Ton That Thien - Parallel Life To Bui Tin

Parallel Life To Bui Tin

It is historically intriguing to compare Ton That Thien's life history with that of Bui Tin, Thien's neighbour, who also grew up in Huế, and whose father was also a Minister in the imperial cabinet of Emperor Bảo Đại. In August 1945, they both went to Hanoi. While Thien served in the office of the President, the younger Bui Tin joined the Viet Minh as a soldier in the first unit of the newly formed army and at one point served as a guard at the presidential office in which Thien worked. Bui Tin went on to serve the communist regime in the north of Vietnam as journalist, writer and government officer, much as Ton That Thien was serving in the south. United by common beginnings in the central and perhaps most traditional region of the country, for thirty years their two lives followed parallel paths on either side of the communist North - nationalist South political division of the country.

When their life histories are considered together it is evident they singly or jointly were present at all of the major political and historic events of Vietnam's tumultuous history. They were both present at the declaration of independence in Hanoi on 2 September 1945 and narrowly missed meeting again upon the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, at which Bui Tin took the surrender of Duong Van Minh, then President of South Vietnam. Thien had departed shortly before.

While Ton That Thien came to recognize and reject the aims of the Communist Party-led Viet Minh in early 1946, Bui Tin did not begin to question Party orthodoxy until after the unification of Vietnam under communist rule in 1975. When he claimed asylum in France in 1990 his life's path once again became conjoined with that of Ton That Thien in their common experience of exile and their shared political beliefs in multi-party democracy, individual freedoms and traditional cultural values.