I See Yellow Flowers in the Green Grass
Nguyen Nhat Anh
Ho Chi Minh City: Tre Publishing House, 2018
ISBN: 9-786041-130913
375 pp.
Translated by Nha Thuyen and Kaitlin Rees
Nguyen Nhat Anh is, apparently, one of the most read authors in the world, as a prolific writer of books mainly aimed at young adult audiences. His work is particularly well-known in Japan, it seems and it is because of this connection that the book has found its way into English and into my possession by way of one of Hanoi’s small book cafes that tend to have modest stocks of books for schoolchildren, autobiographies of St. Harry Potter and some Vietnamese fiction in translation. This is a means by which readers such as me can learn about Vietnamese writers whose work does not make it to Penguin and, hence, have the opportunity to gain exposure to an international audience. I have a small number of books in this category which will be reviewed here too, in due course.
As for the book itself, we are in a rural part of Vietnam, with an unknown city within migrating distance but other than that the outside world seems to be far away (and there are ghosts that will get anyone trying to make it there). It is hard to believe that the book is set in the late 1980s because there are no consumer goods evident, not only no washing machines or electric lights but no televisions, radios or even telephones. People who want to talk to other people actually have to go to speak to them or have an intermediary pass on a note. The doctor has to be summoned by a personal plea and so forth. In the village, Thieu and his little brother Thuong are brought up in a level of poverty shared by most of the few other people they knew. Entertainment is provided by beetles and bugs and other living creatures that can be treated as toys. The days revolve around school lessons, which seem to be of the old-fashioned and not terribly useful kind, together with some periods of play. Thieu, our hero of sorts, is always full of energy and is constantly running off here and there at full speed life, for him, like children in general, is incredibly intense and, at the same time, he is both acutely aware of the most recent event and only a couple of minutes away from becoming engrossed in the next sensation. Life in this sense dashes along at a great pace but also seems to be disassociated from the actual passing of time. Several times there are episodes of change (e.g. a child moves from living in one house to another) which bring about extensive mood swings and changes in behaviour over what appear to be extended periods of time but which, in retrospect, appear to be only a couple of days long. Life appears to be very vivid.
Evocations of past childhoods have the unfortunate tendency to veer towards the sentimental and the nostalgic; fortunately, these temptations (if the author ever felt them) are completely avoided here. The story is rooted in often brutal reality: Uncle Dan has lost an arm in an industrial accident; Thieu’s father has gone to the city to look for work and his mother takes the role of single parent; there is mental illness and physical illness and, above all, there is the constant threat of violence. Fathers are violent, teachers are violent and younger people follow their example and mete out brutality of their own. Despite the resilience of Thieu and Thuong in bouncing back from various beatings, they are not immune from serious, even life-threatening injury. Owing to the isolation of the village, with the hand of the state almost nowhere to be seen, there is precious little help in the event of disaster: the doctor has some traditional remedies which we from western countries tend to think of as not very effective. When there is a crisis, it is generally a case of going to bed early and hoping for the best.
The concept of everyday politics considers the daily, mundane interactions that people have with the representatives of the state. We might have some daily interactions with street sweepers, awareness of the presence of traffic police, people digging up the street and so forth – without necessarily being particularly aware of it, we are constantly reminded of the presence of the state in our lives. For the people of the unnamed village, there is no state – there are some police offstage and apart from the local teacher, perhaps, who does seem to value his own status. There is no mention, on or offstage, of politics, there are no party members, there is no mention of the war brought to our attention. There is just childhood and the relationship with nature and the ability of people effortlessly to be unpleasant to each other.
John Walsh, RMIT Vietnam, September 2019
