Nguyen Manh Trinh

NGUYEN MANH TRINH [NMT]:  Please tell us your life history. NGO THE VINH [NTV]:  I was born in 1941 in Thanh Hoa province.  That's not where my family originally comes from, but a place where my father was teaching school then.  I graduated from Saigon University's Faculty of Medicine in 1968.  During my medical training, I joined the editorial staff, initially as general secretary, then as editor-in-chief, of the monthly magazine Tinh Thuong (Compassion) produced by students of the Faculty from 1963 until the magazine was suspended in 1967.

After graduation, I served as Chief Surgeon of the 81^st Airborne Ranger Group.  Some years later, I received special training in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation  at Letterman Hospital in San Francisco.  Upon returning to Vietnam, I worked at the Military Medical College.  After 1975, I was imprisoned in different re-education camps for three years.  I then returned to Saigon where, after a time lapse, I worked at the School of Physiotherapy and the Saigon Rehabilitation Center.

In 1983, I arrived in the United States, where I underwent five years of re-education – with a difference this time: it was voluntary – the aim of which was to become qualified to practice medicine in my adopted country.  In the beginning, I volunteered as an orderly at a hospital and did some odd jobs for minimum wages after normal working hours.  Eventually I succeeded in becoming an intern, then a resident physician in SUNY Downstate at Brooklyn, New York.  Subsequently, I was certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, and at present I work at a hospital in Southern California. 

NMT : How did you begin your literary career?  Are there noteworthy memories associated with it?

NTV : My father was a teacher of literature.  At an early age I already had good opportunities to read books, mainly from my father's book case.  My father died a year after the 1954 mass migration to the South, when he returned for the second time to Hue city where he taught at Khai Dinh high school.  He was survived by my mother, my two elder brothers, and myself.  I left home early, and lived in a university dormitory as soon as I got out of high school.  A whole new world was opened to me then, with so many contradictions between dreams and reality.  Against such a backdrop, May Bao (Storm Clouds, 1963), my debut novel, was written and completed when I was twenty-one.  It carries many dreams and aspirations for the future, and unwittingly it also prefigures a journey full of hardship whose desired destination is never reached.

The one notable memory in relation to the "Storm Clouds" manuscript during that time involved the Ministry of Information where, for the first time ever, I was lectured to like a school kid by the Chairman of the Censorship Committee.  He told me about the responsibilities expected of a writer who is obligated to reflect the bright side of society, not the wrong dark side of it.  Naturally my own view of writing differed from his, and time has done little to alter this.

NMT : You were a student much involved in political activity, a doctor serving in a battle-tested corps of the ARVN, and a writer who up to the present has remained deeply concerned for the lot of the homeland.  How have those different "beings", or different roles influenced your way of thinking and your style of writing?

NTV : While still a student, like my peers I was mindful of social issues.  I believe that aspirations and struggle for social equality is a dream shared by youths.  Of course it's never a simple matter to find a path to reach that dream.  Inevitably from different perspectives and from diverse ways of action arise confrontations and varying persuasions.  In a general sense, allowing oneself to merge into that common flow of socially-concerned activities can be construed as involvement in politics.  However, if politics is defined in terms of opposing cliques and sides, then I have not participated in it, and will not want to allow myself to walk that thorny path.

To choose medicine from among different fields of study is often likened to committing oneself to being "a student for life".  But then, whether you like it or not, you must graduate after seven years of study and put an end to your student life, and, under circumstances then prevailing, become a military doctor like myself.  At the time of my graduation, the Vietnam War was at its height, and a few doctors on the battle front had been killed.  Even as a requisitioned doctor, I chose to serve in the Vietnamese Special Forces whose area of operation was the Central Highlands.  The choice stemmed from a predestined affinity between myself and the Thuong peoples, an affinity that had been formed back in my student days.

So you can see, all those different "beings" are but one, a consistent one at that, marking different passages of my life.

NMT : How do you see the difference between a doctor writer and a writer doctor?  Which of the two designations is more suitable in your case?

NTV : A few days immediately after I had carried a rucksack to join my battalion, two of its companies were mobilized to reinforce a friendly unit.  As a rule, only the medics attached to the companies and a medical assistant officer were required at that level of military operation.  However, at the airport, the Major who commanded our battalion asserted his authority over me through a brief verbal order, "First-lieutenant, get your equipment ready and join the operation today."  He emphatically addressed me only by my rank.  In any event, I had prepared myself for such a call to action, therefore I was very calm and actually took pleasure in participating for the first time in a smooth and full-fledged operation.  Though a military career was not my choice, I understood very early on how military life should be conducted.  In my opinion, the most important issue is self-discipline.

A number of my colleagues make a clear distinction between lieutenant-doctor and doctor-lieutenant.  But that was not an issue to me then, nor is it now.  No matter which way that Major chose to address me, I remained the surgeon whose responsibility was to take care of the soldiers in my unit.  I think by that little episode I've answered your question relative to whether one should call me a doctor writer or a writer doctor.  Whichever manner one combines the words to designate an author, such a designation by no means assures the literary quality of his work, even when we're talking about the work of an established writer, don't you agree?

NMT : Is there reciprocal support or conflict of interest between profession and predestinate career, like between the profession of a medical doctor and the career of a writer?

NTV : Since I like both my medical profession and my writing career, for me they are supportive of each other.  In my medical practice, everyday I'm in touch with those selves that are not myself.  I face not only sicknesses but also the sick, each with his own circumstances, and the rapport sometimes would give me the benefit of accompanying them to climb up the steep slope of life and death which confronts each of them at a different time in their life.

Previously, writers in North Vietnam were on the national payroll and thus financially supported by the government to do field work in factories and mines and in the countryside, so as to gather material for their writing.  Whether you like it or not, the medical profession is not markedly different from daily rounds of field work where experiences and emotions are aplenty, piling up, waiting for expression.  Unfortunately, I have little time to write about them.  In my case, the conflict between a medical profession and literary creation lies in a very tight and unbalanced schedule.

NMT : When writing, do you ever ask yourself what you write for?  Among your characters there are many soldiers of truly modest low rank.  Is it your view that they represent those in the Vietnam War who most deserved mention?

NTV : I only felt the need to write when inspired by a certain situation that moved me.  For example, the story entitled 'A former ARVN Medical Corpsman' was prompted by an occasion after 1975 when I met a former medic.  Having been discharged from the army, ironically, he stepped on a mine in his family's rice field and lost one of his feet.  That courageous sergeant had survived so many fierce battles, many times being inserted into enemy territory to come out unscathed; but after the war was over, he was dealt such a terrible fate.  I remember that during the meeting, we didn't have much to say other than reminding each other to take care of ourselves.  Through his voice and the way he looked at me, it seemed that he had not abandoned his habitual penchant for forgetting himself while caring for the welfare of others, including me, treating me exactly the same way he had done, when I was his superior.

I hope to be able to write more about such ordinary but also significant people who fought the Vietnam War.  You may say that writing is to liberate oneself from memories, but in actuality it's to relive the emotions a second time.  That's happiness, but also hard work.  And there's always joy during the process of creation, not only in the completion of a manuscript.

NMT : For further elaboration, what is your aim when writing?  To become famous, to express your feelings and emotions, to share your ideas and thoughts with others, or…what?

NTV : To me fiction represents life circumstances as viewed through the prism of the imagination of the writer.  Every author hopes that his readers participate in the life of his work.  Having your writing unread is no different from displaying a painting to no viewing audience.  Despite the fact that once a work is completely written and published, it has its own destiny and its own journey out there in the public domain, what we call feedback from the audience – how they share or respond to ideas and feelings in the work – cannot but exert some impact on the author.

When entering the literary arena, I was not blessed with the same experience enjoyed by many other writers, namely to start with publication in newspapers and journals of a number of short stories, from there to be encouraged further in creative writing until being recognized as an author.  Indeed, I had not had any short story published before "Storm Clouds", my first novel, was completed.  And even then the motive for writing had nothing to do with the illusion of seeking fame.  Fame in this case is like a medal to a soldier: if he is courageous when engaging in battle, certainly it's not because he's motivated by a wish to gain a medal. MORE

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