A dedicated and passionate teacher.

When the Faculty of Literature was located in Me Tri, students traveling from Hanoi to school would often see a small, agile man in a brown suit hurrying from the bus station to the dormitory. That was Associate Professor Nguyen Van Tu, the Vice Dean of the Faculty, whose name and career were intertwined with the arduous wartime years and the Faculty's growth from its evacuation in the mountainous region of Thai Nguyen to various other areas such as Ung Hoa, Van Giang, and Ha Bac...

Having been active since the resistance against the French, Professor Tu had a habit of reacting quickly and decisively during wartime. This habit became ingrained and continued into peacetime. Every staff member greatly admired him. In an instant, one moment he was shaking hands with a colleague or student, the next he was speeding along beside the tram tracks. Before we could even greet him, he was already seated on a bus, his legs crossed. Even though the bus was crowded, he calmly took out a newspaper to read.

Associate Professor, Distinguished Teacher Nguyen Van Tu (1922-1988)

He was a lexicologist and the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Literature, Hanoi University (1971-1984).

During his lifetime, Associate Professor Nguyen Van Tu had a unique style when lecturing. He would often sit with his legs bent, his thighs and ankles tightly twisted together like two ropes. He would sit in that position and passionately lecture on vocabulary for hours, sometimes two hours. Later, many young officials tried to imitate that posture, but couldn't. They even fell over.

His sitting posture also became the subject of many folk songs and other songs. It created a very unique characteristic of Nguyen Van Tu.

According to his autobiography, he was from Nam Ha (formerly). Before becoming a teacher, he had undertaken various revolutionary tasks, starting as a village chairman. Then, over the years, he worked and studied simultaneously, becoming one of the pioneering lexicologists. Once, at a conference, I was quite surprised to see Professor Do Huu Chau cheerfully introduce him as his former teacher.

Rising from a village official, Professor Tu always maintained a simple, often unpretentious style, making people both fond of him and not intimidated by him, even though at that time, the position of Deputy Head of Faculty seemed very high and authoritative.

Throughout the years of evacuation, he and his department traveled everywhere. Everywhere, people saw a university professor always wearing his dark trousers and a short-sleeved, three-pocket shirt made of coarse fabric (if it was summer), running from village to village, supervising work. With the head professor always "hanging high" above, preoccupied with major national affairs and paying little attention to smaller matters, everything fell on his shoulders and that of Associate Professor Do Duc Hieu. Professor Tu, in turn, handled organizational work and student affairs, so he had more frequent contact with students. Because of this, many anecdotes surrounded him. But the funniest anecdote passed down by later generations of students is the story of him "selling the department."

As an administrator, Professor Tu had to handle a lot of work and sign many documents every day. In those days, people were more honest and not as cunning as they are now, and he was naturally easygoing, so he had a habit: whenever a student presented him with a piece of paper, he would immediately pull out the pen tucked in his shirt pocket. His usual question was:

Where should I sign?

Those were the times when he was in a hurry. Normally, he would glance at the document before putting pen to paper. Back then, he often took the Thanh Xuan-Hoan Kiem Lake bus route because his house was all the way on Chan Cam Street, near Viet Duc Hospital. He was very enthusiastic about his work in the department, so every day on duty he would usually finish everything until almost noon before going home. After finishing his work, he would rush to the ferry terminal, afraid of missing the last ferry. He was small, so he ran very fast. Sometimes, even the students couldn't keep up with him.

Knowing his work schedule and easygoing nature, a mischievous student devised a cunning scheme. He drafted a document stating: "The Faculty of Literature is currently in dire need of funds for its staff. It is deemed necessary to sell the faculty to raise money for the Lunar New Year, amounting to 30,000 dong. I have decided to sign this document and accept full responsibility before the University and higher authorities."

Having finished writing, he waited until Professor Tu was running to the bus station and intercepted him on the road. In a cheerful voice, he said:

- Excuse me, sir, I'm in a hurry, so I apologize for bothering you at this hour.

Seeing the bus approaching from a distance, Professor Tu didn't have time to review his notes and immediately pulled out his pen to ask:

Where should I sign?

The polite student:

- Sir, please sign here.

Professor Tu scribbled the document quickly and handed it back to his student. The student took it back to his room. Everyone had a good laugh.

Upon hearing this story, I later recounted it to Professor Tu during a departmental meeting. He chuckled and then remarked:

- It's true that the devil is the first, then the ghost, and thirdly, the student.

Despite being the vice-dean of the department for many years and having countless responsibilities, he remained a passionate and dedicated scientist. Upon retirement, he left behind numerous valuable works whose names are still recorded in the National Library and libraries nationwide.

Associate Professor and Meritorious Teacher Nguyen Van Tu with his friends and colleagues (far right, archival photo)

In terms of teaching, Professor Tu has contributed to training many generations, including those who have become leading experts in vocabulary and semantics, such as Professor Do Huu Chau. Regarding his publications, even while he was still working, not counting his articles, he also produced substantial books such as:Modern Vietnamese vocabulary,Vietnamese words and vocabulary,Thesaurus; not to mention collaborative works such as:Vietnamese language on the path of development(co-authored with Nguyen Kim Than and Nguyen Trong Bau)...

It could be said that the simplicity and somewhat easygoing nature of his personality seemed to be a positive trait of a farmer within an intellectual. It made him approachable and beloved by everyone. I remember during the evacuation, the Faculty moved around a lot, and in every locality, the people were extremely helpful to the Faculty of Literature and its students because, upon meeting him, they saw a truly "revolutionary" figure – a revolutionary who went among the masses, empathizing with and sharing the worries of each individual.

However, Professor Tu's simplicity can sometimes be easily exploited. The most typical example is when an older student misused his signature for illegal purposes.

In those days, under the centrally planned economy, ideological issues were given utmost importance. Therefore, there was a very clear distinction between academic research and the enjoyment of "spiritual nourishment." At Hanoi University, students of the Faculty of Literature received special privileges: monthly, they could watch films or plays that were not widely circulated in society, but were used only within the "internal" research circle. These films often attracted attention from outsiders, so cinema staff occasionally sold tickets to the public at a significantly higher price. Some students, facing financial difficulties, would secretly sell their tickets to earn a little extra money. Knowing that Professor Tu had a very simple signature, an older student, in dire straits, devised a plan to forge his signature to create a document to request a full screening of a newly imported "problematic" foreign film at the Dong Da cinema. Then he resold all the tickets for the screening on the open market. When the screening started, the "cultural protection" police discovered that the audience consisted entirely of street vendors. The screening was immediately halted, and Professor Tu was summoned to the police station for questioning. It was then that Professor Tu realized his signature had been misused. The student was expelled from school, and Professor Tu shook his head in dismay, saying to me:

- I need to change my signature, man. Our students are terrible these days.

When he changed his signature, the strokes only became slightly more pronounced, remaining very simple. But after that, no student did it again because the expulsion served as a warning to them.

Throughout his many years as Vice Dean, Professor Nguyen Van Tu, as well as the Dean's Board at the time, disregarded any personal gain. He lived a life of integrity in every sense of the word. The only exception was the handkerchief in his pocket, which was sometimes "not so clean." This became a very endearing and humorous anecdote about him.

As mentioned above, he was a specialist in Lexicology in his department. In addition, he directly taught courses such as Semantics and Ho Chi Minh's Language to many cohorts. His lectures included explanations of loanwords imported from English and French. Students remember most vividly his way of explaining words. He would enthusiastically exclaim: "What is 'Lơ mu xoa'? It's this. In Vietnamese, we call it a handkerchief..."

As he spoke, he pulled a crumpled, stained handkerchief from his pocket. He did this in every class, so his hands, always covered in chalk dust from writing on the blackboard, had discolored the white handkerchief. Sometimes it even retained a layer of fresh chalk dust from the previous class. Occasionally, the students would burst into laughter. He laughed too. His graying hair was slightly raised.

Overall, Professor Tu's teaching style is very easy to understand. He doesn't pretentiously introduce new concepts that foreign scholars have just presented. Although he speaks French, Chinese, and Russian, he always tries to explain things in the simplest way possible, helping students quickly grasp the basic knowledge of the subject.

Despite his busy schedule, every year he actively participated in supervising graduation theses for students (back then, they weren't called graduation projects as they are now). He was one of the most prolific supervisors. And everyone knows that supervising theses back then was a complete dedication, with no compensation whatsoever.

In the field of science, Professor Nguyen Van Tu was a very diligent person. Despite his demanding administrative duties, he consistently published articles and books. In particular, some of his works required significant effort and genuine dedication, such as...Vietnamese ThesaurusHowever, he still completed it with all his heart. These were truly serious scientific works, which were even presented in France.

Even in his final days, Professor Nguyen Van Tu continued to read and teach his grandchildren. Even in his eighties, he was still writing articles such as...He teaches his grandchild.He dedicated his life to teaching literacy and explaining the meaning of words to the world. He was a truly useful person until his dying day.

Perhaps he was the most carefree and innocent of his generation. That carefree nature allowed him to live a long and peaceful life, and his passing into eternity was as serene as that of an immortal. When his students came to bid him farewell, they found him lying there with a peaceful expression, as if he had no more debts to pay in this world. The state bestowed upon him the title of Distinguished Teacher. But all titles and honors have now vanished into thin air. Only his presence remains, still bustling from the bus station to the faculty office every day, just as he did in the old days.