When traveling in Vietnam, you can still hear French embedded in every-day culture:
fork (fut-xet) , suit (com-plet) and tie (ca-ra-vat). Apparently, they just use the phoneticized versions for lack of dynamic equivalents and use literal translation, such as “Hop Dem” (Boite de Nuit) as last resort.
Some old hands can still carry a tune or two in French. From the music of Christophe to Art Sullivan, from Dalida to Charles Aznavour.
Ask anyone from the older generation, they will tell you they know Alain Delon, Catherine Deneuve, Jean Paul Belmondo and Brigitte Bardot.
And you should listen over cafe au lait. You find French imprints in gastronomy and architecture (Notre Dame Cathedral), traffic cop stations and the ambivalent tie (a rare thing given its tropical climate).
Older scholars are still conversant in French. Their worn-out La Rousse copies testify to that (or as Cuban classic Detroit cars – relics of the island’s past).
Chances are they still have a beret laying around (up North, or in Dalat).
Old Time-and-Life pictures show French officers smoking in Hotel Continental and Caravelle in the late 50’s (in shorts). It was also featured as a set in The Quiet American.
Practically every nation on Earth, even North Korea, has an expat den e.g. French Quarter in New Orleans.
Vietel won the Haiti Telecom contract despite the quake. The thing they have in common: speak French as former fellow colonies. Lately, France tries to compensate for its colonial “sin” 200 years late.
Speaking of history. Madame Nhu (the title says it all) was overexerting her derivative power with bad PR comments (they can barbecue themselves all they want; nobody asked them to) about the burning monks. She once had been tutored by her soon-to-be husband presumably in French and in Dalat where the last King’s Imperial Villa was located.
A friend told me I should try to make it to Paris before dying. Apparently, Paris is our new Rome and Mecca (it’s still among the top ten despite the recession). Even the hyper-savers in China couldn’t help spending an average of $1800 there for shopping at Capitalist temple. When Paris sizzles!
Since they arrived on tour bus, their schedules barely allowed for sitting down dinner. Just shop (although both the Chinese and the French love cuisine).
And if I can’t do it, a trip to my local supermarket will do. There, I get my French Roast coffee, and a baguette plus cheese (La Vache qui rit).
And on YouTube, I can just select French songs e.g. Francoise Hardy‘s. Those singers, in tailored suits, sang with utter confidence and vulnerability:
“Mal, je suis mal…” or, “Il fait de soleil, je pense a toi.”
As a Vietnamese of origin, I was wired from birth to love French songs. No way around it. It’s a good start for my schooling, in French, at early age. The principle of Ecole L’Aurore and her brother lingered on in post-colonial times, much like those souped-up Detroit automobiles still be around in Cuba.
Frere Jacque, dormez vous? I didn’t know I was homesick, until one day, I happened to listen to Adieu Sois Heureuse by Art Sullivan. It not only brought me back in time, but to a place where dreams entertained yet unrealized, and friendships, half-baked, left wanting.
French is the best language for nostalgia. And where else better than in Vietnam where you can still find it embedded in every-day culture and etched in memories of exile.
Thang Nguyen 555 