Emperor Duy Tan

One summer morning, the sea wind blew salty across the sand at Cửa Tùng, and the sun lay bright on the water. Out in the shallows, a boy was wading and playing, laughing out loud. From a distance he looked like any other child. But this boy was the emperor of an entire country.

His birth name was Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh San. He was born in 1900, the son of Emperor Thành Thái. He grew up in the royal city of Hue, behind golden walls and curved tile roofs that are reflected in the Perfume River. Then in 1907, when he was about eight years old, he was brought to the throne.

The Nguyễn dynasty was Vietnam's last royal dynasty, and it reigned from 1802 to 1945. Of its 13 emperors, this boy was the youngest ever to take the throne.

When he became emperor, he was given a name to mark his reign. That name was Duy Tân, and the two words mean renewal. It sounded like the first waves of the season, a promise of fresh things waiting ahead. Yet the one who carried it was only a little boy.

Duy Tân was not only a boy at play. He grew up calm and thoughtful. He often stood quietly at a window, watching the river drift gently past the royal city. Then he would blurt out questions that left grown-ups stunned for a moment, unsure how to answer. Perhaps the summers by the sea, running barefoot on the sand, fed those thoughts in his heart.

The beach where he played that day was Cửa Tùng, in Quảng Trị. It was so lovely that people once called it the Queen of Bathing Beaches. The boy emperor played with the waves like any other child, and let the wind, the sun and the sea salt settle in his hair.

The story goes that when he waded out of the sea, his small hands were still caked with sand. A servant hurried over with water so he could wash them clean. The boy watched the water run through his fingers. Then he looked up and asked a strange question.

"Dirty hands, we wash with water. But if the water is dirty too, what do we wash it with?"

The servant stood silent, not knowing how to answer. A child's question sounded so simple, yet the longer one thought about it, the deeper it ran. It is a tale people have passed from one person to another, not a line written word for word in the history books. But even as a tale, it is loved and remembered. It shows a pure heart that began to bloom very early in a little boy.

Clear as the morning water at Cửa Tùng, and deep as the heart of the sea: that was the boy. A boy made emperor so young, in a royal city of gold and splendor, still kept a clear heart. And whenever white waves break on the sand at Cửa Tùng, his laughter seems to drift back across the years. He stands there with sandy hands and bright eyes, looking out at the wide sea and thinking of very large things.