Remembering Teacher Bui Phung

Author Nguyen Thien Nam (left) and Associate Professor Bui Phung.

First meeting

I met Professor Hoang Trong Phien on the first afternoon of the English class for the young teaching staff of the Vietnamese Language Department in early 1981. At that time, we were 18 newly graduated staff members, personally recruited by Professor Hoang Trong Phien, Head of the Department, from the 21st cohort of the Faculty of Literature, Hanoi University, to prepare for teaching Vietnamese in the Cambodian battlefield. With the vision of a dedicated and capable leader, Professor Hoang Trong Phien proposed that the Ministry of Higher Education and Vocational Training provide funding for a one-year English language training program for this group of young teaching staff, instead of Khmer.

The first three teachers invited to teach this English class were Mr. Bui Phung, a teacher at the Vietnamese Department; Mr. Le Tuan, former interpreter for the Four-Party Military Committee; and Mr. Tran Van.

At the first opening ceremony in the auditorium on the 4th floor of building B7 bis, Mr. Phiến introduced Mr. Bùi Phụng and Mr. Lê Tuấn to us. Regarding Mr. Phụng, Mr. Phiến said: “Mr. Phụng is one of the ‘pillars’ of English in Vietnam today, I repeat, one of the ‘pillars’ of English in Vietnam today.” Mr. Phụng laughed, a laugh I had probably never heard before, resonant, hearty, and incredibly confident. We were also surprised by his robust physique; at that time, Vietnamese people in general were thin, but Mr. Phụng was an exception, tall and strong like a Westerner. Another point that surprised me was that this Mr. Bùi Phụng was actually the same Mr. Bùi Phụng I had read about in collections of Shakespeare's plays, published in the early 1960s under the names of two translators: Bùi Phụng and Bùi Ý. It turned out that Bùi Ý was Mr. Bùi Phụng's uncle, and Mr. Bùi Phụng was only 18 years old when he translated Shakespeare.

After the opening remarks, the class took a short break before resuming the lesson. Mr. Phung asked, "Does anyone know any English yet?" My classmates pointed to me because I had studied English in university and could read some professional documents. But I said, "I can't speak it." He said, "Just say it." I remember saying, "I want to speak English very much, but I don't know how to speak English well," with a strong Vietnamese accent. He said, "Hmm, it sounds like English."

How to speak English

Back in 1981, learning English wasn't as easy as it is now. We studied without textbooks; we had to copy lessons from a book the teacher had compiled. Mr. Le Tuan used a book he was compiling, and Mr. Van used a self-study English book by Vu Ta Lam. It was only when I studied with Mr. Phung that I truly understood how to begin learning to speak English. He told us to start with very simple things, like our daily tasks, writing down a little bit each day and then practicing speaking those simple things. His English was amazing; I was always astonished when I heard him speaking English with British or Australian people. One day during class, he said, "You have to start learning a foreign language early. You're already late now, it's hard to become proficient." I asked, "When did you start learning, sir? Who taught you?" He replied, "That's a long story." I asked, "But you've never been abroad, and you're self-taught, so how do you speak so many different accents—English, Australian, American, etc.?" He smiled and quoted from the Tale of Kieu: "Even a hobby requires much effort." Not only English and French, but he also used Russian and Chinese to teach Vietnamese conveniently. He possessed exceptional language skills and was surprisingly diligent, despite his seemingly romantic appearance. He personally wrote tens of thousands of pages of dictionaries, English textbooks, and translations of dozens of novels. All of this was done with ink pen and later ballpoint pen. His cultural knowledge, and that of many intellectuals of his generation, is something that later generations can never possess.

After about 9 months, we finished our course and prepared for our trip to Cambodia. On my return trips from Cambodia, I always visited my teacher and through him I also got to know many people who were devoted to his English. I remember one time, around the winter of 1983, when I came home for Tet (Lunar New Year), I invited my teacher to dinner at Ly Quoc Su restaurant (at that time, there were only about 4 such restaurants in Hanoi). While we were talking, a group of sailors from an ocean-going ship came to our table to greet my teacher and said, "We've traveled to many countries and used your dictionary a lot. Today we are honored to meet you, and we would like to give you a few packs of 555 cigarettes." At that time, 555 cigarettes were very expensive. My teacher said, "That's great, I'll give them to Trinh when I get back" (my eldest son).

In 1986, I spent over a year back in Hanoi, where my professor called me to join a group writing a Vietnamese textbook for foreigners (often called the K textbook, primarily intended to serve the needs of teaching and learning Vietnamese in Cambodia at that time). At that time, my professor was entrusted by the Faculty, the University, and the Ministry to be the chief editor of this book. It was then that I realized how relentlessly he pushed for the work. In just three months, our group completed two volumes, though only three people directly wrote them: Mr. Vu Van Thi, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuan, and myself. Around that time, I was also the Secretary of the Faculty's Youth Union, and we organized an English class for the Union. Several older members enthusiastically participated, such as Ms. Bich Thanh and Mr. Pham Tuan Khoa… We invited my professor to teach as well. Besides him, we also invited Professor Nguyen Quoc Hung, Professor Vu Ngoc Tu, and three volunteer native-speaking students to help. It was the Youth Union's English class, but it was ideal because it had the best English teachers at the time. I personally organized the program, invited a teacher to teach translation, Mr. Hung to teach listening, Mr. Tu to teach grammar and speaking, and three foreign students to teach speaking. This class met five afternoons a week.

A person with a talent for speaking.

Wherever Professor Phung sat, people would often burst into laughter because of his humor and his mastery of the situation. Professor Nguyen Lai once told him in our presence: "You are always fascinating." Professor Phung had sayings that initially made listeners laugh, but then startled them; the more they thought about it, the more logical it became. For example, when teaching English, he often said: "I am a teacher. A teacher is a teacher." After retiring, he made a business card with two lines:

Bui Phung,
Retired teacher.

The teacher said, "As a person, when you retire, your business card should say..."Retired teachers"That's more than enough." Recently, when I visited Mr. Thach Giang, the first head of the Vietnamese language group, he said something about Mr. Phung: "Mr. Bui Phung is a philosophy of life."

Become Head of Department

In 1990, when Professor Dinh Van Duc's term ended, the Ministry of Higher Education and Vocational Training implemented a policy of directly electing the Rector and Dean of the Faculty. The results were announced at the election. At that time, in the enthusiastic atmosphere of "Renovation," the election of the Rector and Dean of the Faculty at universities was equally exciting. Although he wasn't a Party member, the young teachers in our Faculty wanted him to be the Dean, hoping to create a new atmosphere. Initially, there were four candidates, and in the end, he was elected Dean. I remember the day before the election, I asked him a question: "Since you're not a Party member, how will you handle the relationship with the Party branch and lead the unit?" I advised him to just say, "The Party paved the way for me." The next day, when asked a similar question, he replied, "I am not a Party member, but I adhere to the Party's leadership, and the Party has paved the way for me. If I were the Head of Department, I would still follow the Party's leadership to advance the Vietnamese Language Department."

During the years he was Head of Department, I studied abroad in Japan. Later, after he retired from his administrative role, I would occasionally invite him out for drinks to listen to his insightful and informative stories. Whenever he published a new book, he would call me, and we would go out for drinks, and I would get to take a copy home with me. My bookshelf at home has an entire shelf dedicated to the books he gave me. Each one has his signature and a short quote. Sometimes it's like:Dedicated to Nam, words cannot express my feelings.Sometimes:Gift for Nam, Autumn brings joy.Sometimes:Dedicated to Thien Nam, a nostalgic reminder of the old days;Sometimes:Dedicated to Nguyen Thien Nam, 'Let us together dispel the sorrow of ages'…But there was also one time, after he retired, due to some misunderstanding, he wrote a sentence in a book he gave me:"Heaven has allowed us to have this day."That day, after I explained it more clearly, the teacher seemed much more relaxed.

When my teacher experienced the sad news of the death of his wife, Ms. Thuan, who died of a brain tumor, a funny incident occurred. That day, he called me, and I went to his house. He asked me to publish a condolence message on Hanoi Television. He said he had asked Ms. Huong (an acquaintance of his) to ask Mr. Dao Quang Thep, the then Deputy General Director of the station, to publish it promptly. When I arrived at the station and met Mr. Dao Quang Thep, I told him about my teacher's request through his friend Ms. Huong. He said to me, "Okay, don't worry, I'll handle it immediately," and he called his staff to inform the relevant department, "We need immediate help with this because Ms. Thuan is the wife of Mr. Bui Phung, my friend, a Colonel and Doctor of History." I almost burst out laughing (In reality, my teacher had never served in the military and wasn't a doctor of history, but the Deputy General Director of Hanoi Television wanted to emphasize the importance of the matter so that the staff member would act immediately, hence the addition of his title and academic rank). Later, when I told this story to my teacher, he said, "This Dao Quang Thep fellow is quite remarkable."

Cover page of the Vietnamese-English Dictionary

A person who made a significant contribution to the spread of English in Vietnam.

There was a time when there was only one thick Vietnamese-English dictionary, published by the University Publishing House, belonging to my professor. Later, he supplemented it in numerous subsequent editions, making it increasingly larger. It's no exaggeration to say that any Vietnamese person at that time who wanted to seriously learn English had this dictionary. It appeared on almost every bookshelf of Vietnamese intellectuals, both domestically and abroad. In 1988, I met an American, a former Vietnam War veteran working for a charitable organization in Cambodia. He was working on a Khmer-Vietnamese-English dictionary and asked me to check it. He showed me Bui Phung's Vietnamese-English dictionary, published in Hong Kong (considered a copyright violation), which he used as a basis for the Vietnamese-English section. After returning to Hanoi, I told my professor about this, and he was very pleased, saying, "See, my book is being published abroad!" His contributions to the development of English in Vietnam were later recognized by the state with the "State Award for Science and Technology for the Vietnamese-English Dictionary, First Edition, 2000".

The first time he traveled abroad was to Hawaii to teach Vietnamese. The second time, he was invited to London for his contributions to the development of the English language. In London, he reunited with his childhood friend, Mr. Do Van, who was then working in the Vietnamese section of the BBC. Upon returning to Vietnam, he often recounted this trip and his conversations with Mr. Do Van.

Unexpected departure

While I was working in the International Relations Department, I occasionally went out for drinks with him. One day, I tried to contact him repeatedly but couldn't reach him. After a few days, Ms. Ha, his second wife, called and told me that he had been rushed to the emergency room and was undergoing heart surgery at Viet Duc Hospital. I hurried there; the surgery was over, and he was in the post-operative recovery room. I only met Ms. Ha and Mr. Trinh, his eldest son.

A few days later, at noon on September 1st, 2007, I received a text message from Tu Anh, the professor's daughter, informing me that Professor Phung had passed away. Looking back, I noticed several missed calls from Tu Anh. I rushed to 75 Mai Hac De Street. The family had already met and prepared everything: the funeral and burial at Van Dien on September 3rd would take place. I informed the Faculty and the University. Those were public holidays, and many people weren't in Hanoi. The professor's passing was unexpected. Professor Do Thanh, a classmate from the first graduating class of Hanoi University, who had worked with him in the Vietnamese Language Department (later the Vietnamese Language Faculty) until his retirement, wrote some verses to bid farewell to his friend, including these lines:

Live life like a rushing waterfall.
Dying silently like a river…
……………………
That dictionary is so thick!
Is there anyone thicker?

It's been seven years since he passed away. Thirty-four years have passed since that first afternoon I met him. Oh, how time flies!

September 1, 2013 – September 1, 2014