HN geography: Ho Tuyen Quang?
From: Dan Duffy <dduffy@email.unc.edu>
Date: Mar 21, 2006 3:05 PM
Subject: [Vsg] HN geography: Ho Tuyen Quang?
Reading Paradise of the Blind to speak to a friend's class next week, I
notice the narrator of Duong Thu Huong's novel of Ha Noi in the 1980s
passing by lake "Tuyen Quang."
I never noticed that name in the novel before, or when I lived in Ha
Noi. But I spent last winter writing about a battle at Tuyen Quang.
So, which lake is that? The only one I am clear on, I am sorry to say,
is Hoan Kiem. When did they name Tuyen Quang lake? Why did they choose
the name?
From: Ngan Dinh <ngandinh@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 21, 2006 3:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] HN geography: Ho Tuyen Quang?
Could it be Lake "Thuyen Quang" (also called "Thie^`n Quang")? - across from Lenin Central Park.
Tuyen Quang is a province north west of Hanoi -
From: Markus Taussig <markustaussig@mac.com>
Date: Mar 21, 2006 3:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] HN geography: Ho Tuyen Quang?
That was my guess, too. Also known these days as Lake "Ha le"... which comes from a French word, I think I was told? Some serious big wigs live in the neighborhood, so there was a really expensive project to pretty it up a couple years ago.
From: Dan Duffy <dduffy@email.unc.edu>
Date: Mar 21, 2006 4:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] HN geography: Ho Tuyen Quang?
OK, I do know that lake. Thanks.
The question remains who named it, and why and when. For instance, is
it a post-colonial name, for the revolutionary base at Tuyen Quang (also
spelled Thuyen), or even the anti-French resistance by the Black Flags?
Or has it been named that forever? A transformation of Thien Quang,
about some fairy?
I'll have to go look at those wonderful books of the last ten years
about HN history. Unless one of the authors is online and knows?
Dan
From: Khoa Le <khoa.le2@verizon.net>
Date: Mar 21, 2006 4:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] HN geography: Ho Tuyen Quang?
Dan,
The correct name of this lake is "Thuye^`n Quang" or "Thuye^`n Cuo^ng" (Thuye^`n not Tuye^n.) As you know, Tuye^n Quang is the name of a province in North Vietnam). The answers to your questions could be found in Dao Duy Anh's book about the history of Hanoi, published circa 1960's. I can't remember the exact title of the book. There must be more recent books about Hanoi or Thang Long which could be more easily located.
From: Khoa Le <khoa.le2@verizon.net>
Date: Mar 21, 2006 4:27 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] HN geography: Ho Tuyen Quang?
Yes , "thuye^`n" is also pronounced "thie^`n" (which is more scholarly), and
"Thuye^`n Quang" means (I guess) "the light of dhya^na" (Zen Buddhism). The French named it "Lac Halais" and the Vietnamese called it "Ho^` Ha-le".
From: John Kleinen <kleinen@uva.nl>
Date: Mar 22, 2006 1:29 AM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] HN geography: Ho Tuyen Quang?
Lake Thuyen Quang also figures in Bao Ninh's novel The Destiny of Love, better known as the Sorrow of War.The lake in down-town Hanoi near Nguyen Du road was named in the French period Lac Halais, after C. Halais, a French "maire" of Hanoi, if I remember well. See his Hanoi et ses environs. [P., Extrait du Bulletin de la Société de Géographie Commerciale], s.d. [vers la fin XIXè s.] In-16, dos toilé, cartonnage souple, pp 539-548.
From: Dan Tsang <dtsang@lib.uci.edu>
Date: Mar 22, 2006 1:48 AM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] HN geography: Ho Tuyen Quang?
I lived near the lake, water was being drained out of the lake in 2004.
Seemed for many months...
dan
From: Dan Duffy <dduffy@email.unc.edu>
Date: Mar 22, 2006 1:59 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] HN geography: Ho Tuyen Quang?
Thanks all for clearing that up.
Since my journey to Tuyen Quang started with colonial avenue in Ha Noi
named for Jules Bobillot, I was eager to find the place he was wounded
also commemorated in Ha Noi, to the point of ignoring actual spelling.
Oh well.
We could really use an historical gazeteer of street names, to convey
the historical sense a person gets navigating a town in Viet Nam, and
providing as well the elided pasts.
That's the story of the Paris chapter of my dissertation, the forgotten
histories of Viet Nam written on its street signs, with all the
diasporic Vietnamese activity going on around them.
It's a rich way to remember what's happened, which could be applied as
well to VN. The intuitive attraction of the procedure keeps leading to
well-packed books like Phillipe Papin's.
One of the good recent Ha Noi histories is by the urbanist William
Logan, who just walked in and used all that bibliography to great
advantage.
But a simple gazeteer, arranged as a reference book, on the Web and
crawled by search engines, would be great for those who don't have
fabulous social science funding and a staff of researchers to make their
points, and who don't enjoy the privileges of this marvelous listserv.
Dan