A Soldier of the Legion

At times I forget how many people read my blog, and that leaves me a little surprised when I get a book recommendation based on a book I read and mentioned in my blog.  In these past few months, I have found myself fascinated with Vietnam in the days of early French interest.  I am slowly gaining knowledge of some structures I see in Hanoi and around the country and even learning some other tidbits here and there about Vietnamese character and culture.

The book recommendation was the title of this blog, A Soldier of the Legion. The book was written by George Mannington and it is available on Google Books for free as a PDF download.  It is also available on other sites from other collections that have been scanned.  Because I am in Vietnam, or some other reason I may not be aware of, I was not able to download the book from Google Books, and I downloaded it from another site. I would recommend Google Books, however, because the other site had about five pages missing at various points in the book. I went back to another PDF copy to fill in the blanks, but it was just a little more work than someone should have to go through to read the book.

To show my appreciation for the recommendation to one of my favorite life mentors, I will share a brief summary of the book and tell what I learned, as well.  The book was written by an Englishman, who on a whim, joined the French Foreign Legion in the late 1800s.  His description of the process is quite interesting and his follow-on assignment in Algiers and then Tonkin (North Vietnam at that time) is also captivating.  He arrived in Vietnam to catch some of the final days of the Yen The Uprising. A quick Google search for the "Yen The Uprising" shows that it was a failed attempt to revolt against French colonization in the general area of Bac Giang Province, north of Hanoi, lasting some 30 years from 1884 - 1913 by resistance forces led by Hoang Hoa Tham (The name should sound familiar since it is a common road name throughout major cities in Vietnam). Searching local web sites, there are some festivals that celebrate the independent spirit of the leaders of this revolt. 

George Mannington does a splendid job of describing the landscape of the areas where he was stationed in Nha Nam and Bo Ha Towns, and later at Bac Ninh and Hanoi. His description of the peoples both of the low and highlands is helpful to me in referencing my own feelings and opinions of the hill tribes and delta people.  The country of Bac Giang at the turn of the 20th century must have been beautiful with tigers and leopards, fowl and flora that no longer exists in those areas.  He described in detail the accomplishments of some of the French leaders and also chronologically maps the establishment of transportation lines in the northern part of Vietnam.

From the book, culturally, I was most impressed with his description of where the bats carved and painted on pagodas come from and why they are depicted.  This is something I never knew and, apparently, the seven bats represent the seven joys on earth. I even bookmarked the page, and will quote the passage:

"The ancients represented 'The Seven Joys' by as many bats, because, like our pleasures, these animals flit around us in eccentric curves; though it requires but a little patience and a light blow to bring them to our feet."

I did bookmark one other passage that I thought showed a lot of insight and also that people have not changed much in the hundred plus years since this book was written:

 "The French, Italian, German, Austrian, or any other European soldier is very much like our own.  He has his virtues and his vices; and the stronger his race and national character, the more likely is he to possess a superabundance of the latter."

All in all, the read was worth the short time it takes to cover his experience. It was also a great opener for the current book I am reading about an English wife to a French doctor who was sent to Vietnam to work with Alexandre Yersin at the Pasteur Institute in Nha Trang.  In her introduction, she covers very clearly the history up to her time in or around 1904 of what is now Vietnam.  She also describes the three regions then known as Tonquin, Annam and Cochin China, giving me a better understanding of the areas as they were then.  The book is titled On & Off Duty in Annam by Gabrielle M Vassal. The book is a bit longer, but so far is very interesting.