By Nguyễn Mỹ Hà 

This weekend, Việt Nam News shall mark its 34th anniversary. Just a few weeks previously, contributor, researcher, influencer and icon Hữu Ngọc breathed his last on May 2 at a wonderful age of 107. 

During his long life that spanned two centuries, World War II, and two long wars striving for independence of his home country, Ngọc's career evolved around identifying significant cultural assets of Vietnamese culture and civilisation, spreading them around the world to different cultures. 

A speaker of languages including French, English, German and Han Chinese, Ngọc was not only the editor of a handful of English and French newspapers and the author of 30 books; to us here at Việt Nam News, he was also a columnist and contributor.

The first edition of Việt Nam News came out on four A3 pages, with the front page boasting the country's then highest dignitary, General Secretary Đỗ Mười of the Việt Nam Communist Party, visiting a press photography exhibition. Domestic news covered the Mekong Interim Committee's international working session, the groundbreaking of a new economic zone in Hà Nam Ninh Province and an exhibition of authentic and fake consumer goods in Hà Nội. 

International news included that from the Soviet Union, the Indian election, and an Albanian refugee crisis that involved both Germany and Italy.  

Ngọc's first column on January 10, 1993 was titled 'Com bui' (Dust rice). Dust rice, or private rice stalls on pavement, were a product of the market economy that started in the early 1990s. Before then, everyone ate at home, and eateries were mostly owned by state food companies and served government employees only.

The column section was called 'Traditional Miscellany', in which Ngọc touched upon not only cultural issues, but also daily news pieces, which seen through his writing revealed cultural layers of meanings.

"Com bui is a recent coinage adopted by Hanoians," he wrote. "It means to have a meal at one of those many popular eateries that have invaded almost all pavements in the city."

From modest meals for working people in the city, Ngọc took us through a tour to the southern delta of the country, trying to analyse where such a name came from. 

"Popular restaurants of this kind were very common in the former Sài Gòn and also in some parts of Hà Nội in the old days but, unlike their counterparts today, they were not frequented by people of the middle class, government employees and such like," he wrote.

"The appearance of the fast food industry in Hà Nội is a social phenomenon worthy of attention," he rationalised.

Ngọc further explained why this name was adopted by everyone. "Why the name com bui? In South Việt Nam during the war, there were hundreds of thousands of little tramps who styled themselves bụi đời, or 'dust of life'," he wrote. "Those homeless children had their meals at pavement stalls whenever they had the means. Thus, 'bụi' has become an adjective to mean 'roving' or 'marginal'."

In only a few paragraphs, cultural identity, social phenomenons and their roots were explained and elaborated on in detail. Ngọc did not only tell a story, he laid out a map of a contemporary way of life. 

And he did not stop there. A wide range of topics were covered in the Sunday edition for 15 years non-stop, and he didn't leave any stone unturned while providing readers with a well-rounded point of view. 

Ngọc was also a pioneer when it came to using Vietnamese tone marks in print in those early days. In Vietnamese, it is common knowledge that the five tone marks not only change the sound of a word, they also change the meaning of that word.

In many English-language newspapers, Vietnamese words are often stripped of their tone marks and meaning, and therefore their linguistic and cultural significance. For Ngọc's column, the density of cultural essence could be heavy-loaded, and so there was a need to write the words in their authenticity.

But this could not be done in print without the help of technical assistance. In 1994, two pieces of software were written to accommodate adding tone marks to Vietnamese words in Microsoft Windows.

Unikey was written by Phạm Kim Long, a graduate of Hà Nội's University of Technology, and Vietkey was written by Đặng Minh Tuấn of the Military Technology and Automation Academy under the Ministry of Defence. Vietkey was designed to run on Windows and distributed for free on the internet. 

With the help of these, reporters could add tone marks to Vietnamese location names, people's names, and in Ngọc's cultural references. 

The first of Ngọc's columns that contained Vietnamese words with proper, full tone marks was published on July 30, 1995. The column was about things that came in five elements of Vietnamese culture, and pairing five with seven in several phrases.

These included năm lần bảy lượt (five times, seven flaps), meaning doing something over and over again but not grasping it; and năm cha ba mẹ (five fathers, three mothers) meaning having too many people involved in a task, but no one really taking charge.

Not long after, in September 1995, a complete Vietnamese folk song, Trống cơm, was first published with English translation by Tôn Thất Lan and full tones and music notes. 

The following month, a social evil known as 'Số đề' was written about, with full tones in the headline, which gave readers immediate understanding of what the story was about. Số đề is a form of gambling that derives from national official lottery tickets. This type of gambling has made many people homeless, or forced them to give away their possessions.

The 1990s was a time of constant brainstorming of new ideas, developments and milestone changes that can perhaps remain for many years. In June 1991, this humble newspaper was only four pages long. In January 1995, it doubled the pages to eight with a new masthead that bore the map of Việt Nam in the style.

In June that year, the then Editor Nguyễn Công Khuyến decided to make stronger changes. He created a masthead with full tones, and the word Vietnam became two words: Việt Nam News. The paper doubled in size to 16 pages only six months after it had doubled to eight pages. He also decreed that all Vietnamese names and references in the paper should have full tone marks.

It was a milestone that took inspiration from the rich cultural columns of Ngọc. And his name from then, of course, also appeared with full tones. 

Industry icons like Hữu Ngọc and Nguyễn Công Khuyến have parted with this world, possibly without knowing how vital a legacy they helped shape for all of us. Better late than never, this column shall pay them a tribute, in the hopes that they will be smiling in the afterlife. VNS