A friend of mine, a Taiwanese human rights worker, recommended a few weeks ago that I read “Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping’s China” by Emily Feng. The title made me curious because I felt like I actually knew what the “red flowers” were supposed to be and how one person could be one of them.
These “types” of flowers have also bloomed in my home country, which is China’s little communist brother, Việt Nam. I thought about how I might have been a red flower had I stayed and grown up there. If I had not left Việt Nam and immigrated to the U.S. at twelve, I fear, with my background, I may have been another red flower, since the environment would have helped me achieve an easier life there.
How could I be the red flower? Well, to start, I was born with the blood of the majority ethnic group in Việt Nam, the Kinh. I was an urban child who excelled as a Communist Youth at school and was at the top of my class. And, once upon a time, as a child, I truly believed in Communism and the Communist Party of Việt Nam.
I believed because the north had won the Vietnam War and fought off the U.S. out of our country, they were the heroes. However, I also quietly acknowledged that my maternal grandfather was living in the U.S., the land of “our enemies.” That was my confusion, but it was also a secret that I decided to keep for myself. I had never shared that secret with my classmates and friends when I was living in Việt Nam as a child. In that country, even as a child, I knew when to shut my mouth and that one should not tell her secrets even to her best friends because trust, I believed, did not exist back then.
I used to believe that Uncle Hồ was the greatest person in Vietnamese history and that I should follow what he taught, as well as what the party continued to teach the next generations. Would one think, with that background and the ability to keep secrets, I was red enough as a flower that the party would allow to bloom? I might have made the list if I did not leave the country as a pre-teen child, right? The reality of becoming a red flower might be different than I expected, but my life changed because I left.
At 12, I immigrated to the U.S. because my maternal grandfather, a boatperson, sponsored my family under the Orderly Departure Program (ODP). Living in a society that appreciated critical thinking, I grew up gradually fading the redness year by year without even realizing it. I appreciated the civil rights I had and, literally, took them for granted. But I will talk about rights appreciation and fighting for human rights at a later time. When I first came to the U.S., I was shocked by the appearance of another color, yellow, which is the color of the national flag of the Republic of Vietnam.
For the longest time, from the age of 12 until my middle age, I have not fully understood the North-South division of Việt Nam from 1954 to 1975. I am not sure about others, but it took me the longest time to realize the actuality of this division.
After becoming a journalist and conducting my own investigation, I concluded in 2017 that there were two separate countries. North Việt Nam and South Việt Nam were much like North Korea and South Korea today. Others may not agree, but I choose to side with the “yellow flag” people to conclude that North Việt Nam invaded South Việt Nam. One of the reasons is that my maternal grandfather fought as a military officer for the Republic of Vietnam and sacrificed part of his life to protect it until the last day of April 1975.
My grandfather did not fight for a “puppet regime” as defined by the current Vietnamese authorities. The foreigners happily picked up this concept, finding it an easy explanation for the U.S. loss in the Vietnam War. My grandfather fought for a fragile democracy that was being built by elitists who refused to follow communism and who were trying to establish a different form of governance: a republic.
My grandfather was a patriot who refused to leave Việt Nam on April 30, 1975, because he believed the two sides of Việt Nam would unite and become a stronger country. Nevertheless, his dream never came true because he was imprisoned a few months later.
After more than three years in a re-education camp, my grandfather escaped Việt Nam by boat because the new regime deemed him not to be red at all. He was still yellow in their eyes, and he had to flee by getting on a small wooden boat with my two uncles to dive into the unknown fate of the Pacific Ocean. Had he not left Việt Nam and survived, I would not be here to write this story; I might have become a red flower, and all my writing would have supported the current regime.
The historical context I describe above helps us understand the present-day constraints on freedom of expression in Việt Nam. One thing I want to point out when I go back on the concept of the red flowers and the fight for freedom of expression in Việt Nam is that this current regime is the exact Communist regime that ruled the North during the Vietnam War and the whole of Việt Nam since May 1975.
This government was the same regime that you would have supported if you opposed American imperialism. It was also the same regime that established re-education camps throughout Việt Nam to imprison soldiers, officials, and civil servants of the southern Vietnamese government immediately after the communists occupied the South in 1975. And this is the regime that would only allow the red flowers to bloom, just like in China.
The red flowers in these two communist and authoritarian countries must be “politically red,” which means they must act according to the rules and procedures that the Communist Party outlines for them. As one reads Emily Feng’s book, one will understand that every flower is politically “red,” and even if different-looking lives may exist, they only exist within the boundaries established by the party. In recent events surrounding a book written by one of the very red flowers in Việt Nam, Nguyễn Thành Nam, we may understand the boundaries that the Communist Party of Việt Nam establishes for these red flowers.
Nguyễn Thành Nam has been known by the public for loving Hồ Chí Minh wholeheartedly. He even taught a “Hồ Chí Minh thoughts” class at a university, and I think one cannot find a flower that is redder than he is. And yet, at this moment, he has been detained and imprisoned for violating Article 117 of the Penal Code: propagandizing against the state. How did he commit the crime? He committed the crime by writing a book called “Chuyện với Thanh” (“Story with Thanh”), in which he praises Hồ Chí Minh.
Yes, you read it correctly. Nguyễn Thành Nam is in prison right now because he praises Hồ Chí Minh in his book! Why would a red flower like Nguyễn Thành Nam become a criminal under Article 117, the code that the authorities often use to charge independent journalists and writers who they label as a “reactionary force,” such as Phạm Đoan Trang and Phạm Chí Dũng? It is because Nguyễn Thành Nam has praised Hồ Chí Minh outside of the boundaries that the party has established.
Nam used the GenZ language to describe the time when Hồ Chí Minh was still called Nguyễn Tất Thành, a young man who tried to seek ways to liberate his country from colonialism. The language Nam uses in his book is out of the boundaries, which means he praises in a different manner than the one established by the party. That is considered a crime by the party, and it must punish Nam.
Thus, being a red flower in Việt Nam means following the instructions regarding the boundaries that the party has set out for us. Even if one praises Hồ Chí Minh, one must still follow the exact script that the party has used for many decades. To step outside also means that the party no longer sees the red flower as red enough and must eliminate it.
Then, to be a red flower is to accept ideological constraints in exchange for peace and safety. But conformity demands the surrender of independent thought. Writers then face an impossible choice: remain red and sacrifice creativity, or abandon the safety of state approval to pursue genuine and creative writing.
Conformity means becoming part of the machinery of control, robbed of the independence that defines a writer. Yet escaping it carries the fear of imprisonment for asking the authorities to respect and exercise your right to freedom of expression. The fear of imprisonment is legitimate, and that may be why red flowers continue to bloom in China and Việt Nam.
I abandoned the idea of being a red flower when I overcame my fear of the government. As an independent journalist, I chose transparency over conformity. Transparency is my only obligation—to readers, to the public record, and to the future Việt Nam that I have imagined. I will not self-censor, and I hope that all Vietnamese, including those still trapped as red flowers, will one day live without fear in a free and democratic Việt Nam and excel in their creativity. Together, let us strive for a Việt Nam where creativity flourishes without fear.
