One of the most significant cultural losses in 2024, not only for Hue but also for Vietnam, was the passing of Professor Cao Huy Thuan - a Hue intellectual, a Vietnamese with great influence in France.
"The person who writes beautiful Vietnamese"
"One of the Vietnamese writers who wrote calmly and beautifully, both profound and pure", is the word used by Doctor of Literature Tran Ngoc Hieu (Hanoi Pedagogical University) when commenting on the late Professor Cao Huy Thuan - a culturalist, a philosopher - a great scholar of Buddhism with prestige in the international and Vietnamese arenas, one of the influential Vietnamese intellectuals in France who passed away on July 7, 2024.
The late Professor Cao Huy Thuan was born in The Chi Dong village, now Phong Hai ward, Phong Dien town, Hue city in 1937. Professor Cao Huy Thuan studied at Saigon Law University (1955-1960) and taught at Hue University (1962-1964).
In 1964, he went to France to study and defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Paris (1969). He then became Director of the Center for European Community Studies at the University of Picardie, France. Before retiring, he was a professor of political science at the University of Picardie, France.
To Vietnamese readers, he is loved for more than 15 books and hundreds of articles and presentations with profound thoughts and culture, in which the most prominent is his absorption of Buddhist thought. In 2017, he was awarded the Phan Chau Trinh Cultural Prize by the Phan Chau Trinh Foundation, in the category of the Award for the Cause of Culture and Education "for his great and profound contributions to the cause of Vietnamese culture and education".
Regarding Lao Dong newspaper, he "boasted" to the writer that he was "a loyal reader" since the newspaper had an electronic version in 1999. He said "almost every day I go to Lao Dong newspaper to follow the situation in the country".
Over the past 25 years, he has repeatedly agreed to write articles and give interviews to Lao Dong newspaper on many publications related to cultural and social topics conducted by me and many colleagues. Of course, interviewing the late Professor Cao Huy Thuan was never easy!
I still remember back in 2011, when I was pursuing a series of articles – “Chatting with interesting Hue people” – published in Lao Dong Cuoi Tuan. After receiving the late Professor Cao Huy Thuan’s approval in principle, I emailed him a series of interview questions.
However, after more than a week of waiting, what I received was a very clever rejection email with the following content: “I have spent a lot of time thinking about your questions. Honestly, I really want to please you and Lao Dong newspaper. I have tried to find a way to overcome the questions so that I can answer. But here are my comments: All of Mr. Minh's questions are very good, proving that the questioner is very intelligent. However, all of them have the purpose of portraying a portrait. This is also very reasonable for a journalist. The thing is, I don't like to talk about myself. Readers of Lao Dong newspaper don't need to know about me. I have written a lot about selflessness. Should I now expose my self? Then where is "Seeing Buddha" (the name of one of his books - NV)?
Of course, I was still able to conduct an interview with Professor Cao Huy Thuan to publish in Lao Dong. Of course, I was also “not very happy” because it was not a “portrait” article as the original “plot” but just a connection of many different topics.
Intellectual and human education
Intellectuals both at home and abroad have written and commented on the late Professor Cao Huy Thuan before and after his death, enough to fill a book. I would have more than enough if I had anything more to say about him.
I would like to just mention a few details in a very good and impressive speech related to "intellectual education" and "moral education" by him in 2016, published in Lao Dong newspaper, with students of a remote high school on the other side of Tam Giang lagoon in Dien Hai commune - his hometown and also mine.
First is “intellectual education”. The late Professor Cao Huy Thuan said that any school, whether in a remote rural area or in the center of a bustling city, must fulfill two functions: to glorify the culture of that land and to contribute talent, not only to a province, but to the whole country. So “I hope that you will study with that aspiration, with that ambition, in your heart”.
The late Professor Cao Huy Thuan recounted that in 1980, when he returned home from France for the first time after 16 years of absence, he visited his family and left a small amount of money, which he called a small gift from a child living far away to his parents. But surprisingly, his mother not only did not use that small gift, but also took out some of her savings to create scholarships for poor students in Dien Hai.
“My mother did it secretly, without letting me know. I must add that, in 1980, everyone was poor, no one thought about scholarships, my mother was ahead of her time, thinking about my father's hometown, thinking about my reputation, above her own bowl of rice. I was completely unaware of that reputation.
Being far away, I was indifferent to my mother's quiet work. Then my mother passed away. Until one day, in Paris, I received a phone call from a stranger, who said: "Uncle, I am the one who received your scholarship, thanks to which I was able to buy a notebook, go to school and have food in my stomach. I have finished university, and now I am about to complete my doctorate in Germany."
I was so surprised. Surprised twice, once because I didn't know what scholarship it was, and once because, strangely enough, a student from Dien Hai, a salty and sour land, was becoming successful at a major university in a major country...
I was so moved that I could not breathe, and even shed tears, when I heard Uncle Nghia introduce himself as the recipient of “his scholarship”. My mother planted the seeds, and I received the blessings. My blessings are Uncle Nghia, and my blessings today are you, this majestic Tam Giang school, and the boundless happiness of recalling this memory with you,” said Professor Cao Huy Thuan.
Regarding “moral education”, the late Professor Cao Huy Thuan said that it is the sowing of good seeds that will reap good results. If you can do something good, just do it and do not expect anything in return. Do it selflessly. Three years, five years, seven years, ten years later, suddenly by chance you will receive unexpected blessings. Living like that is living beautifully, is being a good person.
That day, the Board of Directors of Tam Giang High School had the initiative to invite the late Professor Cao Huy Thuan to plant a memorial tree in the school yard. Professor Cao Huy Thuan agreed but added, "Please do not think that this is a memorial for Uncle Thuan. I want you to have a completely different thought..."
And the late Professor Cao Huy Thuan led the story to the category of “civic education” with the question: “When planting trees today, who do we think of? When planting trees today, what is our duty? Two very familiar proverbs will answer for us. The first one: “When eating the fruit, remember the one who planted the tree”. Who planted the tree? Who planted this Vietnamese tree? Our ancestors.
In the land of Thuan Hoa where we are standing today, who planted the Thuan Hoa tree, who galloped the horse to start a great southern expansion to extend half of this beautiful country? Lord Nguyen Hoang. Drink a sip of water from the Huong River, and don’t forget that favor. The second proverb: “Eat from the tree you grow, protect that tree.”
Let us fence the fruit trees that our ancestors left us, do not let thieves and robbers come and cut down the trees and destroy the fruit. Let us fence our borders, from the land border to the sea border, do not let any tyrants invade, occupy, or colonize us...
Epilogue
The other day, sitting with writer Vinh Quyen, taking the opportunity to talk about "our Hue", I recalled memories of the late Professor Cao Huy Thuan and the story of him saving money to bring back from France to give to his mother, but his mother hid it from him, quietly using that money to create a scholarship fund named after Cao Huy Thuan for Tam Giang High School in my hometown for a very long time. After hearing the story, writer Vinh Quyen looked into the distance, sat silently for a moment and then said: "Only a mother like that could give birth to a son like Cao Huy Thuan"!
(Article from the Central Highlands Spring Labor publication - 2025)
