Translation: quan tỉnh
From: Dien Nguyen <nguyendien519@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 6, 2023 3:30 PM
To: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] translation help needed for short phrase
The 3 top mandarins in a province pre-1945 were tổng đốc or tuần phủ (depending on the importance and size of the province), bố chánh and án sát.
Mr Tạ Chương Phùng could have been either bố chánh or án sát in Bình Định.
Nguyễn Điền
Canberra
From: Davis,Bradley C.(History) <davisbrad@easternct.edu>
Sent: Thursday, April 6, 2023 11:08 AM
To: tran_n_a@yahoo.com; Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>; Hanh Nguyen <hanhnguyen.hs08@nycu.edu.tw>; mchale@gwu.edu
Cc: vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] translation help needed for short phrase
Professor Marr's 1945 can probably tell us for certain, and this is just a guess looking forward from the nineteenth century, but government offices were probably renamed from the county-district level upwards in the 1940s, either during the occupation by the Japanese empire or after the abdication. As an administrative office, "Tuan phu" probably vanished in the 1940s.
Unrelatedly, "tỉnh trưởng" is a really interesting term for an office. There seems to not be a precedent for it, since it does not appear in Đỗ Văn Ninh's dictionary of offices, which lists terms going back to the Han empire. "Trưởng" is ubiquitous for very local-level offices in most periods, and also shows up in paperwork for specific officials, but I have never seen it apply to anything at the tỉnh-level. Sounds like a really interesting question for someone working on the RVN!
More relatedly, although I cannot find it on WorldCat, a book by Quách Tấn could be helpful. In 1965, when Nam Cường published Non Nước Bình Định, they advertised Nhân Vật Bình Định as a forthcoming publication. Hopefully it exists! Unless you have already seen it, that could be another source for information about Tạ Chương Phùng.
Brad
Bradley Camp Davis (he/him)
Associate Professor
Department of History
Webb Hall 333
Eastern Connecticut State University
83 Windham Street
Willimantic, CT 06226
US
Spring 2023 Office Hours:M2-4 W2-3 F2-4
Book Review Editor, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
Series Co-Editor, HdO Section 3 - Southeast Asia, Brill
https://brill.com/view/serial/HO3
From: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 6, 2023 10:11 AM
To: tran_n_a@yahoo.com; hanhnguyen.hs08@nycu.edu.tw; mchale@gwu.edu; davisbrad@easternct.edu
Cc: vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] translation help needed for short phrase
I agree that tuan phu would not have been used after 1954. It solidies my belief that "quan Binh Dinh" referred to a generic position. Whoever wrote that descriptor did not specify the position.
I would not have thought that a "tinh truong" would be described as a "quan." So I agree that the phrase reers to his earlier, pre-1954, position. He was a very dignified gentleman when I met him in 1965.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Harvard University emerita
From: tran_n_a@yahoo.com <tran_n_a@yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 6, 2023 9:41 AM
To: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>; Hanh Nguyen <hanhnguyen.hs08@nycu.edu.tw>; mchale@gwu.edu; Davis,Bradley C.(History) <davisbrad@easternct.edu>
Cc: vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] translation help needed for short phrase
I just realized I didn't clarify that Tạ Chương Phùng became province chief in 1954, at which point the position was called tỉnh trưởng. I've never seen tuần phủ or tri phủ used for the 1954-63 period in the Republic of Vietnam. Choosing to describe Tạ Chương Phùng as quan tỉnh Bình Định seems to be recalling his earlier career in the imperial administration rather than his short stint as tỉnh trưởng. The sources I've seen seem to emphasize that he was elderly and traditional. Not sure if that changes anything or not.
Cheers,
Nu-Anh
From: tran_n_a@yahoo.com <tran_n_a@yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 5, 2023 6:13 AM
To: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>; Hanh Nguyen <hanhnguyen.hs08@nycu.edu.tw>; mchale@gwu.edu; Davis,Bradley C.(History) <davisbrad@easternct.edu>
Cc: vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] translation help needed for short phrase
Dear Brad and others,
Thank you for all of your thoughtful suggestions on the translation. This is all so interesting! It's funny that such a short, simple phrase could mean so many different things. I will mull over it.
Cheers,
Nu-Anh
From: Davis,Bradley C.(History) <davisbrad@easternct.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, April 5, 2023 5:26 AM
To: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>; Hanh Nguyen <hanhnguyen.hs08@nycu.edu.tw>; mchale@gwu.edu
Cc: vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] translation help needed for short phrase
Systematically, the head of a province (after 1832 and into the 1940s, as Hue Tam reminds us!) was usually a ‘tuan phu’ or ‘governor,’ although imperial ‘tuan phu’ could also have charge of more than one province. ‘Governors-general’ or ‘tong doc’ might be responsible for 2-3 provinces. As Woodside has it, this was a departure from the system used by the Ming and Qing, despite using the same terms. Nguyen Huu Chau Phan also describes this system in his dissertation. ‘Quan’ or ‘quan tinh’ here just means an official without referring to a specific office but is probably above tri huyen (head of district) level.
Both in English and in Vietnamese, the distinction is important. With few exceptions, most officials did not formally retain titles connected to their posts after retiring from service. Calling him a 'provincial official' does not imply he has an office at the time. However, 'quan tinh' does imply a degree of gravitas, specifically some who held/holds one of the three 'tinh'-level postings, governor, military commander, treasurer.
Brad
Bradley Camp Davis (he/him)
Associate Professor
Department of History
Webb Hall 333 - Spring 2023 Office Hours: MF2-4, W2-3
Eastern Connecticut State University
83 Windham Street
Willimantic, CT
US
Reviews Editor, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
Series Co-Editor, HdO Section 3 - Southeast Asia, Brill
https://brill.com/view/serial/HO3
From: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 4, 2023 10:12 PM
To: Hanh Nguyen <hanhnguyen.hs08@nycu.edu.tw>; mchale@gwu.edu
Cc: vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] translation help needed for short phrase
" Province chief" implies that 1. the Vietnamese is "quan tinh". But Nu Anh asked about "quan Binh Dinh."
1.One would have to know that Ta Chuong Phung once served as province chief to make the inference that "quan Binh Dinh" meant "quan tinh Binh Dinh" and would translate into province chief of Binh Dinh.
2. In fact, I have not seen "quan tinh" as an official title in the list of Nguyen period administrative titles that were preserved during the colonial period. A province chief would be called Tuan phu.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Harvard University emerita
From: Hanh Nguyen <hanhnguyen.hs08@nycu.edu.tw>
Sent: Tuesday, April 4, 2023 8:22 PM
To: mchale@gwu.edu
Cc: vsg vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] translation help needed for short phrase
Dear Prof. Nu-Anh Tran and List,
Given that Tạ Chương Phùng once served as the province chief of Bình Định province, understanding "quan tỉnh" as "chief of Bình Định province" would make perfect sense. If you're concerned that "quan" does not necessarily translate to "chief", "mandarin" would do. But I think the translation "mandarin from Bình Định province" does not highlight the fact that he was a provincial-level mandarin (as opposed to, for example, a district-level mandarin, such as "quan huyện"). And because "quan huyện" was used to refer to the mandarin who was chief of a rural district, the less common term "quan tỉnh" should perhaps be best understood as chief of a province. I hope this helps.
Best regards,
Lan-Hanh Nguyen
(Ph.D. candidate, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan)
From: Davis,Bradley C.(History) <davisbrad@easternct.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 4, 2023 5:01 PM
To: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>; nxb315kio@gmail.com; mchale@gwu.edu; Tran, Nu-Anh <nu-anh.tran@uconn.edu>
Cc: vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] translation help needed for short phrase
Nu-Anh,
Probably 'provincial official' for quan tỉnh. Quan sometimes substitutes for one or more specific positions when describing an official or several officials. Specific offices like governor, treasurer, governor-general, etc have specific terms during the Nguyen, but 'quan' 官 refers to someone with an official position in the imperial administration. Binh Dinh provincial official might convey that. Some scholars prefer 'official' to 'mandarin,' but that sidebar might not be too useful here.
Brad
Bradley Camp Davis (he/him)
Associate Professor
Department of History
Webb Hall 333 - Spring 2023 Office Hours: MF2-4, W2-3
Eastern Connecticut State University
83 Windham Street
Willimantic, CT
US
Reviews Editor, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
Series Co-Editor, HdO Section 3 - Southeast Asia, Brill
https://brill.com/view/serial/HO3
From: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 4, 2023 4:40 PM
To: nxb315kio@gmail.com; mchale@gwu.edu
Cc: vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] translation help needed for short phrase
I had the same thought as Tan and would translate quan Binh Dinh as mandarin in Binh Dinh. It would fit the image I had of him, an old fashioned elderly gentleman.
I met Ta Chuong Phung in 1965 when he came with Ta Chi Dai Truong to meet the widow and children of Ta Chi Diep (aka Nguyen Phan Chau) who, we believed, had been assassinated by Tran Kim Tuyen some time in 1963 because he had learned of Diem' s negotiations with Hanoi. In my message to Nu Anh, I wrote that Ta Chuong Phung was Ta Chi Diep's father, but it seems he was Dai Truong's.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Harvard University emerita
From: Tan Pham <nxb315kio@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 4, 2023 3:53 PM
To: mchale@gwu.edu
Cc: vsg vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] translation help needed for short phrase
Hello,
It seems to me that in this context, quan is a generic term for an official, so I would suggest a Mandarin of Bình Định province best fits the "quan tỉnh Bình Định".
If he were the Provincial Chief, he would be named Tuần Phủ or Tri Phủ. If not, he could be a District Chief or Tri Huyện. From the district level up, the mandarins are called quan. See https://ngotoc.vn/Nghien-cuu-Trao-doi/cap-bac-quan-lai-trong-xa-hoi-phong-kien-567.html.
Kind regards,
Tan Pham (NZ)
Author of a book series on Vietnamese history: A Traveller’s Story of Vietnam’s Past.
Volume One: The Bronze Drums and The Earrings. ISBN: 978-0-473-59804-4.
Volume Two: One Thousand Years - The Stories of Giao Châu, the Kingdoms of Linyi, Funan and Zhenla. ISBN 978-0-473-63527-5.
From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 4, 2023 3:29 PM
To: tran_n_a@yahoo.com
Cc: vsg vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] translation help needed for short phrase
I would translate "quan tỉnh" as "Province Chief." This seems to be like the usage here, in 1938, in Annam:
Shawn McHale
George Washington University
From: tran_n_a@yahoo.com <tran_n_a@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 4, 2023 2:15 PM
To: vsg vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Vsg] translation help needed for short phrase
Dear list,
I am reading a document that contains a phrase which I am uncertain how to translate. This document is from 1960 and lists various individuals and their current or former titles. One of the individuals is Tạ Chương Phùng, and he is described as "quan tỉnh Bình Định." I am perplexed by the meaning of quan and it's relationship to Bình Định province in this context.
Background: Tạ Chương Phùng was from Bình Định province and passed some level of the Confucian exams during the last years that the exams were given, probably 1918 or 1919. He is described in various sources as cử nhân and/or tú tài, so it sounds like he passed the provincial exams (thi hương) in his home province. He appears to have been employed in the lower levels of the Nguyễn administration in central Vietnam in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1940s, he favored independence, opposed French colonialism, and at some point also turned against communism. In 1954, when Ngô Đình Diệm came to power, Tạ Chương Phùng briefly served as the province chief of Bình Định province but later joined the political opposition against Diệm.
My question is not about Tạ Chương Phùng and what positions he occupied but how to translate "quan tỉnh Bình Định" as faithfully as possible.
Does quan serve as a generic term for government official, so perhaps it should be translated as "government official from Bình Định province"? I have seen texts from the 1950s that use quan to refer to district officials in northern Vietnam in the 1940s or earlier. I have also seen it used in texts from the 1950s to refer to government officials during the colonial period regardless of whether the official worked for the French colonial or Vietnamese imperial administration.
Or does quan refer specifically to Tạ Chương Phùng's time serving the Nguyễn administration, so perhaps it should be translated as "mandarin from Bình Định province" or something similar?
Or does quan refer Tạ Chương Phùng's tenure as the province chief of Bình Định, and perhaps it should be translated as "chief of Bình Định province"? I have never seen quan used as a synonym for province chief (tỉnh trưởng) in the 1954-1975 period, but perhaps others have.
I would appreciate any thoughts VSG members have on the matter.
Cheers,
Nu-Anh Tran
Associate Professor
UConn