Empress Nam Phuong

In the old photographs that survive, one woman appears again and again in an áo dài, simple and elegant. The áo dài is a traditional Vietnamese long tunic. She stands straight, and her eyes are gentle. She is Empress Nam Phương, the last empress of Vietnam. Yet something in her was lovelier than her looks: her heart.

Her real name was Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan. She was born in 1914 in Gò Công, and she became the last empress of the Nguyễn dynasty. The Nguyễn dynasty was Vietnam's last royal dynasty, and it reigned from 1802 to 1945. So the last empress of a whole dynasty was a girl born in the far south of the country.

From childhood, her family gave her a thorough education. At the age of 12 she was sent far away to France, to study at a famous girls' school in Paris called the Couvent des Oiseaux. In those days, going to school in Europe was very rare. She was a girl from the south, alone in Europe.

She studied well and passed the baccalaureate in 1932. It was a diploma that few people earned at that time, and fewer women. Her schooling was entirely Western, yet she kept her Asian ways and still loved the áo dài of her homeland.

She was also famous for her beauty. For three years in a row, she was named Miss Indochina. But people do not remember her for that. They remember her modesty, her gentleness, and her learning, all together.

In 1934 she married Emperor Bảo Đại in the royal capital of Hue. The emperor gave her the title Empress Nam Phương. The name carries a lovely meaning, because Nam Phương means the fragrance of the South. So the girl from Gò Công had carried the scent of the southern land all the way to the old capital.

She was also remarkable in the royal court of the past. Some accounts call her the first woman to take a visible place at the center of the Nguyễn court. She was the only Nguyễn empress to receive the title while her husband was still alive. She was also allowed to wear yellow, a color that until then had belonged to the emperor alone.

As empress, she often appeared in a modest Vietnamese áo dài amid the splendor of the palace. Yet what made her remembered was neither her rank nor her beauty. It was her heart.

She was known for her kindness, and she always thought of the poor and of children. Once she gave orphanages the whole sum of 10,000 dong. She had been educated far away in the West and admired everywhere for her beauty. Even so, she kept her care for the small children of the orphanages who had less luck than others.

Another time, she took off the gold and silver jewelry she was wearing and gave it away with her own hands. That act inspired the people of the old capital to donate 925 taels of gold in all. Her beauty did not lie in a mirror. It lay in how she treated other people.

She was a young woman who traveled far to widen her learning, then brought both her learning and her kindness home. She was a woman of modern times, well schooled and caught by the camera in a graceful áo dài. Each time people look at the old photograph again, what they remember most is not her looks. It is the way she bent down to share with people who had less than she did. The fragrance of the South, it turns out, was that very kindness, a beauty that stays in the hearts of the Vietnamese people.