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Dec 16, 2017 / 10:46

Visiting Phan Chau Trinh’s mausoleum in Saigon center

Nguyen Tung - Trung Luong

As a Vietnamese nationalist, Phan Chau Trinh together with his comrades sought to end France’s colonial occupation of Vietnam. However, few people know about his resting place.

The final resting place of Vietnamese nationalist Phan Chau Trinh is at No. 9 Phan Thuc Duyen, Tan Binh, Ho Chi Minh city. Here people can visit a mausoleum, temple and a memorial house preserving books, documents and photographs, which depicts his life and achievements. This place is ranked as the cultural – historical heritage by Ho Chi Minh People’s Committee. 
 
The front of the mausoleum.
The front of the mausoleum.
Phan Châu Trinh was born in Tây Lộc, Quảng Nam Province . He was the son of a rich land owner and scholar. His father was a fighter in the Scholars' Revolt, but in 1885 he was killed by the other leaders in the revolt who suspected him of being a traitor. This left Trinh an orphan at the age of 13. His older brother educated him in classics. In 1901 he got the highest Mandarin degree.

In 1905 Trinh resigned from his post in the mandarin bureaucracy. He had become strongly opposed to the monarchy, traditional Vietnamese court and mandarin system. He called for an end to the monarchy and its replacement with a democratic republic. Having earlier met Phan Boi Chau in 1903, in March/April 1906 he went to Hong Kong and then to Kwangtungto meet with him again. He made his way there disguised as a disheveled common laborer. He then went to Japan with Châu as part of the Dong-Du movement. They stayed in Yokohama, where they had set up a two-story Japanese house to teach students, which they called Binh Ngo Hien. In June they went to Tokyo to inspect the Japanese education and political system.
 
Phan Chau Trinh and son Phan Chau Dat.
Phan Chau Trinh and son Phan Chau Dat.
Trinh disagreed with Chau's early ideas of asking for military assistance from Japan, as he didn't trust Japan's militarism. He also had other disagreements with Chau's philosophy. Therefore, they had a friendly argument for a few weeks before he returned to Vietnam. Back in Vietnam he continued to receive letters from Chau arguing about his opposition to the monarchy and his belief that the French could be used. Trinh continued to campaign with slogans like "Up with Democracy, Out with Monarchy", and "Making Use of the French in the Quest for Progress". This made Chau quite upset and worried that the movement was fragmenting and that fundraising efforts would fail.
 
Inside the memorial house.
Inside the memorial house.
In 1906 he wrote to the French Governor General Paul Beau. He asked the French to live up to their civilizing mission. He blamed them for the exploitation of the countryside by Vietnamese collaborators. He called on France to develop modern legal, educational, and economic institutions in Vietnam and industrialise the country, and to remove the remnants of the mandarin system. In 1907 he opened a patriotic modern school for young Vietnamese men and women. The school was called Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục (aka Tonkin Free School). He was a lecturer at the school, and Chau's writings were also used. The school carefully avoided doing anything illegal. Its ideas attacked the brutality of the French occupation of Vietnam, but also wanted to learn modernization from the French. The school required scholars to renounce their elitist traditions and learn from the masses. It also offered the peasants a modern education. 

​After peasant tax revolts erupted in 1908, Trinh was arrested, and his school was closed. He was sentenced to death, but it was commuted to life imprisonment after his progressive admirers in France intervened. He was sent to Con Dao island. In 1911, after three years, he was pardoned and sentenced to house arrest. He said he would rather return to prison than have partial freedom. So instead he was deported to France, where the French continued to monitor him.
 
Letters from Nguyen Tat Thanh (later known as Ho Chi Minh) sent to Phan Chau Trinh.
Letters from Nguyen Tat Thanh (later known as Ho Chi Minh) sent to Phan Chau Trinh.
He went to Paris in 1915 to get the support of progressive French politicians and Vietnamese exiles. There he worked with Ho Chi Minh, Phan Van Truong, Nguyen The Truyen, and Nguyen An Ninh in "The Group of Vietnamese Patriots". The group was based at 6 Villa des Gobelins. There they wrote patriotic articles signed with the name Nguyen Ai Quoc which Ho Chi Minh later used, "on behalf of the Group of Vietnamese Patriots". He worked as a photograph retoucher to support himself while he was in France. He returned to Saigon in 1925, where he died on 24 March 1926, aged 53. His funeral was attended by 60,000 people and caused big protests across the country demanding the end of French colonial occupation, which would not occur for three more decades.

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