Ton That Tung interview

Q: Could you tell us what happened during the famine under the Japanese?

A: The famine in Hanoi during the Japanese occupation has left extremely deep imprints in my mind. I can now recall very vividly, for example, that as I was walking along Truong Tien avenue (which is right in front of us here) I saw that one out of every three persons walking the street just fell down and died. These people were extremely emaciated, only skin and bones, and they all had huge heads like those of babies . And babies were just lying next to the corpses of their parents. One day I saw a baby who kept on pulling and sucking at its dead mother's breast. This is a sight that I will never forget. I also saw children with huge heads and only skin and bones writhing on the pavements of the streets. I personally picked up about a dozen of these children and brought them to this hospital to try to save them. Some died, but others survived. What I have just described occurred on all the streets of Hanoi. My students and my friends all told me of similar stories of people dropping dead while walking along and of babies writhing on the pavements of the streets. It was indeed a terrifying sight for me to go to the morgues and see corpses piled up there.

Q: Could you tell us a little about what it was like in the royal family of Hue in the day of your youth and also a little bit about you impression of Bao Dai.

A: As far as my impressions of Hue as a young man are concerned, I must make it clear at the outset that I did not live inside the Forbidden City. I lived in my own house. This was because people with my surname of Ton That all belong to mandarinal families who had large houses in the villages surrounding Hue. But the few times when my mother took me into the Forbidden Cit: I \vas struck by the plushiness there because the difference with the world outside the Forbidden City was really fantastic. They seemed to have verything in the Forbidden City. The clothes and their lifestyle were extremely luxurious, beyond the imagination of the ordinary people. As for Bao Dai, I never met him personally. But I knew about him through others. To us, B Dai was a very secretive person and you never know what was in his mind. He was very secretive.

It seemed as if he was only making merry all year round. I only saw him go hunting and chasing after women. This was his forte. This caused us to wonder whether Bao Dai was really a very skillful person who was able to hide his feelings or just a fool given in to a life of pleasures. Later on, when I was in Hanoi and before the Viet Minh took over power, Bao Dai proclaimed independence for Vietnam under Japanese tutelage and sent Ton That Thien to Hanoi to meet with me and asked me to join the new administration as the Minister of Health. But I declined, knowing that this regime would not last for long. And in the long run I became convinced that Bao Dai was only a pleasure-seeking person. During my various trips to France in recent years, people told me that Bao Dai still maintained his habit of fooling around and chasing after women. Hence, in the final analysis it is clear that Bao Dai is a fool and not a wise man.

I recall that when I was young I lived in a great big house in Hue, a tile-roofed house which had belonged to a princess and which had three separate buildings and a kitchen quarter. It was on the Huong riverside. We had servants waiting on us then, and we never had to do anything for ourselves. To the ordinary people, this was a luxurious life because we never had to do any household chores. All we did was to go to classes. Of course at that time we had to walk to school and did not drive there in a car. We walked to school like everybody else. During the French colonial period the good thing was that kids from mandarinal and common families went to the same school. Rich and poor kids played with each other, and we did not notice any difference at all. But as kids walking and playing out in the streets, we were all scared stiff of the French. This was because we frequently saw French troops beating up Vietnamese in the streets. This was the first bad impression in childhood.
As I grew up I became more and more aware of the difference between Frenchmen and Vietnamese The French kids went to their own schools, and us Vietnamese kids went to separate ones. But when we went to the exams, the Vietnamese kids were given harder exams. It was infinitely more difficult for Vietnamese to become doctors than for the French. This is not to mention the fact that while still in medical schools the Vietnamese students had to give private tutoring in order to make a living. But in my case, once I became an expert surgeon the French began employing in important positions, promoting me quickly through the ranks. I can remember that when I left the French side to join the revolutionary government my monthly salary was 2,000 dong a month. This was a huge sum of money at that time. Therefore, although the French discriminated against us, once we became successful the French wanted to buy us off in order to have a group of pro-French Vietnamese. But this policy was to no avail because as soon as we heard of the call by the Viet Minh, we joined it immediately.

Q: Since you had been well-paid and respected under the French, how come you went over to the Viet Minh?

A: This is something peculiar to the Vietnamese. We, intellectuals at that time, felt that we had been deprived of something. We were people without a country, and we felt very frustrated as a result. Even when we were still in grade schools we had been following the movements and the newspapers, which opposed the French. Of the various newspapers which we read very carefully, there was one published by a man named Nguyen Ai Quoc which we came to respect quite a lot. When the Viet Minh came into being, people came and asked me to go and treat an old man, an old comrade. I did not know who this man was, but when I met this man I was immediately struck by his very bright eyes. There was something in him, which attracted me right away. It was only later that I knew that this man was Chairman Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh and I talked often with each other, and through our conversation I realized that he was a. true patriot who wanted to save the nation. So it was easy for me to leave the French. And with me, all those who were close to me. I had just been married then, and my son was only 3 months old. But we went into the jungle, leaving our luxurious house and everything else behind. I did not forget to take with me all the surgical tools, which I later on brought back out of the jungle to equip this hospital here. My wife was sixteen at that time, and my son was only 3 months old.