This song is most interesting because the original lyrics were written in Paris by the writer Minh Đức Hoài Trinh: in 1962 or thirteen years before the Fall of Saigon.
Continue reading “Song of refugees #3 – Ai Trở Về Xứ Việt (Who Are Returning to the Viet Land?)”
Ask Vietnamese to name Vietnamese female singers that they love, and you can expect to hear many names. Ask them to name a Vietnamese female songwriter, and just about everyone will be stumped by the question. For there has been little recorded popular music written by Vietnamese women. I have no explanation for the wide discrepancy. But such was the case, at least in South Vietnam and the postwar diaspora.
Continue reading “Song of refugees #4 – Anh Vẫn Mơ Một Ngày Về (I Still Dream of Returning One Day)”
Bắt đầu từ Tây Nam ta lên Tây Bắc. Bây giờ, từ Tây Bắc chúng ta qua miền đông.
Miền Đông nghĩa là vùng phía hướng đông của sông Mississippi với diện tích rất lớn. Mà tiền sử của người da đỏ miền đông cũng có nhiều giai đoạn. Quan trọng nhất là giai đoạn từ thế kỷ thứ chín trước Công Nguyên đến đầu thế kỷ mười ba sau Công Nguyên (800 BC – 1200 AD). Tên nói chung cho văn hóa thời gian này là văn hóa Woodland: wood là rừng và land là đất, nên chúng ta có thể dịch là văn hóa Đất Rừng – hoặc, hay hơn, là văn hóa Địa Mộc.
Continue reading “Lịch sử nước Mỹ #4 -Người da đỏ miền Đông”
Dịch tiếng Anh qua tiếng Việt lúc dễ lúc khó, mà khó nhiều hơn dễ. Dịch tiếng Việt ra tiếng Anh cũng vậy. Mà không chỉ dịch văn chương, triết lý, thần học; ngay cả dịch những câu ngăn ngắn cũng có lúc trắc trở. Khó nhất là tục ngữ, thường là không dịch sát được.
Continue reading “A prayer for graduates with a nod to stepparents”
For several reasons, I prefer small academic conferences over large ones. Still, it is good to go to a major annual conference once in a while, which was the case this past weekend at the Association for Core Texts and Courses (ACTC). “Major,” however, may be inaccurate. At about 300 attendants each year, the ACTC pales in comparison to the thousands who trek annually to the MLA (language & literature), AHA (history), AAR (religion), AAA (anthropology), ASA (American studies), AAS (Asian studies), AAAS (Asian American studies), ICMS (Medieval studies), AWP (writers and writing programs), and other alphabet-soup biggies in the humanities and social sciences. The AWP, for instance, typically has 2000 presenters and 12,000 attendees. (It is not a typo: twelve and three zeros.) The ACTC is decidedly small potatoes in number and scale. On the other hand, the relative smallness – let’s call it “medium-sized”- probably contributed nicely to my enjoyment of the event in Atlanta.
By a coincidence, I read Alex-Thai Vo‘s article in the Journal of Vietnamese Studies a couple of days before my Great Books classes met to discuss the first half of The Prince. The article is titled Nguyễn Thị Năm and the Land Reform in North Vietnam, 1953, and I browsed over it when it came out last spring, only to “save” it for later because it is quite long. Funny, but last week I was merely looking at several JVS articles for examples of formatting and mechanics, not anything specifically in the content. But I got hooked quickly and read the article in entirety. It was one of those happy distractions and, possibly, fruitful later too.
Continue reading “Lịch sử nước Mỹ #3 -Người da đỏ miền Tây Bắc”
tuannyriver 
You must be logged in to post a comment.