The heart never ages, so why should we? My heart still flutters with autumn, trembles at beautiful music, and yearns to love... and I cannot deny my heart.
These were the words of Nguyễn Thị Xuân Phượng during a conversation about “Giữ lửa cho tuôi thanh xuân” (loosely translated Keeping the Fire of Youth Alive) in 2022, at the age of 93. Her eyes have witnessed history unfold, from Emperor Bảo Đại's abdication at the Ngọ Môn Gate to the historic moment of riding with a tank regiment into the Independence Palace on Reunification Day.
Xuân Phượng's hands have distributed leaflets, manufactured explosives, healed the sick, tirelessly translated, written for newspapers and books, directed documentary films, and nurtured Vietnamese artistic talent to reach their full potentials.
Throughout her nearly century-long life, she has weathered the ups and downs of both her nation and her personal journey with a heart that refuses to age. Whether as a 16-year-old girl or a 95-year-old woman, she has always chosen love and never ceases to embrace it.
At 16: A Seven-Word Aspiration - "Regain Independence for the Country"
"When I was in school, if someone asked me to list the crimes of the French, I couldn't name any!" As a child, Xuân Phượng was a young lady with curled hair, wearing carefully tailored dresses, "breezing around in the only car in Đà Lạt." However, as she experienced the tumultuous events of the time, at 16, she decided to run away from home to join the revolution.
She recounts that on the day she left, her only possessions were a pair of sandals, one set of clothes, and a heart as pure as crystal, thinking only: "I'm leaving to escape a life of slavery. And I'm determined to see this through to the end..."
After a year in the propaganda team, she transferred to the medical corps. There, a leading doctor tried to humiliate her. She left and volunteered for the Ministry of Defense to learn explosives manufacturing. Thanks to her French language skills, she was the only woman chosen to work in the Armaments Division of Military Zone IV, becoming one of the first three Vietnamese women to produce explosives.
"I was in charge of a Pulmynate unit (detonator material). Two grams equaled one life, and I made kilograms of it. Looking back, I wonder how I was so brave," she chuckles. When asked why she, as a woman, dared to make explosives, she replied:
If someone was attacking your family while you were living a normal life, regardless of gender, you would do the same.
In the following years, she immersed herself in the Viet Bac war zone, expanding her expertise to include studying artillery trajectories, journalism, and advanced medical training before becoming the head of a pediatric clinic. The next major turning point came when she was in charge of the Medical Examination Room at the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries.
One day, Uncle Ho entrusted her with the important task of interpreting and caring for the health of Dutch directors Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan as they filmed 17th Parallel: Vietnam in War in Vinh Linh.
After the trip, Director Ivens, seeing her potential, confided, "I sincerely hope Phuong will boldly revolutionize her own life." She pondered this statement for a long time. At 37, she had a high-paying job and was about to be promoted to deputy minister. Switching to become a war correspondent meant returning to an entry-level salary, equivalent to that of a janitor.
Nevertheless, she took her first tentative steps into the profession, becoming Vietnam's first female director and war correspondent. The Vinh Linh trip, though brief, taught her more than a lifetime of wisdom, changing her perspective on life, her sense of humanity, and her way of evaluating people. She became "a volunteer war correspondent, passionate until the day the country found peace."
Giving up relative safety for a 70% chance of death. My friends said I was crazy. My life as a war filmmaker was indeed full of hardships, but I must say the joys and pride were not few either.
"In a Second, I Agreed to Marry Someone I Hadn't Loved a Minute Before"
Due to the war, Xuân Phượng and her first love were separated with no means of communication. Nevertheless, she remained faithful, waiting for the day they would reunite. Four years passed before she received the news: "Phượng, Nam got married." Upon hearing this, she nearly fainted.
Later, while working in munitions, she witnessed a horrific accident where two friends were caught in a mine explosion, blood spilling everywhere. It was then that "anh Hoàng" came to comfort her, and their relationship gradually grew closer. She accepted his proposal: "I love you very much, will you be my wife?" In the depths of the dangerous jungle, with someone sincerely offering a shoulder to lean on, she nodded in agreement.
One day, while on leave due to morning sickness, Xuân Phượng unexpectedly encountered her first love, who had traveled nearly 500 kilometers to find her. "Our families were already engaged. I'll speak to Hoàng and ask for you back," he said. It turned out that "anh Nam" had never married. Thinking of the unborn child and the pain of separating it from its father, Nam made a difficult decision: "I'm leaving tomorrow."
Xuân Phượng accompanied her former love to the Lo River ferry, honoring their past relationship before returning home. There, her husband stood waiting at the doorstep, full of understanding and forgiveness.
Years later, when both families were living in Hanoi, Nam visited Xuân Phượng to ask permission to name his firstborn daughter "Nam Phượng" (a combination of their names). Through tears, she firmly refused: "Your inability to move on is your own affair, but naming her this way would hurt your wife, the woman who just endured pregnancy and childbirth for you." Eventually, the girl was named Nam Phương, and in a twist of fate, she later became a beloved student of Hoàng.
Can one live with both love and marital duty? For me, it's possible. And for three people - a lover, a husband, and a wife - to live a life beyond reproach, those three must be worthy of each other.
The following 62 years marked a journey of marriage where Xuân Phượng and Hoàng walked side by side until his passing in 2011. Despite spending more time apart than together, she was left with a deep appreciation for "his intellect, kindness, and tolerance."
Perhaps this emotional bond was the driving force that helped her overcome countless hardships in her husband's absence. She gave birth to their first child on a swaying river ferry. When her husband received urgent marching orders one night and couldn't take the family, she trekked through the jungle alone, "carrying a basket with three caged chickens and a pot for mixing flour on one end of a shoulder pole. On the other end sat Phước with a few tattered clothes. I carried Phương on my back."
Even after peace came to the country, with the couple living at opposite ends of Vietnam, Xuân Phượng "pinched every penny, often eating only rice noodles with fish sauce, chili, and garlic to save money for flights to Hanoi" to visit her husband. She persevered, shouldering every burden with unwavering dedication to her husband and children.
"Why Let People Pity Us Like This!" and a Love for Fine Art
In 1988, Xuân Phượng retired. With a pension of 300 dong, not enough to live on, her husband helped her find a job... watching bicycles at the Hanoi Opera House. She thought to herself, "A French literature graduate, retiring to watch vehicles in the evening. It's not a bad job, but it doesn't suit me."
Reflecting on her years of work relationships, she wrote to friends in France seeking employment. For the next two years, she lived in Paris, where friends provided housing, medical care, and tours of France. She was touched, feeling "there could be nothing luckier."
However, during this time, she often heard pitying words about Vietnam's suffering, war destruction, and poverty. Eventually, her pride was stirred: "Why do we let people pity us like this? Our culture has been aging for 4 thousand years!"
The idea of opening an art gallery to promote Vietnamese art emerged from this sentiment. In 1991, she returned to Vietnam and opened the Lotus Gallery. Once again, she embarked on a new career and a new love in her life.
Initially, her husband, coming from a military background, was unsupportive of her new venture. His rigid thinking led him to say, "Phượng, since you've started down this path of becoming a merchant, you've forgotten the way to the library." She was saddened but remained silent.
During an art exhibition in France, faced with high labor costs, she sought out a workshop to frame the paintings herself to save money. There were times when she sold her jewelry and pawned her possessions to keep the gallery running. She felt blessed with a "golden touch"; the talented but unknown artists she nurtured all went on to achieve widespread fame.
She discovered paintings by artist Truong Dinh Hao in a dilapidated brick courtyard near a chicken coop, having to use torches to illuminate them. These works later sold for tens of thousands of dollars each, with thousands of pieces sold. Witnessing the transformative impact on the artist's life from the proceeds of his art sales, her husband gradually softened his stance.
At over 90 years old, she still tirelessly organizes art exhibitions across various countries. When a journalist asked in astonishment, "At this age, why are you still organizing art exhibitions?" she retorted, "Why, at this age, don't I have the right to organize art exhibitions?"
Everyone lives once and dies once. It's absurd to think about death while living, to fear, to be anxious, to refuse joy and the desire to live.
If death is unavoidable, I'd "register" to die while organizing an art exhibition (a work I'm passionate about and have invested so much in) rather than dying in a hospital bed, wracked with pain.
Thus, having lived for nearly a century, she still finds time too short. She has already written one memoir about her life, and a second about her journey of love for art was recently completed. She plans to write a third about her days making war documentaries.
Seizing every moment to work, for her, a life that stops while in the midst of work is perhaps a departure in love. And that, she believes, is happiness.