Tinh Vy, Tran From Urban Society to Urban Literature: The Case of Vietnamese Literature by Young Writers in 2000 – 2015

From Urban Society to Urban Literature: The Case of Vietnamese Literature by Young Writers in Ho Chi Minh City 2000 - 2015 Of the Urban Literature in : Concept and characteristic On the occasion of the conference on Southern Literature 1954-1975, a literary critic Nguyen Hung Quoc exposed the implication of the term “urban literature”, which was used preferably in the . He questioned the inaccuracy of the term by analyzing the popularity of the term used not only in the South but also in the North1. According to him, Vietnamese modern literature has been attached with print culture and mostly taken place in cities. Most publishing companies locate in cities which reside professional writers and readers. Prior to 1945, writers and poets sent their works to Hanoi or Saigon for selling. The same in the South before 1975, though writers Nguyen Van Xuan or Phan Du lived in Da Nang, Vo Hong or Quach Tan in Nha Trang, their writing were published in cities. In other words, the print culture and commercial demand are all features of urbanization and citizenization. In this sense, Vietnamese literature could be seen as urban literature in its general meaning, which was not only used in the South of Vietnam. However, why was literature in the North never termed as urban literature like that of the South? The answer is very simple. The term has been used to distinguish the urban literature from a rural literature (văn học nông thôn) or a Southern liberated literature (văn học giải phóng miền Nam). The latter was built up by writers migrated from the North to the South and resided secretly in mountainous areas which were called „liberate‟ areas (vùng giải phóng). Hence, the urban literature in the case of Southern Vietnam referred to the function rather than the nature of its literature. Thanks to its political connotation, there were waves of protest by the Southern writers against the usage of this term. An illustration of this was the objection of the writer Nhat Tien2 to the used-to-be column “Southern Urban Literature‟ on the website www.vanviet.info. To inherit and nurture the entire achievement of Vietnamese Southern literature 1954-1975, Vietnam Independent Association (Văn đoàn độc lậpViệt Nam) invited writers and readers to feedback for the opening of the so-called column Southern Urban Literature on their websites www.vandoanviet.blogspot.com and www.vanviet.info. In response to the campaign, a diaspora writer in the USA Nhat Tien questioned to the editorial board of the definition of the urban literature (specifically replied by email to a poet Hoang Hung). To him, the term „urban area‟ impliedly excluded the rural parts in the South of Vietnam, which was considered to belong to Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Even, in its broader understanding of this exclusion of the rural part from the urban part, it also meant that all people in rural villages had stood up under the leader of National Liberation Front of South Vietnam3 against the Republic of Vietnam regime. Therefore, in Nhat Tien‟s viewpoint, the term „awakened‟ the smells of contempt, disdain, even the hatred caused by a lot of cultural ingredients from the North. And as “the sinners carrying the US court as minions of US puppet” in name only, the Southerners have been uninterruptedly discriminated for years, right after the war. He thought that there has never been existed the so-called Southern urban literature but entirely literature and art works of the Republic of Vietnam across the whole territory, from rural to urban. He and other scholars, intellectuals, artists contributed to the whole Southern culture and literature. The arguments of the critics Nguyen Hung Quoc and Nhat Tien contributed to my limitation of the defining the urban literature in the South of Vietnam. I am definitely not going to conclude the Southern contemporary literature in a political sense of excluding the rural parts; thereby denying the literary achievements of the Southern writers in the Republic of Vietnam. Instead, my understanding of the Southern urban literature (especially emphasized on Saigon, or later Ho Chi Minh City) bases on these features:

1 Nguyen Hung Quoc, Southern Literature or Southern Urban Literature?, http://www.voatiengviet.com/a/van-hoc-mien-nam-hay-van-hoc-do-thi-mien-nam/2586357.html, accessed 15th August 2016. 2 Nhat Tien, Is there Southern Urban Literature? https://nguoitinhhuvo.wordpress.com/2014/07/14/co- hay-khong-mot-nen-van-hoc-do-thi-mien-nam-nhat-tien/, accessed 31 August 2016. 3 The National Liberation Front (or given the name Vietcong by Western sources) was a political organization which fought the United States and South Vietnamese government. It had its own army, People‟s Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam, and a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled. During the war, the communist spoke of the Vietcong as an insurgency indigenous to the South while the US. and the South Vietnamese government considered this group as a tool of Hanoi. 1

Tinh Vy, Tran From Urban Society to Urban Literature: The Case of Vietnamese Literature by Young Writers in Ho Chi Minh City 2000 – 2015

- Saigon as the metropole in its history - Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) as the center of „reading culture‟: the development of the publishing companies, the highest rates of selling books in Vietnam, the condensed residency of young writers and readers and so on. - Especially, the popularity of the „urban topics‟ reflected in writing by young writers, such as the portraits of the urban space (especially Saigon) and of the urban lives, such as the loneliness and alienation of young people. The term „young writers‟ refer to authors who were mostly born after 1975 and who currently live in Ho Chi Minh City.

1. Saigon as the metropole in its history Urban is defined by multiple criteria; among them was the economic structure. In particular, an area called urban based on the industrial economy and commerce. While many researchers have pointed out the agriculture culture in Thang Long-Dong Do-Hanoi4, Gia Dinh was a land of trade when the Nguyen Lords formally established the Vietnamese sovereignty by appointing Nguyen Huu Canh to build up Gia Đinh province in the South Vietnam in 1698. Although Gia Đinh, an administrative center in the South, was the old-model urban established by the Nguyen Lords, it just lasted only in 1.5 centuries. The period of French suzerainty marked the beginning of modern Saigon since 1859. In the beginning, construction work in Saigon was on a reduced scale, mostly because of the French‟s pending the occupation and pacification of the northern and central parts of Vietnam. Since 1990, there have been construction projects on transportation or communications as the result of prospering commerce in Saigon5. Chinese businessmen, serving as intermediaries to distribute products and to collect raw materials for export to France, made Cho Lon became more prosperous than Saigon. Consequently, roads were caused to appear to connect two cities. Rail linkages connected Saigon with the central and the . Direct land and sea communication were strong. The rapid economic development attracted people from many areas to come to Saigon, made the city more merry and bustling. Having become a crossroad of French culture and cosmopolitan, the city‟s outlook was conditioned as the mini France in Vietnam: boulevards with tree-lined, streets were widened, restaurants, clubs or restaurants were opened everywhere. The city, at that time, was soliloquized as the Pearl of The Orient6,7. Along with the rapid growth of the city was the opening of factories governed by the French. Farmers became more impoverished, pushed into factories and formed working class in Saigon. The features of urban clearly emerged, such as class conflict between capitalist and workers, rich and poor people‟s conflict, the matter of impoverishment, the problem of crimes and so on. More importantly, the cohesion in community under blood ties, which built up noble families in Thang Long, did not exist in this new urban. After the Geneva Agreement in 1954, which divided the North and South Vietnam at the 17th parallel, Saigon became the capital of the Republic of Vietnam. The wave of refugees from the North Vietnam and many displaced persons drifted to Saigon added heavy load to this city8. However, during the period from 1975 to 1986, Ho Chi Minh City under the leadership of the communist regime seemed faded its „urbanity‟. Since 1986, the government created the „socialist-oriented market economy‟ as a product of economic reforms (Renovation period). It helped to boost the country‟s economy and to replace the centrally-planned economy with a state-owned economy. Consequently, the writing activity of authors became more relaxing though the publishing activity was still controlled by the government.

4 Thu Tứ (2015), “Thôi một nước quê”, Hồn Việt, (1), p.11-13. 5 According to the monograph prepared by James E. Bogle. AIP, Dialectics of Urban Proposals for the Saigon Metropolitan Area, January 1972, p.10. 6 According to James E.Bogle‟s monograph, in 1865, the population of Saigon was estimated 8,000 and rapidly rose to 33,000 in 1897. It reached to 67,000 in 1913 and 143,000 in 1926. The arrival of Chinese to Cho Lon to escape the Sino-Japanese War before Word War II made Cho Lon become the most prosperous business center in Saigon. By 1939, the overall population of Saigon and Cho Lon was about 540,000. 7 Currently, the overall population in Ho Chi Minh City is approximately 8milions people (in 2014). Source http://www.gso.gov.vn/default_en.aspx?tabid=774. 8 It is worth mentioning the mass emigration of northerners to the South under the Operation Passage to Freedom campaign in 1954- 1955. After the Geneva Accord, the partition of Vietnam in 1954 at the 17th parallel north led to the migration of approximately 900,000 Northerners moving to south. 2

Tinh Vy, Tran From Urban Society to Urban Literature: The Case of Vietnamese Literature by Young Writers in Ho Chi Minh City 2000 – 2015

Nowadays, Ho Chi Minh City is the most dynamic and fastest developing city in Vietnam. Its architecture is the combination of French urban design (the center of Ho Chi Minh), the Chinese architecture (Cho Lon or China Town in district 5) and the „socialist‟ infrastructure (the rest of the city). All crammed together to form an urban complex in Vietnam. In such circumstance, the activities of writing and reading developed rapidly as an important cultural activity for Saigonese. By studying the urban literature in Ho Chi Minh City, I would like to systemize the contribution of young writers to the national contemporary literature during the period 2000-2015. 2. Saigon as the center of reading culture Since the reunification in Vietnam in 1975, the difference in terms of the economic scale and structure, population, level of development of science, technology and the degree of international integration between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City is no longer evident. In the context of the 21st century, both are big cities in Vietnam. Nevertheless, Ho Chi Minh has more favorable environment for the development of the entertaining activities, including the production and consumption of literary work. Ho Chi Minh City is a densely populated urban area, in which young people account for a large number of populations, creating an incredible resource for youth literature in all aspects of composing and enjoying. The result of the census of population and housing9 in 2009 showed that Ho Chi Minh led the country in terms of the total population, population density and population growth. By 2013, the city had nearly eight million people and until now, HCMC has more than 9 million people. The number of people aged 15 to 30 accounted for the highest proportion of the total city population. In terms of consuming books, young people are main readers of the youth literature. They are enthusiastic, passionate, even impulsive, willing to spend money to buy the products they like. In addition, they mostly have educated well compared to previous generations. Ho Chi Minh is also the leading city in terms of income per capita (data 2013 is $ 4,500). The improvement of the standards of living and living conditions enable people to invest much in recreational and cultural activities, including literature. All these elements make up an extremely active market for the activities of the cultural production in general and of literary production in particular. To contribution to the activeness of Southern literature is the blossoming of publishing and consuming books in Ho Chi Minh City. Currently, Ho Chi Minh city has 21 branches of national publishing houses; 4 publishers of Ho Chi Minh city (including Publishing House of Culture and Arts HCM, Synthesis Publishing House HCM, Youth Publishing House, Orient Publishing House); 4 publishers affiliated universities in Ho Chi Minh city, such as National University Publishing House, Pedagogy University Publishing House, University of Economics Publishing House and Industry University Publishing House. Like Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh also has book roads which reside series of old book stores, such as Tran Huy Lieu Street (Phu Nhuan District), Tran Nhan Ton street (District 5). Recently, the city government has started to construct a new book road on Nguyen Van Binh (District 1) near Notre Dame Church. Since 2012, HCMC has been opening book annual festivals on Lunar New Year, contributing to the variety of the cultural activities in this city. The most expected events for many „nerds‟ are book fairs, which has been taken placed annually, in Ho Chi Minh city. Although the city has not as many book fairs as Hanoi, these book fairs overwhelmed the ones in Hanoi in terms of the organization scale. HCMC book fair is organized by Fahasa, spent 15 years with 8 times of organization. It remains the country‟s biggest book fair in Vietnam and becomes the most expected cultural event in Ho Chi Minh. The 8th book fair in 2014 lasted 7 days with the participation of 160 companies with 525 bookstalls10. There were more than 200,000 book titles introduced here, 56 seminars and writers‟ introduction and signing books were held. Especially, if Hanoi‟s book fairs are mostly organized by the local government for commemoration purpose, HCM‟s book fairs were usually organized by publishing companies. The participation of the private publishing companies is firstly for stimulating book selling, and then creating reading culture in a new era. Besides, reports on selling books in both cities revealed interesting differences. While readers in Hanoi are more interested in common-knowledge books, readers in HCMC are in favor of

9 Ban Chỉ đạo Tổng điều tra dân số và nhà ở Trung ương (2009), Kết quả toàn bộ tổng điều tra dân số và nhà ở Việt Nam 2009, NXB. Thống Kê, Hà Nội. 10 http://vietnamnews.vn/life-style/252272/hcm-city-book-fair-opens.html#cRgVbCIGeScYJIqJ.97.

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Tinh Vy, Tran From Urban Society to Urban Literature: The Case of Vietnamese Literature by Young Writers in Ho Chi Minh City 2000 – 2015 entertaining books. An example of this difference could be seen in the final reports of the book fairs. The best-selling books in the HCM book fair 2014 are respectively Buồn làm sao buông (How to escape from the sadness) by Anh Khang, Hỏa ngục (Inferno) by Dan Brown, Chúc một ngày tốt lành (Have a good day) by Nguyen Nhat Anh, Người yêu cũ có người yêu mới (The old lover has a new lover) by Iris Cao11. In contrast, the best-selling books in Hanoi‟s Book Fair 2014 are Lịch sử Việt Nam từ nguồn gốc đến giữa thế kỷ 20 (Vietnamese history from the origin to the mid of the 20th century) by Le Thanh Khoi, Đừng bao giờ đi ăn một mình (Never eating alone) by Keith Ferrazzi and TahlRaz, Di chúc của Chủ tịch Hồ Chí Minh (Testament of President Ho Chi Minh)12. The trend of consuming book in both cities partly shows the taste of the young readers for entertaining books. This could be seen as an important premise for the birth of the young literature which mostly concerns the here-and-now matters of the young people‟s daily life. Last but not least, the fast-speed emergence of the e-commerce for selling books in HCMC also links to the development of the youth literature. The e-commerce for selling books mostly targeted to young people, who are attracted by the convenience in shopping online, easy payment and fast shipping. These characteristics of shopping habit also reflected the requirement of the fast-reading as a consequence of the lack of time by the young people. As a result, the development of the e-commerce for selling books reflects the possibility of the development of the urban literature which centers on current matters, written in short time and published immediately. HCMC is a place for the outbreaks and the development of e-commerce for selling books. The two most famous websites for selling book online in Vietnam are Tiki and Vinabook which are both based in HCMC13 14. Particularly, Tiki has been developing like the famous website Amazon in the USA, i.e from the sale of books expanding into other items. On the list of the 5 companies (over 160 ones) getting the highest revenue in the 8th HCM Book Fair 2014, both Tiki (4 billion VND) and Vinabook (1.8 billion VND) were on the list. Of course, it is out-fashioned to talk about the geographical boundaries with e-commerce because these companies deliver products nationwide, selling books of all writers and for all readers from urban to rural. However, it is worth noticing that this business type rapidly and strongly developed in Ho Chi Minh compared to Hanoi. When choosing an online seller, buyers prefer online stores near their location because this helps shorten delivery time and reduce shipping cost. There are also online shops for selling books in Hanoi, but they are not as famous as Tiki and Vinabook. Do young people in the South prefer shopping online in general and purchase books online, causing online bookstores in South more developed than in the North? In conclusion, HCMC with its properties of diverse ethnics and cultures enables the strong development of the entertaining activities. In many people‟s impression, if you want to reach academic standards, you should go to the North. However, if you want to challenge yourself with the new thing, you go to the South. Therefore, Southward (Nam tiến) is almost a choice of artists who want to get closer to the majority of the public. This is a very favorable environment for the development of the youth literature because the youth always loves new and challenged things. The impressive sale figures of selling books by young authors at the 8th Book Fair or websites have showed that. 3. The popularity of the ‘urban topics’ reflected in writing by young writers 3.1 The focus on urban space in the youth literature (especially Saigon) In the era of industrialization and modernization, urban becomes a living space and a creative space for young writers. Specifically, HCMC is an operation space of the intellectual elite, those having conditions for learning and accessing to social facilities and eventually became the citizens. So far, in the minds of , urban space often implied positive rather than negative meaning. Urban is „defaulted‟ as a comfortable living space with adequate facilities, a favorable environment for the physical and spiritual development of human integrity. From the old days, urban has become a place of aspirations for intellectuals. As a convergence of the material condition and technical sciences, urban attracts talents everywhere gathering to be rubbed, learnt and competed their talents. It is also the place which contains many opportunities, potentials and challenges of each person.

11http://giaitri.vnexpress.net/tin-tuc/sach/lang-van/hoi-sach-tp-hcm-7-ngay-dong-vui-thu-ve-36-ty-dong- 2971027.html. 12 http://dantri.com.vn/van-hoa/khep-lai-hoi-sach-ha-noi-2014-dong-vui-nhung-khong-voi-duoc-dau- 1412862534.htm. 13 https://tiki.vn/ 14 https://www.vinabook.com/

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Tinh Vy, Tran From Urban Society to Urban Literature: The Case of Vietnamese Literature by Young Writers in Ho Chi Minh City 2000 – 2015

Taking a look at writing which focuses on urban space (specifically Saigon), we would understand why the majority of the youth chooses to leave villages for cities. The short stories Barley-sugar singer, Moon River, Shine (The soul mate, Luu Quang Minh); the novel The Dream under the breast milk plant (Nguyen Thi Manh Ha); the short stories Sojourn, Beautiful, Honor occupation (Sojourn, Do Duy), Enter life (Tien Dat), Staying In Saigon (Nguyen Hoang Vu) are works portrayed urban as a promised land, which nurtures dreams, where people can live with their passion and enthusiasm. However, the urban is also a place hidden many incalculable dangers. Living in urban forced people to continuously strive to assert themselves, which is easy for them to lose their basic values. Thus, the dark side of the urban life becomes a heated-discussion topic composed by young authors. In the North is Vo Thi Xuan Ha‟s City wall; Nguyen Khac Phuc‟s Female ghost; Phong Diep‟s Lost in urban; Thuy Duong‟s Permanent residence; Mai Anh Tuan‟s Beloved Auditorium. Typical books for this topic in the South are novels Gray Shore, Parallel, The stranger looked at me from behind by Vu Dinh Giang; Rose thorns, Variants by Keng; Yen Linh with Reclining versions, 1,6 multiple 2. Even, urban is not only depicted in two clear white-black dimensions. Life is inherently not so simple. Some young authors have shown their bold experiments in portraying urban lifestyle with complex arrays, not being shaped in any particular way. There, people just like a screw in the endless treadmill of time. Typical characters in these works are the images of young people who do not know how to live in Phan Trieu Hai‟s short stories, Vu Dinh Giang‟s, Nguyen Ngoc Thuan‟s, Tran Nha Thuy‟s books. Contemporary literature also has writing on urban life from different perspectives, the views of expatriated writers. There are books written on this subject by authors in both the South and North Vietnam, such as Duong Thuy, Phan Viet, Nguyen Thi Chau Giang, Le Ngoc Mai with diverse themes and genres: writing about expatriates (Back to love, Nguyen Thi Chau Giang), writing about the young people who are living and working in foreign countries (Futility stories, Phan Viet), writing about overseas Vietnamese students (Itinerary of young people by Duong Thuy, Memory of Northumbria by Gào), even the diasporas in home country (Finding in nostalgia by Le Ngoc Mai). Expressing urban life in this direction, young writers give readers new „spirit dishes‟ in the literary banquet. Saigon becomes a fertile land where a lot of young writers choose to cultivate. As the busiest city in Vietnam, Saigon appeared in works by young writers as the space to live (Dancing in Le Van Tam Park, Dried beef salad vs. McDonald), a space for subsistence (Barley-sugar Singer), a space to learn, to experience, a space to love and to memorize (Wait for me to San Francisco, Lily of the Valley). There are no Saigon teenagers who don‟t know about the dried beef salad stall in front of Le Van Tam Park. Being shown in the story by Luu Quang Minh15, a stall which sells the dried beef salad became a street corner of memories of two sisters. Later, when the sister studied abroad, she inconsolably missed the corner and compared with the US hamburger (Dried beef salad vs. Hamburger). A dance class for adults at Le Van Tam Park became a dating place for a young couple, where they not only learned how to dance, but also how to love, to cherish innocence moments and happiness of old men or women. Thereby, the young ones also learned how to love their parents. The pubs or bars near embankments, which is always crowded and chaotic; where drunken diners continuously affectionately said "Cheers, cheers"; become a stage for street singers to both perform and to sell barley-sugar candy (A barley-sugar singer). Or a romantic Moon River restaurant on Saigon River became a workplace for the rural young boys and girls who were waiting for bright future (Moon River). Saigon is also a witness of the sobbing hearts. In his latest work Anywhere I go, I still remember Saigon and you, Anh Khang described the city in faded colors of the old memories, which contained the memories of the family and the first love: “The place where we went away, we suddenly realize we love the city just because there are the dearest.” 16 The evoking lines of the city are commented by the writer Doan Thach Bien"there have been many authors who write about Saigon but Anh Khang‟s notebook was written from a different perspective. He wrote about it when he is insider and when he is outside. And then he realized: "Going to be reborn with another life ... And going to know where we are always truly wanted to return '."17

15 Lưu Quang Minh (2013), Những tâm hồn đồng điệu, NXB. Văn học, Hà Nội, p.159. 16 Anh Khang (2015), Đi đâu cũng nhớ Sài Gòn và em, NXB. Văn hoá-Văn nghệ TP HCM, TP HCM, p.81. 17Anh Khang (2015), Đi đâu cũng nhớ Sài Gòn và em, NXB. Văn hoá-Văn nghệ TP HCM, TP HCM, p.4. 5

Tinh Vy, Tran From Urban Society to Urban Literature: The Case of Vietnamese Literature by Young Writers in Ho Chi Minh City 2000 – 2015

Having the same emotion with Anh Khang, Duong Thuy in her book Waiting for me to San Francisco eagerly shaped the old Saigon. The images of Saigon have not being seen by readers in Duong Thuy previous books which were in favor of gorgeous European countries. In the book, the readers found a small hamlet, Tan Dinh, where the teenage boys and girls with funny names Cu Nhọn, Cu Dập, Cu Síp, Hương “Qua đèo" had experienced a miserable but innocence childhood. The reader also found Saigon carpeted with yellow leaves in the 80s, which crystallized the teen love of the two main characters An and Binh. The idea of building Saigon as a backdrop of the novel came from a rainy day when Duong Thuy stood on a building and saw the streets of Saigon being submerged. In this profound emotion, she wanted to write a story about Saigon for people to understand a little more about this lovely city, "for those who lived and gone there to recall the beautiful memories in distant time.“18 Many early lessons of the youth today are drawn from Saigon, where urban-ness with its hustle and bustle turns this land into both the promised and dangerous place. Saigon in the short story Echoing songs (Vọng khúc) by Yen Linh is just a southern city which is full of light rain. This is just a place where the protagonist had an old one-room apartment with "mosses densely colored on walls [...] and a room trembling with clothing and bedding.“19 Similarly, Saigon in Vu Dinh Giang‟s novel was a 16m2- room where the young man lived and went to work like a machine; came back home and lived with machines. This was like people cannot live well without checking email daily, no phone, no music, no air-conditioning (in the office), or a fan (in the house). Even, Saigon in the short story The Afterlife appeared in a horror and creepy atmosphere. This is where young people spinning in the dark cafe with its weird layout "silently absorbing the weary footsteps which are bored with familiar paths." 20 Every person found themselves the grave to ecstasize with a cup of dark coffee and to sway in the DJ hysterical sounds.

3.2 The focus on urban life in the youth literature

Not only the urban space but also the urban life of the youth is depicted in urban literature. The urban life is expressed through the exploration of the inner life of the youth. Specifically, it focuses on the youth‟s loneliness and alienation. These expressions are seen as a negative consequence of urbanized society, with its all-the-time hustle and bustle, on physical and mental state of the youth. The focus on the loneliness in the youth literature The inner life with a lot of subtle emotion becomes a mysterious realm where young authors are constantly exploring. With the launch of the recent novels received appreciations by critics such as Grey Shore and Parallel, Vu Dinh Giang represents the class of the authors who exploited the dark side of the youth. The permanent characters in his works are always eccentric, isolated and lonely. In Vu Dinh Giang‟s early stage of writing, his characters are always in an impasse: often broken in love, failure at work, discouraged by life. These characters are put in big cities which make them constantly feel as outsiders. They often put couldn‟t-care-less outlook to cover their hollow souls. They are always wandering aimlessly because of not finding meaning in life. For example, the character L. in Wandering flashback explains this as follows: "The youth nowadays is more stressful because they go too fast, going without having a fulcrum. Desire to quickly succeed makes people forget goodness. But living needs love ."21 And T, the direct representative character of the youth, thought:" We grow old because of the old way of living; everything is arranged in an average manner. Teaching every morning, going back every afternoon, hanging out every evening.. Live live love love ... A normal boring day. "22 Yen Linh, an 8X author but has been dubbed as the girl who obsesses with the "shape of the loss and the pain" in literature. Her text was sad; moreover, her writing contains much tragedy in which loneliness is only a catalyst which leads to suffering and loss. In the short story The Reclining versions, the heroine "I" is portrayed as the one who is stray from the womb. She was born preterm, emaciated and wasting even when she reached puberty. Experiencing the difficult childhood, seeing a stepfather raped her mother, being teasing by other children, "I" nurtured the indescribable joy and angriness when seeing her mother stabbed the stepfather, when kicking herself at the neighborhood

18 Dương Thuỵ (2014), Chờ em đến Sanfrancisco, NXB. Trẻ, TP HCM, p.4. 19 Yến Linh (2011), Một phẩy sáu nhân hai, NXB. Văn hoá-Văn nghệ TP. HCM, TP HCM, p.128-131. 20 Vũ Đình Giang (2005), Kẻ lạ nhìn tôi từ phía sau, NXB. Hội nhà văn, TP HCM, p.224. 21 Vũ Đình Giang (2005), Kẻ lạ nhìn tôi từ phía sau, NXB. Hội nhà văn, TP HCM, p.79. 22 Vũ Đình Giang (2005), Kẻ lạ nhìn tôi từ phía sau, NXB. Hội nhà văn, TP HCM, p.55. 6

Tinh Vy, Tran From Urban Society to Urban Literature: The Case of Vietnamese Literature by Young Writers in Ho Chi Minh City 2000 – 2015 kids because they teased her sister. When she becomes a student, "I" was in love with V., a good man who always loved and cared for her. Love came to her as a tonic, simply constraining her defect, but absolutely couldn‟t cure her disease. Indeed, sometimes her heart sings a love song. However, mostly, the three words "I love you" from V become a boring sound: "I love V. V. loves me. We love each other, complementing the defect in our souls. But we do not eliminate the isolation of each other; just multiply it, obediently live with it for all days. "23 The boy who loved" I "was also a stray, but unlike her, he loves and cares his abandoned past. Because he needed to share his loneliness, 'he did not have time and heart to find out my soul. As for me, I never let anyone who crept in my sin mind. During the night, in the arms of V, I could not repress the coldness in my soul. "24 They had live together but in the end, the young girl decided to leave the boy because he could not warm her heart, she had to revive her heart. Not choosing the types of the eccentric characters or disability in mind like Vu Dinh Giang and Yen Linh, the majority of the young authors chose to reflect the loneliness of the human in normal life. Therefore, life through the eyes of these young writers is multifaceted and more vivid. For instance, loneliness is felt through the story of a young girl who celebrated her birthday party as an excuse to hire her ex-boyfriend to be a boyfriend contract (Contract in Saturday afternoon). Or a story of a man who is too lonely to believe words of a girl he knew in a tour. Then he drove at night to her house, bought dumpling for her supper and finally received the refuse of the haughty girl "You go home, I‟m no longer sad."25 In the short story Hoai Street, the figure of the loneliness is apparent from the title of the story: Hoai Street, street of the memory, the street of the nostalgia of the distant memories. This is a story about a Chinese girl, living alone in an old house. Day after day, the girl went out to see Hoai River in pensive and calm appearance. People thought she wanted to live in isolation, but surprisingly, she was so lonely that she wanted to be seen and called her name by someone: - The daughter of that house will cried at this time, it took for a few years, from the time people in that house went away. - Now she lives alone? - Yes, very lonely. "[...] - No one in the old town sees her? - Yes, but no one calls her name correctly. In the old town nobody knew her real name. She thought no one could see her. "26 Fortunately, she finally was called her name correctly and happily exclaimed:" I've been seeing. " It is worth mentioning the theme of the loneliness in the works of the emerging young writers. Their books are always on the list of best-selling book in book fairs or book websites. Their names are always eagerly cried by readers. They owned their looks and crowed fans like celebrities. They are called "idol writers", including names such as Nguyen Ngoc Thach, Anh Khang, Iris Cao, Hamlet Truong, Gào and so on. In the story Lipstick Diary, the writer Gào (real name Vu Phuong Thanh) had generalized the loneliness of contemporary youth as follows: "The most serious problem of my twenties‟ great depression is mentality. I feel lonely when being alone in this life. Love hurts me every day because it was indifferent to me. I lost in a big city like Saigon with empty hands. "27 The focus on alienation in the youth literature Apart from the loneliness, the youth literature in HCMC pays attention on describing the alienation of the youth. Being lack of integration by the youth is explained as the consequence of living in urban but not having enough living experience to cope with new challenges. The challenges are expressed through material temptations in the short stories The children of the mother Au Co and My words (Thien Di), Variants and Rose Thorns (Keng). In these stories, the young protagonists fall into the race of earning money and social status, which leads to the lost of their identities. The negative influence of urban life on the youth also reflects by the state of boredom, disappointment, hopeless or more seriously, eccentric behavior and lifestyle (Hidden interfaces, The inflections, Parallel, Grey Shore).

23 Yến Linh (2014), Những phiên bản nằm nghiêng, NXB. Văn học, TP HCM, p.298. 24 Yến Linh (2014), Những phiên bản nằm nghiêng, NXB. Văn học, TP HCM, p.299. 25 Trương Anh Quốc (2013), Hợp đồng chiều thứ bảy, NXB. Trẻ, TP HCM, p.71. 26 Trần Minh Hợp (2011), Cô gái bán ô màu đỏ, NXB Văn hoá-Văn nghệ, TP HCM, p.12. 27 Gào (2015), Nhâṭ ký son môi, NXB. Lao Đôṇ g, Hà Nội,p.65. 7

Tinh Vy, Tran From Urban Society to Urban Literature: The Case of Vietnamese Literature by Young Writers in Ho Chi Minh City 2000 – 2015

For example, the protagonist Lim in The children of the mother Au Co chose money rather than her honor though being aware of the humiliation. She started out as a teacher but soon realized that selling words at school is much cheaper than selling words in newspapers. Then she chose to work as a journalist, which instructed readers to only three things: money, beauty and sex. Her journalistic credo is: "It is the best not to write a precise academic research, learning a lifetime just for writing a few papers that need to read so hard to understand the concepts and terminology, bought by no one or if the papers are sold they are paid with little royalties. "28 Therefore, she wrote everything as long as it earned money easily. The more money she earned, the more money she needed: "The closer I am to the money, the more money I like and love .“29 Even, to get rich quickly, she decided to open a company providing messaging services. She earned money so easily that she happily exclaimed: "God, If I knew that it was so easy to make money, I would just learned to read and write and then I go to work. "30 The author Keng also built protagonists who live without aim or idealness in her book Variants. The female characters are completely unfamiliar with the image of the traditional woman. Take the model of the individualism in the West, the girls do not mind selling their virtue, do not see marriage as the foundation of happiness. Their lives center around their ego, sleep in hotels, hang around cafes and when there is no way out for living, they just need sleeping pills. For them, sex is a pure instinct. They could sell not only sex but also love or even give it for free. The youth in Keng‟s stories get stuck in the clash of cultures, ultimately leading to their disorientation: "In the struggling livelihood, I lost many important things in life. I do not know what my dream is. I impotently see my confidence slipping from my thoughts. The bubbling of the youth dyed on my exhausted body, and the pink-colored glasses I used to look at the life faded away. "31 Also touching upon the alienation of the youth, Vu Dinh Giang in his novels Parallel or Grey Shore focused on the thorny issues of the youth such as gay issue, the impact of violence on the spiritual life and the pleasure in barbaric act of destruction. Homosexuality is not a specialty of Vu Dinh Giang‟s composition. Recently, young readers also have Variants by Keng, The Life of Callboy or Transgender by Nguyen Ngoc Thach. However, if we compare The Life of Callboy by Nguyen Ngoc Thach, a writer of the third sex, and Parallel by Vu Dinh Giang, we will see the difference in age and writing experiences. The Life of Callboy exposed the fate of the young gay caught up in money gravity. They existed in a dark corner of society, where a measure of dignity did not mean anything, while love and sexuality was on sale. In contrast, Parallel went deep into the inner life of the gay people in which only their awareness could help them to distinguish between homosexual and gay violence. Parallel might not bring readers a wide-look about the world of the third sex, but it helps to decipher the longing of being integrated of the gay people. In Parallel, the abnormal of the two characters is not located in their sexuality but in the dark past they carried. Having led by the past and whimsical imagination, H and G.g, or two versions of the same character "I", devised and carried out heresy and folly acts. They stalked and killed a neighbor because they imagined this old man as their cruel father. The emergence of a talkative neighbor boy made them reminiscent of the shameful childhood. So, they wanted to avenge those who caused the death of their childhood. Because they could not revenge nor be fled, they interminably mentally pained. The story ends with suicide of G.g in the bathtub with the wolves. H came back to the wooden house where they had lived together, burning off all those weird games of both: the noose ropes hung around the house, the paper puppets being torn, the rotten puppets and spiders. And in this gray space, H thought about the death of G.g: "He, and many others too, must die so that I may live."32 Language in writing by young writers Writing about the urban life, the young writers use language of the new generation. Chat or blog- language appears in many works of the young writers. For example, Variants by Keng is a product of a

28 Mai Anh Tuấn, Thiên Di, Nguyễn Thiên Ngân, Hương Thị (2014), Giấy thông hành vào đời, NXB. Trẻ, TP HCM,p.357. 29 Mai Anh Tuấn, Thiên Di, Nguyễn Thiên Ngân, Hương Thị (2014), Giấy thông hành vào đời, NXB. Trẻ, TP HCM, p.361. 30 Mai Anh Tuấn, Thiên Di, Nguyễn Thiên Ngân, Hương Thị (2014), Giấy thông hành vào đời, NXB. Trẻ, TP HCM, p. 365. 31 Keng (2008), Dị bản, NXB. Văn nghê,̣ TP HCM, p. 56. 32 Vũ Đình Giang (2007), Song song, NXB. Trẻ, TP HCM, p.309.

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Tinh Vy, Tran From Urban Society to Urban Literature: The Case of Vietnamese Literature by Young Writers in Ho Chi Minh City 2000 – 2015 network literature. There are several texts directly taken from chatting conversation on the net. This is an example from the story Rose thorns by Keng: - Stranger: Hello! Could I make the acquaintance with you? - She: Yes! - Stranger: I'm glad to know you. There was a friend who introduced me about you and said much about you. - She: who is your friend? - Stranger: A business friend person. He said that hanging out with you was very happy, because your personality is interesting. - She: Who did I hang out with? - Stranger: You know LN? (Name of [A man has wife 5]) - She: Ah, I know! - Stranger: He said you are a good woman and impressive to introduce you to me. - She: So are you good? - Stranger: A man is known by the company he keeps. Fortunately ... I am also a bit good. Interestingly, the books of Keng or Gào, which are largely taken from personal blogs, are always bestsellers. The attraction of their works does not come from the novelty of literature or the exploitation of sexual elements. In contrast, the details from their blogs make the works more reliable and easy to reach readers. Youth literature also shows the influence of urban life on contemporary languages in the books. Young authors prefer adding foreign languages, dialects or jargons in their writing. For example, there were a lot of English mixed with Vietnamese in Vu Dinh Giang‟s stories, such as digital audio (am thanh audio), décor café (quán cà phê được décor), download some songs (download vài ca khúc), copy- writer girl (cô nàng copy writer), maximum level (level cực đại), gnawing fast-food (gặm fast food), make up face (makeup gương mặt), a pretty beautiful body (body khá chất) and so on. Conclusion In the first 15 years of the 21st century, Ho Chi Minh City has evolved in a vibrant environment, diverse and high-speed operation. As one of Vietnam's largest urban areas in terms of population, the economic growth and the diversity of cultural identities, HCMC also has its history as an urban since the beginning of its origin. Moreover, it is a center of reading, a fertile land for the development of the literature for young people. There are works which are satisfied the mass reader, which after only a few days has sold thousands of prints and the authors become idols of the young people overnight. Conversely, there are also young writers who quietly write and create qualified art products, patiently create their own ways in literary garden. No matter which ranked the authors is in the literary space, these writers still share some common characteristics of the content and form of expression. Their books center on the urban space and urban life of the young people. These stories are the young people‟s exploration of the new horizons in urban space. In addition, there are authors who choose to discover the inner life of the youth, which focused on the loneliness and alienation of the young people in a commodity economy. Generally, young writers in HCMC have certain contribution to the Vietnamese literature; both create artistic works and satisfy the demand of the majority of readers who just read for entertainment.

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Tinh Vy, Tran From Urban Society to Urban Literature: The Case of Vietnamese Literature by Young Writers in Ho Chi Minh City 2000 – 2015

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