Emperor Tu Duc

In the old capital of Hue, an emperor kept a small notebook. On many evenings he sat quietly and listened to his mother tell tales of long ago. Whenever she said something fine, he bent down and wrote it in the notebook. That emperor was Tự Đức.

Before he took the throne, his name was Hồng Nhậm. He was the second son of Emperor Thiệu Trị, and he was born in 1829. His mother raised him with great care, so from childhood he loved study and read a great many books.

At 19 he became emperor and took the reign name Tự Đức. He then sat on the throne for 36 years, from 1847 to 1883. That was longer than any other emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty. It was Vietnam's last royal dynasty, which reigned from 1802 to 1945. Those 36 years are as long as a whole lifetime, and yet he kept the same habit all that time. On odd-numbered days of the month he handled the affairs of state. On even-numbered days he went back to his mother's side. This powerful emperor still set aside half the days of every month just to sit and listen to her teaching.

But the emperor carried another passion in his heart. It was poetry, and he loved it far beyond the ordinary.

He was regarded as the most learned and literary emperor of his dynasty. He left about 4,000 poems written in classical Chinese, along with a great many essays. That is a very large number. Some people could not write so many in a whole lifetime. Yet he wrote day after day, while he was also running the country.

The person who planted this love of words in him was his mother, Từ Dũ. Her real name was Phạm Thị Hằng. She was known for living simply, for her gentle virtue, and for teaching her children with great care.

Grown and crowned, Tự Đức still loved his mother dearly. However busy he was, on every even-numbered day he went back to her and sat listening to her stories. He came not as an emperor, but only as a son.

Here is the detail that many people find most moving. Whenever Từ Dũ gave him a fine saying or a precious piece of advice, the emperor bent down and wrote it at once in his small notebook. He gave the notebook a name, Từ Huấn Lục, meaning a record of his mother's teachings. He was the longest reigning and most learned emperor of his dynasty. Still he gave half the days of each month to his mother, and he copied down her words with his own hand.

Through all his decades on the throne he kept this habit, and never once forgot. People tend to think an emperor must be stern and distant. Yet the story of Tự Đức shows something simple: however great a man becomes, and whatever work he does, a son is still his mother's son.

A small notebook grew a little thicker each year, as a son quietly copied into it every word his mother taught him, for decades, without forgetting once. The finest gift left by the poet-emperor Tự Đức was not made of verse. It was made of a son's love for his mother.