Refugees in Saigon, May 1968 ~ pc Stripes.com

Thanks partly to a hospitable spirit and mostly to vanity, I’ve always got a kick from having observers in my classes.  In most cases, they were prospective students visiting campus.  But occasionally they were non-students, such as parents who visited during Waves Weekend at Pepperdine, or faculty who came to observe and evaluate my teaching at three different institutions.

Five or six years ago, one such professor at UC Riverside came to my class on the Vietnam War for observation as required by the History Department’s regulations.  At nearly eighty students, it was the largest class that I’ve ever taught; and the topic on this particular day was war experiences among different Vietnamese groups.  The professor-observer made the following note in his report:

There were many high points in the class, but arguably its emotional peak came when he played a popular Vietnamese song about the war along with a Powerpoint of the Vietnamese verses and English translation. At that moment, you could have heard the proverbial pin drop as the class was focused very closely on the song.  It was a truly a remarkable moment and a remarkable class. 

I am not so humble as to deny or downplay my pedagogical effort in creating this classroom effect. But most responsible for that proverbial pin drop was the recording of this song.  I’ve taught the course at four universities, and I played this song every time I taught it.  The main purpose is illustrating the impact of warfare that turned South Vietnamese peasants and farmers into refugees.  Beyond this goal, I also think it is one of Trịnh Công Sơn’s most well-crafted and complete compositions.

In Vietnamese, du mục means to raise cattle in a nomadic manner and người du mục means a nomad.  “Nomad” or “nomads” is the closest to an English translation, and it is indeed what most translators, including contributors to the Wikipedia page on TCS and Jason Gibbs in a translation of an article by Đặng Tiến, have used.  It is the best and, for sticklers, likely the only translation available.

But there are looser options that may work – and TCS could get loose with his employment of Vietnamese vocabulary sometimes.  “Refugees” is one possibility; another is “Wanderers.” (I’ve seen du mục Englished in one dictionary as “wandering.”)  I once saw the song title translated as “Cattle,” although I couldn’t find it online anymore.  For the time being, I am going with “The Herd” mainly because “Nomad” isn’t quite satisfactory to my thought and ears.  One problem is that there wasn’t much of an agricultural nomadic tradition among Vietnamese in the modern era.  (It might be different with ethnic minorities.)  The closest there was to modern nomads would be country boys tasked with looking after cattle, an image long romanticized in folk and popular cultures.  Besides, it isn’t unusual for English translators to give different names to books, movies, and songs from their original titles as long as they make good sense.

Linguistic nitpicking aside, Du Mục is the third of twenty-five songs in the first Sing for the Vietnamese Country album.  By far the best of five albums in the series, the songs are terrific individually and also add up to an impressive whole.  The opening number tells the combination of suffering and hope.  In broad strokes, it also lays out the undercurrent theme on the sacralization of the Vietnamese country.  This nationalist undercurrent weaves through the entire album, sometime overtly and always artistically rendered.  The articulation in the first song is enhanced by the figure of the Vietnamese mother who sings a lullaby to her child in the second song.  Both songs deal with the abstract than the specific, as the mother figure is meant to embody the nation above all.

Then enters a herd of cattle in the third song: a far more concrete image.  The song offers an illustration of the devastation from warfare in the late 1960s, resulting in a huge amount of refugees.  Some were urban people rendered homeless by the Tet Offensive.  Others were peasants and farmers made refugees by carpet-bombing and fierce fighting in the countryside.

The opening of Du Mục is one of the most memorable in the history of South Vietnamese recorded music.  The bass drops low and slow, followed by quick notes pounded together by the piano and high cymbal, then joined by vigorous strumming of the acoustic guitar.  The atmosphere is foreboding and ominous, as if preparing listeners for the anguish of homelessness and destruction in the lyrics to come.

Cattle are the subject of the first verse, whose lyrics are broken into phrases of two or three words.  The spacing produces a weary and somewhat hypnotic effect.

Đàn bò… vào thành phố
Đêm buồn… vắng buồn hơn.
Đàn bò… vào thành phố
Không còn… ai hỏi thăm.
Đàn bò… tìm dòng sông
Nhưng dòng… nước cạn khô.
Đàn bò… bỗng thấy buồn… bỗng thấy buồn,
Rồi một hôm đứng mơ… mây ngàn.

The herd enters the city,
The empty night grows sadder.
The herd enters the city,
No one is left to greet them.
The herd looks for the stream,
But the stream has dried up.
The herd is suddenly sad, suddenly sad,
One day dreaming of paradise faraway.

The second verse turns to people.

Một người… vào thành phố
Đếm từng… bước buồn tênh.
Một người… vào thành phố
Không còn… ai người quen.
Người tìm… về đồng xanh
Nhưng đồng… đã bỏ không.
Rồi người… bỗng thấy buồn… bỗng thấy buồn,
Người chợt nghe xót xa… đất mình.

Someone enters the city,
Counting each sad walking step.
Someone enters the city,
Seeing no familiar faces.
Someone looks for green pasture,
But the field has been abandoned.
Someone is suddenly sad, suddenly sad,
Someone quickly grows grievous for this land.

Guitar chords are again hit hard before Khánh Ly’s voice leaps at the start of the refrain.  The mother from the previous song reappears and sings a lullaby to her child, albeit in a different manner.

Ôi quê hương… đã lầm than
Sao còn… còn chiến tranh?
Mẹ già… hết chờ mong
Đã ngủ yên.
Mẹ già… mãi ngủ yên.

Buông lời ru… cho muôn năm
Buông vòng nôi… cho hư không,
Cho hư không… buông bàn tay,
Con đi hoang,
Con đi hoang… một đời
Con đi hoang… phận này.

Oh country, how desolate!
Why still war, still war?
Old mother has stopped waiting,
And fell into sound sleep.
She has fallen into sound and eternal sleep.

Intoning lullabies for all times,
Letting go of cradles to nirvana,
To nirvana she lets go of her hands.
Her child has gone astray,
Her child has gone astray all this life,
Her child has gone astray all this fate.

There is no break between the refrain and third verse, now populated by both cattle and people.  Sleep, nirvana, and paradise have appeared in refrain and previous verses.  It is only logical that death comes at the end of the final verse.

Đàn bò… vào thành phố
Reo buồn… tiếng hạt chuông.
Một người… vào thành phố
Nghe hồn… giá lạnh băng.
Người tìm… về đầu non
Nhưng rừng… đã bỏ hoang.
Rồi người… bỗng hết buồn… đã hết buồn,
Người lặng nghe đá lên… trong mình.

The herd enters the city,
Ringing sorrowful bells,
Someone enters the city,
Growing cold and numb within.
Someone looks for the woods,
But they have been abandoned,
Someone suddenly feels no sadness, no sadness.
Someone silently feels like a stone inside.

Homelessness as captured by Philip Jones Griffiths

I’d thought Du Mục one of TCS’s most complete songs.  I now wonder if a case could be made that it is the most complete song of his large oeuvre.  For sure, it is one of deepest and greatest songs about war penned by a Vietnamese in the twentieth century.