Le Quynh Mai

Le Quynh Mai (LQM): Aside from published works of literature, is it correct that you also authored a book on medicine? Ngo The Vinh:  In 1971, I received special training in Rehabilitation Medicine at Letterman Hospital, the Presidio, San Francisco.  After 1975, there was a period when I worked at the Rehabilitation Center and the School of Physiotherapy in Saigon.  The book titled Handbook of Rehabilitation  Medicine,  published in 1983, is a condensation of the lectures I delivered. Rehabilitation Medicine at that point in time was a relatively new concept, seen as the Third Step in medicine (after Preventive Medicine and Treatment Medicine).

LQM: What reason prompted you, during your fourth year of medical school, to consider dropping out and to become a reporter, with special concern about the ethnic minorities living in the Central Highlands? 

NTV: During those years at medical school, I was not a model student.  Instead of regular attendance at the lecture hall, laboratory, and hospital, I devoted a lot of time to student activities, journalism, and even fiction writing. (I completed the writing of the novel May Bao [Storm Clouds] in my second year of medical school.)  It is true that during my fourth year there, I even entertained the idea of dropping out and to work in journalism, an activity which I was very passionate about at that time.  Forty years have passed since then, but each time when I have an occasion to stop by a printing house to check on the progress of one of my books, or to visit a newspaper office, the smell of paper and the odor of printer's ink trigger a flashback transporting me to the time of my virgin passion for journalism (although, as you may know, our current journalistic activities are quite different from those undertaken on Nguyen An Ninh and Pham Ngu Lao streets in Saigon before 1975).  As if confronting an identity crisis, sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice between a medical career and journalism.

 LQM: In the 1960s there appeared two well-known books written in the form of "faction" dealing with Viet Nam: "The Quiet American" by Graham Greene and "The Ambassador" by Morris West.  Why did you yourself prefer to adopt this genre when writing Vong Dai Xanh and Cuu Long Can Dong Bien Dong Day Song? 

NTV: I read those two works during my university years, but they did not have any influence on my decision to choose the faction form when writing Vong Dai Xanh in the 1960s and recently Cuu Long Can Dong… In my talk with Nguyen Manh Trinh in 1996, when discussing the writing of Vong Dai Xanh, I explained that "…instead of a research book of a dry style, a faction through the use of literary images will have widespread and more lasting impact on the reading public."  I am sure your are aware that Director Phillip Noyce is now in Saigon to film the second movie based on Graham's The Quiet American.

LQM: Do you think the divisive and impoverished situation of  Vietnam today is a karmic consequence of the cruel and discriminating policies imposed on the Thuong people ⁽¹⁾, a payback for the invasion of the Champa kingdom and the elimination of its people⁽²⁾ by our predecessors?

NTV: When one is caught in a protracted war and in utmost suffering and despair, when one's appeal to the mercy of Heaven or Buddha is not heard, when one's prayers are rejected by God as portrayed in Richard E. Kim's The Martyred [1964], one has nothing else but the notion of Karma to rely on for consolation, or for rationalization, to use a psychologists' term, of irresolvable conflicts. 

LQM: Looking closely at the course of our history which boasts four thousand years of civilization, is it not an illusion when you dream: "Some day when there is a solid and strong democratic government [in Vietnam] that respects human values, it will be time for the leader of the country to publicly apologize to the Cham people and to other ethnic minorities for all the suffering and loss caused by our Vietnamese ancestors in their southward expansion."? ⁽³⁾ 

NTV: Southward expansionism is a closed chapter in our history, and so it's not wrong to refer to it as a fait accompli.  However, the suffering and loss is still there, heavy in the hearts of those who survived it.  Therefore, I don't think a public apology suffices.  What is required is an integrated plan with a positive intent, which is true concern for security and happiness of the Cham, the Thuong, as well as other ethnic minorities.  Forty years after the publication of Vong Dai Xanh, the most recent revolt by the Thuong people clearly shows us that their life has not improved at all, rather more severely deteriorated.

LQM: Would you give us the name of the Vietnamese princess who, according to history and legend, bewitched and finally destroyed the last king of the Thuong people? ⁽⁴⁾

NTV: Even as one cannot think of a few hundred years back as a remote past, all that has been kept in memory and come down to us is legends.  We all know the officially recorded story of Vietnamese Princess Huyen Tran being married to the Cham King Jaya Simhavarman IV in 1306.

As for the Vietnamese princess that figures in the Thuong's history and legend, her name was Ngoc Khoa.  Her father, Lord Nguyen Phuc Nguyen, gave her in marriage to King Pô Rômê in 1631.  According to Dohamide, in his study on history of Champa civilization (pp. 147-152), Pô Rômê, a highlander of the Churu tribe, was one of the last kings of Champa, the small country also known as Panduranga.  He had three wives: Bia Thanh Chih of Cham origins, Bia Thanh Chanh of Rhade origins, and Bia Ut or the Vietnamese princess Ngoc Khoa.  In the town of Phan Rang today, there still stands a temple for the worship of Pô Rômê, where ceremonial offerings are presented every year during the traditional Katé festival, with the participation of the Thuong people of Raglai origins who bring offerings and take part in the dance ritual. 

Inside the temple, in addition to a statue of Pô Rômê, one sees also a statue of Bia Thanh Chanh who, in spite of her different Rhade tribal roots, bore the King children and was very loyal to him.  In fact, this lady jumped into the funeral pyre to join the king in death.  Bia Thanh Chih is worshipped in a separate temple.  The statue of Princess Ngoc Khoa was excavated in 1956 by Nghiem Tham and Dohamide from an uncultivated field which the Cham call Hamu Bruk, about 3km from Pô Rômê's temple.  Every year, villagers living nearby come to offer gifts and prayers.  It is obvious that a number of Thuong tribes have historical and kinship relations with the Cham, and so there are similarities or identical elements in a number of their folk tales and legends. 

LQM: "How sad to be a montagnard" ⁽⁵⁾ and "How sad to be a Cambodian" ⁽⁶⁾ .  I wonder if we should add: "How sad to be a Vietnamese" after having read these lines in your most recent book: "Markets, hotels, banks, post offices are new and magnificent constructions; only schools remain dilapidated, lagging behind in the renovation period." ? ⁽⁷⁾

NTV: We know that the ethnic minorities live in appalling conditions, but life for the Vietnamese in rural areas is no better.  It breaks your heart to watch children in the Mekong delta, even a quarter of a century after reunification of the country, still walking barefoot to their old broken down schools, at a time when humanity gets ready to step into the 21^st century engrossed in the notion of globalization.

LQM: New dams continue to be built on the Mekong River that flows through seven countries, even though it is known that "economic gains cannot make up for widespread and long-term negative impacts on the environment" ⁽⁸⁾.  In your opinion, what source of energy should be used given the rate of human population increase at a geometric progression as in the present?

NTV: To a certain extent, with gradual and balanced development coupled with true concern for environmental protection, and given that self-regulation and sensible utilization of it is strictly observed, we won't be able to deny that hydroelectric power is a clean source of energy bequeathed by nature.  A good example is the Nam Ngun dam, the first hydroelectric dam in Laos which was built on a tributary of the Mekong River. 

It has been in operation since 1971, really bringing the light of civilization to the Lao populace.  However, the issue is, people hurriedly and blindly ran after material gains through stages of destructive development without any consideration for the consequences, leading to damage of the ecosystem.  One outstanding evidence of this can be seen in the mad rush into "building more and more" dams on the tributaries as well as the main stream of the Mekong River, notable among which is a cascade of huge dams in Yunnan. 

Before construction of these dams, there had not been any comprehensive study that would address all basic questions as to whether "the price to be paid" would be acceptable in relation to the environment and the welfare of the inhabitants of the involved areas.  MORE  |  HOME

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