Women Becoming Readers in Vietnam
From: David Marr
Date: Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 5:32 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Has anyone written about how women became readers in Vietnam? There's an excellent review of Belinda Jack's The Woman Reader, by Joan Acocella, in the 15 October issue of The New Yorker. In Europe, reading opportunities for women increased from the 18th century, and female authors definitely made their mark in the next century (Jane Austen, the Brontes, George Eliot). I suspect the story in Vietnam could be picked up from the early 19th century, but only gain momentum in the 1920s and 1930s. Any thoughts?
David Marr
ANU
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 5:47 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I would not know how to go about documenting female readership before the 20th century.
There seems, however, to have been a decrease in female authorship after the end of the 18th century-early 19th century. Think about Doan thi Diem, Ho Xuan Huong, Ba Huyen Thanh Quan.
There is probably a correlation with the renewed emphasis on the Confucian exam system as THE path to social advancement and the concurrent de-emphasis on the use of nom, which was the preferred writing mode of women.
A complicating factor is the introduction of quoc ngu, first in the South, and later in the North and Center. Additionally, it is hard to infer literacy levels from school attendance, especially when it comes to women.
My then 12-year old aunt seems to have been the only female who could read in the Rach Gia village where my grandfather moved his family around 1919. She went around reading Chinese historical novels in quoc ngu translations to rich but illiterate women. But she was educated at home, as was my mother.
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From: Shawn McHale
Date: Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 6:54 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I address this a bit in my essay in Essays into Vietnamese Pasts, edited by Keith Taylor, as well as in my book. But this is not the focus of either work. In the 1920s and 1930s, it is interesting how many conservative commentators thought that women learning to read would lead to depravity, sexual license, and suicide. . . .
Shawn McHale
--
Shawn McHale
Associate Professor of History
George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
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From: Niels Fink Ebbesen
Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 2:18 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Interesting question! Just a personal note: My mother-in-law was born a.1924 in a not wealthy, but well-off family of farmers living 50 km west of Hanoi. She learned to read when joining Viet Minh in the aftermath of the August Revolution. However, as a young girl she had learned large parts of Kieu (etc) by heart. I guess her story is similar to that of most women living in rural areas.
Best,
Niels
_________________________________
Niels Fink Ebbesen
Senior consultant, MA
DanViet ApS
Vestergade 16, 2.
1456 Copenhagen K - Denmark.
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From: Alec Soucy
Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 2:47 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Was there material that was being published with women as a target audience? If so, did they increase in variety and in the numbers printed?
Alec Soucy
Saint Mary's University
Canada
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 4:26 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The first newspaper aimed at women would be Nu Gioi Chung published by Suong Nguyet Anh, the daughter of the scholar Nguyen Dinh Chieu, in Saigon in 1919. It lasted about a year. The next journal would be Phu Nu Tan Van in 1930. It is unclear, however, how many women actually read these papers, as opposed to men.
The College des Jeunes Filles Annamites was opened in Saigon in 1902.
Interesting anecdote from Niels. The Tale of Kieu was not considered suitable for young women
(dan ong cho doc Phan Tran, dan ba cho doc Thuy Van Thuy Kieu). Nonetheless, it was common for illiterate Vietnamese to learn long passages of poetry by heart. In fact, many revolutionaries wrote poems intended to rouse audiences to action. Poetry would be far easier to memorize than prose.
Hue Tam Ho Tai
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From: David Brown
Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 11:39 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Another personal note (enough of these might constitute a sample!): My wife recalls that her mother and all but one of her numerous aunts -- born in the 1920's -- could read & write. Her mother's family was in Sadec (Vinh Long), her father's from Can Tho; both relocated into Saigon in the late 1940's. These were not gentry, but rather middle-class townspeople. Her paternal grandfather was a doctor of Asian medicine. He had two wives, who were sisters. The second, my wife's 'bà n?i,' also could read and write, though apparently not fluently.
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From: Shawn McHale
Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 11:40 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Alec,
Interesting question. You have probably seen Buddhist publications that have listed, on the back, female donors who covered publication costs. Was this the target audience of some of these publications? "Perhaps. In the colonial period, there was common sense that much popular literature -- Chinese morality tales, ghost stories, "novels" (ti?u thuy?t) were targeted at women. This was a view shared by French commmentators as well as Vietnamese. In my book I quoted Hoàng Ng?c Hi?n, who gives perhaps an excessively stylized view of the public and gendered realm of print:
Before the Revolution [of 1945] . . ., I studied in French-language schools. In my family there were two bookcases. The French-language bookcase belonged to my father, a primary school teacher. My father--who believed that only French was the key to knowledge and culture--only allowed us to read books in French. Many friends, in reading my literary criticism, have praised its clarity. Perhaps I acquired "French clarity" from my father's bookcase. The Vietnamese-language bookcase belonged to my mother and sister. But when my father was gone, I went to the Vietnamese-language bookcase and snatched the opportunity to devour all that I could read: Ngày nay, Tao Ðàn, Ti?u thuy?t th? b?y, the prose of the Self-Strengthening Literary Group, the novels of Vu Tr?ng Ph?ng, the stories of Nguy?n Tuân, Nam Cao . . . . My mother's and sister's bookcase imparted to me a love of the Vietnamese language and of Vietnamese literature.
We don't have to believe this view. But I think there is a germ of truth in this representation of reading habits. Incidentally, even radicals in the 1930s on the Ph? n? tân van newspaper counseled against the dangers of reading frothy and depraved novels. Given what Vietnamese download off the internet these days, such sentiments seem quaint, of course.
Shawn McHale
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From: Alec Soucy
Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 11:50 AM
To: "mchale@gwu.edu" <mchale@gwu.edu>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Shawn and David,
While in Hanoi last fall I collected digital copies of many of the early magazines, which I am just starting to go through now. My initial impression is that these reformist publications were mostly aimed at men. I happen to have one of these donation pages open at the moment (Duoc Tue from 1938) and most of the names are male (all as far as I can tell, but I am not completely certain).
I will have to keep my eye on this and will give an update when I know more.
Alec
Saint Mary's University
Halifax, Canada
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From: Nhung Tran
Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 12:03 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>, "mchale@gwu.edu" <mchale@gwu.edu>
Dear Alec,
I have seen 17th and 18th century sutras where the preface list names of female donors who paid for the (wood block printing). I have copies of regulations from a Vietnamese con-sorority from the 18th, 19th and 20th century that require all sisters to practice their characters each day (the regulations were written in nom, with the exception of one printed in 1923).
There were a number of texts published in the 1920s that appeared to appeal to women, categorized under women's names, categorized as "Women's Books," but as Hue-Tam and Shawn have suggested elsewhere, they very well could have been written by men and for men.
The sutras were likely not read by women, but I think the regulation is pretty convincing evidence that women we being taught to read in the consororities.
Nhung
********************
Nhung Tuyet Tran
Canada Research Chair &
Associate Professor of History
Director, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies
University of Toronto
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 12:56 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
My aunt recalls being asked by a male fellow member of the Revolutionary Youth League to contribute to the column
"Loi Ban Gai" in Than Chung (which happened to be published by her own aunt's husband) which he mostly wrote. In Gaungzhou, the League also published Thanh Nien with a column aimed at women, to which my aunt may have contributed an article or two (everyone had to), but, given the composition of the League, it was mostly written by men.
Going back in time, there have been claims that not all poems attributed to Ho Xuan Huong were from her pen.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
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From: Liam Kelley <liam@hawaii.edu>
Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 1:54 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Some of the "spirit writing" (giang but) texts from the early 20th century list women donors. The ones revealed by spirits in the Mother Goddess cult were definately directed at women and were in Nom. However, I recall reading prefaces in classical Chinese to those same works that explained that there is a difference between writing (van) and sound (am), referring to texts in Nom, and that sound was for women and "stupid people" (political correctness had not been invented yet. . .). Given that it is not necessarily much easier (or at all) to read Nom than classical Chinese, my guess would be that these works were read "to" women until they memorized them, which probably wasn't that hard as they were usually in luc bat. However, I have no idea if it would have been a literate man or woman who would have done that.
Liam Kelley
University of Hawaii
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From: David Marr
Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 4:11 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Who would be considered the first female novelist or short story writer in Vietnam?
David Marr
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From: George Dutton <dutton@humnet.ucla.edu>
Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 4:25 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Most of the things I've seen give credit to Hu?nh Th? B?o Hòa (1896-1982), who was from Ðà N?ng. Her first novel was Tây Phuong M? Nhon (1927; Beauty from the West (Western Beauty). There is a relatively recent Vietnamese book about her: N? si Hu?nh Th? B?o Hòa, Ngu?i ph? n? vi?t ti?u thuy?t d?u tiên (NXB Van h?c, Hà N?i, 2003), though I have not seen it.
George
_______________________________
George Dutton
Vice Chair and Associate Professor
UCLA Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
290 Royce Hall
Box 951540
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1540
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From: Christina Firpo <christina.firpo@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 5:38 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Very interesting discussion!
By the 1930s (and possibly as early as the 1920s, I can't recall off the top of my head), many "mainstream" newspapers had sections on women's interests and childcare. Many of those articles are addressed to mothers.
Best,
Christina
--
Christina Firpo, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Southeast Asian History
CalPoly University
San Luis Obispo, California
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From: Philippe Peycam <phpey@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 7:34 PM
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
In Saigon, following the Nu Gioi Chung's unique precedent mentioned by Ho Tai (the paper was launched thanks to the support of Governor General Albert Sarraut but was forced to close down by the colonial authorities after the publication of a subversive article), newspapers' supplements aimed at women readers began to appear, first with the Dong Phap Thoi Bao in 1926 under Diep Van Ky's chief editorship. Before that, there were women's sections in a number of newspapers (Nam Ky Kinh Te Bao, Cong Luan Bao, Dong Phap Thoi Bao, etc.). Judging by some of the discussions they featured, it is clear that a number of women contributed and therefore read these sections. In early 1929, the non-serialized Nu Gioi Tong Tho opened a more outwardly feminist agenda under the chief editorship of Ms. Dang Thi Hoi, wife of the activist Nguyen Duc Rieu, himself editor-in-chief of Kich Truong Tap Chi. The magazine attracted a readership of about 3,000 which was not bad at all given the fact that it wasn't allowed to appear on a regular based (and face prior authorization and censorship). Nu Gioi Tong Tho had articles on women's conditions in Vietnam and the rest of the world and took a strong feminist agenda that went in parallel with the more widespread anticolonial nationalist agenda of the opposition press.
Philippe Peycam