Uprooted - A Vietnamese Family's Journey, 1935-1975

By David Lucas

The ancient Vietnamese life in which Tung was raised is being torn apart. It is not enough to work hard and grow rice anymore. Now every farmer in Mai Dong has to pick a side: The French or the Communists.

"They are going to murder your father."

Intelligence, humility and graft made Tung's father Que an honorable figure in Mai Dong. His values ensured the family's survival through famine and flood. They will not protect him against the Communists, who need class-enemy victims for their land reform campaign.

Tung becomes protector and provider for the family, who struggle to stick together as World War Two, the French Indochinese War, and the American War tear his country apart over forty years.

Based on a true story, Uprooted is an uplifting saga of a Vietnamese family's journey through fire and water.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312869332

David Lucas

David Lucas has been named one of the UK's ten Best New Illustrators, an initiative created by Booktrust to recognize the best rising talent in the field of illustration today.

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Uprooted - A Vietnamese Family's Journey, 1935-1975

Uprooted

A Vietnamese Family’s Journey

1935-1975

David Lucas

Copyright © 2015 by David Lucas

All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-312-86933-2

www.uprootedthenovel.com

Contents

maps

Prologue, 1954

Part One – Journey to War, 1935-1945

Part Two – Journey to Division, 1945-1954

Part Three – Journey to Despair, 1954-1963

Part Four – Journey Through War, 1963-1968

Part Five – Journey Through Division, 1968-1973

Part Six - Journey to Freedom, 1973-1975

Epilogue, 1975

acknowledgements

a note on names

abbreviations

family generations

other characters

historical figures

bibliography

Maps

Prologue: Hate and Struggle, 1954

We’re peasants, we’re shoulder by shoulder

Rush forward fighting for our lives

A dishonest and greedy band have exploited us freely

They have oppressed us

We hate and struggle with the exploitative landlord band.

The children’s shrill voices drifted across the waterlogged rice paddy to where Que sat bowed in his narrow boat. Monsoon rains had filled the canal, the ponds and the fields. The whole area merged into a patchwork of dull mirrors that reflected a threatening sky. Mai Dong village was now an island. The water of Tonkin’s Red River delta lapped to within a few meters of Que’s home.

With the harvest over, fishing occupied the peasants’ time as they watched the flood creep higher and higher. Behind Que lay the rotted brown stumps of a thick bamboo fence that used to encircle the hamlet. Once a symbol of its pride and resilience in the changing landscape, Mai Dong’s streets were now open to both the elements and intruders.

Across the impassive water, church spires and scattered tombs of the village ancestors rose above the brown expanse. It would be spring before the heavy air cleared and Que could see all the way to the foothills on the edge of the delta, from where they marched up into the country’s inhospitable interior.

When the songs finished a deep breath shuddered from him and Que returned to his bait. As his nimble fingers gathered the line, a pensive crease returned to his brow. The smell of cigarettes textured the clean air. Someone was coming. Shortly the rhythmic splash of oars brought two young men into view, Bo and Vi. They had been friends of Que’s eldest son, Tung. Their pants were clean and dry from a day spent teaching revolutionary songs to the school children.

There is a committee meeting, Bo hailed, a little too loudly. His voice rang out across the empty landscape, without carrying the message he’d intended. The expectant silence unsettled him. Que had never attended, nor ever been invited to, a meeting of the People’s Committee. So after a moment’s awkwardness Vi completed the directive. You must come with us now, Ong Que.

The respectful address was jarring in contrast to their manner. A few years ago it would have been inconceivable for teenagers to demand an older man’s presence anywhere. As they paddled ahead dark thoughts saturated Que’s mind. There was no reasoning with these slogan-fed teenagers. He knew what his father would have said, The roots are stuck in the air while the leaves are buried.

This was the manner in which land reform came to Mai Dong.

Que always strove to deal equitably with the Communists. He had protected and donated to their squads in the past. They described landowners as absentee autocrats who owned hundreds of acres and employed servants in opulent homes; a Frenchman or corrupt Mandarin with no connection to the land. No one in Mai Dong owned more than a few acres of scattered plots. It had been that way for centuries.

He drew his boat up to the bank and followed the young men to the center of the village. A low-roofed building with one open side faced the broad clay courtyard of the market. Behind a table inside sat four unfamiliar cadres – professional revolutionaries and the Communist Party’s intellectual core.

Bo and Vi looked expectantly at the men, but were ignored.

May I go home and change my pants? Que asked.

Stand against the wall and be quiet, one of the cadres said.

Que felt like he had been slapped.

The room soon filled with other peasants from the village. Bo and Vi sat among them on the dusty floor. Only the poorest members of the village, those from the Communist run Peasants Association, had been invited. The lead cadre began the meeting with a political lecture about exploitation by evil landlords. Spittle flew and heads nodded. At the climax of his speech he turned to Que, wielding a finger, rigid in accusation.

Where did your land and your tiled home come from?

In his hand was a list of assets that Que, along with the other villagers, had been told to submit.

My home and some land were given to me by my Father. The rest I bought after working hard with my wife and children, Que replied.

Liar! Working hard cannot make you rich. All your properties come from exploiting other people!

I do not exploit anybody.

Your stubbornness shows disrespect for the people. You have used your exploited money to send your sons to attend the enemy’s school in Hanoi where they learn the enemy culture. Your children will grow up to follow the enemy against the people and against the Communist Party!

During this exchange Que glanced up and saw his youngest sons, Co and Sa. Their teacher had gone to his house and brought them in to witness his shame. Eleven year-old Co was staggered to hear his father being spoken to so aggressively. Que was relieved that his eldest son Tung, now twenty-six, was not there among his accusers.

The cadre handed a piece of paper to one of the peasants. He can’t read, Que thought to himself. The note was passed along. Everyone watched the paper travel from hand to hand across the room. Que grew hopeful as he saw the shame and fear weighing on the assembled peasants. Eventually the teacher snatched the paper up and called Co forward to read it aloud.

The boy gulped before the trembling sheet. It was a list of crimes.

Owning more land than other villagers, he read.

Before he could continue the cadres at the table cried out in unison, Down with the landlord! Down with the landlord!

Following Bo and Vi, sat amongst them, the crowd responded, Down! Down!

Co shook. Tears sprung into his eyes as he was told to continue.

Owning a house with a brick tiled roof.

Down with the landlord! Down with the landlord! The cadres shouted again.

The crowd responded together, Down! Down!

Sending his children to school in Hanoi.

Down with the landlord! Down with the landlord!

Down! Down!

With every accusation the intensity of the shouts grew. The crowd fed on its own anger. Co watched his father’s head sink to his chest and broke down in tears.

Que scrutinized the damp floor beneath his feet. Water dripping from his pants had stained the pale clay dust. A dark circle surrounded him. The rules of hierarchy and status that had codified every relationship in the villages of Vietnam for a millennia were being upturned; the order of heaven usurped. Que’s rank as a notable and descendent of the village gods meant nothing. While his thoughts floundered in confusion he remained impassive, hoping to save face for himself and his accusers. Looking up would indicate contemptible defiance, breaking down would show contemptible weakness. So he concentrated on remaining calm and respectful. Soon the cadres began to bring the room to order. Sensing the worst was now over he bent down to scratch his foot.

Who allowed you to bend down? a cadre barked.

A mosquito bit me, Que replied.

A mosquito could not kill you. You disrespect the trial! You disrespect the people! Down with the landlord! Down with the landlord!

And again the crowd responded, Down! Down!

Through the seething animosity, neighbors were brought forward with fabricated stories of oppression and abuse. Que was spat on. One of his own nieces accused him of molesting her. Guilt was assumed, and with every story the crowd swelled and surged.

Lamps were lit and the rehearsal continued until midnight.

In three days there will be a public trial, the cadre said in conclusion. The peasants’ lines had been practiced and their reactions trained. They would lead the whole village in complicity towards the intended verdict. In the meantime Que was put under house arrest.

Co fought to stifle his sobs as he followed Que and the guard home. He had never seen his father suffer such humiliation. Men who had come to his father for advice now spat on him. Women who’d told their sons to follow his example invoked curses against him. Why would family friends he had known all his life say such terrible things? Co wished his brother Tung was there to defend his family. The accusers would surely listen to him.

In fact, it did not matter that no big landlords, oppressive or honorable, lived in Mai Dong. The cadres had a quota to fill. The village would take part in a piece of theater designed to make everyone in Mai Dong equally guilty, fearful and loyal. Que’s sentence and execution were already a formality.

Part One – Journey to War, 1935-1945

1. Cultivated Land, 1935

In the best of times, the cultivated land in Tonkin barely sufficed to feed its population.

James C. Scott

Tung helped search out the drier pieces of wood and bamboo from the great hedge that surrounded the hamlet. It was slow work in September after the rainy season. The racket of crickets seemed subdued in the thick, heavy air. Bo quickly started a fire in the dead leaves and they began adding twigs to the flames. Only a few days were left before the field work would begin again, then their afternoons would no longer be their own. So the heat did nothing to slow the children’s urgent chatter as they fed and prodded the fire.

Bo straightened up, stretching his narrow frame. Whenever adults were present, Tung noticed his friend stooped, shuffled his feet and mumbled his responses. Among children he was the strongest, quickest and most confident. Grabbing a small hard grapefruit from the hands of a younger boy, Bo began to roll it around in the hot coals with a stick. He was impatient to get started, unlike Tung who preferred the craft of building the fire, to the game they would soon play.

The grapefruit skin began to soften and the ash turned it from green to grey. Finally after much discussion they rolled the fruit out of the fire. For the rest of the afternoon shrieks and cries filled the hamlet as they played soccer on the baked mud of the street. The game lasted until the grapefruit disintegrated. The children returned home with sore feet and shins thoroughly blackened by soot and dirt.

Tung cherished the rare time away from his studies and field work. He stopped by one of the many ponds on his way home to wash his bruised legs and feet. If his father Que saw evidence of this wasted afternoon he would go to bed stinging from a bamboo cane.

Once his Uncle Bach had visited from the great city of Hanoi and given him a tennis ball. It made him the most feted boy in the village. Que was unimpressed. Each afternoon Tung found his friends loitering near the house when he returned from the fields, waiting to kick the ball one game closer to oblivion with their eager bare feet. Sure enough, the fabric on the ball wore down to the rubber, which eventually cracked and split. They returned to cooking grapefruit and Tung felt his rank in the group diminish again. His eldest sister Thuc tried to sew the ball back together without success. Nevertheless he kept it under his wooden-slatted bed. Whenever Que saw him turning the cracked rubber over in his hands he scolded him, Put that away. Where is your book? You must set a better example for your sisters. That is your duty!

Despite having two older sisters, Tung’s education was the focus of his family’s hopes. He would continue the family name, receive most of the inheritance and look after his parents and siblings in the future. It was a combination of privilege and responsibility that asked much of a young boy who already had plenty to live up to. Tung’s grandfather, Ong Chanh Thanh, had been the village’s Teacher of Chinese Characters. For years he taught Mai Dong’s children the Confucian laws and several of his students had risen to mandarin positions in the national government. Learn as much as possible, Que would admonish. Your house, land and gold you can lose, but not your education. Nobody can steal that away from you. Everyone expected the highest standards. His grandfather tested him on Chinese characters, his father taught him Vietnamese in its European alphabet, and now he had to return to the fields.

Tung confronted his fate with mixed emotions. He dreaded the monotony after a morning in the classroom, but he was pleased to see Bang again. Bang was a seasonal worker from the highlands who lived with the family through the planting season. He stopped Tung in the yard as they set off to collect the buffalo and gripped both his shoulders. Lowering himself to Tung’s level, he took on a serious expression. Before we leave we must prepare ourselves.

Tung was at once enraptured and alarmed at the man’s gregarious demeanor. For what?

Bang looked around and then whispered, The buffalo-leech!

At once he bounded off out of the yard calling behind him for Tung to wait. Unlike Que, Bang showed no restraint in mussing Tung’s hair, pinching him when he wasn’t listening, and demonstrating all sorts of juvenile behavior. Tung rolled his eyes. He was seven years old and knew all about buffalo leeches. Bang returned shortly with a grin splashed across his weathered face. One wiry leg was dripping wet. He pointed to a black leech pulsating against his skin.

Look closer, Bang urged. It seemed to Tung that the buffalo leech was growing before his eyes. Horrified at Bang’s nonchalance he raised his hand to swipe the parasite off, but Bang held his wrist tight.

Don’t do that. The body comes off but the head stays in!

There was a pause.

So how do we get it out? Bang asked.

Lime? replied Tung after another pause.

Joy filled Bang’s eyes, and he produced a pinch of white powder. He sprinkled it over the leech and teased it off. Tung wished his father would react like that when given a correct answer.

From the buffalo’s rough undulating back, Tung watched the church tower recede over his shoulder as Bang led them toward the family’s most distant plots. Splashing first along the potted road out of the hamlet, they followed ever smaller trails between sodden fields until they turned onto a mud embankment. The wet earth, twisted into oblique patterns by the elements, had not been trodden since the waters receded. It received the buffalo’s hooves silently, the scars remaining in their wake. Bang stepped down into one of the waterlogged fields. His legs were coated with the same lime and sugar solution they’d applied to the buffalo. Tung shuddered.

As they plowed Bang began singing of unrequited love, making Tung blush. The boy shifted his gaze away from the grinning soloist across the wet fields. More buffaloes, followed by the hunched backs of peasants, dotted the landscape. Somewhere his father was inspecting dikes with the other village notables, deciding which ones would need repairing as the weather improved.

Your father is an honorable man, Bang intoned. Tung nodded absently.

You listen carefully Cau Tung, he persisted.

Yes Anh Bang, Tung replied.

You see the tomb behind me?

Its imposing square shape dominated the surrounding fields. Tung felt surge of pride, and waited for Bang to continue.

You know who’s buried there? Pham-Han and Pham-Pho. The great twin-generals. They fought the Chinese many years ago.

In 966, Tung replied reciting his school lesson. Bang had no interest in the detail.

They have given the village great fortune. Very good luck. You be a good boy and pray to them tonight.

Tung knew Bang prayed to them. He heard him every night in their room.

2. Before the Rains Start, 1935

God will decide if we have enough time to get all the rice in before the rains start.

Ong Chanh Thanh

Only a few weeks had passed. Tung felt he had lived a lifetime already. All he could remember were fields; all he saw ahead were fields. Bang’s enthusiasm, to his regret, was now an annoyance. So from the buffalo’s back, or from the causeways they padded in bare feet, Tung began to tune out the jokes, the songs and the lessons, leaving him vulnerable to a stern pinch.

Quick, Cau Tung! You’re missing it!

The buffalo’s feces disappeared into the brown paddy. Tung woke up in time to jump down and sink his hands into the warm textured water to retrieve the precious matter.

Wasteful! Wasteful!

Mixed with straw and ash, excrement was essential for fertilizer.

Tung dropped the heavy lump into a basket on the embankment, anxiously looking around to see if anyone else had seen his lapse. A dozen voices wove together in song and chatter through the breeze. In the 1930’s, 80% of Vietnam’s population worked on the land, the vast majority in rice production. The peasant child’s only escape was to pass exams. For centuries Mandarin school had been the only way out, but recently Tung had heard his father and grandfather arguing.

Since the French came, being a Mandarin means nothing, Que said.

Ong Chanh Thanh’s silent displeasure at his son’s temerity filled the room. The venerable old man eventually responded quietly giving full flight to his sarcasm.

Still, you would teach European characters above Mandarin. These ‘letters’! They float like leaves on a pond. They take shape and mean one thing, they reorder themselves and their meaning changes. These are insubstantial things to put your trust in.

Ong Chanh Thanh had not visited their home since; a sign the whole family noted.

Water evaporated from Tung’s arms and legs. The gentle singing of the women in a nearby seed bed did nothing to settle his growing anxiety. Was he smart enough to escape this life? And what if his father was right? What if there wasn’t any point in getting educated anymore? Panic shook him. Was this going to be his life from now on? He looked at Bang and saw the same patience, resilience and tenacity of his father. Qualities they shared with every peasant that dotted the fields. Through the centuries when war turned their fields into battlegrounds, these farmers already had many of the skills that would make them indomitable soldiers.

Bang seemed to be able to read him instantly. It was another quality that Tung resented.

This plot belonged to your ancestors. They were buried here you know.

Tung knew.

They are feeding us, as one day you will be feeding your children’s children. And your children’s children’s children.

Failing to catch Tung’s eye, he repeated a speech he’d heard Que deliver.

The spirits of your ancestors know when you are disrespectful. You must be diligent like they were, and a faithful guardian of this land for them and your children.

Yes, Anh Bang, Tung replied.

The Vietnamese farmer understood that the will of heaven would determine the success or failure of his labors. Whether his crop was destroyed by an early rain, stolen by bandits or taken from him at half the market rate by the local French administrator, it was an act of fate. He had no alternative but to keep working.

Every afternoon hunger awoke the old man who dozed in the shade of the church tower. His stomach was the crucial time-piece by which Mai Dong marked the end of the day. As the bell rang through the afternoon breeze Tung urged the buffalo toward the end of the furrow with renewed energy. Today Uncle Bach was due to arrive from Hanoi, the capital of Tonkin, one of five regions in French administered Indochina.

Bang cursed and told his young charge to ease up on the buffalo. The knocking of mortars on pestles drummed the earth as they passed one home after another. Women and girls dried the stalks, threshed and winnowed the rice to separate the chaff from the grain, before breaking the precious white morsel free of its bran husk. This was Vietnam’s life-blood, dearly bought. Tung and Bang’s mouths watered hearing the pounding thunk-thunk.

Tung frowned as they approached the low walls that surrounded their little courtyard. All was quiet. Peering through the banana trees he saw mortars and a basket of winnowed rice left unworked in the yard. None of the usual chatter sounded through the door-less threshold. Jumping off the buffalo Tung dashed up the path to see Thuc’s back as she leant through one of the open windows into their home. She heard his approach and beckoned him forward.

He froze, searching his memory for any transgression that could be the cause of an argument. Finding none he edged towards the shaded opening and peered in. His mother, Hoe, was pacing between the family shrine and the low table in the center of the room. Tea had been poured into four small cups. The last of the steam curled into the air. In one corner Ong Chanh Thanh sat with Bach beside him. Que rose from his chair and took Tung by the wrist. He flinched from the unfamiliar contact and was brought into the center of the room.

How can you expect me to give up my eldest son?

Neither Bach nor Ong Chanh Thanh answered. Tung looked around. There were faces in every window. Hoe broke the impasse, continuing on her husband’s behalf, appealing to the mute gallery with rhetorical flourishes.

He is too young. He cannot go. We need him in the fields. She boosted eighteen-month old Lang in her arm, This one is too young, but you can take him when he is older. Give your wife a few more years. She shouldn’t be in that filthy city. Better to live here if you want to have strong children.

Enough! Que’s father said. Feuds had sprung from less.

This is what I want: Tung must go to the city. Em Bach needs a boy to help him in Hanoi. And a Mandarin education is not enough. He needs to go to a French school. Tung shrank under their gaze. Turmoil shadowed his father’s eyes, along the worry-lines that were so familiar. Que was a small man, but he was mentally gifted. He could demonstrate wisdom and logic that were grounded in a pious work-ethic. Morally he was unimpeachable and that gave him a gravitas when dealing with others. Villagers often sought him out to settle disputes; a visible public honor that could easily become a liability. Still, refusing his father was impossible.

Tung can go to Hanoi with Em Bach, he finished, but not as his adopted son. He is my son and that does not change.

Hoe stormed out of the room. Within seconds she was snapping orders at Thuc and the pounding of rice resumed in a storm of activity.

3. Entitled to Something Better, 1935

France has milked it for one hundred years. The people of Indochina are entitled to something better than that.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Tung obsessed over his impending trip. He told Bo about it as they sat fishing together after school. His friend ruminated for a long while with his gaze fixed on the line. But I was going to show you how to catch crickets. It took weeks of practice, a craft Bo had learned since his father had taken him out of school to work in the fields.

Later, knee deep in mud, Bang pestered him with questions. Tung didn’t yet know in what sort of house he would live, whether he’d have servants, eat rich French food or travel about on a bicycle. The tennis ball had come from Hanoi. That was enough to convince Tung it must be a place of rich opportunity, but his Confucian conscience kept him from showing any disrespectful excitement.

Of course you won’t leave before the Ancestors Festival, will you?

Tung stopped. The rice stalks he was replanting hung limp in his hand. Warm mud dripped back into the ooze.

Every year Mai Dong’s peasants joined to honor their local gods. Que’s older brother and their father led a procession from the General’s grave out in the fields. Within the stone walls at a shrine, in the shade of two trees that had twisted together over the years, they lit incense sticks and bowed three times. Ong Chanh Thanh was followed by the extended family and village notables. Banners displaying Chinese characters were held aloft, musicians sounded gongs, and everyone dressed in their traditional robes of ceremony.

As he watched his father’s feet ahead and lengthened his stride to mark the same footprints, Tung pictured the feast ahead. Honoring your ancestors was the mark of a good man. Confucian pieties soaked every legend the children learnt. But benevolence, duty, propriety, conscience and faithfulness were swiftly forgotten as the banquet approached. The procession entered the village and Tung looked for Bo. Their eyes met in mutual excitement.

The afternoon dragged on as the adults conducted ceremonies in the village square. Hundreds of people stood or sat in places according to their social rank. The children were forced to wait while the most venerable ate first. Tung found his way to Bo’s side and they watched with damp eyes as the piles of food on the banquet table slowly diminished. Fried, stewed and steaming foods awaited them; egg rolls, spring rolls, water spinach, bean sprouts and cabbage. The dishes they monitored most carefully between the slow-moving adults were the meat and desserts; chicken and duck cooked in ten different ways, and tray upon tray of candied persimmon, mango and peanuts, roasted watermelon seeds, coconut, sweet potato and sticky rice. Finally, when their silent reverence was rewarded, they fell upon the scattered bowls with relish.

As the moon came out the adults turned their attention to a low stage where an opera troupe began to perform. Tung and Bo soon tired of the dueling rivals, jealous husbands and frustrated young lovers. They snuck back to scavenge amongst the women clearing up. Eventually sated, they wandered off and found a quiet spot to lie down and look at the stars. This was a rare night when the boys didn’t go to bed hungry and they wanted to savor every moment.

I didn’t see your brothers today, Tung said in the stillness.

After a moment he looked and saw the moon reflecting in Bo’s eyes that were filling with tears. Bo sniffed aggressively and wiped himself dry. They knew that emotions had to be repressed and conquered. To display anger, hatred or even a milder emotion resulted in a loss of face.

They didn’t come back from rubber plantations, Bo replied. They haven’t sent any money back either, like they promised. Mother is leaving to find them. Tung remembered how Bo’s father had sent his eldest sons south in search of work. He also remembered how their father had tried to sell Que one of their family plots. Que had refused knowing Bo’s father would drink away the money. If he continued to alienate more family members, Bo would eventually become responsible for him.

The night sky was bright and the moon cast their shadows as they walked towards Tung’s house hand in hand. He wished Bo could come with him and felt guilty for the opportunity to leave. At the courtyard Tung turned and put out his hand like grown-ups did when they said goodbye. He couldn’t articulate this conflict of emotions. Best friends, was all he could think to say as they shook hands.

Always, Bo replied. He turned and ran up the path between two small plots and onto the road out of the hamlet.

A week later Tung sat next to his father in a huge train carriage as it rumbled along the trestle above a plane of paddy fields and dikes. The throbbing heat of the great engine and bursts of steam had left him trembling as the train entered the station. Now that they were underway and sat tightly together on a worn bench, he relaxed. He hadn’t seen Bo since the night of the festival, but he’d been ruminating and now had the opportunity to question his father.

Why did Bo’s brothers not come back for the Ancestor’s Festival, Thay?

Que’s eyes softened as he considered how detailed to make his response.

They left to find work. There is not enough land in Mai Dong any more. Your Uncle Bach, he is the same. He is the youngest so he doesn’t get any land.

But Uncle Bach returned.

The plantations are not good places. People go and do not come back.

Que recited a list of Mai Dong’s youth who had left because a succession of new French taxes had forced them to seek work as laborers. Great railroad projects, tin mines and rubber plantations had become slave camps for thousands of poor Vietnamese. Lured away with the promise of regular wages, or press-ganged in by the local French employers, workers were forced to buy their food at usurious prices and pay for accommodation, putting them in debt to their employers.

We cannot hunt in the jungle any more, or collect fruit or wood. They made a rule that you have to have a license to make rice wine, and made us buy at high rates. So we stopped drinking it. Then they said, ‘Every village must consume this much alcohol every month’. Otherwise they fine you.

Que was talking low but other passengers began listening.

Now they even tax our salt. Salt! Who can live without salt?

As one of the village notables, Que was responsible for deciding how the village would pay these taxes. Naturally he turned a blind eye to the illegal distilling and ignored continued use of the jungle.  He also helped fix the tax lists to understate the number of villagers. In spite of these efforts Mai Dong was heavily indebted.

There are more prisons than schools in our country now. That tennis ball you used to admire. Where do you think the rubber came from? The blood of our people!

Emboldened by his father’s candor, Tung asked, But why do you want me to go to a French school?

Que didn’t answer.

Tung looked around. The attention of everyone within earshot was on them, every face impassive and unreadable. Que had no choice. It was the will of his father; it might as well have been the will of heaven. It was also the boy’s best chance of surviving whatever fate had in store for their village.

4. Wisdom of the Vanquished, 1935

They [the French] mistook the wisdom of the vanquished, who became shrewdly cautious and openly submissive, for apathy.

Joseph Buttinger

Uncle Bach was the youngest of Ong Chanh Thanh’s five sons. He was also the smartest. Unlike Que whose intelligence was rooted in a diligence and austerity that lent itself to the tough life of a farmer, Bach’s skills came without effort. He had a gift for mechanics and could fix anything with moving parts. His brothers regarded him as lazy because the ease of his accomplishments gave him a carefree manner. Encouraged by his father to leave farming behind and learn a trade, Bach moved to Hanoi with his wife and joined the French Army as a mechanic. He fixed everything from plane engines to radios. On regular visits to Mai Dong he’d help pay for improvements to the farm and bring small gifts for his nephews and nieces. The miscarriage of a third child, leaving his wife unable to have any children, had prompted Ong Chanh Thanh to suggest Tung moved to Hanoi.

Bach met Tung and Que at Hanoi’s grand station under a high ceilinged atrium in front of its triple-arched entrance. Awestruck, Tung wanted to linger, but the adults ushered him briskly out into a square teeming with rickshaws.

As they climbed in the old puller noticed Que and Tung’s peasant clothes. Is this their first time in the city?

It is for the boy, Bach answered.

I can give him a tour. Would you like to see the Opera House and the Governor’s Palace? the man asked over his shoulder.

Que was about to object, knowing the sites were at opposite ends of the city and both the wrong side of the river from their