A World War II Annam Anthem (Đăng Đàn)

One period of Vietnamese history that I find fascinating is World War II. During the War, Vietnam was occupied by the Japanese, but for most of the war the Japanese left the French in power.

France, however, had been occupied by the Germans, so the French colonial officials in Indochina during the war were part of a collaborating government known as Vichy France.

Vichy France was led by Philippe Pétain, a military man and authoritarian. He sent Admiral Jean Decoux to Indochina to promote his authoritarian agenda and to try to keep the Japanese from gaining influence among the Vietnamese.

The Untold Story of the Self-Modernization of Vietnam’s Traditional Elite

In the previous post I introduced a book that Nguyễn Dynasty official and reformist scholar Phạm Quang Sán published in 1909 that sought to introduce students studying for the civil service exams to new ideas.

While many of the questions and answers in that book covered topics that were very new, there were also some questions and answers in that work that as least ostensibly sought to follow traditional ideas and patterns.