'Afternoon tea and wine' literary soul mates

He said that his Northern friends include Vi Huyen Dac and Nguyen Hien Le; his Southern friends include Le Ngoc Tru and Le Tho Xuan... They are close friends with whom he has chatted and exchanged many times over tea and wine.

However, through this document, for the first time I read some of his comments about the culturalist Hoang Xuan Han. In terms of age, Mr. Sen was born in 1902, Mr. Han was born in 1906. Certainly, the two had never met each other, but Mr. Sen's comments were full of affection: "In my opinion, only Hoang Xuan Han is truly an educated person. The North was fortunate to be occupied by the French late, from 1884, so the Northerners had time to study Chinese characters and wealthy families could send their children to study all fields. Mr. Hoang Xuan Han was proficient in Chinese characters, had old Han Nom books left by his family, studied mathematics, arts, and French literature taught by his master, so he was a complete scholar" (written on July 21, 1996).

Scholar Hoang Xuan Han

This comment is correct, because as we know, Mr. Hoang Xuan Han has become an outstanding figure in many fields, "the embodiment of the Vietnamese encyclopedic mind in the 20th century" (Intellectual Faces - Culture and Information Publishing House - Hanoi, 1998). After his death, the publication of the book series La Son Yen Ho Hoang Xuan Han (3 volumes - Education Publishing House 1998) was recognized by the Vietnamese press as one of the important events of cultural life in 1998.

There was another close friend of Mr. Sen, also born in the North, the scholar Nguyen Thieu Lau. Mr. Lau was an employee of the Indochina Archaeological Institute, working under the guidance of Mr. Nguyen Van To, the author of the very valuable book series National History Miscellaneous Records. The memoir of writer Son Nam also had much affection for Mr. Lau.

The author of Huong rung Ca Mau recounted that in 1963, he once met Mr. Lau drinking three cups of wine at Tan Cuc Mai restaurant at Ly Thai To intersection: "Mr. Lau wore glasses, yellow khaki clothes, and his legs were tied up like someone going on a field trip. I introduced myself, and he ran over to hug me. When asked what he wanted, I said I was following him to learn "secretly" about the history and geography of our country." Son Nam's statement proves that Mr. Lau was already a famous figure at that time, with an academic position in the South.

When reading Mr. Sen's posthumous work, I was surprised to learn that the relationship between Mr. Sen and Mr. Lau had a funny memory. Mr. Sen wrote:

"Nguyen Thieu Lau (deceased) studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. He had a strange personality, looked down on the world, and was always corrected by Mr. Nguyen Van To without any hesitation. He went to the South with no satisfaction, and became close friends with me. My family had a square bottle of Rhum Mana. When the bottle was empty, Lau and I went to a cocktail party at the French embassy. Lau sometimes called me "this guy, that guy, toi toi moi moi". A little drunk, I said loudly:

- Long time ago, students in the South are arrogant, we should be careful.

Long replied:

- Yes.

I said:

- I'm from the South, call me "Mr. Nam" and I call Lau "Mr. Bac".

After a long time, he held up his glass of wine and shouted:

- Sen, I'll give it back to you, don't be "Mr. Bac".

Mr. Nguyen Thieu Lau was tricked by Mr. Sen who used wordplay - his forte in wordplay.

With the culturalist Nguyen Hien Le - alias Loc Dinh, Mr. Sen wrote quite a long story about this old friend. In the Miscellaneous Records 89/90, he confided: "Mr. Loc Dinh graduated from Buoi school, continued his studies at Hanoi College, civil engineering major, after graduating, he was assigned to work measuring water levels throughout Dong Thap and many provinces in Hau Giang , he had Chinese characters, because he was a descendant, he learned English enough to read and understand English books, he died in 1984, leaving behind more than a hundred books, all carefully compiled, now I take them out to read and startle myself, Mr. Le's academic talent is far inferior to mine, his writing is concise and without extra words, I can't keep up, yet I also get to sit on the same mat, thinking about it makes me ashamed of myself.

Scholar Nguyen Hien Le

Mr. Hien Le has drawn up a philosophy of life and has followed it to move forward on the path of writing. On the contrary, I do not know what a philosophy of life is. I write because I am hungry and have many vices. I want to have a lot of money to satisfy two greeds: greed for antiques and also to nourish my feelings, love of old books, to learn more and to enjoy learning.

Mr. Sen's comments about Mr. Le, I think, are not modest but he speaks his mind. And Mr. Le was also close to Mr. Sen, so in his memoirs, he has a few lines summarizing the personality of the most erudite antique collector. Mr. Le wrote: "He values ​​time very much, so some people mistakenly think he is difficult; in fact, with serious literary friends, he is always happy to entertain, spends the whole day showing antiques and explaining the era and value of each item. Each book, each item of his is numbered, recorded and has its own tag." Only by being close and visiting each other many times can he write in detail about every detail.

Mr. Nguyen Hien Le also said: "Vuong Hong Sen, a close friend of Le Ngoc Tru, is also a famous scholar". Mr. Sen's unpublished manuscript has a passage: "Mr. Le Ngoc Tru, from Cho Lon, the South. He left behind a Vietnamese Spelling Book, which I need to use every day". It is known that the manuscript "Vietnamese Etymology Dictionary" by scholar Le Ngoc Tru was printed after his death, and the person who wrote the introduction was Mr. Vuong Hong Sen.

(to be continued)

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