Some memories of Professor Cao Xuan Hao

I entered Hanoi University in 1964, but before the Faculty of Literature evacuated to Trang Duong - Dai Tu - Bac Thai in 1965, to be honest, I didn't know who Cao Xuan Hao was. It wasn't until we were evacuated and had plenty of free time that people told all sorts of stories, and I learned that the Faculty of Literature had Professor Ngoc (Phan Ngoc), Professor Hao of Linguistics, who was very talented, but was involved in some kind of "Humanities" thing and wasn't allowed to teach; his only job was translating foreign books into Vietnamese...

Associate Professor Cao Xuan Hao (1930-2007) - the greatest phonologist in Vietnam.

The first time I met Mr. Hao was like this: One day, I think it was a socialist labor Sunday, our class group was carrying firewood and rice or something like that. I was walking along the village road with some older girls from my class when I suddenly heard them whispering, basically saying, in today's language, "That's Mr. Hao." Seeing the female students, he put down his carrying pole and pretended to rest, feeling embarrassed in front of us girls. I looked over and saw a man with a distinctly scholarly appearance, fanning himself casually nearby, with a refined figure and gentle face—in short, very handsome (Mr. Hao was only 35 years old at the time). I just looked at him, but I didn't dare approach him. Back then, we looked up to our teachers as distant and aloof, always respecting them from afar. We only knew who they were when we took a class with them. Besides, it was Mr. Hao; even a naive person like me knew him, and the "Humanities and Arts" movement—oh my, I was terrified.

The second time I saw Professor Hao was at a Literature Faculty arts festival. That night, the stage was set up near the mountain, dimly lit by kerosene lamps, and packed with people—students from several classes as well as local residents. The program included singing, dancing, and drama. Midway through, we heard an introduction to Professor Hao's guitar solo, then he went up, sat in an armchair, and embraced his guitar, looking like a true performing artist, very stylish (he had previously been a composer in the Military Region Four Performing Arts Troupe). He played a classical piece specifically for guitar. At that time, we were into fast-paced music.My injustice is that I am a demon.or melodiousOh, the flowers are blooming, Pa!But the music the teacher played was very slow yet profound; the microphone was sluggish and ineffective, like playing music to a deaf ear. I looked around and saw no one with a dreamy expression or lost in thought, their eyes closed, completely absorbed in the teacher's melodious tune. Everyone was talking amongst themselves. After the song ended, Teacher Hao went down and applauded sporadically.

The third time was around 1967, when I was in my third year of university, much older than I was, and still evacuated to Dai Tu. I don't remember which of the older students told me that Professor Hao had some really good translated novels, and that if I wanted to read them, he could bring them to his house. It was the first time I sat close to him, face to face, talking to Professor Hao in a small room in a thatched-roof, mud-walled house. I didn't understand why he lived alone. I remember Professor Hao saying he still had one more translation.Crime and PunishmentProfessor Hao could lend me Dostoevsky's manuscript, but only for three days, and I was forbidden from passing it on to anyone else (he probably feared losing it). Of course, I readily agreed, secretly and happily taking a thick stack of handwritten manuscripts back to my room. Professor Hao's handwriting was incredibly beautiful, slightly slanted, perfectly even, with clear and correct diacritical marks, unlike mine: when writing "Thang," the accent mark was placed right above the "g" at the end, and the "a" was flat and thin, just like the "e," as if my own stomach was the one writing it, constantly hungry, oh dear, endlessly hungry during those four years of student evacuation... I read all night, I remember it was a moonlit night, leaning the book against the window, reading by the oil lamp in a syringe (a special lamp used by students at that time, made from ink bottles with cotton inserted into the syringe as a wick; this lamp burned brightly and used little oil). The next day I pretended to be sick and stayed home to continue reading. I read non-stop, even skipping meals in the kitchen. I thought, "How talented this Dostoevsky is! Tolstoy wasn't as talented, and Professor Hao is also incredibly talented; his translations are so exquisite."

That afternoon, I brought the books back to Professor Hao, and he was very surprised because it had only been two days. He looked at me, asked me a couple of questions, and seemed quite affectionate. Taking the opportunity, I asked him if he had any translated books on language or any of his writings that I could borrow. He said he had a few materials, but he needed to sort them out first, and I could come back in a few days to pick them up.

He was one of the researchers who shaped the landscape of Vietnamese linguistics.

A few days later, I visited my teacher's house, and this time I stayed longer. I asked him about his experience in self-studying Russian (at that time, I was studying French as part of my curriculum, but I wanted to learn Russian as well because I had already studied it in high school). What I remember most is that around his bed, he had pinned or hung several perforated slips of paper with difficult Russian words or sentences written on them. Teacher Hao said that he had to do this so that he could occasionally glance at them when he went in and out, otherwise he would forget them immediately. So, when I got home, I immediately imitated him and started learning French, which was very effective. Later, I also applied this method to learning English, and it proved very useful.

Teacher Hao gave me three documents, including a translation of Stephen Ullmann's famous book.The principles of semanticsThere was a lecture by the professor on "nonlinear phonology" and an article on phonetic imitation in Vietnamese. I took it home and was fascinated; many things didn't seem to match what the professors taught, but I didn't know how to get a copy for myself. I came up with a plan: I'd flirt with the "Lao prince" (a Lao student, real name Udom Sitralơn, Vietnamese name Lê Hải Hoàng) who was also studying Linguistics in my class, and we'd each copy half. Hoang Lao was naturally inquisitive and eager to learn new things. Being a foreign student, he had plenty of paper and pens (back then, I only had a meager 16 dong in scholarship money each month, and 15 dong went towards food expenses, so the general principle was "increase by asking, decrease by buying" (some even added "develop by taking by mistake"). Luckily, Hoang Lao happily agreed. The two of us sat next to each other, competing to copy (of course, using Hoang Lao's paper and pens). It took several sessions to finish because the three documents were several hundred pages thick, and I still have them to this day.

It wasn't until after I graduated that Professor Hao found out about this. Once, he praised me at the Institute of Linguistics, saying that Thang had hand-copied my entire translated book. He even told some Soviet language experts I knew about it. That's what I heard from others. At the time, I was young, and being praised by someone as extraordinary as Professor Hao made me feel incredibly happy for days...

Speaking of the specialized booklet on "nonlinear phonology" that Professor Hao lent me, this was the preliminary draft of the book he later translated and published in France. Hoang Lao and I read and copied it, and we were both fascinated; the theory was so good, so new, and Professor Hao's writing was absolutely superb.

A few months later, we had to work on our graduation theses. Hoang Lao wrote about the phonetics of the Lao language, while I wrote about the phonetics of the Tay language in Trang Dinh district, Bac Kan province. Without saying a word to each other, Hoang Lao and I copied sections from Professor Hao's book and "adapted" them into our thesis.Theoretical basisI submitted my thesis to Professor Thuat (Professor Doan Thien Thuat), excitedly anticipating his effusive praise. But to my surprise, he called me in, told me to rewrite it, and showed me Thu's (Dinh Le Thu, a famously intelligent and academically gifted girl from Southern Vietnam) thesis, also about the Tay language, as a model. Although I was annoyed, I naturally obeyed Professor Thuat. After reading it, I was amazed at how simple and easy to understand Thu's writing was; there wasn't a single bit of "linear/non-linear phonology" theory, yet her thesis was still excellent. So I followed Thu's method and revised my thesis, and I received overwhelming praise at the defense...

September 2011