Nguyen Dinh Chieu Memorial

Some people stand straight even when life breaks everything around them. Nguyễn Đình Chiểu was one of them.

He was born on July 1, 1822, in the village of Tân Thới in Gia Định province, now part of Ho Chi Minh City. In 1843 he passed the tú tài examination. Six years later he was in Hue, waiting to sit the thi Hội examination, when news came that his mother had died. He went home to mourn her, and on the road his eyes slowly darkened and then went out completely.

Another man might have collapsed. Nguyễn Đình Chiểu chose differently. He opened a school, treated the sick with medicine, and began to write. That is when Lục Vân Tiên came into being, then Dương Từ, Hà Mậu and Ngư tiều y thuật vấn đáp. These works were written in the darkness of a blind man's world, yet they are full of light about loyalty, righteousness and the right way for a person to live.

In 1859 the French took Gia Định. In 1862 he moved to the village of An Đức, in the Ba Tri area of what was then Vĩnh Long province. He lived there until he died on July 3, 1888, at the age of 66. Today the Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Memorial stands in that same land, in Giồng Cục hamlet, Ba Tri commune, Vĩnh Long province.

The memorial is a special national monument, the highest level of recognition in Vietnam's system of monuments. The Prime Minister signed the decision, number 2,499, on December 22, 2016.

The first building to greet visitors is the tam quan gate. It is a traditional gate with a double roof of brick-red tiles. From the very first step the air grows quieter and more solemn, like a true place of remembrance.

Next comes the stele house, 12 meters high, with a two-tiered roof. Inside is a carved stone slab. One side praises the merits of Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, and the other gives a short account of his life. It is a place to stop and read, and to understand whom the site honors and why he is held in such respect.

The new temple was built from 2000 to 2002, in the trùng thiềm điệp ốc style of layered roofs. It is 21 meters high and has two floors.

On the upper floor stands a bronze statue of Nguyễn Đình Chiểu. The statue is 1.6 meters tall and weighs 1.2 tons. Two reliefs inside carve two moments from history. In one, he reads a funeral oration at Chợ Đập in 1883. In the other, the fighters of Phan Ngọc Tòng battle at Giồng Gạch in 1868. He witnessed both events himself and wrote them down.

The old temple was built in 1972. It has two tiers of roof, covered in tiles. Inside, it is used for worship and holds documents about the leaders, the fighters and the movement against the French at the end of the 19th century. This is the more direct layer of history, tied to the time when he was alive and writing.

Last is the tomb area. It is the resting place of Nguyễn Đình Chiểu and his wife, Lê Thị Điền. Their daughter, Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Khuê, rests there too. She is better known as the woman writer Sương Nguyệt Anh. Many sources record her as one of the first women journalists in Vietnam.

People in the south often quote one verse of his. It goes: However much of the Way a boat carries, it never sinks under the weight. However many wicked men the pen stabs, it never bends. He was a blind man with no official rank and no soldiers, and he used his pen as a weapon that never grew dull.

To come to the Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Memorial is to come to a teacher of the southern land. He taught that losing the light of the eyes does not mean losing the light of the heart.

That verse is still there, carved in stone and spoken by everyone who passes. And the plain tomb in the land of Ba Tri keeps reminding people that some lamps need no eyes to give light.