What do you think?
Rate this book
Overturned Chariot: The Autobiography of Phan-Boi-Chau
The name of Phan-Boi-Chau may not be readily recognized by many people outside Vietnam, but within his own country he is one of the most widely known and respected figures in recent history. Phan (1867-1940) was the most prominent leader of the Vietnamese independence movement during the first quarter of the twentieth century and a living link between the older generation who initiated the struggle against French rule in Vietnam and the younger generation who carried that struggle to its conclusion. In 1928, while under house arrest by the French authorities, Phan composed an account of his eventful life. His original text in literary Chinese has been used for this translation, which brings Phan's story into English for the first time. It is accompanied by an introduction and notes incorporating the most up-to-date information about Phan's life and setting his career in the panoramic context of modern Vietnamese history.
- GenresHistory
312 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1999
1 person is currently reading
23 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 1, 2023
This book is the autobiography of Phan Boi Chau, one of Vietnam’s most well-known nationalists of the early twentieth century.
Born in a province near an area famous for revolutionary activity, Chau had a Confucian upbringing, knew Chinese, and was interested in the heroes of Vietnam’s past. His attempts to take examinations to become a scholar failed as he was way more concerned with the future of his country, colonized by the French, than with his lessons. When Emperor Ham Nghi called for the people to expel the French, Chau organized sixty fellow students into an “Exam Candidates Army” to seize public buildings in the capital of his province, but the French suppressed the revolt and threw many people, including Chau, in jail. He managed to escape and became a teacher, a job that he proved to be great at. However, he did not abandon his goal and soon embarked on a search for like-minded people to free Vietnam from French colonialism. To achieve this, he decided, he needed to unite the different nationalist groups throughout the country, get support from government officials and the imperial family, and receive foreign aid.
As he himself writes, his story is one of “countless failures”. The nationalists he gathered around himself, respected scholars among them, suffered because of their connection to him. Some were imprisoned by the French. Others had to leave the country. Chau explains his own failures with his excessive self-confidence, arrogance that caused him to make rash decisions and disregard good advice.
In 1904, Chau was a leading member of the group that founded the Vietnam Modernization Association, the first anti-colonial organization in the country that was worried about the backward ways of Vietnam’s society and the need for modernization. These nationalists sent Chau to Japan the next year to secure Japanese support for the struggle against the French. It was there that Chau got to visit Liang Ch’i-ch’ao, a Chinese scholar, most of whose works he had read. Exiled from China for his radical reform programs meant to protect China from foreign influence, Liang had been living in Japan for fourteen years. He showed interest in Chau and helped him build important Japanese connections, giving him insight into Japan’s politics. However, he also tried to make Chau understand that Indochina “should not be concerned about not having a day of independence, but should be concerned about not having an independence-minded people” — that the Vietnamese nationalists should prepare young people to join the anti-French resistance and that depending on financial support from outside was not the solution. He explained to Chau that the strength of Vietnam lay in the intelligence and energy of its people and that the only support the nationalists should accept from Japan is moral support. If Japanese forces entered Vietnam, he thought, “it would surely be impossible to find an excuse to drive them out,” and the nationalists’ effort to free their country would instead destroy it.
Liang correctly predicted the situation in 1945, which neither he nor Chau lived long enough to see. Back then, in 1905, Chau did not listen to this part of Liang’s advice and continued to work on getting financial support for his cause from the Japanese. The result was that the pro-Japanese nationalists of Vietnam became dependent on an ally that prioritized its own interest — strengthening its position on the international stage — over their interests. Despite their hopes to seize control from the French after the First World War, when France was weak, Chau and the other resisters failed time after time. The French cracked down on the revolutionary activity with even more dedication, until the nationalist movement was forced to go into hiding lest it got destroyed. In 1925, Chau was arrested by French authorities in China — allegedly because Ho Chi Minh, eager to eliminate competition for the loyalty of the Vietnamese people, reported him to them in return for money — and although he was released from prison the same year, he did not participate in the resistance after that, but lived quietly in Hue and passed away in 1940.
Notably, Chau does not mention Prince Cuong De in his work. This is surprising — Cuong De was a fellow pro-Japanese nationalist, and the two of them worked together to educate Vietnamese youth in Japan and get Japanese support for the struggle against the French. It was actually Chau who enlisted Cuong De into the resistance in the first place because he needed the support of a member of the imperial family to appeal to the people. Cuong De proved himself to be a dedicated nationalist. He helped Chau and continued the struggle after Chau was forced to retreat from the political scene by the French, who confined him to Hue. I wonder why Chau chose not to talk about Cuong De at all. The two were close and were even accused of murder together — there was actually no murder — after a bombing of the provincial examination site in Hanoi, which Chau had planned, went wrong in 1913.
OVERTURNED CHARIOT is an interesting memoir, but the story of his life as Chau tells it is too brief and murky. It would have been good if he went into more depth about the people he worked with. He wrote his work in 1929, so he was probably trying to protect them. This book should be read together with other biographical sources about him. It has a helpful and informative introduction by the translators, though.
Born in a province near an area famous for revolutionary activity, Chau had a Confucian upbringing, knew Chinese, and was interested in the heroes of Vietnam’s past. His attempts to take examinations to become a scholar failed as he was way more concerned with the future of his country, colonized by the French, than with his lessons. When Emperor Ham Nghi called for the people to expel the French, Chau organized sixty fellow students into an “Exam Candidates Army” to seize public buildings in the capital of his province, but the French suppressed the revolt and threw many people, including Chau, in jail. He managed to escape and became a teacher, a job that he proved to be great at. However, he did not abandon his goal and soon embarked on a search for like-minded people to free Vietnam from French colonialism. To achieve this, he decided, he needed to unite the different nationalist groups throughout the country, get support from government officials and the imperial family, and receive foreign aid.
As he himself writes, his story is one of “countless failures”. The nationalists he gathered around himself, respected scholars among them, suffered because of their connection to him. Some were imprisoned by the French. Others had to leave the country. Chau explains his own failures with his excessive self-confidence, arrogance that caused him to make rash decisions and disregard good advice.
In 1904, Chau was a leading member of the group that founded the Vietnam Modernization Association, the first anti-colonial organization in the country that was worried about the backward ways of Vietnam’s society and the need for modernization. These nationalists sent Chau to Japan the next year to secure Japanese support for the struggle against the French. It was there that Chau got to visit Liang Ch’i-ch’ao, a Chinese scholar, most of whose works he had read. Exiled from China for his radical reform programs meant to protect China from foreign influence, Liang had been living in Japan for fourteen years. He showed interest in Chau and helped him build important Japanese connections, giving him insight into Japan’s politics. However, he also tried to make Chau understand that Indochina “should not be concerned about not having a day of independence, but should be concerned about not having an independence-minded people” — that the Vietnamese nationalists should prepare young people to join the anti-French resistance and that depending on financial support from outside was not the solution. He explained to Chau that the strength of Vietnam lay in the intelligence and energy of its people and that the only support the nationalists should accept from Japan is moral support. If Japanese forces entered Vietnam, he thought, “it would surely be impossible to find an excuse to drive them out,” and the nationalists’ effort to free their country would instead destroy it.
Liang correctly predicted the situation in 1945, which neither he nor Chau lived long enough to see. Back then, in 1905, Chau did not listen to this part of Liang’s advice and continued to work on getting financial support for his cause from the Japanese. The result was that the pro-Japanese nationalists of Vietnam became dependent on an ally that prioritized its own interest — strengthening its position on the international stage — over their interests. Despite their hopes to seize control from the French after the First World War, when France was weak, Chau and the other resisters failed time after time. The French cracked down on the revolutionary activity with even more dedication, until the nationalist movement was forced to go into hiding lest it got destroyed. In 1925, Chau was arrested by French authorities in China — allegedly because Ho Chi Minh, eager to eliminate competition for the loyalty of the Vietnamese people, reported him to them in return for money — and although he was released from prison the same year, he did not participate in the resistance after that, but lived quietly in Hue and passed away in 1940.
Notably, Chau does not mention Prince Cuong De in his work. This is surprising — Cuong De was a fellow pro-Japanese nationalist, and the two of them worked together to educate Vietnamese youth in Japan and get Japanese support for the struggle against the French. It was actually Chau who enlisted Cuong De into the resistance in the first place because he needed the support of a member of the imperial family to appeal to the people. Cuong De proved himself to be a dedicated nationalist. He helped Chau and continued the struggle after Chau was forced to retreat from the political scene by the French, who confined him to Hue. I wonder why Chau chose not to talk about Cuong De at all. The two were close and were even accused of murder together — there was actually no murder — after a bombing of the provincial examination site in Hanoi, which Chau had planned, went wrong in 1913.
OVERTURNED CHARIOT is an interesting memoir, but the story of his life as Chau tells it is too brief and murky. It would have been good if he went into more depth about the people he worked with. He wrote his work in 1929, so he was probably trying to protect them. This book should be read together with other biographical sources about him. It has a helpful and informative introduction by the translators, though.
May 11, 2022
Interesting material, very useful for research, the poetic interludes were informative, and the extra quotations and excerpts were good for directing alternative research. The autobiography itself was not the most stylistically unique nor was it extremely "in the moment." On the whole, a semi-engaging literary artifact and an extremely useful research material.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews