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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
Of all intellectuals, the most highly respected and appreciated by Vietnamese society are the doctors. Indeed, it is hardly surprising that they should enjoy the esteem of a society the great majority of whose members are uneducated, impoverished, and beset by chronic disease and sickness. However, the reasons are twofold; medical degrees are academically superior to all others, and medicine, of all the professions, is the most useful on the purely practical plane. The doctors themselves are accorded the honorific title of “Thay,” and the medical profession is popularly referred to by the descriptive phrase “savers of people and helpers of life.” This is why, on the thirtieth anniversary of the Indo-Chinese Communist Party and the fifteenth anniversary of the Government of the Democratic Republic of (North) Vietnam, the “Doctor of Doctors,” Ho Dac Di, who is Chairman of the North Vietnamese Medical Association as well as Director of the University and Specialist Colleges, was invited to make a speech. Here is what Dr. Ho Dac Di said on that occasion:
The future of the intellectuals is a glorious one, because their activities bind them closely to the proletarian masses who are the masters of the world, the masters of their own country, the masters of their history, and masters of themselves…. On this, the thirtieth anniversary of the foundation of the Party, all those classes who work with their brains, and the scientists in particular, sincerely own their debt of gratitude to the Party and proclaim their complete confidence in the enlightened leadership of the Party, as well as in the glorious future of the fatherland. They give their firm promise that they, together with the other classes of the people, will protect the great achievements of the revolution.
1 This post is roughly the equivalent of that of Vice-Chancellor at a British University.
2 Tin-tuc Hoat-dong Khoa-hoc (News of Scientific Activities), the information bulletin of the State Scientific Committee, 01 1960.Google Scholar
3 5 hao is roughly equal in value to sixpence.
4 Nhan Dan (The People), the Vietnamese Communists' daily newspaper, March 30, 1961.
5 French dictum “Science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme.”
6 After the meeting of the Central Association at Hanoi on November 8, 9, and 10, 1945, the Vietnamese Communist Party voluntarily dissolved itself. From then until 1951, the Vietnamese Communists operated under the pseudonym of the Association for Marxist Studies.
7 Chinh, Truong, The Vietnamese August Revolution (Hanoi: Su-That Publishing House [reprint], 1954), p. 35.Google Scholar
8 Mai, Dang Thai, “Vietnamese Literature,” Europe, No. 387–388, 07–08 1961Google Scholar, Special Number on Vietnamese Literature, p. 91.
9 The younger brother of Ho Dac Di, mentioned at the beginning of this article. He is now working as a specialist in the Ministry of Agriculture, Republic of (South) Vietnam.
10 Now President of the Medical Board, Republic of (South) Vietnam.
11 The editor of the paper Nhan Van published in Hanoi towards the end of 1956. He was one of the leaders of the group struggling for democratic freedom in North Vietnam during the 1956–57 period.
12 A closer translation is “To return to the zone in which order has been restored by the French.”
12a The List of Social Classes Determined by the Government (Temporary List), No. 239–B/TTg was promulgated by the Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in March 1953.
13 Van Nghe (Arts and Letters), No. 13, 06 1958, p. 17.Google Scholar
14 Van Nghe, No. 11, 04 1958, p. 106.Google Scholar
15 ibid., p. 79.
16 The title of a poem published by Cam, Hoang, Giai Pham Mua Thu, 09 1956.Google Scholar
17 Van Nghe, No. 13, 06 1957.Google Scholar
18 Professor of the Trung-Nguyen University in China. The Vietnamese translation was published by the Su That Publishing House, March 7, 1957.
19 Van Nghe, No. 162, 03 1–7, 1957.Google Scholar
20 Ibid.
21 He published the poem “Have You Noticed?” in Giai Pham Mua Xuan, 1956.Google Scholar
22 Admitted by Le Dat, , Van Nghe, No. 12, 05 1958.Google Scholar
23 Van Nghe, No. 12, 05 1958.Google Scholar
24 Nhan Dan, 04 19, 1958.Google Scholar
25 Nhan Dan, 01 20, 1960.Google Scholar
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27 To Quoc, the organ of the Vietnamese Socialist Party, No. 114, 11 1, 1958.Google Scholar
28 ibid., No. 125, April 16, 1959 (Editorial).
29 “The Reform of the Hungarian Intellectuals,” To Quoc, No. 125.Google Scholar
30 Speech made by Nguyen Duy Trinh, Deputy Premier and Chairman of the State Planning Board, to the 9th session of the National Assembly (Hanoi: Su That Publishing House).
31 Thoi Moi, 09 15, 1961.Google Scholar
32 To Quoc, No. 125, 04 16, 1959.Google Scholar
33 Van Nghe, 08 1960.Google Scholar