Notebook 1
The ‘object’ that I chose for this notebook is the Southern Vietnam national anthem “Tiếng Gọi Công Dân”. The first version of the anthem was created when the Vietnamese people were fighting for independence against the French by Lưu Hữu Phước. He wrote the lyrics to the anthem while he was a student during World War II. It got known through other students. At the time, he was rallying students so the anthem was to gather the youth of Vietnam. In 1954, the Geneva Accord split Vietnam into two. In 1955, when the independence from France occurred Ngô Đình Diệm restructured the lyrics to include everyone since the song was mostly promoted for youth. South Vietnam adopted the song after Saigon fell. Today Vietnam, which is currently a communist country, still use this song as one of their anthems; however, the lyrics are a bit different.
I think that the anthem relates to the theme of War and the Figure of the Refugee since the anthem was used when the Vietnamese people were at war and the fact that the North American Vietnamese people still use this song during events. I came across this anthem when my parents decided to send me to a local Vietnamese School that spread the Vietnamese culture where I live when I was about 12 years old. The organization was called Hội Người Việt which stood basically translates to The Vietnamese People. The school’s name was Việt Ngữ Văn Long. During the six years that I was learning the Vietnamese language, there were many traditions that I learned about. The first was that the first week of every month all the students were to sing the anthem. After a year, I was one of the students that stood in the front singing the anthem. This specific anthem that I learned is actually the third national anthem of the Republic of Vietnam from 1956 until 1975.
This anthem circulated from when the Republic of Vietnam was created in 1956 to today in the United States; however, this anthem also was around the communists in the North of Vietnam. Nation, in this case, is where people are recognized in and where they are accepted in. During the time when there was a united Vietnam fighting for the independence of Vietnam the people came together; however, when Vietnam split into two governments the people had to choose which side that they belong in. Once the two governments split war took place. The South Vietnamese people used this anthem to help promote the war while it was going on and to get more people to join their side. During this time my grandfather had was enlisted to fight in the war with South Vietnam. The last memory that my mother has of her father was when he gave her one of his tags when he was on his way to leave Saigon. I’m not sure whether it was a few months or years after but when a neighbor from the same town my mother lived in came back he told the family that my grandfather had died by stepping on a bomb and exploded. I don’t know if this was how my grandfather died for sure, but the only thing I’m sure of is that he did not make it because I have not seen him yet. In North Vietnam, this anthem circulated as a revolutionary song. In the United States, this anthem is used to remember their old country that they used to live in. This anthem is widely used by Vietnamese refugees in other countries as well. This anthem could also mean that although the South had lost the war there are still Vietnamese people around the globe that are from the South. In other words, the war was not lost because they still have the thoughts and ideas of the South within the refugees and their descendants.
Sources:
http://knowledge.unavsa.org/culture/vietnamese-heritage-flag-and-the-national-anthem-of-south-vietnam/
http://www.nationalanthems.info/svn-75.htm
Link to the song and the Lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsB1XE-sb7U