seas Vietnamese. The overseas Vietnamese press reported that Son had to spend
a new economic zone in Khe Sanh, but it
time in a reeducation camp or to go to
seems clear thatwhat he had to do, I have called phase I
particularly during what
of the postwar period, was to participate in "productive labor for self-sufficiency"
(di san xuat tu tue), not "labor for reeducation" (di lao d?ng c?i tao). Everyone,
includingpartymembers, had toparticipate in theseprojects (Nguy?nDae Xu?n

After he was in Hue and invited to
2003, 106-8). by the local agencies
cleared
and Artists Association of B?nh Tri Thi?n (the provinces of
join the Writers
Qu?ng binh, Qu?ng Tri, Thira Thi?n), San participated inmass mobilization pro
In one interview, San talked about and har
jects and cultural activities. planting
in Con Thi?n near the 17th parallel, an area
vesting rice, manioc and potatoes
that Son saidwas "interlaced" (chang chit)with mines (2001/1993, 19). In an
article that appeared in a San wrote about his
regional journal, enthusiastically
near theThach H?n River
participation in a project to dig an irrigationditch
inQu?ng Tri Province in earlyMarch 1978. He described the glowing,healthy
faces of theworkers as theymoved earthwith primitivetools (2003/1978,168).
as
Although inpre-1975 songs such "RiseUp Vietnam" and "RebuildPeople,
Rebuild Homes," Son had dreamed of rebuilding the country when peace finally
came, his prose account of this irrigation project appears overwrought, especially
we know of the terrible economic situation of the country in 1978.
given what
Both he and theworkers he describes appear too happy to be believed. In assessing
Son's state of mind during this difficult period after 1975, one should not rely too
much on his published writing. Writers and artists were expected to make their
works conform to the current party line. In the late 1970s, when government
leaders were still pushing projects that mobilized
collective the masses, writers
and artists had to support them. Son tried to cooperate by writing songs encouraging
out such as "Carrying Vegetables toMarket"
production, turning forgettable songs
and "Tractor on the State-Run Farm." After hearing these songs, Tr?n Tuy?t Hoa
(2006), a close friend, told him that he should return to writing songs about love
write songs In the late
between people and let others glorifying socialist labor.
1970s, the authorities were pushing a literalism and sunny optimism that Son was
to his 'new music' was not good," says
constitutionally unable produce. "Knowing
Dae Xu?n, Son "served socialist art by writing essays" (2003, 104).
Nguy?n

626 JohnC. Schafer
Itwould be wrong, however, to suggest that Son was an

always unwilling par
in the cultural life of his country after 1975. The poet V?nh
ticipant Nguy?n, like
Son a member of the Association ofWriters of B?nh Tri Thi?n, mentions that on
to visit work in central Vietnam, Son sang to
trips projects enthusiastically
audiences (2001, 29-38). Son himself claimed that he saw advan
appreciative
tages in the new rhetorical situation in which he found himself: "I have a
wider audience now?workers and peasants as well as students?and I travel
about and sing for them, too," San told Shaplen when the American correspon
dent returned to Vietnam in 1985 to cover the tenth anniversary of the Commu
nist victory. "Vietnam has not lost its taste for song and
melody," Trinh C?ng Son
continued. "In fact, there is a mass audience wasn't before"
today, and there
in 1985, 92). Son assumed various in government
(quoted Shaplen positions
to promote and control artistic
organizations designed both production.
After
in 1979, for on
moving to Ho Chi Minh City example, he served the executive
committee for the Metropolitan Association of Music and for the United Metro
Association of Culture and Art.
politan
In 1977, Son visited a state farm near the Cambodian border where he met
and sang with young members of a youth assault team (Thanh Ni?n Xung Phong).
Six months after his visit, he learned that twenty young women to this
belonging
team had been and beheaded to the murderous
captured by Khmer troops loyal
Pol Pot. Son that he wrote a song called "From a State Farm You Went
explained
to the Border" as "a
private remembrance for these young friends" (2001/n.d.[a],
188). Son's new friend from the North, Nguy?n Duy, liked this song, offering it as
evidence that Son had turned over a new leaf, abandoned his "Zen current" (as in
"A Place for Leaving and Returning"), and embraced the reality of life (2001/
1987, 64). But Nguy?n Ho?ng Van, an exiled writer, calls this song
propagandistic
and faults San for depicting "hard labor [at the state farm] as if itwere like going
to a festival or to a meeting with one's lover" (2001, 56). Another exile, Tr?n Huu
Thuc, says that songs like "From a State Farm" were written "in order to survive"
(voxmac dich s?ng con) (2001, 71). Nothing wrong in that, Tr?n Huu Thuc says,
we all want to survive, but he were not the kind of songs that
suggests these songs
Son trulywanted towrite, which iswhy he left them out of a collection of songs
in 1998.42 In an use of pronouns in his
published interesting analysis of Son's
lyrics,
Tr?n Huu Thuc says that only in these "survival" songs and in some
songs from the 1960s and 1970s does "I" (toi) become "we" (ta). The earlier
has in mind are songs such as "Hue I
songs he Saigon Hanoi," which quoted
from earlier, and other songs from the collections We Must See the Sun and
as we have seen, Son's advocates after 1975
Prayer for Vietnam, songs that,
offered as support for their claim that by the end of 1968 Son's heart was with
the revolution.
42This is the collection mentioned in the next

paragraph.

such as "Hue Hanoi" were to be sung in groups.

Songs Saigon composed
Tran H?u Thuc calls them "movement music" and argues that
"they clearly
are influencedby themartialmusic [nhac chien dau] of theNorth (2002, 65).
Those of Son's generation who had matured when the country was divided at
the 17thparallel responded enthusiasticallyto the cry forunityvoiced in these
"movement" songs, but Tran H?u Thuc feels that the real Trinh C?ng San is
not revealed in them or in his "survival" songs?in any songs written at least
partly
to mobilize the masses. Son did not include them in his collection Trinh
C?ng Son: Tuyen tap nh?ng b?i ca kh?ngn?m th?ng (TrinhC?ng Son: Selected
Songs Not Tied
to Years and Months) because, he says, San felt these songs were
tied to years and months.
Thai Kim Lan, Sans old friendwithwhom he had discussed philosophy in
the early 1960s, worried about him when she returned to Hue in 1977, her
first trip home since leaving Vietnam twelve years before. Thai Kim Lan met
Trinh C?ng Son on this trip and heard him sing a song called "Each Day I
Choose a Piece of Happiness" soon after he had written it. its rather
Despite
title, she felt that it revealed the songwriter as to work
upbeat having awfully
hard to be happy?it showed him tryingto make do with little freedoms
because ones were denied him. "Each Day"
larger begins,
Each day I choose a piece of happiness,

Choose some flowers and some smiles;
I pick up thewind and inviteyou to take it,
So your eyeswill smile like a leaf inflight.
Here is the refrain:
And in thisway I livehappily each day,

and in thisway I enter life,
I love this life with all my heart.
"That little piece of happiness," Thai Kim Lan says, "like a tear too dry to fall,
broke my heart" (2001, 102). After Son moved to Saigon in 1979, he sang
"Each on
television, the first song the new regime allowed him to
Day"
perform using that medium. Not surprisingly, given the tenseness of the times,
itwas criticized in and outside the country.
by people both In-country newspa
pers rejected
it as
bourgeois fluff, inappropriate for a country that was
in labor and a border dispute with the Khmer Rouge and
engaged productive
their Chinese "expansionist" allies. Overseas exiled from
Vietnamese?recently
their homeland, many with relatives in reeducation camps or fleeing the
country in small boats?wondered what happiness San was singing about (Co
Ngu 2001, 9).

Of all his friends,the artistTrinhCung, who now lives in theUnited States,
presents the most dismal picture of Sans life after 1975, calling it "a small tragedy
in the was frustrated
larger tragedy of the country" (2001, 81). He says that San

628 JohnC. Schafer
to his songs, which,

by the petty political objections along with other problems,
drove him deeper into alcoholism. Trinh Cung was in the Army of the
Republic
of Vietnam and painted this bleak picture of Son's post-1975 life in a talk he gave
at a memorial service in Little Saigon
(Orange County, California). He may exag
was bothered some
gerate, but others and Son himself have confirmed that he by
ridiculous objections to thewords of several songs he wrote after 1975,
objections
that reflect a sensitivity on
paranoia
on the
part of the authorities.
bordering
When Son went toHo Chi Minh City in 1979, the authoritiestherewere
a movement called "Political Songs" (Ca Kh?c Ch?nh Tri)?that is,
pushing
songs to encourage the of socialism.43 While still in Hue, San contribu
building
ted to this movement by sending his songs "Carrying Vegetables to Market" and
"The Tractor at the State-Farm" for another singer to at a concert orga
perform
nized by the Association of Patriotic Intellectuals. The
general secretary of this
association, Kim Bau, was a party member but not a hard-liner, and so
Huynh
his association attracted many intellectuals associated with the former regime,
some of them, like the writer The
Uy?n, recently released from reducation
camps. From 1979 to 1981, this association sponsored a series of concerts featur
a came to be called "The New
ing Trinh C?ng Son and other singers, group that
Composers Group" (Nh?m S?ng Tac Moi). Knowing thatpeople were tiredof
this group wrote and songs that resembled those
political songs, performed
sung in the South before 1975. Concerts by this group eventually convinced
some Vo Van Kiet, then secretary of the party committee
key people, including
for Ho Chi Minh, that the government had to fear from this group and
nothing
its songs.
But itwas not easy. To test the
political winds, the association organized
an
in-house concert and invited some members of the Fatherland Front. Son
a Green and "Each Day I Choose
"To Board," a Piece of
sang "Like Marble,"
When San finished singing, a member of the Fatherland Front
Happiness."
rose and criticized "Like a Green Marble," that it lacked a proper
arguing position
(kh?ng c? lap truong).
In this song, Son compares the planet earth to a green
marble. It ends with theselines: "Like a green marble / The earth turns
round /Without we choose / This to be our common
thinking together place
home." The Fatherland Front member faulted Son
distinguishing for not
friends and enemies. It was wrong, he said, to suggest that the whole world
was as small as a marble because then anywhere could be one's native land. If
Son went to America, would that make America his native land, he wanted to
know. Son stood up and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I think the war has
I want to wiser
ended. speak of peace for all humankind." Luckily, heads than
43Tr?n Tuy?t Hoa (2006) tells the story of Son's participation in concerts sanctioned Associ
by the
ation of Patriotic Intellectuals. This and the are based on her account.
following paragraph primarily
See also Nguyen Van Luc (2006) and B?u Y (2003, 31).

this critic from the Fatherland Front prevailed, and Trinh C?ng San and the "The
New to to enthusiastic audiences.
Composers Group" began sing
But the authorities continued toto certain songs. Thanh H?i, a
object singer
who helped songs that San wrote around 1980, such as "Do You Still
popularize
or Have You in
Remember Forgotten" and "Evening My Native Land," reports
that the authoritiesobjected to the line "You are gone but thisplace [Saigon] is
still the same" in the former song. that San was
They thought, says Thanh H?i,
implyingthat Saigon had not been improved since 1975 (2001, 38). After
Kh?nh Ly sang this song for a Vietnamese-language program on Voice of
America, authorities forbade its dissemination (Co Ngu 2001, 9).44 The auth
orities also to a song that San wrote in 1984 called "Remember
objected strongly
in Hanoi," its circulation for two years. Written after San
ing Autumn banning
spent two months in Hanoi in 1984, the song contains beautiful
images of the
ancient in autumn. Trinh says that the authorities objected to
capital Cung
Sans singing about autumn because of its association with the Autumn Revolu
will answerme" and the
tionof 1945; theyquestioned the line,"Each small street
coda "Autumn inHanoi, one person to remember
I remember
everyone." Why,
the authorities wanted to know, do the streets have to answer? And is Kh?nh Ly
(considered the pride of reactionary elements in the United States) the "one
that you are (Trinh Cung 2001, 82). "Really sad," San
person" remembering?
said of these objections to his paean toHanoi (2001/n.d. [c],219).
"Autumn inHanoi" was written in 1985. The fact that itwas banned indicates
that Trinh C?ng Son's works were carefully screened even as I was
giving
phase
way to II. Son must have found it difficult to true to his own artistic
phase stay
vision without censors. In his 1985
provoking the meeting with Shaplen, he
emphasized the value of change, but his words appear to be phrased in such a
as to those cultural
way please regulating production. When Shaplen
asked
him whether he found less sadness in Vietnam then (in 1985), San said,
"There is no sadness the way there was. If there is any, it is a private sadness
of who it in their hearts and don't
pathological people-people hug accept the
fact that society has changed. They haven't changed, and they blame society.
common in In these com
They don't share the cause"
(quoted Shaplen 1985,92).
ments, Son sounds like a good student of socialist realism, which encourages opti
mistic works and the expression of
discourages purely private (ri?ng) thoughts
detached from some common (chung) purpose.
He was, however, to
speaking
a a year before d?i moi, Vietnam's came to
foreign journalist glasnost,
Vietnam, and Party Secretary Nguyen Van Linh officially"loosened the
on artists, and writers. Son's comments were
strings" journalists, probably
member Dae calls this a econ

44Party Nguy?n Xu?n, however, "revolutionary song" because when
omic conditions were so bad that, as one villager told him, "Even the would leave the
light poles
country if they could," Son composed and sang this song,which affirmedthe beauty of life in
the homeland (2003, 116-19).

630 JohnC. Schafer
his awareness of the party line. was not

shaped by (Surely he saying that the
sadness he expressed in songs such as "Di?m of the Past" and "A Place for
was
Leaving and Returning" pathological!)
That TrinhC?ng San inhis heart had never repudiated songs like "Di?m of
the Past" ismade clear by his actions at a concert that Taylor describes in
Frag
ments of the Present. The concert, which took inHo Chi Minh in 1985,
place City
was to commemorate the composer Van Cao, and several of this com
organized
were writes
poser's prewar songs played. "During the concert," Taylor, "popular
southern musician Trinh C?ng San sneaked in a rendition of his own 1960s hit
Diem Xua [Di?m of the Past], which had not been played in an authorized
context for ten years. His a
audacity reportedly earned him prolonged, emotional
ovation from the audience" (154). This concert occurred at the beginning of
when the authorities, in to move toward a market
phase II, caught up plans
economy, were less about the harmful effects of music. Accord
worrying yellow
ing
to when other singers began to perform pre-1975 music, the govern
Taylor,
ment released a list of songs composed before the liberation.
thirty-six acceptable
By 1991, as phase II was ending, the listhad grown to219, includingaround fifty
Trinh C?ng San, still a very small percentage of the approximately 600 songs
by
1975. These numbers were provided by Le Nam, the manager
composed before
of the tape and record/CD sectionof theHo Chi Minh CityOffice ofPerforming
Arts, a division of the Ministry of Culture and Information, in a 2003 interview
with reporters (Thu H? 2003). He explains how the listwas expanded. Pressured
music to approve more songs, his
by the public and by composers of pre-1975
office suggested to the Ministry of Culture and Information inHanoi that a del
egation be sent to Ho Chi Minh City to discuss the issue. This delegation met
with the police (ca quan an ninh) and local ministry officials, and together they
composed the list of acceptable pre-1975 songs.

In to the last ten years of Trinh C?ng Son's
phase III, which corresponds roughly
fife, demands from the public to hear more pre-1975 songs by Trinh C?ng San and
other composers continued, and gradually the Office of Performing Arts added
to the In that interview just mentioned, Le Nam said there
works approved list.
were around 250 Trinh C?ng Son songs?some composed before 1975, some
at the present time (in 2003). When a
after?legally circulating reporter asked
himwhy "manyworks byTrinhC?ng Son composed before 1975 are still
waiting
"In managing cultural works, the Office of Performing Arts
approval," he replied,
bases its decisions on the political views of the author. That's why besides works
by TrinhC?ng San someworks by others,Pham Duy and Ho?ng Thi Tho, for
not been to circulate." When a
example, have permitted reporter asked whether
not content, Le Nam answered
only the date of composition, provoked censorship,
in thisway: "Not every song Trinh Son that be now has a
by C?ng may circulating
at this time, in the collection
positive meaning especially those songs Songs of
antiwar content is raised in a very no distinction
Golden Skin. The general way, with
made between a non-righteous[phinghia] and righteous [chinhnghia]war. The

collection Songs of Golden Skin could have been suitable for the situation in the
South [MienNam] duringtheyears andmonths before 1975 but not appropriate
for the current situation" (Thu H? 2003).
Some artists would have been worn down by continual objections to their
works, particularly if they were, as was true in Son's case, almost always based
on rather than artistic grounds. Son had to be courageous, tactful, and
political
in order to voice alive. In
patient keep his understanding how he survived
it is to realize that he was a kind,
emotionally and artistically important gentle
person, the product of a fatherless but loving family. He was always surrounded
a new some of them with
by group of friends. After 1975, he formed friendships,
new
singers and artists associated with the regime, people whose background and
artistic were very different from his. Because he never married, he had
training
time forhis friends,and what loyal, lovingfriendstheywere! Since his death,
many people, both men and women, people of
various
political persuasions,
have written very moving tributes to him. Of course, the tribute genre
encourages exaggeration, but after these tributes, one to think

reading begins
that Son's greatest achievement was not the songs he wrote but the friends he
made?and the winds overhead. "To love
kept?despite political swirling
is also to love he once said, "because within a lies a human
people songs," song
soul" (2001/n.d. [b], 162). San loved songs and people with equal passion. Under
is important because it seems some
standing Sans personality possible thatwhat
as was a
people regard political expediency simply the outpouring of generous
heart. "What's the point of getting angry, blaming people," Son has written,
"when life will wash away the bruises on our souls if our hearts are kind and
gentle?" (2001/1997a,201).
Son's kind and unassuming "ethos" referred to earlier was effective because it
was who he was; itwas not a crafted In "Each I Choose a Piece of
image. Day
Happiness," he sings,
Each I choose to sit very

day quietly,
Look at my native land,
closely
Think overmy life;
I realize thenwhy I live:
Because needs a heart.
my country good
And in another song called "Let theWind Blow It

Away," he sings,
To live this life

You need a heart,
good
To do what do you know?
To let thewind blow itaway.
In other words, for Trinh a was not a means to

C?ng San, good heart something
else, itwas an end in itself, or more accurately, itwas both means and an end. "A
gentle generosity and boundless tolerance," says Ho?ng Ph? Ngoc Tu?ng,

632 JohnC. Schafer
"formed the ever present core of Trinh artistic were

C?ng Son's personality: they
his plan for salvation, his solution to the of war and hatred, his
problems way of
easing the anxieties associated with the human condition" (2001/1995, 26).
BecauseSan was able to a
adapt and keep composing, younger generation for
whom the war was their parents' obsession, not theirs, has learned to
appreciate
his music. Beautiful songs such as "Each Day I Choose a Piece of
Happiness,"
"Do You Still Remember or Have You and "A Place for
Forgotten," Leaving
and Returning"?all written after the Trinh C?ng San
1975?kept phenomenon
alive and projected it onto a national, not a Southern,
just stage. Son loved his
native land so and drew his inspiration from it so it is
intensely completely that
difficult to imagine him as an exiled songwriter. chosen to
succeeding Having
in if he had not been able to and continue
stay Vietnam, adapt composing, he
would have limited his audience You would have heard his songs in the
greatly.
cities of the in Vietnam.
diaspora where refugees settled, but rarely Probably
some of his still have been sung in Vietnam, but he would
early songs would
have been primarily a nostalgic figure, forever associated with the war in the
South and the suffering of the 1960s and 1970s. He would not have continued
to be a
phenomenon.
Conclusion
The Trinh C?ng Son

phenomenon is, in part, a story of an artist's relationship
to The United States'
political power. courting of Pham Duy, the Republic of
Vietnam's banning of Trinh C?ng Son's songs, and the Socialist Republic of Viet
nam's worries after thewar about what to do with Trinh
C?ng Son and his antiwar
songs in the collection Songs of Golden Skin indicate that modern states are very
aware of the role artists can in
performing play shaping the public's response to
to Trinh
their policies. The opposition C?ng Son's antiwar songs by both the
of Vietnam and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam suggests that states
Republic
are art that
particularly concerned with works of might inhibit their ability to
war. It is Son's antiwar in which he
wage songs, however?works opposed
hatred and killing irrespective of what side the haters and killers were on, no
matter how earned him the reputation
righteous they thought their cause?that
of a singer who served general humanist goals, not narrow political ones. And it is
these songs, more than any others, that created the Trinh C?ng Son phenom
enon. In a tribute to his friend, the artist Buu Chi, who lived in Hue until his
death in 2002,said, "Some say we shouldn't speak about Trinh C?ng Son's
antiwar songs anymore ... but I believe that given the of the world
upheavals
are still remain expressions of conscience and benevo
today [they] timely. They
lence. No one has as as he has. His voice should
spoken of these things ardently
be listened to before we launch projects that influence the lives of
always
millions" (2001, 32).

The Ministry of Culture and Information has struggled, as we have seen, to

Son's antiwar songs, but it
prevent the circulation and performance of Trinh C?ng
has failed to prevent the return of the sad, mournful love songs thatwere popular
in the South thewar, including songs by Trinh C?ng Son and by other com
during
as artistic or as Son's but
posers, songs usually not philosophical equally mournful.
"The return [in the 1990s] of themusic of the Republic to a central place in contem
porary Vietnam," argues Taylor, "provides evidence of the magnitude of their [gov
ernment officials in failure. Its sensual rhythms, harmonies and
charge of culture]
melodies, themes of lost love, and sultry croonings of yore now dominate the sounds
cape of the Vietnamese public domain" (2001,55). The return of thismusic, includ
Trinh C?ng Son, suggests that these songs reflect something
ing the songs of
fundamental in the Vietnamese character?or in the character of Vietnamese
in the area as the finds exoticism
living formerly known Republic ofVietnam? Taylor
and nostalgia to be "central themes" of this region, themes reflected in itsmusic. He
traces this music's exoticism and eclecticism" to the Souths "history of
"stylistic
intense economic transformation and cultural reconfigura
foreign engagements,
tion." Its nostalgia, he argues, provides Southerners "imaginative rejections or
escape routes" from these disruptions in their lives (25). Trinh C?ng Son's songs,
which, as we have seen, were perceived as new and more than a little exotic and
often expressed nostalgia for a lost love, could be seen as well designed to appeal
to and culture of the South.
people influenced by the history
But thosewho livenorthof the 17thparallel also lovehis songs.Some of the
most moving tributes to Trinh C?ng Son have come from Northerners who lis
tened secretly to his songs during the war and were entranced by the experience
(NguyenDuy 2001/1987; Nguyen Van Tho 2001; Van Cao 2001/1995; V?nh
would appear to be
Nguy?n Exoticism,
2001). stylistic eclecticism, and nostalgia
north as well as south of the 17th parallel. D?o one of Viet
appreciated Duy Anh,
nam's most respected someone who, like Trinh
scholars?and C?ng San, has
an to state to have said of
always had uneasy relationship power?is reported
Trinh C?ng Son that "he wants to take in his arms all the contradictions and
hopes of the country" (quoted inNguyen Dae Xu?n 2003, 123). Trinh C?ng
Son's songs may succeed because, in them, contradictions are combined in a pleas
are sad and as Tran H?u Thuc argues, but
ing artistic whole. His songs nostalgic,
this critic also recognizes that San had an "oppositional" (nghich ly)
view of human
existence, a view expressed in these lines from "Close to Despair":
Is there somethingclose to despair?

In life's one sees the shadow of
springtime eternity.
Years float to the present,

long ago
Has the river gone or just returned?
This is to": to
oppositional quality suggested by the "close Something close
a
despair is not completelyhopeless. "There's a littlebit of thisand littlebit of

634 JohnC. Schafer
that," inmany Trinh C?ng San songs, says Cao

Huy Thu?n, and "a little bit of this
in that" (2001b).This oppositionalquality isexpressedmore
explicitlyin the lines
contrasting youth and eternity, past and present, and going and coming. No doubt
this quality reflects the Buddhist notion of [v?
impermanence. "Impermanence
in Trinh no different from the idea
thu?ng] C?ng Son," Cao Huy Thu?n says, "is
of presence entering (2001b, 95). And vice versa, it seems: nothing
nothingness"
ness This same is reflected in Son's atti
entering presence. oppositional quality
tude toward death: death leads us to love life more; death enters
Anticipating
life and makes lifemore intense.
This
"oppositional" way of thinking is so pronounced in Son's songs that one
suspects from a very young age itwas the way the composer viewed the world.
When he was older and his health was it became very In
failing, pronounced.
"I Must Not the singer tells himself not to
Despair," despair, but the images in
this song?of leaves falling in winter, of a kite into an not
falling abyss?are
very consoling. Is thishope tingedwith despair? Or despair tingedwith hope?
It's hard to say. Because Son that the human condition was a
recognized
mixture of and joy, his are closer to
suffering oppositions paradoxes?seeming
contradictions, not real ones?because each part of a
pair?love-separation,
joy-sadness, life-death?contains the seed of the other. When were
they
men in Hue and the war was to escalate, Ho?ng Ph?
young beginning Ngoc
says, he and Son believed that "art was a way of
Tu?ng just facing death"
(2004,57). Throughouthis life,TrinhC?ng Son kept despair at bay by represent
ing the dualistic nature of human existence in art. Though he has passed away,
his art remains. It seems certain that Vietnamese from all regions will continue
to appreciate Trinh San for capturing the contradictions inherent in
C?ng
the human condition?for expressing both their troubling anxieties and their
fleetingjoys.

Appendix I
Songs are listed in alphabetical order by English translationof the title.All

were Trinh C?ng San unless another song writer is men
songs composed by
tioned. Songs with an asterisk are translated in appendix II.
"AtNight I Feel Like aWaterfall" (D?m th?yta l? th?cdo)

"AutumnRain Drops" (Giotmua thu),byDang The Phong
"Calling theNames of theFour Seasons" (Goi t?nbon m?a)
"CarryingVegetables toMarket" (G?nh rau ra chg)
"Close toDespair" (G?n nhu ni?m tuy?tvong)
"Di?m of the Past" (Diem xua)*
"Do You StillRemember or Have You Forgotten?" (Em con nh? hay em da qu?n)
"Each Day I Choose a Piece ofHappiness" (Moi ng?y toi chonmot ni?m vui)
"Evening inMy Native Land" (Chi?u tr?nque huong toi)
"Flowers of Impermanence" (Do? hoa v? thu?ng)
"From a State Farm YouWent to the Border" (Em ? n?ng tru?ng ra bien gi?i)
"For SomeoneWho Has Fallen" (Chomot ngu?i nam xu?ng)
"Hue Saigon Hanoi" (Hue Sai G?n H? Noi)
"I Must Not Despair" (Toi oi dung tuy?tvong)
"JoinHands in a Great Circle" (N?i vong tay Ion)
"Let theWind Blow ItAway" (D? gi? cu?n di)
"Like a Green Marble" (Nhu hon bi xanh)
"LikeWords ofGoodby" (Nhumot loi chia tay)
"Love Song of a Mad Person" (Tinh ca c?a ngu?i m?t tri)
"Lullaby of Cannons for theNight" (Dai b?c ru d?m)*
"AMother's Folk Poem" (Ca dao me)
"AMother's Legacy" (Gia t?i cua me)
"MythsofMother" (Huy?n thoaime)
"Next to a Desolate Life" (Ben d?i hiu quanh)
"A Place forLeaving and Returning" (Mot coi di v?)*
"Quiet Imprint" (V?t l?n tram)
"Rebuild People, Rebuild Homes" (Dung lai ngu?i dung lai nh?)
"RememberingAutumn inHanoi" (Nh? m?a thuH? N?i)
"Remembering theWounded Soldier" (Nh? ngu?i thuomgbinh), by Pham Duy
"Rise Up Vietnam" (Vi?tNam oi hay v?ng l?n)
"Sad Love" (Tinh s?u)
"The Sadness ofAutumn Passing" (Bu?n t?n thu),byVan Cao
"Sand and Dust" (Cat bui)
"The Sea Remembers" (Bien nh?)
"Send theWind toMake theClouds Fly" (Gui gi? chom?y ng?n bay), byDo?n Chu?n and T? Linh
"SingingLoudly" (Ti?ng h?t to), by Pham Duy
"Singingon theCorpses" (H?t tr?nnh?ng x?c ngu?i)
"Sleep My Child" (Ng? di con)
"A Song for theCorpses" (Bai ca d?nh cho nh?ng x?c ngu?i)
"The Song of the Sand Crab" (Da tr?ngca)
"Song of aWarrior'sWife" (Chinhphu ca), by Pham Duy
"There'll Be a Day Like This" (Co mot ng?y nhu the)
"To Board" (? tro)
"The Tractor at the State Farm" (May k?o n?ng truong)
"The Unexpected" (Ng?u nhi?n)
"VietnameseGirl with Golden Skin" (Ngu?i con g?i Vi?t Nam da v?ng)
'Wet Eyelashes" (U?t mi)
"AWinter's Fable" (Ngu ng?n c?a m?a d?ng)

636 JohnC. Schafer
"TheWords of theRiver's Current" (Loi c?a d?ng s?ng)
Appendix II
"Di?m of the Past" (Di?m xtra)
Mua v?n mua bay tr?n t?ng th?p c? The rain still falls on the old temple
D?i tay em m?y thu? mat xanh xao Your long arms, your pale eyes
mua reo mon got nh? Autumn leaves fall, the sound of soft steps
Nghe l? thu
Du?ng d?i hun hut cho mat th?m s?u I look in the distance, straining to see
Mua v?n hay mua tr?n h?ng l? nh? The rain still falls on small leaves
Bu?i chi?u ng?i ng?ng nhtrng chuy?n In the afternoon rain I sitwaiting
mua
qua
Tr?n bu?c ch?n em ?m th?m l? d? In your footsteps leaves quietly fall
Chat hon xanh bu?t cho m?nh x?t xa Coldness suddenly pervades my soul
Chi?u n?y c?n mua sao em kh?ng lai This afternoon rain still fallswhy don't you
come
Nh? mai trong can dau v?i Memories in the midst of pain
L?m sao c? nhau How can we be with each other
Han l?n n?i dau Marks of pain appear
Bu?c ch?n em xin v? mau I beg you to return soon
Mua v?n hay mua cho d?i bien d?ng The rain still falls, life's like a sea storm
L?m sao em bi?t bia d? kh?ng dau How do you know a gravestone feels no
pain
Xin hay cho mua qua mien d?t rong Please let the rain pass over this region
sau soi d? c?ng c?n c? nhau In the future even stones will need each
Ng?y
other
Mua v?n hay mua cho d?i bien d?ng The rain still falls, life's like a sea storm
Lam sao em nh? nhung v?t chim di How do you remember traces ofmigrating
birds
Xin h?y cho mua qua mien d?t rong Please let the rain pass over this region
De ngu?i phi?u l?ng qu?n m?nh l?ng du Let thewanderer forget he's wandering
Words andmusic byTrinhC?ng San; translatedbyCao Thi Nhu-Quynh and

C. Sch?fer.
John
"A Lullaby of Cannons for the Night" (Dai b?c ru d?m)
Dai b?c d?m d?m d?i v? th?nhph? Every night

cannons resound in the town
A street cleaner stops sweeping and listens
Ngu?i phu qu?t du?ng d?ng choi
dung nghe
Dai b?c qua d?y d?nh thuc me d?y The cannons wake up
a mother
Dai b?c qua d?y con tha bu?n t?i The cannons disturb a young child
N?a d?m s?ng ch?i ho? ch?u tr?nnui At midnight a flare shines in themountains
Dai b?c d?m d?m d?i v? th?nhpho Every night
Ngu?i phu qu?t du?ng d?ng ch?i A street cleaner stops sweeping and listens
dung nghe

The Trinh C?ng So'n Phenomenon 637
con tha gi?t Each flight of the planes frightens the child
T?ng chuy?n bay d?m
m?nh
Ham tr? tan hoang oi da thitv?ng Destroying the shelter, tearing golden skin
T?ng d?m chong s?ng l?
mat que Each night the native land's eyes stay open
wide
huang
van t?n bom tr?t xu?ng dau Thousands of bombs rain down on the village
Hang
lang
van t?n bom tr?t
xu?ng ru?ng Thousands of bombs rain down on the field
Hang
d?ng
C?a nh? Vi?t Nam ch?y d? cu?i thon And Vietnamese homes burn bright in the
hamlet
van xe luu Thousands of truckswith Claymores and
Hang chuy?n Clay-more
dan grenades
Hang
van
chuy?n
xe mang v? thi Thousands of trucks enter the cities
th?nh
me c? em Carrying the remains of mothers, sisters,
T?ng v?ng thit xuong c?
brothers
Ngu?i phu qu?t du?ng d?ng choi
d?ng nghe
Dai b?c d?m d?m tuang lai rung cannon shells create a future
Every night
v?ng without life
Dai b?c nhu kinh kh?ng mang loi Cannons like a chant without a prayer
nguy?n
Tr? tha qu?n s?ng t?ng d?m nghe Children forget to live and anxiously wait
ng?ng
Ngu?i phu qu?t du?ng d?ng ch?i
d?ng nghe
Dai b?c d?m d?m ru da thitv?ng cannons sing a
Every night lullaby for golden
skin
Dai b?c nghe quen nhu c?u dao The cannons sound like a prelude to a familiar
buon sad song
Tr? con chua Ion d? th?y que huang And children are gone before they see their
native land
Words andmusic byTrinhC?ng Son; translatedbyCao Thi Nhu-Quynh and

C. Sch?fer.
John
"A Place For Leaving and Returning" (M?t c?i di v?)
Bao nhi?u n?m roi c?n m?i ra di Many years Tve wandered
Di d?u loanh quanh cho d?i moi met Going in circles, growing tired
Tr?n hai vai ta d?i v?ng nh?t nguy?t On my shoulders the sun and themoon
Roi su?t tr?m n?m mot coi di v? a lifetime, a
Lighting place for leaving and
returning
Loi n?o c?a c?y loi n?o c? la What word from the trees,what word from
the grass

638 JohnC. Schafer
Mot chi?u ng?i saymot d?i that nhe An afternoon of a life that is
pleasure, light
ng?y qua
... A day passes
V?a t?nm?a xu?n roi t?nm?a ha First spring is gone, then summer as well
Mot ng?y d?u thu nghe ch?n ngua v? In early fall one hears horses returning
ch?n xa ... To a place far away
M?y che tr?n d?u va nang tr?n vai Clouds overhead and sun on the shoulders
D?i ch?n ta di s?ng con ? lai I walk away, the river stays
Con tinh y?u thuong v? tinh chot goi From the spirit of love comes an unbidden
call
Lai th?y trong ta hien b?ng con ngu?i And within myself a human shadow
appears
mua noi n?y lai nh? mua xa This rain reminds me of rain long ago
Nghe
Mua bay trong ta bay t?ng hat nh? It fallswithin me, drop by small drop
Tram n?m v? bien chua t?ng hoi ng? Years without end and never a meeting
nao l? ch?n que nh?
Chang biet noi One doesn't know which place is home
Du?ng chay v?ng quanh mot v?ng ti?u The road goes in circles miserable and sad
tuy
Mot b? c? non mot b? mong mi ng?y On one side new grass, on the other dreams
xua ... Of the past
T?ng loi taduang l? loim? dia Each sunset's call is also the grave s
ra t? do In the stream one hears the call
T?ng loi b? s?ng nghe
su?i khe Of the sea
Trong khi ta v? lai nh? ta di When I return I remember leaving
Di l?n non cao di v? bien r?ng I climb the
high mountain, go down to the
wide sea
D?i arms have not yet covered theworld
tay nh?n gian chua t?ng d? lu?mg My
vu th?i suot xu?n thi In the spring of life a desolate wind blows
Ngon gi? hoang
Horn nay ta say ?m doi ng? muon Today I drink and wake up late
De s?m mai d?y lai ti?c xu?n thi Tomorrow I regret the springtime I've lost
Words andmusic byTrinhC?ng Son; translatedbyCao Thi Nhu-Quynh and

C. Sch?fer.
John
Acknowledgments
My wife, Cao Thi Nhu Quynh, provided invaluable assistance throughout this
me to e-mail queries regard
project. The following people assisted greatly by responding
certain aspects of Trinh San s life and music: Cao Huy Thu?n, Dinh Cuorng,
ing C?ng
Pham Van Dinh, S?m Thuang, Thai Kim Lan, and Tran Van Mai. I would also like to
thank the anonymous reviewers of an earlier draft of this article.
List of References
note: Books about Trinh Son that reprint

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no the time and place of original I

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-. 2001/n.d. [b]. "Ph?c th?o ch?n dung toi" [Sketching a Self-Portrait]. In Trinh C?ng
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Leaving and Returning], ed. Nguy?n Trong Tao, et al., 161-62. Hanoi: ?m
Nhac. Originally published inNhac va den [Music and Life] Hau Giang Publishing
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et al., 218-20. Hanoi: ?m Nhac. Place and date of original publication not given.
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The Trinh Cong Son Phenomenon

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The Trinh Cong Son Phenomenon

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The Tri̇nh Công Son Phenomenon

Author(s): John C. Schafer

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.86 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 22:46:37 PM

The Trinh Cong San Phenomenon

This article attempts to explain the extraordinary popularity ofVietnamese com

Peace is the root of music.1

-Nguy?n Tr?i, fifteenth century

Those who write the songs

first went to Vietnam in the summer of 1968 as a volunteer with Inter

I national Voluntary Services. Assigned to teach at Phan Chu Trinh Sec

JohnC. Schafer (jcsl@humboldt.edu) is professor emeritus in the Englsh Department at Hum

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.86 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 22:46:37 PM

I love someone killed in the Battle of Pleime,

It continues in this way,

I want to love you, to love Vietnam?

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listen to music the country was

(NguyenTrong Tao 2002, 13).

Sans home was Minh

can be when the regions of Vietnam. The line of

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pressuresbroughton byWorldWar II forced his fatherto leave thehighlands.

1956-57, he studied at the Providence School (TrucmgThi?n hiru) runby the

202).While studyinginSaigon,Son returnedtoHue on holidayand practiced judo

Early Love Songs

Though theTrinhCong Son phenomenon did not reallybegin until themid

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"The Sea Remembers," "Di?m

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.86 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 22:46:37 PM

(nhac cat each), terms used interchangeably to describe a new

songs, for Vietnamese contrast modern songs with

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traces of traditional Vietnamese

phrase relates to the rest of the line.

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Love is like a burningwound on the flesh,

stanza love to a burning wound, proof

Send thewind tomake the clouds fly,

14Vietnamese find it hard to resist leaves. to Tao,

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to stanza from Son's song has fresh

Department at theFaculty of Pedagogy at Hue University (Dinh Cucmg 2001,

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when, in a song called "The San sang that "there is no such

L? v?ng t?rngc?nh roi t?ng c?nh (sevenwords)

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In San s songs differed from his Van

singer's lute, or the drum

In comparison toworks were fresh and

background. San admitted to the influenceof his faithand of his hometown of

songs, his as she herself ends up admitting, could be con

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are not are in

The bird boards on the bamboo branch,

just killed last night," San sings

chance, killed with no / killed without hate, dead as a dream."

22See II for a translation.

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In (das Nichts), the intuition of what

was not a Buddhist, this is, as M?ller

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not too strange.

Trjnh C?ng Sew and the War

The songs in Son's firstpublished collection, Songs of Trinh C?ng Son,