Anh Tây Bụi just left a comment which mentioned the vast number of Vietnamese songs that have been written about ethnic minority peoples who live in the mountains.
This reminded me of something that I have long been thinking about.
There are an incredible number of popular songs that were written in mainland Southeast Asia in the 1950s-1970s that make reference to specific geographic places. In many ways I think that this music played a very important role in the post-colonial nation building process, because one of the ways that people were able to “imagine” the nation was through their familiarity with songs about various places within the country.
This, however, does not mean that these songs were mere propaganda, because many of these songs were written by individuals and express their individual feelings. A good example of this are the songs by the great Cambodian singer, Sinn Sisamouth.
Sinn Sisamouth recorded over 1,000 songs before his life tragically came to an end during the Khmer Rouge period. Many of those songs were about places, and he often combined praise for a certain place with an expression of love for a woman from that place.
Take for instance his song about “The Champa of Banttambang.” The “Champa” is a kind of flower, but in this song it is also referring to a woman. (I’ve adapted the English lyrics from the version on this page.)
Oh Battambang! The center of my heart! I bid you and my love farewell.
From the moment I left, I’ve worried and thought about you all the time.
Oh Battambang! The cycle of my destiny! I wish for you night and day.
If we were a couple in a previous life, please my beloved, let us recall that time.
Through the years, do you still remember me dear? Your image alone is like my breath.
It is for you, my love, that my heart hopes, hoping to see your smile saying that we are a pair made by destiny.
Oh Battambang! I have craved for you for so long. Will there be a day when I will see you again?
My heart is filled with angst every day. Oh, I want the Champa of Battambang. Oh, I want the Champa of Battambang.
There are so many other songs like this, not only in Cambodia but in all the other countries of mainland Southeast Asia as well. All of these songs attach emotions to particular places and in the process give space a sense of place (through the romantic expressions of men).
Examining this music as part of the post-colonial nation building process from a popular level/perspective would make for a great dissertation.
If I can live for another 100 years or so, hopefully I’ll have time to get around to researching that topic, but if anyone wants to do it first, please be my guest.
For now though we can all at least feel the desire for the Champa of Battambang by listening to this nice recent version of the song.
In Vietnam this is a phenomenon that I call địa phương ca – and you’re right that no one has looked at it. When I read Erik Harms book I couldn’t believe his assertion that there are no poems about the gritty suburb Hóc Môn (because there are songs about every place in Vietnam), and looking through my records found a song by the famous songwriter Hoàng Hiệp called “Về Hóc Môn”
http://taybui.blogspot.com/2011/08/ve-hoc-mon-back-to-hoc-mon-hoang-hiep.html
These songs are more plentiful on the communist / chính thống side of Vietnam’s cultural life. You’re right that many aren’t propagandistic, but very many are. As the commandist side of Vietnamese cultural life started to diminish in the late 1980s, the government’s songwriters had to look for financial support from other sources. One manifestation of this was that various cities, towns, provinces organize “trai sáng tác” and invited all sorts of creative people to be feted and given an opportunity to do their creative work. This inevitably results in songs, poems, artworks about the city, town, province that was visited. And these works may reflect actual “tình cảm” of the creator for the locality. After all the creator has just been given very generous and gracious treatment. It is also a little bit like the “đi thực tế” phenomenon – they come to some possibly unfamiliar place, learn about the history, the way of life, what the local people are proud of and it becomes a song. And the local people are happy because some bigshot creative person from the big city came and got to know their locality. There are thousands of these songs.
Here’s a địa phương ca that came about in a less mediated way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0AHo7LdzPA
http://taybui.blogspot.com/2010/10/pho-ngheo-poor-streets-tran-tien.html
Here’s hoping you’ll be around in 100 years to write about the phenomenon.
I am sure anh Tay Bui knows that Pham Duy wrote many songs about different places/localities in Vietnam too, for example “Ba me Gio LInh”, “Con Chut Gi De Nhoi” (Em Pleiku toc do moi hong, …), etc.
Yea, so the dissertation that I want to see written would have an introduction and a conclusion, and then in between would be individual chapters on Pham Duy, Sinn Sisamouth and Suraphol Sombatcharoen (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand), because I think they all wrote songs about places and related them to women from those places.
Oh, but by the way, Sinn Sisamouth had songs like “The Blossom of Chiang Mai” and “The Blossom of Vientiane”. . . so there was something kind of imperialistic/international about his view of the world 🙂 , but that would be great to contrast with the others.
To capture the full richness of experience, might it not include songs like “Paris có gì lạ em,” “Nắng Paris, nắng Saigon,” “Paris và em,” or even “Bên bờ Long Beach” or “Bolsa chiều hai lối”?
oh boy, this dissertation is getting out of control already. I need a strict dissertation adviser to keep me focused. . . 😉
Following up on the theme of this post, I would like to make an appeal to the collective wisdom of the Lê Minh Khai readership who are knowledgable about the Thai language and culture. Around the year 2000 I came upon streaming live audio of the radio station Luktung FM out of Bangkok. I enjoy luktung and since it must have been the middle of the night in Bangkok there were long strings of music with few interruptions. In the middle of my listening enjoyment I was surprised to hear a famous Vietnamese melody sung in luktung style. The song is entitled “Saigon” and was practically an anthem for the city during the Republic of Vietnam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6nX5OV6jnc
The Thai version substituted the word Krungthep where the word Saigon (“Sài Gòn đẹp lắm) was sung at the end of the verse in the Vietnamese version. The Thai version also used a chachacha rhythm.
Can anybody locate the Thai version and provide any background about it? For those interested, the Vietnamese song was written by Y Vân and was published in 1967.
I came across this page recently:
http://monrakplengthai.blogspot.com/
You might want to ask this person. There’s a fb link on the blog. You could message this person through fb.