Emperor Thanh Thai

More than 100 years ago, on a morning in the royal city of Hue, a young emperor took the wheel of a car himself and set it rolling down a road near the palace. Dust rose behind it. People on both sides stood and stared. No one had ever seen an emperor in royal robes so taken with machines and vehicles. His name was Thành Thái.

His birth name was Nguyễn Phúc Bửu Lân, and he was born in 1879. He was the tenth emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, Vietnam's last royal dynasty, which reigned from 1802 to 1945. What stood out was his age. He took the throne in 1889, a boy of only ten, and sat on the golden throne in Thái Hòa Hall.

But people remember Thành Thái for more than his early crowning. They remember him as a very different kind of emperor.

In his day, every man at court wore his hair long, gathered in a knot at the back of the neck. Thành Thái did otherwise. He is remembered as the first emperor in history to dare to cut his hair short. He wore Western suits, read Western newspapers and studied French. He urged his children and his officials to learn the new ways too.

One account says he was curious about everything modern. He heard that where the French soldiers were stationed, there was a strange light called electricity. He had his horse carriage made ready and went straight there. He stood for a whole hour, asking again and again how that lamp could shine.

Whatever was new or strange, he wanted to touch with his own hands and understand to the end.

Thành Thái loved machines and mechanics, and even the telegraph, which was still very unfamiliar to most Vietnamese then. He had Western newspapers bought so he could read how the wider world was changing. In his eyes, learning what was good in other people was the way for his own people to move forward.

Yet one thing in him was worth even more than his love of learning. That was his heart for the poor.

He did not like to sit still in the palace. He often slipped out quietly into the alleys, the market landings and the fields. People called these outings vi hành. He wanted to see with his own eyes how ordinary people lived, what they ate, what worried them, how hard their days were. An emperor willing to leave his throne to learn the hardships of common people is a rare and precious thing in any age.

And yet this emperor, so fond of learning and new things, later spent hard years far from home. In 1907 he left the throne. Then, from 1916, because of the circumstances of the time, he had to go and live on a faraway island in the Indian Ocean, called Réunion. On that unfamiliar island, where the sea beat night and day, he missed the roads of Hue where he had once driven himself. He missed the market landings and alleys he had visited quietly to see how his people lived. People say he always hoped to return one day.

And his hope came true. After 1945, Thành Thái was able to return to Vietnam and set foot again on the homeland he had missed all his life.

He died in 1954 and was buried at An Lăng in Hue, right beside his father the emperor.

Today, when people in Hue speak of Thành Thái, they still remember a young emperor who liked short hair, loved to drive, loved to read and cared for the poor. They remember an emperor who dared to think differently. Now he rests under a row of trees at An Lăng, quietly, in the heart of Hue, the land he never stopped missing.