ATTITUDE TOWARD WOMEN / GIRL OF VIỆTNAM / TRỊNH CÔNG SƠN / Don Luce introduced ...
We promise one another / poems from an Asian war /
Don Luce introduced ...
A t t i t u d e t o w a r d w o m e n
Vietnamese girl with golden skin / Love her native village
As she loves the fields of ripe rice .
( TRỊNH CÔNG SƠN )
Foreign observers are confused by the complexities of Việtnam and disagree on political issues , but almost all agree that Vietnamese women among the most beautiful in the world . Vietnamese men , too , are proud to the beauty of women of Việtnam . Poets and songwriters sing their praises and invoke images of the willow tree and the peach blossom to portray their grace and softness . Vietnamese from one region will maintain that their women are prettier than those of another . Huế girls are the most beautiful , a citizen of Huế will insist . " Have you ever seen thwe school girls of Đồng Khánh walking along the Sông Hương ( the Parfume River ) earing their ' áo dài' * and holding their palm-leaf hats against the evening sun ? What could be loveller than that ?". " No , " a citizen of Dalat will disagree . " Our girls are pretiier for the cool mountain air puts a flush on their cheeks unknown to the pale girls of Huế . " " Oh , but the girls from Hanoi are the prettiest of all , " a Northerner will maintain . " You don't know what you are talking about ." And so it go on .
Vietnamese women are respected for other things , besides their delicate beauty . The tradition of the women warrior is strong in Vietnam , stretching back to 43 A.D. when the Hai Bà Trưng ( The Trưng Sisters ) led a revolt against the Chinese . The following poem by Giang Nam , " Night Crossing , " yells a peasant girl who rows a boatload of guerrillas across a river in the face of heavy enenmy gunfire . Other poems in this collection such as Lưu Trọng Lư ' s " Women of the South " and Tế Hanh ' s " Girl of the South , " praise women for their courage on the battefield .
The war has caused many changes in the traditional role of Vietnamese women . They are becoming increasingly active in society . Some Vietnamese are afraid that , as Vietnamese women become more active and aggressive , they will loose their traditional gentleness and delicacy . A tendency to idealize women persists and is refelcted in songs and poems like Trịnh Công Sơn ' s " Girl of Việtnam , " Vietnamese see Vietnamese women , with their traidional grace and modesty , as the embodiment of much that is good in Vietnamese culture and this helps toexplain the special pain they feel when many American GI ' s treat all Vietnamese women as if they were prosititutes .
[].
( DON LUCE ' s note )
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* Traditional Vietnamese dresses consisting of side-slits , which are worn over silk trousers.
G i r l o f V i ệ t n a m
By TRỊNH CÔNG SƠN
Vietnamese girl with golden skin
Loves her native village
As she loves the fields of ripe rice ;
Vietnamese girl with golden skin
Loves her native village
Until her eyes fill with tears .
You ' ve never known your village in peace
You ' ve never seen the old Việtnam
You ' ve never once sung a folk song with joy ,
You' ve never known a heart free of hate .
Vietnamese girl with golden skin
Loves her native village
The weak and poor of the land ;
Vietnamese girl with golden skin
As she once loved me .
Vietnamese girl one day goes to her village ,
She goes in the night ;
The sound of a gun echoes noisily ,
She clutches her heart suddenly ,
On the fragnant slin of the blood
Spreads slowly from the wound .
Vietnamese girl with golden skin
Carries her dream to her village and dies ;
Vietnamese girl with golden skin
Loved her native village but now is no more .
Oh sorrowful death which wasn ' t intended ,
Oh my country , a thousand years in the dark ,
You came to your native village alone ,
And I , I still weep and search for you .
[]
TRỊNH CÔNG SƠN
( from " We promise one another - poems from an Asian war / selected, translated , introduced by
Don Luce , John C. Schafer & Jacquelyn Chagnon " - Published by The Indochina
Mobile Education Project , Washington, D.C, 1971 ).
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