Vietnamese Presents Psychology In Songs

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30977, 5 February 1966, Page 5

Vietnamese Presents Psychology In Songs

(By

JILLIAN ROBERTSON

tn the “Sydney Morning Herald”)

pHAM DUY CAN—alias Pham Duy—is 44 and special. He is to Vietnam what Peter, Paul and Mary are to America. Also he is Vietnam’s top song-writer, composer, musician and singer.

In North or South Vietnam, up in the mountains, down by the sea, on battlefields or in groovy Saigon night-clubs, you will hear Pham Duy songs and tunes. Some are banal, some are hillbilly, some are sentimental, some are tinsely, some are classical and beautiful . . . according to the Vietnamese they are all good. Pham Duy is known, loved and sung everywhere. But he does more than entertain—he is playing a role in the psychological warfare programme in South Vietnam. He writes tunes and lyrics to stir people into anti-Viet Cong activity, to unite the people, and to tell people of the futility of war. Pham Duy knows. He is a renegade from the North. He z wa_s born in Hanoi and until 1951 fought in the Resistance under Ho Chi Minh on the side of the Vietminh against the French.

“I was invited to join the Communist Party,” said he. “They even proposed to send me to Moscow. But I decided to leave when some of my songs were not appreciated by the Communist Party. They objected to one especially—it depicted a wretched village where men plough the field instead of buffaloes. I had to be free.”

This ebullient, out-going intellectual is what the Americans would call a “hip” independent. He wears pale narrow cotton trousers, sombre striped shirts and pale mauve tinted spectacles. He is described by many Vietnamese women as a heart throb.

He collects people, music, ideas, books, paintings, but most of all people. On the same day that I met Pham Duy he asked me to his house to dine with his wife and six children. Fast Ride It was the night after the bombing of the Metropole hotel and many foreigners in Saigon were wary of more Viet Cong terrorism. Pham Duy picked me up at six in his old cream English sports car. He talked quickly as we sped through the thick peak-hour traffic of bikes, pedicabs, taxis, jeeps, army trucks and more bikes, to his three-storey stone house in outer suburban Saigon. “Look,” he said, pointing to hundreds of girls in anklelength high-collared ao dais peddling past the ruined Metropole, “The people are indifferent, apathetic.” “This building was bombed last night, people were killed and maimed, but the people of Saigon haven’t reacted. They try and detach themselves from the war and lead a normal life. They’ve lost their spirit.

“They don't cry, they don’t laugh. They only care about their own survival or their family. They just live, or they just die. “In the streets, in the cafes, in the homes, the Vietnamese don’t talk about the war any more. They might talk about their son fighting in it. That’s all. But they don't talk objectively about the actual war.

“They are numb, numb, numb,” continued Pham Duy loudly, “What you say to them they know already—they've heard it for 20 years.”

We pulled up at some traffic lights and he threw up his long, thin hands and exclaimed: “What can we do to make these people care, to make them vital? Their attitude is ‘what does it matter?”’

As he put the car into first gear, Pham Duy calmed down and became ponderous: “It will take a long, long time to win this war—even with the help of America, Australia, Korea and other allies. As you know over 60 per cent of South Vietnam is controlled by the Viet Cong, and over half the population is Viet Cong. The only thing we can do for the moment is to stop the Viet Cong winning, but eventually I know we can unite the North with the South again.” Lives Simply We drove into a narrowstreet in a poor suburb full of a higgedly-piggedly row of shops and houses with barefoot children playing in groups. Pham Duy parked the car and we entered his house. Although he has made a lot of money, he prefers to live simply. His 37-year-old wife and I shook hands. She was wearing bright yellow silk pyjamas. Nearly all Vietnamese wear pyjamas at home day and night—many even wear them in the streets. The three of us sat formally in the downstairs parlor and sipped the traditional sweetsmelling, weak jasmine tea, watched bv the curious tribe of Pham Duy’s children. Tea finished. Pham Duy and I went unstairs to his third-floor studio to listen to taped hi-fi music. The room was similar to a Che!-I sea attic—walls covered with! paintings, art-nouveau photo-. graphs and bookcases, chairs, covered with an array of, foreign magazines, guitars,'

records and curious Vietnamese instruments. He opened a large manilla folder containing hundreds of Viet Cong propaganda pamphlets, poems and songs, and said: “The Ministry of Information and Psychological Warfare gives me these so I can write songs to counter the latest Viet Cong propaganda. “Look,” he said, opening a small 16-page cheaply-printed booklet, “this is like so much of the Viet Cong propaganda is written in the form of quasi-poetry.” He explained that to understand the Vietnamese people —rural or urban, soldier or teacher, buffalo boy or aristocrat—you must understand his patience, his love of nature, his love of music, his traditions, and his religion. Love Poetry “The Vietnamese love the trees, they love to sit and meditate at dusk, to sit and watch the moon, to listen to the birds ... And all Vietnamese, even the illiterate, recite poetry and sing songs about the simple and beautiful things around them.” Because poetry is so much a part of life of Vietnam, the Viet Cong use poems as vehicles of propaganda. Pham Duy translated one to me: It Is the morning, very very ugly morning when the sun has not yet come, ana the night is not yet finished I want to laugh, but the laugh is dead in my mouth because the Nationalists invite the American pirate to make South Vietnam fall into a sea of blood. We cannot support this shame. Pham Duy stopped, and opened a brown booklet: “The Americans are like the French people, our suppressors who we fought against for 10 years for our liberty. Our fathers, our families died for that liberty. You must kill the American because they come here and want new colonialism. They are worse than the French The Americans have come here to make us live in the way of their life —they will make us like a slave, like a bird inside a cage. The South Vietnamese Government is mistaken, they are only a valet to America. . . We will distribute the land to you.” Pham Duy put the folder of Viet Cong pamphlets on the floor. “That’s enough,” he said solemnly. “I try and fight this through music, through songs. But it is hard. The big problem is that the Americans are too rich.” He explained that this gap in wealth makes many of the Vietnamese feel inferior to the “round eyes.” The maid announced dinner, so we went down the three flights of stairs to the parlor. During our meal of boiled rice, sweet and sour fish, fried chicken dipped in muocman (a sauce made of rotting fish and salt) and various pates, Pham Duy talked about politics. Silent Wife He approves of General Nguyen Cao Ky being president of South Vietnam, but he advocates a strong form of socialism to be introduced. “It is not a question of personality, but a question of policy." During this conversation Pham Duy’s wife was silent. Vietnamese wives are shy and retiring and usually speak only when spoken to when their guests are in the house. I tried to include her in the conversation, so I asked about her family. She answered and Pham Duy translated.

He emphasised that the Vietnamese family is one of the most cohesive family units in the world. Even though

more than half the marriages in Vietnam today are still pre-arranged by parents, the result is a husband and wife that cannot bear separation. “So when the husband goes to war, the wife, along with her children, often goes along with him and lives in his tent,” said Pham Duy, drawing circles in the air with his chopsticks. That is why the 17th paralell is so cruel, so many families are divided. My sister still lives in Hanoi. Officially she is my enemy—this is a war where brothers fight against brothers.

“There is not even a mail service between North and South Vietnam, so if I write to my sister I send the letter to my brother, who lives in France and he puts it in another envelope and sends it on.

“Even so, her letters are censored. I know, because she says so little in them. All she asks for is money, money, money.” Eventually, Pham Duy spoke about his early life. He is the youngest son of Pham Duy Ton, the first real novelist of Vietnamese modern literature. Until the end of the last century all books in Vietnam were written in Chinese ideographs and in the stiff Chinese traditional style. But Pham Duy’s father was not rich, and as Pham Duy was orphaned when he was very young, he had to work his way through school. But at 15 Pham Duy was restless. So he decided to live off his wits. Office Clerk He got jobs as an office clerk in Hung Yet; as a mechanic in the mining town of Ming Carj; as a teacher in Kien An near the seaside; as a farmer .. . finally he joined a travelling theatrical group as a book-keeper but ended up working for the troupe as a guitarist. As Pham Duy was wild and was a rebel it did not take long before he was a staunch member of the French Resistance. “I was thrown into gaol twice,” he told me proudly. “It was an exciting life. We were fighting for a cause. Freedom. Nothing mattered except our hatred of oppression and our desire for sacrifice and victory.”

All the time Pham Duy was writing songs. Hundreds of them. So when he changed sides in 1951 and came south to Saigon to live, although he came with nothing except his wife and his young son, he came with fame.

Pham Duy’s relationship with France became a paradox. In 1954, after independence the new president, Ngo Dinh Diem, appointed Pham Duy’s brother, Pham Duy Khien, as ambassador to France.

And two years later, Pham Duy followed his brother to France—the country he had once fought against—and for two years he studied music and films. He returned to Saigon as a director of documentary films. But first he is musicologist and sociologist. His aim is to see the unification of North and South Vietnam.

He spoke of his latest book of music and lyrics, “Mother Viet Nam”: “There is a need of love and thirst for peace which have always been our people’s god-given trait; and one would like to see these fundamental virtues flowering more widely throughout the present cruel world . . .” Vietnam is a disheartening country.