I wanted to follow up my earlier posts about teaching the Vietnam War with sample readings, including some original translations. (See the full sample syllabus here and here for more detail.) In the box below is the journal prompt and readings about communism and republican nationalism that I assign for week 2 of the course […]
Nguyễn Mộng Giác’s One-Way Street (Đường một chiều, 1974) is an absolute page-turner. Set in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam), the novel starts with the shocking murder of Thúy while her husband Major Lộc is away fighting in the Central Highlands as part of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. There’s
Happy New Year! Chúc mừng năm mới! One of the holiday songs I remember my family listening to at Tết when I was a teenager was Phạm Đình Chương’s “Springtime in Exile” (“Xuân tha hương,” 1956). Tết, or the lunar new year, is the most important holiday of the year for most ethnic Vietnamese, regardless
The music of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam) was the soundtrack of my childhood. My parents came of age in the RVN and came to the US with my sibling and me in tow in the early 1980s. Listening to period recordings reminded them of being young in Saigon before the difficulties
MEMORABLE MUSIC: AN INTRODUCTION Read More »