Happy New Year! Chúc mừng năm mới! Another year, another holiday song…
Phạm Đình Chương’s “A Celebratory Glass of Wine” was one of my favorite holiday songs for the Lunar New Year when I was a kid. It was the last song on Tiếng Tơ Đồng Xuân (The Silken Strings of Spring), a Tết album from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam). My family owned the re-released cassette version when I was a kid. My mom dug out the tape every year when the holiday rolled around, and it remained on heavy rotation in the weeks leading up to Tết. I loved the song because it was so cheerful and fun. It was a relatively easy tune to memorize, and I especially liked the stanzas that started with “Ah ah ah ah…” I remember asking my mom to teach me the words so I could sing it, and she wrote them out for me from memory.
“A Celebratory Glass of Wine” is a lively drinking song celebrating the new year. The festive music evokes a crowded, booze-filled party, and the mood of the song reminds me of another famous drinking song, the brindisi from La Traviata. Phạm Đình Chương’s lyrics are written in the voice of the tipsy revelers. The alcohol flows freely as the party-goers urge each other to drink with abandon, and they introduce one toast after another and even offer effusive well wishes to people that are not present.
Unsurprisingly, the revelers in the song follow the Vietnamese custom of expressing new years’ wishes (chúc), especially wishes that are tailored to the recipient. The party-goers do not merely offer general wishes of good luck and happiness. Instead, they express very specific ones addressed to different types of people in society. The revelers wish for the peasant to enjoy a good harvest, for the merchant to earn a great profit, and the laborer to be free from hunger and want. They wish for soldiers to achieve great feats on the battlefield and for soldiers’ mothers’ to be reunited with their sons. Newlyweds and artists receive good wishes specific to their circumstances as well.
This custom of offering tailored wishes was ingrained in me by my parents. In the last weeks of the old year, they would remind my sibling and me that the best new years’ wishes had to reflect the actual situation and desires of the intended recipients, and my parents helped us brainstorm wishes that were appropriate for various family members. My mother explained that an elderly person might appreciate a wish for longevity, someone recovering from illness might want to be wished good health, and students would wish to pass their exams with flying colors. Although my sibling and I were familiar with stock phrases wishing wealth and good fortune, my parents encouraged us to be creative and come up with personalized wishes. During visits to relatives, my sibling and I formally offered our elders the good wishes that we had carefully crafted in advance. Then, during the car ride home, my parents would evaluate us on the suitability of the wishes we had come up with. I imagine the revelers in the song had been taught this custom by their parents too!
Now, as an adult listening to “A Celebratory Glass of Wine,” I realize that it was never the simple, fun tune I thought it was. In fact, warfare looms over the entire song. Various sources on the internet state that Phạm Đình Chương composed the song sometime between 1951 and 1955, but there’s considerable disagreement as to the exact year and circumstance of the composition. Whatever the case, the date range suggests that the song was a response to the Resistance War (1945-1954), that is, Vietnam’s war of independence against France (known in the West as the First Indochina War with the slightly different date range of 1946-1975). The Resistance War, often considered a prelude to the Vietnam War (1954-1975), was very bit as savage as its successor. Soldiers on all sides massacred civilians and brutalized suspected enemies, and sexual violence was rampant. The Vietnamese fought against the French but also each other, and politics divided countless families. From the late 1940s onwards, the French-controlled cities emerged as islands of peace and stability amidst a war-torn countryside. Then, in 1954, the Geneva Accords ended the Resistance War by mandating a ceasefire and temporarily partitioning the country into North and South Vietnam. Phạm Đình Chương was one of the hundreds of thousands of northerners who migrated to South Vietnam.
Given this historical backdrop, one gets the sense that the revelers in “A Celebratory Glass of Wine” are at a fancy soirée in a relatively peaceful city, ringing in the new year with full knowledge that the war is still raging in the surrounding countryside. They are certainly indulging in a bacchanal, but the war is never far from their minds, and they must summon good cheer in the face of great suffering all around them. Indeed, the party-goers make it a point to honor soldiers and their families. Their new year’s wishes for soldiers heading to the frontlines and anxious mothers waiting back home are longer and more detailed than the good wishes addressed to anyone else. Towards the end of the song, the mood shifts from merry to earnest, and the revelers’ reveal that their most heartfelt wish is for the return of peace to their homeland. Thus, the song reflects both uncertainty about the future and defiant optimism.
Perhaps it is that combination that has given the song such enduring appeal. Like the party-goers in the lyrics, Phạm Đình Chương and his audience had endured years of violence, hardship, and dislocation, and “A Celebratory Glass of Wine” captured the contradiction of trying to celebrate amidst loss and pain. The songwriter could not have known that a new war – the Vietnam War – would soon erupt, and yet another generation of Vietnamese would ring in many more new years in both hope and fear. The postwar communist government banned the song after the war ended, but Vietnamese refugees like my family continued singing it after fleeing our homeland. During those early years in America, even the happiest holidays were tinged with sadness for my homesick parents, and I suspect “A Celebratory Glass of Wine” reflected the mixed feelings of many refugees at Tết. Only in 2016 did the Vietnamese government permit the song to be performed and to circulate in country, and it has since enjoyed a bit of revival.
I present below two period recordings. The first is by the iconic singer Thái Thanh, famous for her vocal range and the sister of Phạm Đình Chương. This is the one I grew up with from The Silken Strings of Spring. Some internet sources state that the original album was released for the last Lunar New Year before the end of the Vietnam War – meaning half a century ago. If true, this Tết marks the 50th anniversary of the recording.
The second recording is by the Thăng Long Ensemble, a quartet or quintet of singers composed of Phạm Đình Chương, Thái Thanh, and other members of their musical family.
I found period sheet music on the internet, but the punctuation was inconsistent, and images were so fuzzy that I had a hard time making out the punctuation in some places. Therefore, I have left the Vietnamese lyrics largely unpunctuated but streamlined the capitalization of the words.
LY RƯỢU MỪNG
Ngày xuân nâng chén ta chúc nơi nơi
Mừng anh nông phu vui lúa thơm hơi
Người thương gia lợi tức
Người công nhân ấm no
Thoát ly đời gian lao nghèo khó
A a a a
Nhấp chén đầy vơi
Chúc người người vui
A a a a
Muôn lòng xao xuyến duyên đời
Rót thêm tràn đầy chén quan san
Chúc người binh sĩ lên đàng
Chiến đấu công thành
Sáng cuộc đời lành
Kìa nơi xa xa có bà mẹ già
Từ lâu mong con mắt vương lệ nhòa
Chúc bà một sớm quê hương
Bước con về hòa nỗi yêu thương
A a a a
Hát khúc hoan ca thắm tươi đời lính
A a a a
Chúc mẹ hiền rứt u tình
Rượu hân hoan mừng đôi uyên ương
Xây tổ ấm trên cành yêu đương
Nào cạn ly mừng người nghệ sĩ
Tiếng thi ca nét chấm phá tô thêm đời mới
Bạn hỡi vang lên
Lời ước thiêng liêng
Chúc non sông hoà bình, hoà bình
Ngày máu xương thôi tuôn rơi
Ngày ấy quê hương yên vui
Đợi anh về trong chén tình đầy vơi
Nhấc cao ly này
Hãy chúc ngày mai sáng trời tự do
Nước non thanh bình
Muôn người hạnh phúc chan hoà
Ước mơ hạnh phúc nơi nơi
Hương thanh bình dâng phơi phới
A CELEBRATORY GLASS OF WINE
In these days of spring, let’s raise a cup and send best wishes to all,
A toast to the peasant, may he delight in the sweet smell of rice,
And to the merchant, may he earn profit,
And to the laborer, may he enjoy warmth and plenty,
Escaping from his life of toil and poverty.
Ah ah ah ah…
Let’s keep sipping, as our cups fill and refill,
We wish happiness for one and all,
Ah ah ah ah…
So many hearts are still troubled by fate and fortune.
Let’s fill these cups until they brim with the sorrow of parting,
Best wishes to the soldier as he departs,
May he achieve great feat of arms,
And his life shine bright with virtue and goodness,
A toast to him who selflessly serves the country.
There’s an elderly mother somewhere far, far away,
She’s long yearned for her son, her gaze clouded by tears,
We wish for the morning [on this] homeland
When her son comes home, reuniting [with her] in love.
Ah ah ah ah
Let’s sing a joyful song to brighten the soldier’s life,
Ah ah ah ah…
We wish for his sweet mother to cease her sorrow.
Merry wine, let’s toast the happy couple,
May they build their nest on the boughs of love.
Let’s clink our glasses and toast the artist
May his verses sketch a colorful new life.
Oh friends, let’s raise our voices
And make a sacred wish:
We wish for the mountains and rivers of our country to be at peace, at peace.
May the day come when bloodshed ceases,
That day when our homeland will be happy and serene,
Awaiting your return, with a cup filled and refilled with love.
Raising our glasses high,
Let’s wish that tomorrow the sky will shine bright with freedom,
May the mountains and water of our country be calm and peaceful,
May everyone be filled with happiness.
We dream of happiness for all,
May the sweet fragrance of peace rise and fill the air.
BEHIND THE TRANSLATION
I must confess that I am less satisfied with this translation than any other that I have posted to this blog to date. The simplicity of the lyrics fooled me into thinking it was easy to translate, but it proved challenging in unexpected ways. First, the song uses two words to indicate expressions of goodwill and good wishes, chúc and mừng, and I found it difficult to translate them consistently. Chúc means “to wish” or “wishes”in the sense of expressing good wishes, and mừng means to “to celebrate,” “to feel great happiness,” or “celebratory.” Given that it’s a drinking song in which revelers wish everyone well and toast different types of people, I tried to translate chúc as to wish or wishes and mừng as let’s toast or a toast to. But it proved impossible to maintain consistency, as mừng also appears in the title of the song to refer to a glass of wine, and it would sound odd to translate it as “A Toasting Glass of Wine.”
Relatedly, chúc and mừng can used in a variety of grammatically correct ways that to wish, to celebrate, and let’s toast cannot.In Vietnamese, you can chúc to someone, chúc for something to happen, or chúc for something to happen to someone. But in English, to wish isn’t as flexible. You can’t say, “I wish you,” to express general goodwill towards the recipient. Instead, you have to change the construction to, “I send my best wishes” or “sending you my best wishes.” If your wish for someone can only be expressed in a longer clause, then you would use the verb may rather than to wish. For example, you might say, “May you enjoy success and happiness in the new year,” but it would sound stilted to say, “I wish for you to enjoy success and happiness in the new year.” Similarly, the verb mừng is also used to celebrate the peasant and simultaneously to offer him a specific wish that he will “rejoice in the sweet smell of rice.” I found that I often had to translate the two terms inconsistently and insert the word may in order for the translation to make sense.
A second reason why the song proved hard to translate is that Phạm Đình Chương’s lyrics are sometimes evocative rather than descriptive. In the third stanza toasting the soldier, the line “Sáng cuộc đời lành” might be translated literally as “Brighten the honest/good/virtuous/decent life.” But who or what is doing the brightening? And whose life is being referenced here, the soldier’s life or the virtuous life as an abstract ideal? Wouldn’t a life of honesty and decency already be bright rather than be in need of brightening? In the end, I translated that line to mean that the soldier’s life is bright with virtue.
Another term I found difficult to translate was đầy vơi. Đầy means “full,” and vơi means “empty.” Together, the term connotes an unending flow. Given the context of the drinking song, I think it implies that alcohol is flowing generously that emptied cups are soon refilled again – bottomless cups, so to speak. Originally, I wanted to translate the second line of the first stanza, “Nhấp chén đầy vơi,” as “Let’s keep sipping as our cups empty and fill.” But Phạm Đình Chương used đầy vơi at the end of the seventh stanza, “Đợi anh về trong chén tình đầy vơi,” which might be translated literally as, “Waiting for your return in a cup full and empty of love.” Here, I think đầy vơi suggests that the love is infinite, that it’s a bottomless cup of love, but then it would be odd to describe the cup as ever being empty at all. To maintain consistency, I chose to translate the term in both instances “fill and refill” to emphasize the endless outpour of booze and affection. Similarly, the last two lines in the fourth stanza about the waiting mother is evocative and hard to understand. “Chúc bà một sớm quê hương / Bước con về hòa nỗi yêu thương” might be translated literally as, “Wishing her the morning homeland / Her child’s steps return blending together love.” What is the relationship between một sớm, which I think can be translated simply as “morning” in this context,” and quê hương (“homeland”)? When the soldier returns, what exactly is being blended or fused? The mother’s love and the son’s love? Or does it mean that their reunion is filled with love? I interpreted the line to mean that a morning will dawn upon the homeland and the son will return to his mother that morning in a loving reunion. There’s quite a number of evocative lines like these, and I found myself forced to take artistic license to create a meaningful translation.
A more minor point: The song uses non sông, meaning “mountains and rivers,” and nước non, meaning “water and mountains.” Both are poetic ways of referring to one’s country or homeland. I wanted to preserve the natural landscape inherent in the term and distinguish it from quê (“homeland”), so I chose not to translate it merely as “homeland” and instead appended “of our country” to both terms in the translation.
THE TECHNICAL STUFF
Image credit for the sheet music, which my translation is based on: http://amnhacmiennam.blogspot.com/2015/03/ly-ruou-mung-pham-inh-chuong.html
The period recording by Thái Thanh can be found here, starting at 1:14:13 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoFKprhtFVA&list=PLppsuEXwZAvw0_3uYrsIO3DrqZ93CT6YN&index=2
The period recording by the Thăng Long Ensemble can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF2R2yJ–V8]
“Đầy vơi” is tough to translate and is often used more metaphoric than literal. I find that “replenishing” often works. Other times I wonder if it could refer to vissicitudes. Tiếng Tơ Đồng was the name of Hoàng Trọng’s ensemble, radio / TV programs and recording releases. Often his released recordings came from tracks that he recorded for his radio program. The Wikipedia seems to think the song was written in 1952, but I only see it published in 1956. I don’t believe it was recorded until 1962. It’s strange that such a catchy tune would take so long for publication and recording. Part of the song’s significance is that it’s written in a Vietnam where a glass of wine can be publicly celebrated while those in the other Vietnam lack this mundane freedom.