Stories about Music in Vietnam

Ca tru  music sounds strange to the uninitiated. Clicks and clacks accompany the centuries old ballads. It is not the kind of music that inspires toe tapping or humming. Once almost extinct, a club in Hanoi is reviving this uniquely Vietnamese musical tradition and teaching new generations that to participate in a ca tru performance is to be transported to another age and once you start to recognize the art's fine subtleties it can be intoxicating.

Originally, ca tru, also called hat a dao or hat noi (literally song of the women singers), was associated with a geisha type of entertainment. Attractive young singers entertained men in a relaxed environment, sometimes serving drinks and snacks. Men might have visited a hat a dao inn with friends to celebrate a successful business deal or the birth of a son.

Ca tru flourished in the 15th century in northern Vietnam when it was popular with the royal palace and a favorite hobby of aristocrats and scholars. Later it was performed in communal houses, inns and private homes. These performances were mostly for men. When men entered a ca tru inn they purchased bamboo tally cards. In Chinese, tru means card. Ca means song in Vietnamese, hence the name ca tru: tally card songs. The tallies were given to the singers in appreciation for the performance. After the performance each singer received payment in proportion to the number of cards received. In the 17th century the inns were located near the Dong Xuan market, now Paper Street (Hang Gay). Today, this is the location of the Queen Been Karaoke and Disco Club. A row of a dao inns were also located on Kham Thien Street.

After the August Revolution of 1945, ca tru was suppressed because it represented the abuse of women for the entertainment of ruling class men. Today, however, men and women can enjoy ca tru equally. Musicians, poets and fans in Hanoi have formed a club called the Bich Cau Dao Quan Club that meets on the last Sunday morning of each month in a Bich Cau temple at 14 Cat Linh Street. Built during the reign of Le Than Tong (1476-1497), the temple honors the legendary meeting and marriage of the scholar Tu Uyen and the angel Giang Kieu. Students from the National School (Quoc Tu Giam) once came here to pray for success in their studies and to listen to ca tru. The temple has large open spaces where religious processions, games and ca tru took place during festivals.

Ca tru requires at least three performers. The singer is always a woman and plays the phach, an instrument made of wood or bamboo that is beaten with two wooden sticks. A musician accompanies the singer on the dan day, a long-necked lute with three silk strings and 10 frets. There is also a drummer or trong chau.

The drummer shows his approval of the singer or the songs depending on how he hits the drum. If he likes a song he might hit the side of the drum several times. If he is disappointed with the singer, he hits the drum twice. The guitar player must follow the rhythm of the phach. His instrument, the dan day, is only used in ca tru and is now made almost exclusively for sale to tourists who find the shape intriguing.

Ca tru demands audience participation. During a meeting of the Bich Cau Dao Quan Club members listen to guest performers and take turns on the drums. Founded in 1992, the club now has 90 members and 30 or 40 of them gather on a given Sunday. Older artists like Nguyuen Thi Mieu, 78, train younger singers and introduce them to classical songs. According to the director, 40-year-old Bach Van, "It is very difficult to find young singers who wish to learn this art form. It is also difficult to find good teachers who can convey both the enthusiasm and the technical knowledge." Bach herself studied ca tru for 10 years before the Hanoi Office of Culture appointed her the club's director.

The club's eclectic crowd includes foreigners. The Israeli Ambassador to Vietnam, David Mabani, says "It is important that the international community understand the depth of traditional Vietnamese culture as well as its new economy. Appreciating ca tru music is one way to do this." The club welcomes new members and visitors.

Hanoi, January, 2007 - When Vietnamese teenager Nguyen Manh Nam first started breakdancing, he didn't dare tell his parents about his passion for the hip-hop culture born on the city streets of far-away America. "I persuaded my father by showing him breakdance films I downloaded from the Internet," said the dreadlocked 17-year-old. "Little by little, he grew to like it. Now he even practices it a bit when I'm not at home."

This week, Nam's parents and thousands more will get the chance to see him and members of the "Big Toe Crew," the communist country's first and best known hip-hop dance group, make their big-stage debut on a national tour. Together with Niels "Storm" Robitzky from Berlin and French partner Sebastien Ramirez, they will interpret Vietnam's infamously chaotic street traffic in the high-energy dance and video performance "Xe Co" (Vehicles).

"At first the traffic here looks like total chaos," said Robitzky, a dancer and choreographer. "But there is an order to it, and it's very dynamic, and that's what we try to get across in our performance."

For the Vietnamese group, the opening show in the capital's Soviet-built Friendship Palace is a coming-out performance of sorts for a cultural movement that still turns heads and raises eyebrows here.

"Hip-hop was introduced to Vietnam by students who had studied abroad," said Nguyen Viet Thanh, 33, the leader of the group that has grown since 1992 from five to 30 dancers with about 30 more unofficial members.

"Hip-hop is my biggest hobby. People first thought it was just for fun, just a fashion. My family thought I would follow it for maybe two or three years... but now things have changed."

State censors Monday gave the go-ahead for shows in Hanoi, Danang and Ho Chi Minh City on a tour supported by the French and German cultural institutes that has no political message but may still challenge some audiences.

The group's only girl, Sao Mai, 16, with a shock of pink hair, said: "Many people, especially adults, look at girls like us in a negative way because they don't know why we love this kind of dance and how interesting it is.

"I told myself that I could stand those looks, so I feel ok now."  Peroxide-blonde Bui Minh Tri, 18, said he had a hard time convincing his parents that hip-hop is his passion.

"They shouted at me quite a lot," he said. "They said they would forbid me to breakdance if I failed my studies. It took them about a year to accept it. "Everybody looks at me when I'm out with blond hair like this. I'm used to it. I die my hair like this, and my clothes are different, but I'm a good boy. I want to show everyone that apperance says nothing about our nature."

"I wouldn't think of them as rebels," said Robitzky about the group of dance partners and friends. "They're just normal human beings. They just want to express themselves like everybody else."

"This is not a tour and I am not a tour leader." A few eyebrows inched upward, but none of us dared dispute Dr. Phong Nguyen's disclaimer as he introduced himself to his team of volunteers in the dining room of Saigon's Tao Dan Hotel.

We had all signed on with Earthwatch, an international organization that funds field research by recruiting members of the public to assist on scientific expeditions. Though better known for its support of archeological digs, Earthwatch in this case was sponsoring a study of traditional Vietnamese music. But despite our avowed purpose, only two of the eight volunteers claimed to be serious students of music. The rest of us admitted to tangential agendas: we wanted to view Vietnam through a prism unrelated to war, and music seemed a good choice; or we wanted to see Vietnam as a distinct culture, before it succumbs to the sameness of McDonald's and Pizza Huts. Said my friend Francie, "I wanted to go someplace where I couldn't use my Master Charge."

Peering from behind owlish round spectacles, our leader, a Vietnamese-American ethnomusicologist, sized up his team: Peter, of the BBC, and his wife Jenny; Kumiko, a music student from Japan by way of Australia; and five assorted Earthwatch members from the U.S., including Hazel, a music teacher from Washington.

Earlier, Dr. Nguyen had canvassed both North and Central Vietnam, seeking out water-puppet theater, court music and dance, Mahayana Buddhist chants, and the music of the Cham minority. But the true test of the resilience of Vietnamese music lay in the south, in Saigon, where rampant commercialism threatened to engulf any remnants of traditional culture, and the Mekong Delta, where Dr. Nguyen's musical education had begun some thirty years earlier.

Our task, he explained, would be to help document what had survived of traditional music throughout long years of war and economic deprivation. Translated, this meant carrying audio and video equipment, holding the lights, and photographing local performers. We had each paid to join the expedition, thus providing financial as well as physical support. But volunteers were also useful in a subtler way, Dr. Nguyen admitted candidly: the presence of an international group of "scholars" gave the project an aura of importance that opened doors in a country only recently closed to outsiders.

Ours was a symbiotic relationship. If Phong Nguyen needed us to carry equipment and finance the operation, we needed him even more. Which of us, if abandoned among the nine tributaries of the Mekong Delta, could have found our way back to Saigon? Or even asked directions in Vietnamese? Nor would this travel itinerary have been available to us as ordinary tourists. Though Kumiko and Hazel were better able than most to fit their resumes to the job description, the opportunity to explore the more remote provinces attracted all of us.

Ulterior motives and jet lag notwithstanding, Dr. Nguyen concluded his briefing with a jovial announcement: "We will meet for breakfast at seven o'clock, so you can say, 'Good Morning, Vietnam!'"

Our first musical interludes took place in chaotic, quixotic Saigon, where the blare of motorcycle horns and percussive blasts of jackhammers announce the renewed vitality of this commercial hub. Even the official name, "Ho Chi Minh City," seems too long for entrepreneurs anxious to catch up after years of commercial stagnation.

The next day, at the Conservatory of Music, Dr. Nguyen videotaped students in glittery blue and yellow traditional dress playing nhac tai tu chamber and court music. Two volunteers monitored sound equipment while Peter diligently taped segments of a radio broadcast for the BBC. The rest of us busied ourselves snapping still photos of young musicians coaxing melodies from ancient zithers and flutes.

Next, scholars at Saigon's Cultural Institute gave us an overview of folk music in their elongated nation. They described folk songs from the north as slow-paced and graceful, while songs in the south are more straightforward and open in regard to love and sex. Lyrics are said to grow more humorous, even ribald, the farther south you travel, so that whereas a lover in the north might offer his heart to his beloved, in the south, the truly committed lover would sing, "I love you with all my heart and liver and stomach and intestines."

These same scholars had obtained recordings of southern folk songs through awe-inspiring fieldwork. Videotapes showed adventurers, armed with recording equipment, slogging through muddy jungles to find a group of elderly women who served as repositories of authentic folk music. Watching the seventy- and eighty-year-old women on tape, we were charmed by their naturalness. But since this episode had been filmed ten years earlier, there seemed little chance of repeating the experience. Our first foray outside of Saigon took us to Song Be Province, the scene of heavy fighting during the war with the U.S. and the site, according to billboards, of Song Be Golf Club. Provincial officials welcomed us with tea and speeches under the benevolent gaze of Ho Chi Minh in a ritual that was quickly becoming standard. A guard accompanied us to "arrange contacts," and a cameraman from the local television station recorded our every move. Only after nightfall did we encounter the object of our pilgrimage--a group of S'tieng people, one of Vietnam's fifty-three ethnic minorities. The chief, a handsome man in his seventies, exchanged greetings in French, and referred to his people as Montagnards, the name given the mountain people by the colonial French.

The S'tieng had arranged a musical performance for us in a perfect venue -- next to a bonfire blazing on a field in the highlands, a setting ringed by darkness and lulled by the mellow sound of gongs.

The bonfire called to mind the scorched-earth policy that had annihilated entire communities in this farming region more than twenty years ago, when retreating troops destroyed everything above ground level just before the fall of Saigon. But the music held a different message--one of timeless rhythms and simple melodies, of reassuring sameness and continuing traditions. Five barefoot men dressed in lengths of hand-woven cloth approached the fire, stepping slowly. A large round gong hung from the left shoulder of each dancer. They chanted and struck the gongs in a steady rhythm, producing an almost hypnotic effect. The men circled the fire repeatedly, changing neither the beat, the footwork, nor their intent facial expressions. Then two young women entered the arena, singing and engaging two of the younger men in a playful courtship dance. Their movements and their long wrapped skirts hinted at the nearness of the Cambodian border, some twenty kilometers away. After the performance, members of the troupe invited their audience to join them in sipping rice wine through long straws from an earthenware jar, two people at a time. I hung back in the shadows at first, until one of the dancers, a sweet moon-faced girl, walked deliberately toward me. Smiling, she took my hand and led me to the jar, where we knelt beside it and drank the strong liquid together in what I now understand was a friendship ritual.

The following morning, at the foot of Ba Ra Mountain, where the French once housed political prisoners, the S'tieng repeated their performance by daylight. They demonstrated how the largest, low-pitched gong (the "mother"), and the smallest, with a high pitch (the "child"), establish the insistent rhythm. Intermediate gongs embellish the rhythm and add melody.

Back in Saigon, an instrument maker and friend of Dr. Nguyen's opened his home workshop to the Earthwatch team, displaying finely crafted zithers and monochords. A performer as well as an artisan, he then demonstrated their use, accompanying himself on a moon-shaped lute as he sang traditional melodies. By night, some of us escaped the barn-like dining room of the Tao Dan Hotel and its television set cranked to top volume to sample the music scene in Saigon at large. We found colorful folk ensembles--authentic or not, I couldn't tell-- performing for the public at the Rex Hotel and the Continental. At the Vietnam House, diners sampled regional specialties to the sounds of young women in ao dai playing the monochord and the sixteen-string zither.

On the top floor of the Caravelle Hotel, a former haunt of war correspondents, a classical string trio that I thought delightful drew thumbs down from Hazel. Maxim's Supper Club featured a succession of mini-skirted vocalists who competed valiantly with a ten-piece orchestra, serving up a smorgasbord of songs that included "New York, New York," and "I Left My Heart in San Francisco."

Our exploration of the Mekong Delta started with a long drive through vivid green rice paddies under rainy-season skies. Traveling between the island provinces of the delta meant squeezing onto ferries, the all-purpose vehicle on the many branches of the mighty Mekong and a microcosm of Vietnamese life: crowded, noisy, crammed with buses, trucks, bicycles, pedestrians, vendors balancing baskets of sugar cane on their heads, beggars working the crowd, and sightseers. After one inexplicable delay, when our ferry became grounded, a second ferry, equally loaded, approached on a collision course, nudged us off the rocks, and continued on its way.

Arriving in Ben Tre Province, we transferred our gear to a smaller boat and pushed further upriver. "Is that an amusement park?" someone asked incredulously. Corkscrew shapes and a spaceship-like form poked skyward from the trees. It was Phoenix Island, a tourist destination despite its remote location, and our immediate goal.

Ben Tre is home to no less than fourteen nhac le musical ensembles, groups who play ceremonial music at weddings, funerals and temple rituals. On Phoenix Island, we listened to a troupe of nhac le musicians who had won a recent competition as they played musical selections on drums, gongs and reeds. Their solemn demeanor contrasted sharply with the giggling schoolchildren posing for snapshots in the weird wonderland. One day we scrambled into a wooden boat like others we'd passed on the river. For two hours the motor throbbed and fumes enveloped us as we cut a swath through the muddy Mekong, gliding past coco palms and sugarcane fields under a threatening grey sky. Then the boatman, sitting high on the shore side of the boat, turned the rudder sharply with his foot, propelling us into a narrow tributary. "How in the world," wondered Peter aloud, "does he know where to turn?"

Indeed, no signs directed us along the watery thoroughfare, but after one false docking effort we eased up to a muddy bank, where outstretched hands steadied boat passengers unaccustomed to the slippery surface. Gingerly, Peter and Jenny carried expensive recording equipment past flooded fields to a weathered building open on one side. Some fifty villagers had congregated in and around the house.

Three diminutive women, their grey hair pulled back in buns, conversed in animated fashion. They looked somehow familiar--perhaps, I thought, because they evoked an everywoman sort of image in Vietnam--spare frames in their dark, shapeless garments devoid of ornamentation, but alert and self-possessed. When two more women joined them in a circle of straight-back chairs, Jenny echoed my feeling of déja vu: "They're the same ladies we saw on the videotape!"

On the spot, the octogenarians composed a greeting song for our group, the first Westerners to visit their village. Then the women, who had gained fame in their youth as the best singers in the rice fields, launched into their repertoire of folk songs, singing solo, in groups of two or three, or antiphonal style, with a chorus answering the soloist. False starts and memory lapses produced good-natured laughter.

One of the ladies reprised a humorous ditty she had sung as a youngster--a song composed to coax passers-by to buy her not-so-fresh bean cakes. Grandmothers singing the songs they had learned from their grandmothers, the women were all the more enchanting since they made no pretense of professionalism. Children pressed close to hear the old songs and the singers seemed pleased at the attention.

Shortly after our boat chugged away from the waving villagers, the raindrops started, slowly at first, then beating down on the boat's flimsy plastic covering with tropical intensity. I pulled out the rain poncho that I'd purchased in Saigon's Ben Thanh market, a royal blue model that did a reasonable job of protecting my torso, if not my limbs. My companions followed suit, donning bright primary yellows and reds and greens until the exposed bow of the boat resembled so many thick blobs of paint. Spontaneously, we started singing over the roar of the engine: "Raindrops keep falling on my head...," "I'm singing in the rain..."

Now, to say that music is important in Vietnamese life seems almost a truism. Vietnamese music is the faces of the old women, the whimsical curlicues of Phoenix Island, the earnest young musicians at the School of Music and the gong players of the S'tieng people. It's also the ten-piece orchestra at Maxim's, pop singers warbling Beatle hits and street vendors singing out their wares.

Vietnamese music is, in short, one expression of Vietnamese culture--dynamic, resilient, eclectic, elusive, refusing to be pigeonholed as it simultaneously draws on thousand-year-old traditions and absorbs new influences. The music of Vietnam resonates with the collective experience of its people.

By the 19th century Vietnam found itself forcibly and irrevocably confronted with the Western world. As this foreign presence intensified, the elite, ruling and mandarin classes insularly maintained a Confucian view that through their superior culture, civilization, and upright behavior they had the moral standing to defeat any foe. That outlook was shattered with a series of French military victories, culminating in the defeat, in 1873, of Hanoi's citadel and its 7,000 Vietnamese defenders by 200 far better armed French soldiers. By the turn of the century France had consolidated Vietnam under its control and was rapidly opening the region to its economic and cultural prerogatives.

From the beginning the Vietnamese resisted the French, at first viewing their colonizers as barbarians, but in time they came to realize that the military might and economic wealth of the West far surpassed anything they had previously imagined. More and more Vietnamese came to believe the only way that Vietnam could escape colonization was to learn Western ways. Starting from the turn of the century, while many of their Confucian elders went into isolation, the still tiny Vietnamese professional class began adjusting to the alien culture by studying French and "quoc ngu" (the romanization of spoken Vietnamese). They began translating western ideas ranging from Western philosophy to agricultural methods into Vietnamese. By the 1920s and 1930s literacy became widespread, owing to the popularity of "quoc ngu" and the literature it spawned.

After World War I, French entrepreneurs started trading very energetically producing an economic boom hastening the advance and influence of Western thought. The 1920s represent a decade when Vietnam began to finally break from its Confucian tradition and embrace Western thought. One illustration of this can be seen in a story that composer Pham Duy tells about his father Pham Duy Ton, thought by some to be the originator of the modern Vietnamese short story. Pham Duy Ton born in 1881, graduated from the school for interpreters, worked for the Indochina Bank, as a journalist, and in various other small business ventures. He was among the first generation that took the daring step against tradition to cut off the chignon that a well-born gentleman kept in memory of his deceased father, and also dressed in western clothing. He died young in 1924, his son Pham Duy speculating that this was because of a curse from his grandmother for defying tradition by cutting his hair. While his father was of the generation that took the first steps of breaking with tradition, Pham Duy and his contemporaries were prepared and eager to meet the modern world.

Neil Jamieson describes this generation as "a social force wielding innovative kinds of influence based on new and modern skills... In urban centers during the 1930s, especially in Hanoi, there was a sudden and self-conscious rush to replace the old with the new, to Westernize, to be modern." Owing to the popularity of Western novels, an energetic new romantic "quoc ngu" literature emerged in 1925 and expanded greatly in the 1930s. At the same time an art school, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine, opened in Hanoi heralding a new movement of Western-influenced painting. This is the context out of which nhac tien chien, or "pre-war music" was born.

As Bruno Nettl has noted, the first contact that most non-Western cultures have with Western music is through church and military music. Vietnam is no exception in this regard. The Catholic Church encouraged western music and also served as a training ground for many composers. Military bands also trained Vietnamese musicians. In the beginning the music was performed for and by Westerners, but as time went on more and more Vietnamese began to participate in these activities.

In the years following World War I, French patriotic songs like "La Marseillaise" or "La Madelon" became popular in Vietnam. These songs were first heard by Vietnamese during the cai luong, or reformed, theatre of southern Vietnam in the late 1910s and 1920s. Such performances would often include two music ensembles -- one of traditional instruments, one of western instruments, the latter performing during entr'actes as well as before and after the play. Itinerant street musicians (hat xam), whose livelihood depended upon playing music with the greatest currency interspersed these western melodies among their traditional repertory.

French songs became increasingly popular in the cities owing to the spread of sound recording technology. 78 r.p.m. recordings and the radio remained inaccessible to many because of their expense. But even those who found these recordings beyond their means could hear the latest "a la mode" French songs by gathering outside record stores. However, the strongest forces leading to the popularization of French songs were the introduction of ballroom dancing and sound motion pictures in the early 1930s. Singers from the French cinema like Josephine Baker (singing "J'ai Deux Amours" and "Ma Petit Tonkinoise"), Rina Kelly, and George Milton were all popular. Tino Rossi, best known for singing Vincent Scotto songs like "La Marinella" became a special favorite, to the extent that there were "Tino fan clubs" (hoi ai Ti-no).

The first indigenous attempts at Western-styled popular song came in the mid-1930s with a movement known as "bai Ta theo dieu Tay" (or "our words following Western melodies"). Soon fashioning words to French popular songs became the height of fashion. The newly fashioned lyrics turned up as pamphlets, in the newspapers and at the end of dime novels. The Beka record company recorded two cai luong performers Ai Lien, and Kim Thoa singing these songs on 78s. In many cases, the lyricist was less than fluent in French leading to some Vietnamese lyrics being almost opposite in meaning with the French original.

Most commentators trace the beginning of modern Vietnamese song to a performance by Nguyen Van Tuyen of his original compositions in Hanoi on June 9, 1938. Although several composers had written songs before that date and even performed them within their circle of friends, Tuyen's performance marks the first public, reviewed presentation of original songs. Tuyen, born in Hue, studied western music from his youth, teaching himself the rudiments from French music theory textbooks. In 1936 he moved to Saigon where he was the only Vietnamese student enrolled at the Philharmonic Society of Saigon. He began to sing French songs and was favorably received by the press and on the radio. In 1937 he solicited poems from his friends and wrote his first songs. The actual first performance of his songs took place in Saigon where they were performed at the Philharmonic Society. The governor of Cochinchina, Pages, heard him sing there and invited him to travel to France to continue his music studies, but Tuyen had to refuse for family reasons. Instead he requested and was granted the governor's support in making a tour of Vietnam to promote this new music.

While some contemporaries reported that his Hanoi concert was a mixed success, owing to Tuyen's Hue accent and to noise from the large and restless crowd, this new musical movement was lionized by the influential paper Ngay Nay which published some of Nguyen Van Tuyen's compositions as well as works by other composers. He repeated his performance in Haiphong and Nam Dinh to enthusiastic audiences.

Most of the first generation of Vietnamese composers had very restricted access to western music education. Many like Nguyen Van Tuyen studied from French music theory primers. Others studied through the Sinat or Universelle correspondence courses based in France, at Catholic schools, or through private lessons taken with French, White Russian, or Filipino teachers. The French opened the Conservatoire d'Extreme Orient in Hanoi in 1927, but shut it down in 1930 owing to the worldwide economic depression. The first musicians who were able to study, in turn became the teachers for those who followed.

New songs started to spread around the country, but were especially popular in Hanoi. Two important groups propagating this music were formed around 1938: Myosotis (French for Forget-Me-Not) with composers Tham Oanh and Duong Thieu Tuoc as principals, and Tricea consisting of Van Chung, Le Yen and Doan Man. Both of these groups wrote, published and organized the performance of their songs. Pham Duy, writing about the Hanoi of his youth, notes the popularity of songs by the above composers as well as by Le Thuong and Van Cao from Haiphong, and Dang The Phong from Nam Dinh.

In his memoirs, Pham Duy describes his experience, at first as a manager, but soon as a singer of new songs with the Duc Huy cai luong troupe in 1944 and 1945. The troupe's director came to know that he could sing and play guitar, so he was added to the show, where he sang during breaks in the action. This gave him the opportunity to publicize the new songs throughout the country. He met new composers in almost every city along the way, and often found that the word of mouth that preceded his arrival brought in fans expressly interested in this new musical movement.

During the 1940s, there were a large number of patriotic songs composed, mostly modeled after marches and French military band music. The Communist Party saw the propaganda value of such songs very early. In 1926 they translated "The International" into Vietnamese and by 1930 they were using original revolutionary songs in their organizing. However, the songs with the greatest popularity were from the Dong Vong (Resound) movement of Hoang Quy and the Tong Hoi Sinh Vien (General Association of Students) movement of Luu Huu Phuoc from the 1940s. During that time, several of the composers from Myosotis and Tricea also contributed patriotic music. This movement was partially a reaction to the over-sentimentality of romantic literature and song, but gained much of its strength from the Boy Scout program and from the physical fitness program instituted by the Vichy France government in then Japanese-occupied Vietnam. Patriotically minded youth also organized hikes and bicycle excursions to historic monuments.

Although most are not recorded or performed on the concert stage today, these marches and songs made a strong impression at the time among young Vietnamese yearning for their country's independence. "Tieng goi thanh nien" ("Call of the Youth") by composer Luu Huu Phuoc, with the alteration of some words, became the National Anthem of the future South Vietnam with the title "Tieng goi sinh vien" ("Call of the Students"). The song "Tien quan ca" ("Onward Soldiers") by Van Cao in 1945 became the National Anthem of North Vietnam. Another important composer from this movement, Do Nhuan, wrote his earliest songs from a French prison.

Both the romantic and patriotic song movements continued until 1954 when the Geneva Accords divided the country in two. From 1946, many composers went to the war zone to write songs for the Viet Minh resistance against the French. In French-occupied urban areas both patriotic and romantic music continued to be performed side by side on the radio, in dancehalls and in taverns. In 1950, Radio Hanoi's Viet Nhac magazine published a playlist of over 300 Vietnamese songs they had broadcast including both romantic songs and songs newly composed for the resistance combatants in the mountains and jungles. By the time they went off the air in 1954 they had broadcast over 2,000 works by over 300 composers.

While this movement of new Western-influenced songs took off like wildfire among urban, educated youth, it was disliked and resisted by older feudalistic intellectuals, and largely ignored by the poor and rural citizenry. One contemporary commentator wrote in 1942 in the French-language magazine Indochine that:

The youth of the city and provincial capitals, especially students, completely look down upon the songs of our country and insanely chase after French songs. They are afraid of being seen as ridiculous, or as bumpkins if they hum to themselves Vietnamese folksongs ...

He goes on to blame:

... films and French music, the scouting movement with its lively songs, music of neighboring countries, and finally the songs composed by our own artists that are wiping out the old songs.

Despite this alarm, a substantial number of the composers of these new songs studied traditional instruments when they were young. Composer Nguyen Xuan Khoat, one of the first Vietnamese to receive a western musical education, devoted a great deal of energy into notating and studying traditional Vietnamese folk songs, as well as hat cheo, a popular music theatre of northern Vietnam, and hat a dao, a refined chamber singing tradition. Pham Duy is very well known for research on folk songs and as a composer of new folk songs.

The earliest name for this new genre was nhac cai cach, meaning reformed music. One reason "reform" was needed was because of the low status music held in Vietnam. From feudal times came the saying about performers: "xuong ca vo loai" or "singers fallen from social standing." In order to avoid such scandalous associations, educated Vietnamese usually played chamber music in private homes, called nhac tai tu or music of talented amateurs. Tham Oanh described his Myosotis group as a talented amateur ensemble, no doubt wishing to avoid the stigma of being viewed as professional performers. Before Nguyen Van Tuyen's concert in 1938, other composers may have hesitated to present their songs because of this negative reputation. Nguyen Van Tuyen was possibly able to skirt this difficulty because the French governor had sponsored him.

Tham Oanh in a 1952 speech about the "evolution" of Vietnamese music asked his audience to consider the higher status accorded to music and the development of new musical forms in Europe, America, and in Vietnam's Asian neighbors. Emphasizing music as a basis to judge the intellectual level of a people, he affirmed the importance of this new musical movement that aimed to develop Vietnamese music to a level that would bring respect to the country.

In more recent years these songs have come to be called nhac tien chien, or pre-war music. This appellation probably came about as an imitation of genre named tho tien chien, or pre-war poetry, the name used in South Vietnam after 1954, where the poetry remained very popular. Although Vietnamese music historians have the tien chien period ending in 1946 or 1947 with the resumption of hostilities with the French, some songs associated with this genre were written as late as 1954. While they continued to find a loving audience in the South, the nhac tien chien songs were, although not banned outright, absent from the stage and airwaves of North Vietnam from 1954 until the 1980s.

Some Northern musicians I met questioned the usefulness of the name "pre-war songs." One asked "which war? We've fought so many wars." One politically correct designation I heard for these songs was "dong am nhac lang man truoc Cach Mang Thang Tam" or the "current of romantic songs before the August Revolution." Whatever their designation, these songs continue to be popular among Vietnamese, both overseas and in Vietnam, especially among the older generation. They are regularly performed at the concert hall of the Hoi Nhac Si Viet Nam (Vietnamese Association of Musicians) in Hanoi under the appellation nhac tru tinh or lyrical music. When this Association in 1994 presented a festival commemorating 50 years of Vietnamese song, these songs were well represented.

Nhac tien chien songs carry with them an air of nostalgia, perhaps nostalgia for an era when Vietnam was still unified, the era preceding nearly 20 years of civil war. After 1954 the country was split into two very different regimes, the communist Socialist Republic of Vietnam or North Vietnam, and the Republic of Vietnam or South Vietnam. At this time some tien chien composers went South, and others remained in the North. Most of the Northerners either ceased composing or followed the dictates of the regime for writing songs to mobilize the masses and strengthen the revolution. Southerners continued to write romantic songs. Since the North's victory resulting in Vietnam's reunification in 1975, the country's culture has continued to be divided between resident and overseas communities. As nearly all music and literature of a romantic or sentimental basis was banned by the communist regime, many of Vietnam's creative minds left the country in 1975 for Western countries like the United States, Australia, and France. Although differences between these two communities continue until this time, nhac tien chien is one of the few popular song genres that can be heard on the stage of both Vietnam and among the overseas community.

In closing I would like to present the song "Giot Mua Thu" or Autumn Rain Drops by Dang The Phong. Dang The Phong was born in the city of Nam Dinh in 1918, an interpreter's son. In 1940 he went to study at the Art Academy in Hanoi, where he drew cartoons for newspapers to earn money for tuition. In 1941 he traveled to Saigon and Phnom Penh, where he taught some music classes. He first performed at the Olympic Theatre in 1940. He died in 1942 of tuberculosis at the age of 24.

Ngoai hien giot mua thu thanh thot roi

Troi lang u buon may hat hiu ngung troi.

Nghe gio thoang mo ho trong mua thu, ai khoc ai than ho

Vai con chim non chiem chiep keu tren canh nhu nhu troi xanh:

"Gio ngung di Mua buon chi cho coi long lam ly."

Hon thu toi noi day reo buon lay.

Long vang muon be khong liep che gio ve

Ai nuc no thuong doi chau buong mau, duong the bao la sau

Nguoi mong may tan cho gio hiu hiu lanh. May ngo troi xanh

Chac gi vui. Mua con roi bao kiep sau ta nguoi.

Gio xa xoi van ve, mua chang mu le the

Den bao nam nua troi? Vo chong Ngau khoc vi thu?

Outside on the veranda, the autumn rain is gently falling.

The somber sky is quieting, suspended clouds are scattering.

Amidst the muffled wind blowing past in the autumn rain, who's crying? who's grieving?

A couple of young birds chirp from the branch as if auguring blue skies:

"Stop wind, why bring sad rain to a plaintive heart?"

Autumn's spirit arrives, announcing the sadness it brings along

Feelings empty on all sides, for there's no screen to block the returning wind

Who's sobbing, lamenting life, teardrops rush down? The world's immeasurably sad.

We hope the clouds will scatter bringing sweet gentle breezes. The clouds open up to blue sky

Could such happiness be? The rain continues to fall, how many more incarnations until this melancholy subsides?

The distant wind still returns, the unyielding rain spreads its gloom

Oh sky, for how many more years will tears pour from the sky because of autumn?

Translation by the author

As travelers we always come to countries with preconceived notions about what qualities in the culture make it "authentic." Much of the time, these expectations are rooted in the past. In Vietnam, tourists look for French colonial architecture and visit ancient Cham temples, but ignore modern architecture and the equally authentic hustle and bustle of daily life in trendy department stores, cafes and restaurants. Tourists flock to water puppet performances but ignore modern plays and films. The same is true of music. Vietnamese opera and traditional ethnic music is highly sought by tourists (in the few places where it's accessible to them), yet they ignore the thriving popular music scene.

Without an understanding of the modern culture in Vietnam, it's unlikely we'll develop an accurate, relevant view of its people. We might as well stay home and watch old documentaries, war movies, and read outdated textbooks and travel guides. We'll probably relate to the people just as well.

If you find yourself in Vietnam, don't miss a chance to look through this window into modern Vietnamese culture and gain a better understanding of Vietnamese people. Below I've recommended three popular male signers (I'll cover female singers in Part 2) who I feel represent modern Vietnamese music well.

Kasim Hoang Vu

Kasim Hoang Vu is an international superstar in the making with his biracial background and multilingual skills. Hailing from central Vietnam, his mother is native rock star Bich Phuong and his father is an influential Egyptian engineer. Kasim speaks (and sings) both English and Vietnamese fluently.

He studied music in Hanoi and he is a true artist. Not only does he have a great voice, he is a talented songwriter, plays the piano beautifully, and has cool moves too.

Since 1996, he has competed in and won prizes at numerous music competitions, including two gold prizes at the Central Highlands Music festivals in 1996 and 1998, and third prize at the national TV singing festival in 1999. In 2004 he won top honors at the Sao Mai - Diem Hen (Morning Star - A Rendezvous) contest, organized by Vietnam Television (VTV)--It's a bit like American Idol.

Kasim's performances included hip hop, rock, and softer romantic ballads. Kasim contradicts the old saying that you can't please everybody. He has something to offer listeners of a variety of genres yet pulls them into a cohesive and delightful stile that is uniquely his own. The closest comparison I can make for his sound in Western music would be Enrique Iglesias.

Kasim is getting noticed by corporate executives, and it is no surprise with his face plastered across half the billboards and cafes in the region. This spokesman for Pepsi and LG is going places and no one can stop him. He frequently tours across the USA, Canada, Europe and Australia. In Saigon, he can often be seen performing at M&Toi.

Kasim is known for his songs "Vi Sao","Vi Dau", and "Vi Yeu" (also the titles of his 3 albums), and covers of "Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word" and "I Need to Know." Sadly for fans, his original album sold out in stores, but bootleg copies abound.

Quach Thanh Danh

Toi La Toi was the official debut album for Quach Thanh Danh (he released a previous, independent album now only found in bootleg form), and the single of the same title took the country by storm. It has a lively beat with a catchy melody and tight rap interlude. Danh's deep, distinctive voice begs comparison to Rick Astley and Josh Groban, but his mood and style to the likes of Julio Iglesias.

This native of Saigon occasionally performs in the USA. Don't miss a chance to hear him if he comes to your area. In Vietnam he constantly travels to perform at venues across the country.

Be sure to check out the song "Nuoi Tiec" on his first album, with its exotic Indian-style beat and accompaniment. His albums include "Toi La Toi","Tinh Chia Doi","Nhung Giai Dieu Du Dyong", and "Trai Tim Lanh Gia."

Danh is one of my favorite singers in Vietnam, as well as a personal friend. Visit his website at www.quachthanhdanh.net.

Le Hieu

Le Trung Hieu was born near Hanoi, in a family of four. His father loved music, and exposed him to all kinds from a very early age. Hieu has received voice lessons from his teacher Minh Hue and artist Tran Hieu (father of the famous singer Tran Thu Ha).

He released his first album in 2003 and his second followed in 2004. The earlier CD was more upbeat and popish, while his second is slower and more contemplative. His music has frequently appeared in films, including the recent "39 Do Yeu" (39 Degrees of Love) with Ho Ngoc Ha and Binh Minh, and "Nhung Co Gai Chan Dai" (Girls with Long Legs) with Minh Anh and Anh Thu. Le Hieu calls Saigon home now, but often flies up to Hanoi to perform.

Le Hieu's music has a soothing, romantic feel. At times his songs are reminiscent of a young Frank Sinatra or older Sting. Listening to his music is sure to bring back sweet memories of older, golden times with the sentimental jazzy style of many of his songs (giving away his Hanoi musical roots). One thing that sets his music apart from many contemporary singers in Vietnam is the acoustic sound. You will not detect the cheesy synthesized-karaoke style music that plagues the albums of many singers.

Hieu has been most influenced by Thanh Lam (who has been a mentor and much like an older sister to him), My Linh, and Tran Thu Ha (who sings a duet with him on his first album, track 3). His favorite foreign singer is Sting, whose song "Fragile" (Mong manh) appears on Hieu's second album.

His albums include "Dem Tan Va Ngay Len","De Tron Doi Thyong Nho", two self-titled albums, and the most recent,"Ve Day Em."

Where to See Them

M&Toi is a ritzy sit-down nightclub across from the American embassy. It's the priciest venue in town, but it also has the best acts. Expect to pay as much as $10US per person on the weekends. Music starts around 8pm and featured performs show up between 10pm and 11pm. Address: 39 Le Quan Q1, TTTM Saigon Square, Saigon.

Club 888 is the liveliest spot in town with a dance club atmosphere. Shows can start as early as 8pm. It's a bit cheaper than M&Toi but not much. Address: 08 Nguyen Trung Truc, Q1, Saigon.

Planet Coffee Bar is a relaxed café setting, and the cheapest of the three. Shows often start around 8:45pm. Address: 98 Cach Mang Thang 8, Q3, Saigon.

Kim Loi Studio is one of the most popular sites for ordering music shipped directly from Vietnam to the USA. They are just as fast as Amazon, and accept PayPal. Website: http://www.kimloistudio.com/. You can also find a lot of Vietnamese singers on YouTube.