Early Years
Tuyen hailed from Phát Diêm, Ninh Bình, Vietnam, French Indochina. He studied at the French-founded university in Hanoi, obtaining degrees in law and medicine. As a university student, he had protested against the French colonial administration's control over Vietnam's Catholic clergy, landing him in trouble with the police.
However, his religious convictions caused him to spurn the Hồ Chí Minh-led Vietminh independence movement, which was strongly atheist. Although he was ambitious, Tuyến was aware of his provincial accent and his manner of stumbling over long words, which was not considered to be consistent with the archetypal leader with a city accent. In 1946, while still a student, Tuyến came to know the Ngô family by chance. His future mentor Ngô Đình Nhu wanted to travel from Hanoi to a Catholic area near the border with Laos and needed a guide. A Catholic priest asked Tuyến to lead the way on a bicycle while Nhu followed in a covered cyclo to evade French colonial and Vietminh attention.
Read more about this topic: Tran Kim Tuyen
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“In the early days of the world, the Almighty said to the first of our race “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread”; and since then, if we except the light and the air of heaven, no good thing has been, or can be enjoyed by us, without having first cost labour.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Those who come a hundred or two hundred years after us will despise us for having lived our lives so stupidly and tastelessly. Perhaps they’ll find a means to be happy.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)