The first step of Vietnamese treasure across the ocean

Sometimes when I hear hot news in the press about auctions of Vietnamese antiques in France, Germany or the US, I get nervous.

Poster introducing ECPAD documents and publications on war

It turns out that many works of art and also valuable historical documents of our ancestors are floating around in foreign markets. There are golden seals, golden bowls, golden swords, jade cups, jade statues, bronze statues, silk paintings, ceramics, ancient books, rare costumes... Priceless as they are, the treasure trove of Vietnamese antiquities overseas is not limited to just jade and gold. There are also many archives, libraries and museums in many countries near and far that are preserving a huge amount of documents, books, newspapers, graphics, pictures, films and many other rare documents and artifacts marking the historical and social periods of Vietnam. In the early spring, I invite you, who love Vietnamese history, to join me in "breaking ground" on these unique treasures...

Australian warships docked in Saigon in 1913 (State Library of Victoria, Australia)

Three Fansipan peaks in Paris

The City of Light of France is full of fascinating landscapes, but if you love Vietnamese history, you cannot ignore the Vietnamese and Indochina libraries that are being kept here. First of all, the National Library of France (BNF), located in two giant buildings designed like two large books opened on the banks of the Seine River. At the BNF in 2017, for the first time, I saw with my own eyes and touched the urban design maps of modern Saigon - nearly two centuries ago. That was a hand-drawn sketch of the central street in 1865, still retaining the original burnt pencil strokes on croquis paper. Next was a large A0 print on contemporary paper, showing a black and white woodcut drawing of a 3D perspective of Saigon's planning carried out in 1880. Oh la la! Seeing and being able to carefully take pictures of every detail of the original map was truly interesting, a million times more emotional than the virtual map on the computer. At BNF, there are a series of hand-drawn or machine-printed maps of Saigon, Cho Lon, the three regions of Central, South and North, and all of Indochina from many periods, from the late 19th century to about 1954. According to bibliographic data, BNF and its associated libraries are preserving 120 maps and 523 photos specializing in Indochina. In the early 1970s, Dr. Huynh Phan Tong, while doing his thesis on the history of Vietnamese journalism, discovered at BNF about 25,000 books and more than 1,000 related newspaper titles of Indochina. Recently, graduate student Cao Vy, doing his doctoral thesis on books published in Cochinchina, found at BNF more than 5,000 books from the period 1922 - 1944. Dr. Nguyen Giang Huong, an expert appraiser at BNF, said that it is estimated that there are tens of thousands of "everything" types of documents about Vietnam and Indochina. She told me: that is an incomplete statistic, because BNF still has many documents that have not been analyzed and processed. Indeed, a Fansipan mountain of documents right in the middle of splendid Paris has been and is waiting for Vietnamese history lovers to conquer and explore. Paris also has other great libraries that are frequent destinations for domestic and international Vietnamese scholars. In 2018, Dr. Olivier Tessier, director of the office of the Far East School of the North (EFEO) in Ho Chi Minh City, introduced me to the school's library near the Trocadero Metro station. As a student, I heard my teachers talk about EFEO as a legendary castle - a gathering place for many French and Vietnamese scholars with outstanding research works on Indochina, from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Now, entering the "castle", I witness thousands of books, newspapers, and documents on Indochina and Asia before and after 1975, which are very well preserved. Among them, I found some Vietnamese-language primers compiled by Petrus Truong Vinh Ky in the 1880s, documents on the history of Dinh Thuong Tho from 1864 - at the time when there was a debate about whether or not to demolish this historic building (59-61 Ly Tu Trong, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City). In the fall of 2022, when I visited Paris, my Vietnamese friends showed me a new mountain, the Paris Missionary Society Library (MEP). Having heard of it for a long time, I stepped in and admired another Fansipan with more than 15,000 books, 200 magazines, and 800 paintings related to many East Asian countries. Of which, Vietnam alone has more than 1,000 works in Han Nom and Vietnamese script. Surprisingly, I was able to see the original handwritten dictionary Anamitico Latinum by Bishop Pigneau de Behaine, completed around 1773, which was kept in pristine condition. This document is a notebook larger than A4, with neat lines of Chinese ink, including four types of characters: Latin, Nom, Han and Vietnamese using Latin forms - later called the national language. I also held in my hand a similar handwritten notebook of Annamese History. Looking at the handwriting from four centuries ago, I could not help but think of the anonymous "old souls" who helped missionaries record Vietnamese culture and create modern writing for future generations.

Map of Cochinchina in the 1870s. The lower left corner has the Saigon city logo, the right corner has a drawing of the Soai Phu Nam Ky mansion. The map is kept at the Singapore Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, photo taken in November 2023

Crossing the ocean, encountering "sea of ​​documents"

Returning to Paris many times in recent years, I have had the opportunity to visit the Military Museum, Guimet, Cernuschi and Jacques Chirac, which are places that preserve many historical artifacts and Vietnamese works of art. French universities are also places with many documents about Vietnam and Southeast Asia. At the library of the Paris Architecture University, I was introduced to more than 120 master's theses researching the planning and architecture of Saigon and Hanoi, with a lot of ancient and modern data. Looking through them, I was both happy and jealous, secretly hoping that one day these theses would be shared on the Internet. Visiting the French Army Film Archive Center (ECPAD) located in an ancient Vauban-style fortress, I was guided by French friends to see a large photo archive. There were thousands of old photos still stuck in old paper books, wonderfully digitized on the computer. Through the lenses of photographic officers, houses and daily life in Saigon and Indochina from 1945 to 1955 appear diverse and vivid.

I found some photos on the internal computer of the magnificent building at 110 Vo Van Tan, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City, which used to be the residence of a French air force general. Architect Nicolas Viste - who was in charge of the restoration of the building, now called "Southern Villa" - said that after many searches, he came to ECPAD and found the original design drawings of the building hundreds of years ago. The French once had a chain of colonies including many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. All documents on the history of the invasion and administration of the colonies were transferred from the navy to the Ministry of Colonies in Paris. This treasure is called the Overseas Archives (ANOM). Since 1986, most of the ANOM documents have been transferred to Aix-en-Provence, a small province near the major port city of Marseilles in the South of France. Last September, when I first visited ANOM, I was amazed to see not a great "mountain of documents", but a vast "sea of ​​documents". According to official figures, ANOM has a total length of 38km of document shelves, 60,000 maps, 150,000 photos and about 120,000 publications. Looking up on the cabinet and computer, I immediately found information on hundreds of planning maps of Saigon and other cities of Indochina before 1945. Dr. Nguyen Phuong Ngoc, director of the Asian Research Center of Aix Marseilles University, showed me that ANOM is preserving countless personal records of many Vietnamese people in the 19th and 20th centuries. They are not only useful for tracing and supplementing the history of the country but also for each clan and family. Even Australia, which has only had relations with Vietnam since modern times, still has many national and university libraries that have many Vietnamese relics from many periods. For example, the photo archive at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne is storing hundreds of photos of Saigon from 1912 to 1975, including an image of an Australian naval warship docking in Saigon in 1913. Here, I also found a Hue tourism promotion book in English from the 1920s to 1930s, donated by the Indochina government. At the State Library of South Australia, in addition to many books and newspapers about our country, I came across a nautical map printed in 1944 - when World War II had not yet ended, with the only name of Saigon Port in the chain of ports from India to Northeast Asia, now called the Indo-Pacific region. Meanwhile, the US also has a series of "archives" of Vietnamese documents that are no less magnificent than France. In Washington, DC, at the Library of Congress, I really admired the collection of more than 900 maps of Vietnam. The library still retains the original maps of Saigon made by American and British military intelligence in early 1945, on which are clearly marked the positions of Japanese troops and allied prisoner-of-war camps. These maps are part of the documents about the plans of the British and American armies to land in Indochina after retaking Singapore and the Philippines. I also recognized "old friends" from more than 50 years ago, which were the sets of elementary school textbooks from the Republic of Vietnam, preserved brand new. The library currently has about 200,000 titles of books, newspapers, and publications of all kinds about Vietnam and many movies. In the US, over the years, I have had the opportunity to read at Yale University Library, New York City Library, Philadelphia City Library, but I hope to visit Harvard Library, Yen-Ching Library, Vietnam Center at the University of Texas to see other rare and great "treasures" about Vietnam and Asia. However, while we are not there, my friends who love Vietnamese history and I can still visit three other nearby treasures, which are the National Library, the Asian Civilizations Museum, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, and the National Art Gallery of Singapore. Unexpectedly, Singaporeans have also collected many valuable documents and artifacts about Vietnam.

Sesame, open the door...

Author Phuc Tien

A fleeting "trip" like the one above is certainly not satisfactory for you or me. Currently, the above-mentioned "treasures" of ancient Vietnam have begun to open on the Internet, but not all documents and artifacts have been put online. In addition, searching and viewing directly will be much more accurate and complete. However, to go abroad to explore them will require a lot of time and resources. Without scholarships, without funding from the State, universities or organizations and individuals, students and researchers can only collect a part. Experience from other countries shows that hunting for documents and artifacts reflecting the past of a nation - country - region is worthy of being a serious matter. This should be considered a comprehensive, long-term scientific program at the national level, especially serving diplomacy, economy, culture, and military; it is even more important in proving sovereignty over territory and islands, resolving border, ethnic, and religious issues. And even more sacred is to fill in the gaps, illuminate the dark spots in history, strengthen national pride, and form policies to mobilize Vietnam's internal strength at home and abroad.

Must go find hidden treasures

Where are the "mountains of documents" and "seas of documents" about Vietnam? I know that they are present in archives, libraries and universities of China, Japan, England, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain - countries that have had diplomatic relations with the entire Southeast Asian region since very early times. In particular, the Vatican's solemn archives also have many rare documents and artifacts related to Vietnam since the 15th century. Besides exploiting foreign archives, we cannot forget or waste domestic archives. Currently, many Vietnamese historical documents and artifacts from many periods are still hidden in archives, libraries, museums, universities and especially among the people. They are all priceless treasures that need to be cherished, supplemented and widely promoted to the public and researchers in many ways.

Phuc Tien - Tuoitre.vn

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