International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism

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Published by The Center for Asia & Diaspora, Konkuk University

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Publication Date: January 31, 2017

ISSN 2005-3037 (Print) ISSN 2465-8804 (Online) Volume 7 Number 1 January 2017

Diaspora _&

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International Journal of Volume 7 Number 1 January 2017

Diaspora &

Cultural Criticism

SPECIAL ISSUE Philippine Diaspora

Introduction: Filipino, Filipinos, Everywhere Maria Luisa Torres Reyes

Re-encodation of GUMIL Hawaii Writers’ Association as a Diacritic Site for Ilocano Hawaiian Representation Maria Socorro Q. Perez

Writing a Personal Archipelago in Luis H. Francia’s The Eye of Fish

Francis C. Sollano

The Author as Reader: Gina Apostol and the Third World Metropolitan Intellectual

Maria Gabriela P. Martin

Yearning in Carlos Bulosan: Toward a Queer Working Class Consciousness

Jeffrey Arellano Cabusao

ARTICLE

Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context

Pham Tran Thuy Anh

ISSN 2005-3037 (Print) ISSN 2465-8804 (Online)

The Center for Asia & Diaspora

International Journal of

Intersections of Diasporic Asian-American Literatures: A Comparative study between Zamora Linmark’s and Lois-Ann Yamanka’s Novel John Paolo Sarce

Child of Two Nations: Indonesian Perspectives on the Case of Mary Jane Veloso

Ramon Guillermo

International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism

|Volume 7 Number 1 January 2017|

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This journal was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (MOE)

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Editors

Inseop Shin (Konkuk University, Korea)

Zhenzhao Nie (Central China Normal University, China) Associate Editors

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Eduardo Zachary Albrecht (Mercy College, U.S.A) Michael D. Barr (Flinders University, Australia) James Bilsland (Newcastle University, U.K.) Lung-Chen Chung (Tzu-Chi University, Taiwan) Paul Graham (The University of Buckingham, U.K.) Daniel Hammond (The University of Edinburgh, U.K.) Tze-Ki Hon (The State University of New York, U.S.A.) German Kim (al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Kazakhstan) Guofu Liu (Beijing Institute of Technology, China)

Hitoshi Oshima (Fukuoka University, Japan) Hsiao-huei Pan (Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan)

Maria Socorro Q. Perez (Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines) Maria Luisa Torres Reyes (Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines) Susanne Schech (Flinders University, Australia)

María Jesús De Prada Vicente (Fukuoka University, Japan) Choon-Sung Yim (Mokpo National University, Korea) Sangin Yoon (Seoul National University, Korea) Huang Chieh Yu (Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan) Poppy S. Winanti (Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia) Wojtek Wolfe (Rutgers University, U.S.A.)

Editorial Assistant

Florence Kuek (University of Malaya, Malaysia) Hyunji Lee (Konkuk University, Korea)

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SPECIAL ISSUE Philippine Diaspora

Introduction: Filipino, Filipinos, Everywhere Maria Luisa Torres Reyes

Re-encodation of GUMIL Hawaii Writers’ Association as a Diacritic Site for Ilocano Hawaiian Representation

Maria Socorro Q. Perez

Writing a Personal Archipelago in Luis H. Francia’s The Eye of Fish Francis C. Sollano

The Author as Reader: Gina Apostol and the Third World Metropolitan Intellectual

Maria Gabriela P. Martin

Yearning in Carlos Bulosan: Toward a Queer Working Class Consciousness

Jeffrey Arellano Cabusao

Intersections of Diasporic Asian-American Literatures: A Comparative study between Zamora Linmark’s and Lois-Ann Yamanka’s Novel John Paolo Sarce

Child of Two Nations: Indonesian Perspectives on the Case of Mary Jane Veloso

Ramon Guillermo

ARTICLE

Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context Pham Tran Thuy Anh

CALL FOR PAPERS CONTENTS

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206 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017

Abstract: This paper explores the elements constituting humanism in HCM’s PD as explained in two different sections which explore how humanism is embodied in five selected poems of PD and how it underpins the poems’ aesthetics. However, it must be noted that the politics of his poems also significantly contribute to the “conditions of possibility” of HCM’s poetics. Therefore, the second section explores how the aesthetics of PD may be linked to its politics. And the conclusion of the chapter discusses the factors constituting humanism in HCM’s PD.

Key words: Aesthetics, Humanism, Postcolonialism, Nationalism, Tang poetry

ARTICLE

**Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context**

Pham Tran Thuy Anh

Hue University- College of Foreign Languages, Hue City, Vietnam

Email: [email protected]

Figure 4: “Be Compassionate” (Berbesar Hatilah), Poster and Call to Action of Indonesian Migrant Organizations and NGOs on 27 Apr. 2015

Submitted: November 17, 2016 Reviewed: January 1, 2017 Accepted: January 21, 2017

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Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context┃Pham Tran Thuy Anh209 208 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017

http://dx.doi.org/10.15519/dcc.2017.01.7.1.207

1. Introduction

It is worth noting that Prison Diary (PD) is the last published Vietnamese poetry collection of an individual author written in Chinese characters in the literary history of Vietnam. Moreover, its poetics is different from the traditional one (Trần 2013: 549) because unlike apolitical traditional poetry, PD is inseparably linked to the vision of the struggle for Vietnamese national liberation. It includes 114 poems out of which dozens deal with nature. Besides, it consists of a variety of genres, styles, topics, themes, emotional expressions and thoughts (Đặng 2013: 80-88).

It was written during the period from August 29, 1942 to September 10, 1943 when Ho Chi Minh (HCM) was arrested by the Chiang Kai-shek government and transferred from jail to jail in Guangxi, China, through the course of fourteen months.

In terms of content, on the one hand, this collection of prison poems reflected the cruelty of the Chiang Kai-shek prison system and government.

They unreasonably put innocent people to jail like in the poem: “The Baby in Tan Duong Jail” or “The Wife of a Conscript Deserter.” PD also showed how injustice and inhumane the prison authorities were in the poems such as “Gambling,” “No Smoking,” “Entrance Fee.” Moreover, the images of prisoners who were made to experience unspeakable sufferings all the way to their brutal death were captured in the poems like “Prison Meals,” “Four Months Have Passed,” and “A Jailed Gambler Dies.”

On the other hand, it was shown that HCM ― the individual ― was portrayed in PD as a great soul, a great mind and a great revolutionary.

Firstly, HCM as a great soul was revealed in PD through the depiction of profound humanism for the lowest class whom HCM met in Chinese

prisons. Besides, the poems “Sleepless Night,” and “Serious Illness” talk about HCM’s love for the Vietnamese people who were under the French colonial rule. At the same time, his deep appreciation for nature enriches and enlivens his poems like in “Moonlight,” “Evening Scenery,” “The Weather is Clearing Up.” Above all, one of the most important values in PD is the desire for freedom as in the poem “Restrictions.” Secondly, HCM as a great mind shows in poems talking about positive life’s laws. Important lessons are captured in such poems as “Prison Diary,” “Hard is the Road of Life,”

“Learning to Play Chess,” “Advice to Myself.”

In terms of aesthetics, PD shows the specific and unique poetic art of HCM by innovating Tang poetry, and in the process, modernizing it.

The poems generally look simple in diction but are actually profound in meaning, as may be gleaned from poems like “Listening to the Sound of Rice-Pounding,” and “Guards Carry a Pig.” In terms of themes, PD deals with both ancient and modern topics; the ancient themes are found in “On the Road,” and “Moonlight,” while the modern themes are explored in

“Regret at Time Lost,” and “Commotion in Vietnam.” Moreover, by the use of personification, HCM successfully captures his deep appreciation of nature. It might be said that HCM’s speakers are in harmony with nature and the universe like in the poems “The Weather is Clearing Up,” and

“Qingming.” And in PD, especially in poems about nature, the tone and rhythm are beautifully lyrical.

Therefore, this paper focuses on the elements constituting humanism in HCM’s PD as explained in two different sections which explore how humanism is embodied in five selected poems of PD and how it underpins the poems’ aesthetics. However, it must be noted that the politics of his poems also significantly contribute to the “conditions of possibility” of

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210 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017 Humanism in Ho Chi Minh’s Prison Diary in a Third-world Context┃Pham Tran Thuy Anh211

HCM’s poetics. Therefore, the second section explores how the aesthetics of PD may be linked to its politics. And the conclusion of the chapter discusses the factors constituting humanism in HCM’s PD.

2. How Aesthetics is revealed in PD

This section explores how the aesthetics of PD is linked to its politics.

Both Hoàng (2013: 170) and Trần (2013: 52) agree that when talking about HCM’s poetry, it is important to look into its aesthetics. Notable is the fact that his poetry might seem on the surface plain in expression and almost too literal and without metaphorical meaning. But his poetry which is often characterized by the use of simple description or narration might seem plain only until the reader realizes that a literary meaning is embedded in the lines, raising the reader’s interpretation from the literal to the literary level by its use of poetic techniques like juxtaposition in order to create irony.

For fourteen months, Ho ChiMinh was kept as a prisoner in China. How he was being transferred from jail to jail among the 18 districts in Guangxi province from August 29, 1942 to September 10, 1943 is clearly illustrated in the poem “On the Road”:

TRÊN ĐƯỜNG ĐI Mặc dù bị trói chân tay, Chim ca rộn núi, hương bay ngát rừng;

Vui say, ai cấm ta dừng,

Đường xa, âu cũng bớt chừng quạnh hiu.

ON THE ROAD

Although they have tightly bound my arms and legs, All over the mountain I hear the songs of birds, And the forest is filled with the perfume of spring-flowers.

Who can prevent me from freely enjoying these.

Which take from the long journey a little of its loneliness?

Đặng (2013: 83) argues that nature for HCM is an expression of his revolutionary optimism. It is nature that protects the speaker on the way from jail to jail. And nature also serves as a poetic inspiration; during arduous days, the poet feels revitalized by nature, “Although they have tightly bound my arms and legs”

In terms of literary art, this four-line poem has a rather special structure in comparison with the others in PD. The first line has six words while the second one has eight words. This feature is repeated in the last two lines. The stanza shows a scene in which a prisoner, whose arms and legs are bound, is on the way to another jail. It can be seen that the speaker has to walk with his two arms and legs bound; it is thus so painful and uncomfortable for him. But rather than express extreme discomfort, he expresses joy about his surroundings: “All over the mountain I hear the songs of birds,/ And the forest is filled with the perfume of spring-flowers”

Although walking for miles with bound arms and legs in extremely difficult conditions, his physical suffering is equaled by the great beauty of nature around him (Hà 2013: 281). The last line reveals that the experience of comfort is not a matter of physical condition but of a mental state. This belief gives the speaker the power to survive the “long journey.” The triumph of the mind over matter through sheer will is a humanistic value in PD.

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In short, PD, in general, and the poem, “On the Road,” in particular, concretely show the challenges in the liberation struggle like the difficulties that the prisoner has to bear, but the appreciation of nature seems to be a strategy for reinvigorating him in life, and in his fight for his country and his people. In other words, Đặng (2013: 72) is quite right when he says that in the midst of the prisoner’s sufferings, freedom is experienced in nature.

Furthermore, in terms of poetic art, the poem differs with the others in its form because it follows another convention of the Tang poetry. The repetition of the sound “ay” in the first and second verses and the sound

“ừng” between the third and the last is touching. In other words, although the poem follows the traditional Chinese form, it still reflects modern content. The simple vocabulary and popular theme make his poetry more familiar to ordinary readers.

HCM is said to be an optimistic person. Although he suffered long in jail – he is quoted to have said “one day in prison seems like a thousand years outside” ― the speaker in “Moonlight” appreciates the natural beauty around him:

NGẮM TRĂNG

Trong tù không rượu cũng không hoa, Cảnh đẹp đêm nay, khó hững hờ;

Người ngắm trăng soi ngoài cửa sổ, Trăng nhòm khe cửa ngắm nhà thơ.

MOONLIGHT

For prisoners, there is no alcohol nor flowers, But the night is so lovely, how can we celebrate it?

I go to the air-hole and stare up at the moon, And through the air-hole the moon smiles at the poet.

At the beginning, the poem shows a fact that every one obviously knows: there is neither wine nor flower in jail. However, that does not prevent the speaker from enjoying the “lovely night.” He tells himself

“khó hững hờ” which means that he cannot ignore a nice view like this as he is moved by the moon shining that night. As the first two lines of the poem say, “For prisoners, there is no alcohol nor flowers,/ But the night is so lovely, how can we celebrate it?”

From the perspectives of Eastern aesthetics, it can be said that moon, flowers and wine are images of comfort and luxury. For the imprisoned speaker, there is none of those; yet, he is charmed. He feels the beauty of the nature by the moon light. The enemy could lock his body but they could not lock his spirit. His body is inside the jail but his soul is free. He, therefore, can see the moon shining outside, as the poem narrates, “I go to the air-hole and stare up at the moon,/ And through the air-hole the moon smiles at the poet.”

In the Vietnamese version, the term “cửa sổ” is equipvelent to “window”

in the English language but it is not the actual window. In the translated version, the idea is captured more correctly: “the air-hole” of the jail. “The air-hole” suggests narrower or more cramped space than window. It also suggests that the prisoner could be below the ground or at least on a low level looking up. The speaker watches the moon through that hole and the moon also “smiles” at him. The poem uses personification in order to portray the two-way communication or the dynamic interaction between the moon and the speaker. In Vietnamese culture, watching and observing the

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moon is one of the romantic ways of exploring the beauty of nature.

Besides, Đặng (2013: 74) notes that the moon has a special position in classical Chinese poetry and it still takes that seat in HCM’s prison poetry.

The moon symbolizes light, coolness, peace, dreams, faithfulness to one’s promise. The moonlight is able to make the nature around the speaker more romantic and the thought of the speaker more profound and serene.

Therefore, in the poem, watching the moon is an expression of the speaker’s desire for freedom, human freedom.

Like the majority of the poems in the PD, “Moonlight,” which is also a short stanza consisting of only four lines with seven words in each line, follows the form of Chinese poetry. Đinh (2013: 582-584) observes that when describing nature at night, HCM’s poetry tends to picture an image of nature profoundly, pensively and vividly. It is notable that this description expresses the speaker’s thought and emotion. The first two lines suggest an opposition and tension but the last two lines suggest a kind of mutuality and harmony as the moon returns the speaker’s gaze. Therefore, this poem best illustrates the aesthetics of PD: It moves from objective description to the subjective expression about the significance of a scene or situation drawn from prison experience, and observation from nature. Following this structure, the description of nature is either an “objective correlative” of the speaker’s feelings or a figural expression of an idea².

Although the speaker in his poetry suffers from physical pain, his sympathy for his fellow prisoner illustrates one of the elements of humanism in PD, which may be found in the following poem in particular:

NGƯỜI BẠN TÙ THỔI SÁO Bỗng nghe trong ngục sáo vi vu,

Khúc nhạc tình quê chuyển điệu sầu;

Muôn dặm quan hà, khôn xiết nỗi, Lên lầu ai đó ngóng trông nhau.

THE FLUTE OF THE FELLOW-PRISONER Suddenly a flute sounds a nostalgic note, Sadly the music rises, its tune is close to sobbing;

Over a thousand miles, across mountains and rivers, journey’s an aching grief, We seem to see a woman climbing a far off tower to watch for someone’s

return.

It has been said that HCM devoted his life to the cause of the Vietnamese revolution. Hoài (2013: 110) cites Mr. Phạm Văn Đồng in the People newspaper issued on April 14, 1960 who states that “Humanism as the love and sympathy for other people’s pain is the best and most significant quality of HCM.” Using a sympathetic voice, the anguish of an imprisoned fellow prisoner/husband who has been separated from his wife is unmistakable in “The Flute of the Fellow-Prisoner.” When this poem is read in Vietnamese language, it really sounds like a sad and haunting song: “Suddenly a flute sounds a nostalgic note, / Sadly the music rises, its tune is close to sobbing)

This poem does not begin with a crying sound as in the one entitled “The Baby in Tan Duong Jail;” instead, it begins with the sound of flute playing a

“nostalgic” melody. The music evokes the sobbing of a husband in prison, missing his wife, and worryng for her. Nothing is worse than a happy married couple forced to stay far away from each other. The poem uses the repetition of the sound “u” in “vi vu, khúc, sầu” in the first two verses

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making the poem’s tone even sadder. This sadness reaches its pinnacle in the third line: “Over a thousand miles, across mountains and rivers, journey’s an aching grief.”

The “aching grief” is a powerful expression of the deep sadness brought about by their separation. What makes them far from each other is not only because of the geographical distance but also because of the reality of imprisonment. They do not know when they can be together again.

Therefore: “We seem to see a woman climbing a far off tower to watch for someone’s return.”

The use of pronoun “ai” (somebody) by the speaker in this verse is interesting because the reference may be either a female or a male. The object “nhau” means “each other.” It can be inferred from this context that both the husband and wife are missing each other, and they are looking forward to meeting each other again. In the English translation, however, the translator seems to generally understand the context and situation of this couple in the poem but it seems that the translation captures only the sense of the wife waiting for her husband’s return: “We seem to see a woman,”

as the translation indicates, but not the two of them. In other words, the English version is able to capture the surface meaning of the last line only but it does not capture the complexity of the poem, owing to the specific characteristics of the Vietnamese language. In short, the poem illustrates the deep humanism of PD in its embodiment of the mutuality of love.

3. How Politics is revealed in PD

This section explores how humanism is inscribed in the selected poems

of PD which underpins the poem’s aesthetics, and how the politics of PD lay down the necessary foundation or the “conditions of possibility” of its poetics.

Phong (2013: 473) illustrates that the following poem with no title printed at the back of PD may be considered the “motto” of HCM. It talks about how to live a successful life in this four-line poem, as follows.

Thân thể ở trong lao, Tinh thần ở ngoài lao;

Muốn nên sự nghiệp lớn, Tinh thần càng phải cao.

Body is in prison, The spirit is beyond ; If I want to fulfill a big business,

My spirit has to be more stable.

The poem reveals the strong will of the speaker who is imprisoned (in China). Although his body is in prison, his spirit is not. The poem is successful in juxtaposing apparent opposites as in the pairs of “body” vs.

“spirit”, “in” (prison) vs. “beyond” (prison), as the poem says, “Body is in prison, / The spirit is beyond;”

The poem draws an image of a prisoner whose body is kept in jail but whose mind is travelling freely elsewhere far from that presumably disgusting and oppressive prison house. The repetition of the sound “ao” in the word “lao” between the first and the second line makes this short poem more meaningful and emphatic in expressing the longing for freedom. It

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may be inferred from the poem that the speaker’s mind and will are free from any control or domination: the human body can be confined behind prison walls, but his or her mind or heart cannot be contained. The contradiction of the first and second lines seems to illustrate the poem’s humanism in which imprisonment is not only a question of physical confinement but also a matter of human determination to be free. Yet, another value may be found in the last two lines: Overcoming obstacles in human action is about transcending physical limitations into the realm of spiritual freedom, as the poem says, “If I want to fulfill a big business, / My spirit has to be more stable.”

Trần (2013: 52- 53) notes that HCM’s poetry tends to be simple in terms of form, innocent in terms of voice and lyrical in terms of tone and rhythm. By depicting a “body in prison” the poem underscores the value of human freedom. It may be said that humanism in this poem implies having the strong will (“more stable”) to struggle hard for the sake of freedom from capitalist foreign domination (“big business”). Hoàng (2013: 166) suggests that on one level, this short stanza is a mere depiction of prison life.

On another level, it is beyond mere depiction; it is a revolutionary “motto”

for overcoming the difficulties in the process of waging and winning the Vietnamese revolution.

Thus, it can be said, following Tran, that the colonizer can only keep the body of the revolutionary in jail but never the spirit and the will. In short, humanity is something that cannot be imprisoned because the more hardship a revolutionary suffers, the better he becomes stable in spirit. In this sense, humanism is affirmed by the poem.

HCM’s humanism is also depicted by the love for innocent people especially for the baby who has to suffer from prison because his or her

father does not join the army.

CHÁU BÉ TRONG NHÀ LAO TÂN DƯƠNG Oa...! Oa...! Oa...!

Cha sợ sung quân cứu nước nhà;

Nên nỗi thân em vừa nửa tuổi, Phải theo mẹ đến ở nhà pha.

THE BABY IN TAN DUONG JAIL Oa ...! Oa ...! Oa ...!

Father did not join the army force;

His son was half-year old only, He, thus has to stay in prison with mommy.

Tân Dương is one of the districts of Guangxi Province in China. It is in the jail of this district that the poem speaks of the inhuman conditions of the Chinese prison. The poem above uniquely begins not with words;

rather, it begins with a sound, “Oa...! Oa...! Oa...!” ― the crying sound of an infant, “half-year old only,” who is also imprisoned, with the mother.

Hoài (111) surmises that the cry of the baby is a cry for humanity, a critique of the Chiang Kai-shek government. In fact, both Trần (2013: 54) and Hoài (2013: 111) denounce the cruelty of the Chinese government for putting the mother with her baby in jail because her husband has escaped from the army: “Father did not join the army force; / His son was just half-year old only, He, thus has to stay in prison with mommy.”

In this poem, prison has become a place to keep sinners or prisonsers, the young and the old alike as well as a baby who can not yet even eat, walk,

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or defend himself. The baby’s crying underscores the ridiculousness of the government. Due to the fact that the government cannot force the husband or the father to join the army, his innocent wife and son are put in prison instead.

The speaker seems to pity the infant and his mother. The poet, however, can not do anything to help them except to use his only weapon ― the pen ― to describe the injustice and oppression by the government. In this regard, Hac is right when he argues that HCM does feel anger for what the powerless people have to suffer in prison. His analysis is that HCM’s humanism is about the 1Yêu thương vô hạn con người, nhất là người bị áp bức, niiiii infinite love for people who are especially oppressed, poor and powerless.

In addition, Hoài (2013: 111) states that PD may not have captured in poetry the many situations in the Chinese prison at length and in depth, but his criticism of its oppression is so clear. HCM in PD and in his other writings used his pen as a powerful weapon in criticizing the government for their hard-hearted, merciless, ridiculous and unreasonable policies.

In short, the poem which only has a four-line stanza with seven words in each line captures an image of the inhumanity suffered by the infant.

Through poetic expression, the writer succeeds in using very simple vocabulary to voice out the vehement cry of a baby. The satirical tone of the poem is a powerful attack on the cruelty and inhumanity of the government.

Hoài (2013: 108) states that the Chiang Kai-shek government maltreated HCM while in jail in China such as depriving him for months of basic human necessities such as adequate food, regular baths and a clean change of clothes, because of which his body was covered with scabies and skin infection. Worse, during the day, the prison authorities forced him to walk from jail to jail covering a distance of around 50km long. At night, he could not sleep but could only sit on the water closet to wait for the next day and to

continue going on foot to another jail. Thus, the poem “Cold Night” speaks of the speaker’s sufferings because of the harsh prison conditions. It is shown that the speaker has no mattress and no blanket on a rather cold night, so he cannot sleep.

ĐÊM LẠNH

Đêm thu không đệm cũng không chăn, Gối quắp, lưng còng, ngủ chẳng an;

Khóm chuối trăng soi càng thấy lạnh, Nhòm song, Bắc Đẩu đã nằm ngang

COLD NIGHT

Autumn night. No mattress. No covers.

No sleep. Body and legs huddle up and cramp.

The moon shines on the frost-covered banana leaves.

Beyond my bars the Great Bear swings on the Pole.

The poem uses two short lines with seven words in each line to portray life inside the jail. Vietnamese expressions tend to “beat around the bush” but the poem, in this case, is very precise, concrete and direct,

“no mattress, blanket.” It moves the readers to tears because, as Hoài (2013: 108) asserts, the worst hardship which HCM had to suffer was not even from the harsh physical conditions but for the time wasted in prison. HCM had spent 30 years studying and working abroad. He was determined to return to Vietnam to liberate his people from French colonization. But while his country was in need of a leader, he could not return to his country; instead, he was put in jail in China. This kind

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of time wasted was not only the speaker’s personal predicament but a serious political matter because it was costing not only the speaker’s individual precious opportunity to win the freedom but also to fight for national freedom.

In the poem, the cold in autumn makes him sleepless, and the moon shining during that night makes him feel even colder, as the third line goes,

“the moon shining over the banana makes him feel colder.” Moreover,

“no mattress, blanket, autumn weather and moon” combine to render him sleepless. On one level, the prison context seems to keep the speaker awake, but on another level, he is not able to sleep because he has to think of his mission, vision and strategy for the revolution of Vietnam.

In that condition, the moonlight makes the speaker realize that “Beyond my bars the Great Bear swings on the Pole.” The last line refers to the way that the Vietnamese farmers in the olden times would tell the time. Because they did not have the watch or clock at that time, they looked up to the sky to check out the positions of the stars in order to guess what time it was.

In this poem, the speaker does not have the watch but the reference to the moonlight makes him realize that it is four o’clock in the morning; still, he can not sleep (Xuân 2013: 145).

In short, in a stanza with four lines in which each consists of seven words, the author depicts an image of a prisoner’s life. In possession not even of the bare necessities of life, he does not give up, powerfully revealing his humanism. It can be seen that the writer has a unique poetic art: by describing an objective condition in prison on one level, he is also able to speak of the crime of the Chinese government to a delegate of Vietnam like him, on another level. On both the literal and figurative senses, the value of revolutionary humanism is embodied in the two levels of the poem.

MỚI ĐẾN NHÀ LAO THIÊN BẢO Năm mươi ba cây số mỗi ngày Áo mũ dầm mưa rách hết giày Lại khổ thâu đêm không chỗ ngũ

Ngồi trên hố xí đợi ngày mai

ARRIVAL AT TIANBAO JAIL Today I have walked fifty-three kilometers My hat and clothes are soaking through, my shoes in tatters.

Without a place to sleep, all through the night I sit by the edge of the latrine, waiting for light

The harshness of the conditions in prison in its extreme manifestation is described in the poem “Arrival at Tianbao Jail” in which the speaker has to go on foot for a distance of exactly 53 kilometers in a day. This may be something unbelievable for readers: It is a very long walk for a normal person unless he is a marathon runner. The inhumanity of this punishment is unspeakable, but in the context of the experience of colonialism of the Vietnamese people, the “long walk” had been forced upon them for almost a century (1858-1945) under the French colonialism. Many generations of the Vietnamese people had suffered so much for so long.

In the poem, the speaker has to walk for a distance of more than 50 km in a day. At night, the situation becomes worse when he has nowhere to have a nap and no way to rest except to “to sit by the edge of the latrine.” This description implies that the cruelty of the prison experience is enough to kill the prisoner even without a bullet; the inhumanity of the experience is

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enough to kill a man.

In the Vietnamese translation of the poem, the speaker is sitting on the latrine to wait for the next day, “tomorrow.” In the English version, the poem says the speaker is waiting for the light. Either way, “tomorrow” or

“light” may or may not come. In the meantime, time is fore-grounded in this poem. In PD, time spent in prison is wasted because time is precious only when it is spent outside prison for the peoples’ national liberation struggle.

It means that the speaker has no future or he is wasting his life.

It has been said that HCM’s poetry often uses the narrative genre.

PD does not have a long poem with complicated vocabulary or difficult theme to appreciate; instead, as often observed earlier, PD often has only four lines with simple words. PD simply depicts the concrete situation of imprisonment, yet the significance may go beyond what is depicted in the literal content.

In this regard, the poem above, on the one hand, can be read as the experience of an individual speaker with a revolutionary cause to wage. On the other hand, following Jameson’s assertion about third-world literature,

“Arrival at Tianbao Jail” may be read as a “national allegory” of the Vietnamese people on their way to freedom and independence. It is about the inhumanity they suffered as well as about the revolution as the triumph of humanity. This idea is embodied further in the next poem.

The speaker in “Restrictions” speaks of the inhuman challenges he has to face and overcome in prison as he is deprived of freedom.

BỊ HẠN CHẾ Đau khổ chi bằng mất tự do, Đến buồn đi ỉa cũng không cho;

Cửa tù khi mở, không đau bụng, Đau bụng thì không mở cửa tù.

RESTRICTIONS

To live without freedom is a truly wretched state.

Even the calls of nature are governed by restrictions!

When the door is opened, the belly is not ready to ease itself.

When the call of nature is pressing, the door remains shut.

Hoàng (2013: 156) also denounces the Chiang Kai-shek government for its unreasonable prison polices. In prison, human beings are treated in the most inhuman ways. It is why later in 1945 in the declaration of Vietnamese independence, HCM says: “Freedom and Independence are the most valuable things” (Hoàng 2013: 157). “Restrictions” underscores the inhumanity of life without freedom and independence by showing how life in prison deprives human beings of the most basic of needs such as going to the toilet. The implied analogy to the experience under French colonialism before the declaration of the Vietnamese independence is notable.

The reader of this poem is made to imagine a moment in life in which the “belly is ready to ease,” yet, the speaker is not allowed to go to the toilet.

If the first two lines are descriptive, the last two lines are contrastive. The poem creates two opposite images by changing the positions of the two phrases “Cửa tù” (the prison door) and “đau bụng” (the belly is ready to ease itself). The contrasting images create a paradoxical situation for the prisoner: when the door is open, he does not need to go to the toilet, but when he needs to go there, the door is closed. When one reads the poem for

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the first time, he or she might think it is just describing some inconvenience in jail. But if the audience re-reads it for the second or the third time, he or she will immediately recognize its implication if associated with the cause of national freedom.

In terms of theme, PD is able to describe the inhumanity of prison life and its implication upon the speaker and the national freedom. In terms of form, it adapts the Tang Dynasty poetic convention for its aesthetic power of simplicity, subtlety and clarity. In this form, PD is able to poetically convey the cruelty and sufferings in prison to a wide range of readers. So in prison, HCM was able to address his people through PD. Dehumanized by imprisonment, he is able to assert his humanity by speaking about humanism through poetry.

HCM’s imprisonment ended upon the visit of Mr. Hau who was the chairman of the local government at that time. How the author felt when he was released on September 10, 1943 is described in the last poem:

BÀI THƠ CUỐI CÙNG Sáng suốt, nhờ ơn Hầu chủ nhiệm,

Tự do trở lại với mình rồi;

Ngục trung nhật ký từ đây dứt, Tái tạo ơn sâu, cảm tạ người.

THE LAST POEM

Million thanks to Chairman Hau who is erspicacious, For giving me back my freedom;

PD ends from now on, The deep gratitude is never forgotten.

Thanks to the chaiman’s decision, the poet is given back his freedom, which implies gratitude for individual freedom in view of the fight for national freedom. With the speaker’s release, the anti-colonial struggle now continues beyond prison with HCM.

The adjective “sâu” (deep) together with the verb “cảm tạ”(million thanks) in the 4^th line of the poem expresses his deep and sincere gratitude to the chairman. Moreover, it is implied that the speaker’s gratitude is eternal.

This deep and sincere gratitude expressed in the poem implies another humanist quality which is embodied in PD. In fact, HCM has been referred to as a “revolutionary humanist,” a quality which the speaker in “The Last Poem” captures. It is the happiest “moment” of PD, and it signals the end of the collection, the literary embodiment of the speaker’s prison experience, and the beginning or resumption of life beyond prison.

It can be seen that the humanism of PD is embodied in the spirit and will of a revolutionary. In addition, it is also about the love for a fellow prisoner who likewise has to suffer the cruelty of prison authorities. Humanism is also about the productive use of time for the cause of human freedom especially national freedom. It is about fulfilling human needs, not the cruel deprivation of such. It is about gratitude. Therefore, the speaker’s experience in prison under harsh conditions shows dehumanization and the struggle for freedom and humanization. In other words, PD’s humanism may be called

“revolutionary humanism.”

In short, this paper is about the features constituting “humanism” in HCM’s poetry. It can be said that on first reading, PD might seem to be simply about a prisoner’s everyday life in jail. However, upon closer study, the poems’ aesthetics may be appreciated more clearly: PD is exceptionally compact because it does not consist of long lines, rather, it is mostly

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composed only of a four-line stanza with seven words in each line between six and eight words. Still, it succeeds in depicting its complex themes. The apparent simplicity of its language and style has made PD so popular to people in all classes in the society, especially among the oppressed and the poor who had little education at that time. It is both the aesthetics and politics of PD that have made it so appealing to its Vietnamese readers.

Moreover, according to Hoàng (2013: 156), the word “tự do” (freedom), in the poem “Restrictions,” has been repeated thirteen times in the whole poetry collection indicating that PD is indeed about the struggle for freedom for his people and the nation. In other words it is as if PD is a declaration of freedom by HCM in poetic form. It is the freedom for those who had been imprisoned by the colonizer, freedom for the people who were being oppressed by the imperialists, and freedom for the whole people who accused the Chiang Kai-shek government of their cruel crime.

In other words, due to the experience of imprisonment, in PD, the speaker confronts his own humanity (his being a human being) and his relationship with other people (within the actual confines of prison walls and, as imagined, beyond prison) highlights his sense of belonging to a community like the nation, even in the speaker’s moments of isolation as a prisoner. Humanism in PD, therefore, is not just about the individual but about a national collective ― the Vietnamese people.

4. Conclusion

This study has explored features of humanism in HCM’s PD in the context of third-world literature. On the one hand, this study has

explored how humanism is embodied in selected poems from PD which underpins the poems’ aesthetics. On the other hand, it has also explored how the aesthetics of PD is linked to its politics. Both the politics and the aesthetics of PD lay down the “conditions of possibility” of the poems as third-world literature, framing PD’s postcolonial aesthetics. Read as third-world literature, PD embodies the “national allegory” of the Vietnamese experience.

PD’s humanism is rooted in the speaker’s sympathy for the marginalized people, especially those who are disempowered because of their class or their political views. When this kind of sympathy is portrayed in PD, it becomes a figure for revolutionary humanism that shares with the marginalized class or sector, the hardship, misfortunes, oppression, and unfairness experienced under the ruling class or sectors. PD’s humanism is meant for the marginalized people to realize that class struggle must be waged so that freedom and happiness might be achieved. PD gives the oppressed people a voice and hopes, and leads them to liberation (Hà 2013:

284).

Humanism is expressed in the description and narration of the prisoner’s daily life in jail. However, upon a closer scrutiny, the poems’ aesthetics may be appreciated more clearly beyond the use of description and narration.

PD is exceptionally compact because it is composed of poems which, as mentioned earlier, use only four lines with seven words in each line or having six or eight words. Although brief, the poems often succeed in depicting a range of diverse and complex themes. The apparent simplicity of PD’s language and style makes it so popular to ordinary people especially among the oppressed and the uneducated at that time. In combination, the aesthetics and politics of PD have made it appealing to its Vietnamese

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readers. As Hà (2013: 290) states, humanism in PD is so profound that it is embedded in many situations that prisoners encounter in their prison as depicted in the poems.

PD’s humanism differs from the Western humanism in the sense that it is not just concerned about an individual’s being or in Western humanism’s language, “self-development.” On the contrary, PD’s humanism is about self-sacrifice for the sake of the development of the collectivity ― the Vietnamese people.

HCM himself thought of the development of his whole country as

he once declared, “The fact that Vietnam is able to develop or not is dependent on the young generation’s educational background.” Clearly, his fight against the French colonization was not meant for an individual’s

“development” but to pave the way to not only to particular human beings’

freedom but for the freedom of all the oppressed people of the world.

The apparent simplicity of PD’s language and style has made it so popular among ordinary people. In terms of aesthetics, PD works on both literal meaning and literary meaning. In a way, in a number of poems, what may seem narrative is really poetic. This poetic strategy is characteristic of the poems in PD which makes them seem simple but profound.

In terms of aesthetics, as discussed earlier, the study has found that the poems in PD are mostly short which may be easy to read quickly because of their brevity. The use of the Tang poetry form makes the prison collection of poems popular among the ordinary people because they are rooted in poetic tradition. It has also been observed that the word choice or vocabulary is simple, drawn from the everyday language of ordinary people; yet, the poems are rich in figurative meaning. In the choice of poetic elements, it can be said that on a literal level, PD’s poems use comprehensible and familiar

images and metaphors; on a literary level, these elements are connotative and symbolic. Besides, the study shows that PD’s poems often employ the use of juxtaposition, binary opposition, parallel structures, and comparison and contrast. Lastly, the poems are compact and easy to read because they use popular and familiar form, style and techniques. In other words, they may be said to be simple in diction but they contain complex meanings.

In terms of political content, humanism is politicized with the use of themes like nationalism and choice of techniques in the prison poems.

PD employs apparently familiar, apolitical and popular topics consistent with the poetic conventions of the Tang poetry. However, these familiar, seemingly apolitical and popular topics are de-familiarized as the poems shift from the literal meaning to the literary or figurative meaning through the poems’ aesthetic elements and formal features. Thus, what seems at first reading to be an innocent poem about nature, for example, suddenly becomes a powerful political commentary in poetry about the struggle for Vietnamese independence.

It is hoped that this study will pave the way for many other critical investigations that might help bring further scholarly efforts into the world of prison literature, an exciting topic for discussions but an unevenly developed field of research, in order to contribute something truly significant to human knowledge in the context of third-world literature, from the perspective of Postcolonialism.

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232 International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism ┃Vol. 7 No.1 2017

Hồ Chí Minh Về Văn Hóa- Văn Nghệ. Nhà Xuất Bản Hội Nhà Văn.

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Submitted: September 16, 2016 Reviewed: December 12, 2016 Accepted: January 12, 2017

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