Trusting people too much is sometimes considered a sin. Loving animals with open hearts is sometimes considered eccentric. But a hundred years ago or a hundred years later, that mentality can still be “decoded”, no matter what form it is expressed in…
1. Ten years before he died in Hue, around 1930, Phan Boi Chau wrote the book "Self-judgment" in which he criticized himself for being "too honest", that is, too honest, too excessive.
After finishing writing, “Old Man Ben Ngu” Phan Boi Chau gave it to Mr. Minh Vien Huynh Thuc Khang to keep. This detail was written by Lac Nhan Nguyen Quy Huong, a native of Tam Ky, Secretary of the editorial board of Tieng Dan newspaper, in the memoir “Old Man Ben Ngu” (Thuan Hoa Publishing House, 1982).
Mr. Nguyen Quy Huong said that Mr. Phan's self-criticism was "extremely excessive" because he believed that in life there was no one who could not be trusted. "He considered it a crime of 'not having a basis for martial arts' and history itself proved his words. His trusting nature not only ruined great things, but he himself was also a direct victim" (Ibid, page 130).
The Editorial Secretary of Tiếng Dân newspaper cited a few more stories to illustrate the misplaced trust in Mr. Phan. After the General Uprising in Hue, a person was arrested and confessed that he had previously gone up and down to Mr. Phan Bội Châu's house on Bến Ngự slope to spy and deliver information to the French.
Who was the spy? He was a man of letters and good writing in the land of Than Kinh. He passed the exam for the title of deputy governor, and all the parallel sentences in the royal palace and many books were written by him. On normal days, he often came to Mr. Phan's house, and was very much loved and warmly welcomed by him. Sometimes he even stayed overnight to talk...
Another “extremely real” story caused Mr. Phan to be arrested in Shanghai (China) before being brought back to Hanoi for trial with a life sentence. The person who informed the French to arrest Mr. Phan was the person he had raised in his house since he was in Han Chau, had passed the bachelor’s degree, and was fluent in French. Based on this information, the French ambushed him at the train station, waited for him to get off the train and walk, then pushed him into a car and drove him to the French concession…
2. Ms. Le Thi Ngoc Suong, sister of poet Bich Khe, who was a revolutionary activist in Quang Ngai from the Democratic Front movement led by the Indochinese Communist Party, also recalled in her memoir "Old Man of Ben Ngu" an interesting story about a reunion with Phan Boi Chau.
About 5 years before that, when she was still in Hue, the young girl had gone to the house on Ben Ngu slope to talk to Mr. Phan many times, but when she returned to Phan Thiet to open a school with the purpose of gathering brothers, she was arrested by Phan Thiet secret police and taken to Quang Ngai, where she was held in solitary confinement for nearly 2 years... As for this reunion, she remembered that after the conversation, when seeing her guest off at the gate, Mr. Phan showed Mrs. Suong the grave of the "good dog" with a proper stele.
“This dog is loyal to its owner, I love it like a friend. Although it is an animal, I do not treat it like one. Yet there are people who do not know their own country, their own flesh and blood, day and night stalking and arresting people to bring to their owner to be dismembered and torn to pieces!”, Mr. Phan said to Mrs. Suong.
Later, Mrs. Suong was fortunate to be with Mr. Phan more, even in his last days, and recounted in detail the time of his burial in the pouring rain. Therefore, the story about Mr. Phan’s “dog of righteousness” must have been quite detailed and accurate…
Now, Mr. Phan’s “dogs of righteousness” - Va and Ky - are no longer strangers. The “dogs of righteousness” tombstone was erected by Mr. Phan himself. In front of Va’s tomb, there is not only a tombstone with a few Chinese characters mixed with Vietnamese characters “Nghia dung cau con” (The brave dog of righteousness)
"Mending the pit", and erected with a stele engraved with lines of praise as if written to a soul mate: "Because of courage, one risks one's life to fight; because of righteousness, one is loyal to one's master. It's easy to say, but difficult to do; if people are like that, what about dogs?"
Oh! This Va, with both virtues, is not like someone else, with a human face and a beast heart. Thinking about it makes me sad, so I erected a tombstone for her. Ky is the same, with a stele “Nhan tri cau Ky chi trung” (missing the word “con”) and another stele engraved with lines as if for a bosom friend: “People with a little bit of virtue are often lacking in intelligence; people with a little bit of virtue and intelligence are often lacking in humanity. Being both intelligent and humane is truly rare; who would have thought that this Ky had both virtues…”.
3. When seeing Mr. Phan erecting a monument for the "dog of righteousness", someone complained that he was too nosy, treating dogs like people...
This story was told by Mr. Phan himself, in an article published in a newspaper in 1936. The article mentioned the case of Va “returning to the dog country” in the year of Giap Tuat 1934, due to illness. “I loved him. I built a grave for him. The grave was one meter high and wide, near the bottom of my birth hole. On the grave I planted a stele about one meter high.
The stele is engraved with five words: “Nghia dung cau chi trung” and has the word “con Va” under the word “cau”… After I finished, a guest came to visit. The guest scolded me: “Why are you doing so much work on a dead dog? You have already built a grave and then erected a stele with engraved words, isn’t that too much work? Or do you consider dogs as people?”, Mr. Phan wrote in the “Trung Ky Tuan Bao” issue 14.
It has been exactly 90 years since Va died. Coincidentally, in the early days of 2024, there has been a buzz about pets being pampered by young people, who treat them like their own children. There are even funerals when dogs and cats die and there are burial and cremation services... The mood of each era is different, the "messy" story in the 21st century is even more different from that of the early 20th century, but it is certainly more or less similar in terms of love...
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