As for me, every time I pass by this historic house, I still seem to hear the sound of the old Mobylette and the tall figure of Professor Hoang Xuan Nhi.
The name of Mr. Hoang Xuan Nhi has become the name of a street in two big cities. Mr. Nhi has returned to the world of the wise. But after the day he passed away, over time, his life and his scientific and educational career became clearer and clearer, shining like a small, quiet star, long positioned somewhere on the horizon.
There was a time when mischievous students of the Faculty of Literature at Hanoi University of Science spread a legend that: when teaching President Ho's poems, Mr. Nhi often burst into tears, wiping his tears with a handkerchief, because in the textbook he prepared, every few pages there was a place with a parenthesis: this is where we cry! Therefore, every year, when he taught each course, he cried exactly at the place indicated when he prepared the lesson.
That strange anecdote gradually spread, from one class to another, making many people believe it was true, some even doubted, thinking that it was not the cry of opportunity, but the cry of reason, that the teacher's tears were professional tears, flowing from the brain, from the teacher's profession. Only the great teachers and experts of the university lecture hall had such acting talent. Only recently, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Professor Hoang Xuan Nhi's birth, did we, the former students, know that the teacher's tears contained the salty taste of national history and the salty taste of bloodline.
The thing is, in 1936, while studying Law at the University of Indochina, he was awarded a scholarship to study abroad by the French Protectorate government. Unfortunately, competing with him at that time was another student, whose grades were not as high as his but who was the son of a mandarin. He was only an orphan from a family with a tradition of passing exams, not the son of a grandparent or grandchild… He discussed with the school that they should both go to France to study, each receiving half the scholarship. That way, it would save on wasting talent. To avoid troublesome lawsuits, the school followed that plan.
In France, due to the limited half-scholarship, he devoted himself to both studying and translating Vietnamese literature into French. Many classic Vietnamese literary works such as Luu Binh Duong Le, Chinh Phu Ngam, Truyen Kieu... translated by young Hoang Xuan Nhi helped French readers understand more about Vietnamese culture and literature, and most importantly, helped the translator... make money. After only four years from 1936 to 1939, he graduated from three majors, received three bachelor's degrees and one master's degree. From 1940 to 1942, he went to Germany to study. In 1946, responding to President Ho's call, he returned home to join the resistance. The ship carrying him was supposed to dock at Hai Phong port and he would go to the Viet Bac resistance base, but due to conflicts at sea, the ship had to dock at Saigon. Immediately, he was sent to the swampy area, in charge of cultural work in the South. In 1947, the Southern Resistance Administrative Committee assigned Thay to be in charge of La Voix Du Maquis (Voice of Resistance), the first foreign language newspaper in the revolutionary zone. Along with La Voix Du Maquis, Thay also worked on the enemy propaganda work of the resistance government, mobilizing European and African soldiers in the French army to leave the French army and join the resistance zone. Because he was good at English, French, German, and Russian, Thay was assigned by the Committee to be the political commissar of the International Army Corps. In 1947, the resistance government transferred Thay again, temporarily stopped his military work, and appointed him as director of the Resistance Cultural Institute. When the cultural sector was unified with the educational sector, Thay was appointed director of the Southern Education Department. In 1949, Hoang Xuan Nhi participated in opening a special pedagogical class named after Phan Chu Trinh to provide cultural training for the resistance forces.
After the Geneva Agreement, he gathered in the North, was appointed professor, and taught at the following schools: University of Education, Hanoi University of Science from 1956 to 1982. He held the position of head of the Department of General Literature and was also a founding member of the Vietnam Writers' Association and the Vietnam Literature and Arts Association.
Many people believe that Master Nhi belongs to the group of intellectuals who were “born at the wrong time”. They were Vietnamese scientists who had to live and work in a situation that did not require much science. It is said that when he saw the young philosopher Tran Duc Thao travel from France to the war zone, enthusiastically accepting the resistance mission, President Ho joked: Uncle Thao, the famous philosopher, will “have no place to stick his stake…”. Tran Duc Thao went to work as a secretary and paper cutter. Tran Dai Nghia was assigned to make guns and bullets, which was his forte. Ngui Nhu Kontum, who was good at nuclear physics, temporarily went to work as an education manager to avoid waste. The resistance did not need philosophy or nuclear weapons. Every intellectual had to sacrifice his forte for the sake of the resistance, working in his weakness. Professor Hoang Xuan Nhi also fell into that situation, during the years of the resistance, and throughout his life. Good at literature and philosophy, he had to work in organizing the training of cultural cadres and as a military political commissar. Not liking to do leadership work, he was specially appointed to "stabilize" the collapsed situation of the Faculty of Literature after the "Nhan Van - Giai Pham case", with the responsibility of Head of the Faculty. In this position, during the years of war, he lived and worked hard, with the efforts of a scientist, a teacher, and an artist... Good at French, German, and Chinese characters, he could freely write in the fields of Han Nom and Western literature research, but because of the need to build a cultural and ideological foundation, he had to learn Russian by himself to open a department of Soviet Russian literature and teach Ho Chi Minh literature topics. During the years when Hanoi University was evacuated to the Viet Bac resistance base, the people here were familiar with the image of Professor Nhi not waiting for the flood to recede, riding a buffalo alone across the stream to be on time to get to the camp to teach. They were also familiar with the image of the oil lamp in his house, sometimes bright, sometimes dim, sometimes almost out in the middle of the night. He had a very valuable experience using American lamps, which he often passed on to his colleagues and students: to avoid detection by American planes and to save kerosene, whenever he put pen to paper, he would leave the lamp on. If he had to ponder something that was not clear, he would turn the lamp down, only needing a green bean-sized light.
Recently, after the conference commemorating the 100th anniversary of Hoang Xuan Nhi's birth, everyone realized why Teacher Nhi cried when commenting on Uncle Ho's poems: Once, Doctor Hoang Xuan Quoc (second son) expressed his annoyance with Teacher because of the above-mentioned rumors, Teacher confidently confided a true story: "I cannot understand what "national slave" means. The most important thing that Uncle Ho gave my father and other intellectuals was to be citizens of a country with a name and proper nationality, no longer Indochinois or Anamit..." And our Hoang Xuan family belongs to Uncle Ho's maternal family, the same family as Hoang Xuan Duong - Uncle's maternal grandfather, who gave birth to Hoang Thi Loan in the family tree of Trung Chi 2. But just know that, don't talk nonsense or you will be accused of "a rich person claiming to be related to him".
So today, we, the "most mischievous and second-rate" students of Hanoi University of Science, have deciphered Teacher Nhi's tears when commenting on Uncle Ho's poems: those tears contain three qualities: sympathy for a time when literature and poetry had to transform themselves into weapons of struggle, the salty taste of regret and gratitude for the leader, and the salty taste of... "a drop of blood".
