Elemental structures of memory: Marston Mats in Vietnam and beyond

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Notes

1 I visited Pham Thanh Tam’s family in Ho Chi Minh City in October 2023 to get permission to reproduce his cartoon and was overwhelmed with their hospitality. The house itself is a huge archive of materials, drawings and paintings, posters, memorabilia and books cared for by his widow and their daughter. I came away with a book written by Thanh Tam published in (2016), Vuốt “Ngắm” [Overcoming the “Underground”]. The title is a nod to the poet Phung Quan, whose 1954 book Vượt Côn Đảo [Overcoming Con Dao] contains a poem that seems to allude to the harsh reality of Marston Mats (Figure 1): “Chập chùng lưới dây thép” could be translated as “Rolling on a sharp metal grid.” Yet the poem says something powerful about resilience in the prison that was worse than hell, the prisoners would sing at night: “Bóng đêm trùm Côn Đảo/ Sóng bể réo ầm ầm/ Gió hun hút đồi thông/ Trại giam Nằm như chết/ Chập chùng lưới dây thép/ Trăng in bóng tháp canh/ Côn Đảo bỗng rùng mình/ Ai cất lên tiếng hát” (Pham 2016, 114). In my translation: “Darkness over Con Dao/ The waves are roaring/ The wind howls in the trees/ The prison is like death/ Rolling on a sharp steel grid/ The moon silhouettes the watchtower/ Con Dao shivers/ Whose song rises up?”

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John HUTNYK

John Hutnyk published the book Global South Asia on Screen with Bloomsbury Academic in 2018, and also with Aakar Books, India in 2019. In 2023, his 1996 book The Rumour of Calcutta: Tourism, Charity and the Poverty of Representation was re-released after 27 years by Bloomsbury India.