Nguyễn Hồng Giáp

Nguyễn Hồng Giáp (born 21 September 1934) is a Vietnamese scholar.

He was born September 21, 1934, in Nam Thành village, Yên Thành district, Nghệ An province, within a family of wealthy Catholic rice farmers ; his father Nguyễn Ðình Long (1906-1976) and several family members were persecuted during the great land reform (1954).

When he was in primary and secondary schools, he used to study at Vinh - Bến Thủy, Nha Trang and Thủ Đức Saigon (1948-1960), then moved to France (1960-1973) and got a Ph.D in History and a master's degree in Economics at Sorbonne University, Paris.

He returned to Vietnam in 1973 teaching history and economy at Dalat University, and served as vice-dean of the Faculty of Literature (the dean was Pr. Nguyễn Khắc Dương).

After the reunification of Vietnam (1975), he was among the few professors who did not emigrate and stayed in Dalat University, even though during the next ten years he was not allowed to teach.

He rather took part in the preservation of the university off material decays.

Between 1990 and 2012, he teaches again but also takes part in several administration activities.

He became successively general manager of Ðông Phương Bảo Lộc Bank (1990), director of Trí Dũng Management School in Ho Chi Minh City (1993), teacher in Economy at Văn Lang University, Ho Chi Minh City (1995), dean of the School of Ho Chi Minh City, Techniques and Technology (1998), head of Formation and dean of the Faculty of Management and Tourism at the University of Cửu Long, Vĩnh Long (2000), rector assistant of Hồng Bàng University, Ho Chi Minh City (2003).

He created and became director of Ho Chi Minh City Research and Tourism development Center (2005), then created and became President of the Administration Board of Tân Thanh Economics and Tourism School, Ho Chi Minh City (2007-2012).

He has seven children:

Đinh Thị Như Thuý, Ðọt Chuối Non, 2008, http://dotchuoinon.com, « Ðà Lat trong tôi và những điều đã mất » (Dalat Inside Me and Nostalgia of Lost Memories): The abrupt slope starting from La Si Mi Fa rice soup food shop hold by Professor and Doctor in History Nguyễn Hồng Giáp, and leading to the empty space in front of the Faculty of Literature university residence still challenges carts pulled by old and hungered horses.

The tired and disrupted clacking of hoofs mingles with wind raffles blowing around pine trees hills makes the night sounds wetter and longer.

We suddenly think that it is quite impossible to not care about the heavy weight of life, full of pleasure as well of sorrow.

/ Professor Nguyễn Hông Giáp left Sorbonne to come back to his country; for some long time, he was not allowed to teaching.

He opened a rice soup shop for students.

It was rice soup with a loaf of grilled rice cake.

Dalat sweet potatoes with flavored red flesh, spiced with a mixture of salt and chili peppers.

La Si Mi Fa rice soup bowls have impressed my mind as well as the silhouette of our respectable professor walking upward from Phù Đổng Thiên Vương five streets crossroads until the university residence.

He gave us a smiling salute, one hand holding a tin bucket, the other hand holding tongs used to keep up horse manure.

He kept horse manure to enrich his flowers ground and coffee trees… Professor Giáp lives now in Saigon.

At that epoch many times I would like to ask him questions but I never dared to, as I felt so confused.

Have you had regrets?

How come did you leave Paris and your lovely Eurasian wife to come here cooking rice soup and keeping horse manure ?

To give us a smiling salute and distillate into our mind a lancinante interrogation about man fate?

/ Of course the rice shop has now disappeared.

I do not know among all the people remembering Đa Thiện district in Dalat, how many could remember the hill carving ground tight space agenced with pine wood chairs and tables and named with La Si Mi Fa sounding musical notes.

Myself I could always wholly see it, as I always distinctly see the star wrapped big cross on the top of Năng Tĩnh triangulum high tower watching over Dalat University.

People told me professor Giáp was one of the three men who have climbed on the top of this 38 meters high tower to wrench the branches of the cross wrapping star, allowing the cross to stand intact and harmless.

Then he studied the life of various Tây Nguyên ethnic people (he is the co-author with Pr. Nguyễn Khắc Tụng of « North Tây Nguyên ethnic people collective meeting spaces on pilotis »).