Tran Van Thuan video oral history interview and transcript

This recording and transcript form part of a collection of oral history interviews conducted by the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation and donated to the Chao Center for Asian Studies at Rice University. This collection includes video recordings of interviews with Vietnamese Americans native to or living in Texas. This interview forms part of the national 500 Oral Histories Project conducted by the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation.Trần Văn Thuần was born in 1934 in Huế where he lived until 1939 when his family moved to Saigon to find work. He lived in Thị Nghè, a section of Saigon, for most of his life. He completed his schooling in Thị Nghè/Saigon and attended high school at Petrus Ký, where he took and passed his Tú Tài exam. His childhood memories include passing by the zoo nearly every day, playing around Chùa Ông 8 temple, and playing in the rain. He also accounts his favorite memories of the Tết (Lunar New Year) and Tết Trung Thu (Mid-Autumn) festivals in Saigon, especially the flower markets at Chợ Bến Thành. The Dướng Mong village in Huế where his family was from was very poor; the education was also very poor, the highest level being the 5th grade. His mother died when Thuan was 8 years old due to a miscarriage, and his village did not have a doctor or proper medical care. The lack of medicine and medical availibility eventually inspired Thuan to pursue medicine, despite the difficulty of schooling in Vietnam during this time. After his mother's death, he was raised solely by his aunt and his father, who did not remarry. He notes that he is eternally grateful for the sacrifices his aunt and father made for him and is something he will never forget. Thuan left Vietnam in 1975 and did not return until 2002. Although he did not wish to return to a Vietnam still under the Communist regime, he decided to go with a service group to help build schools in Vietnam and to visit his daughter who was working in Vietnam. When returning to Thị Nghe, he says he felt an unusual sensation of disconnect. He says the city developed too fast and was very disappointed in the new culture of Saigon. With the slang and accents, he feels that Saigon has lost its class that it used to be known for. He has written songs about these sentiments. Dr. Tran attended Saigon Medical School (Đại Học Y Khoa Sai Gon) and graduated in 1961. However, with the advancement of the Viet Cong army to the South, Dr. Tran had to join the South Vietnamese army.Dr. Thuan married in 1968; his wife was a senior in a class that he taught at Gia Long school. Upon arrival in the United States, Dr. Thuan lived in southern Florida where he lived in a refugee camp on an Air Force based and worked in car repair make ends meet. He later moved to Arkansas and finally Houston, Texas. From a physician of high societal value and respect, Dr. Thuan was forced to work as a basic hospital staff, pushing patients in gurneys and wheelchairs with a salary of $2.50 an hour. Although originally discouraged, Dr. Thuan believed in hard work and worked his way to where he is today. Today, he enjoys taking classes including painting. He used to volunteer back in Vietnam and continued service work in Houston, Texas with the Vietnamese community. He notes that he places a large emphasis on the Vietnamese language, culture, and history at home by allowing only Vietnamese to be spoken in his home and by teaching his children about Vietnamese family values and the reason for fleeing their home country