Literature on effects of agent orange
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 02:35:33 -0800 (PST)
From: "Elise DeVido" <aldi_tw@yahoo.com>
To: Vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: [Vsg] Vietnamese literature on effects of agent orange?
Dear List:
Does anyone know of Vietnamese literature (fiction, poetry...NOT "scientific literature")on the effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam?
Thank you,
Elise DeVido
Dept of History
National Taiwan Normal University
Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2006 15:34:44 -0800
From: "Diane Fox (dnfox)" <dnfox@hamilton.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Vietnamese literature on effects of agent orange?
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
There is a book of vignettes called "Di Hoa Chien Tranh", by Minh
Chuyen, a writer and journalist from Thai Binh. One story from the
collection that is particularly well-known is "Vao Chua Gap Ai". I
believe the stories hover somewhere between journalism and literature.
Diane
Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 06:42:43 -0500
From: "Dan Duffy" <dduffy@email.unc.edu>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Vietnamese literature on effects of agent orange?
If literature includes movies, there is a fairly recent documentary by
the great Ha Noi filmmaker who made How to Behave. About a photographer
who works in Lenin park and his family. The name of the director and
his work are escaping me but Diane Fox and Eric Henry and Nguyen Ba
Chung will know.
It's a deliberately transcendent film that approaches universal
humanity through the small interactions of the photographer, a veteran, and his
wife and daughter. She is badly deformed, it would seem from her
father's contact with the chemicals at the 17th parallel.
The challenge in using the film in research or teaching would be to
have anything to say about it, or to want to say anything. Descriptive and
intuitive work, better than anything else you are going to for an hour
and half, not to be missed.
Dan
From: "Nina" <nina@easynet.fr>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Vietnaemse literature on effects of agent orange?
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 15:14:49 +0100
Dear Elise:
Dissident writer Duong Thu Huong's most recent novel NO MAN's LAND (Hyperion, 2005 and upcoming in French as Terre des Oublis, January 2006, Editions Sabine Wespieser) deals with the effects of Agent Orange in its tragic, transgenerational legacy - but also as a powerful metaphor for the country's political fate.
Nina McPherson
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 12:07:23 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: "Susan Hammond" <frdev@mindspring.com>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>,
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Vietnaemse literature on effects of agent orange?
The film is a Story from the Corner of the Park by Tran Van Thuy. Thuy
had given us permission to distribute copies of the film ($10.00 for
VHS or DVD) for educational purposes. Though i must warn that the copy
that we have is not the best quality, the sound is not very good though
you can hear the dialogue fine enough when you watch it on TV when you
broadcast is through a sound systme onto a screen there is a lot of
background noise. The DVD that was made in Hanoi from the master copy that
we got from Thuy also has issue with the sound. We have been trying to
locate a better copy but so far have not had any luck.
Susan
From: "Joan Garnett" <henryhme@bellsouth.net>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Vietnaemse literature on effects of agent orange?
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 16:30:18 -0500
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Tran Van Thuy , film maker
"On Being Kind" (45 minutes; 1989; banned for a number of years by the
Vietnamese government)
"A Story From the Corner of the Park', 1996.
Tran Van thuy was born in 1940 in Nam Dinh, North Viet Nam. After several years of doing anthropoligical work focussed on an ethnic minority in Vietnam, he graduated in 1966 in Cinematography at the Vietnam Film School and served as a combat cameraman from 1966 to 1972. >From 1972 to 1977, he was at the Moscow Film College, graduating in Film Directing in 1977. Since 1977 he has been working for the Vietnam Central Documentary Film Unit and the Vietnam Cinema Association. Tran Van Thuy is currently a Rockefeller Fellow at the William Joiner Center at the University of Massachusetts in Boston.
His two most well-known films (both multiple prize-winners) are "On Being Kind"; (45 minutes; 1989; banned for a number of years by the Vietnamese government) and "The Sound of the Violin in My Lai (30 minutes;1998). Other films (also including many prize-winners) are: My People My Village, (1969); Betrayal, (1979); Hanoi In One's Eye, (1982; banned for five years); The Blind Master Examining the Elephant, (1990; made in Europe); Tolerance
For the Dead, (1994); Once There Was a Village, (1994); and A Story From the Corner of the Park, 1996.
The film "On Being Kind," which produced a sensation when in was released in Vietnam, is ostensibly an exploration in film of a Vietnamese concept ("tu te": to be meticulously kind and correct in small things) but it is also a devastating inditement of the emptiness? of official government slogans and of the indifference of the Vietnamese government to the real situation of its citizens.
"A Story From the Corner of the Park', is a beautiful film, most definitely related to Agent Orange.
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 22:42:04 -0800
From: "Diane Fox (dnfox)" <dnfox@hamilton.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Vietnaemse literature on effects of agent orange?
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
A couple of quick additions to Dan's very graceful description of Thuy's film. It was made in 1996, at the same time as "Where war has passed", which is also a documentary on the effects of the chemicals used, but less of a meditation, more of a call to arms-- adressed first of all to the VN government, asking it to compensate AO victims as it does those who have lost a limb. "Noi ma chien tranh da di qua" is by Vu Le My and Luong Duc. (also from Hang Phim Trung Uong Tai Lieu va Khoa Hoc)
Thuy's film is 45 minutes long ("Noi..." is 22-28, depending on the version). Journal writing after viewing is indeed perhaps more useful than talking, at least for a time. The talking that does come later is often quite deep and moving. It is the sort of film that can plunge students (and teachers) into much reflection about the
world.
Diane