In a recent interview published in Tuoi Tre newspaper, pianist Dang Thai Son reflects on the role played by his father, poet Dang Dinh Hung, who suffered repression during the Nhan Van-Giai Pham affair of 1956-1958 in North Vietnam, in his life. This is a very rough translation.

* This trip back to Vietnam must be very special for you, especially after spending a year staying in one place in Canada?

- It's very special. I took a "rescue flight" (a flight to evacuate Vietnamese citizens). This trip is an act of filial piety, both for my mother and father. My mother is 102 years old, like a lamp about to run out of oil. I need to go back home now when my mom still recognizes me.

For my father, last December was the 30th anniversary of his passing. Up until this point, my father is still unknown as an artist. He only had two collections of poetry published separately in the early 1990s. This is the first time a full collection of his poetry and paintings was released. This book, which appears exactly 30 years after my father passed away, makes me feel like he was reborn.

* Is it a bit late for you publish your father's anthology now, 30 years after his death?

- I have been very cautious. Everyone knows about my father's past, which was partly beautiful, but mostly tragic. Though I think now is an appropriate time to publish this book, I was very cautious and worried.

Only when I got the publication printing permit that I felt relieved. Maybe it's because I inherit my father's paranoia (laughs). My father used to walk with the gait of a general, but inside him, there was a lot of fear. Fear haunted him for his whole life.

In 1990 my father died but I did not dare to come back home. I knew he was very sick, but he did not allow me to come home because he was afraid that I would not be able to leave the country again. He said: "My life is done for, but your life must be different. Love is something you keep to yourself!".

At that time, a rumor was circulating among the Vietnamese artists: "Dang Thai Son has become a refugee." In the years 1990-1992, the country had just opened up, but the control was still very tight. Only in 1993 did I to go home for the first time, but I was still very afraid. I had to have an excuse: I would perform with the orchestra, and I brought with me a foreign conductor so that they could "rescue" me if anything happens.

That time I performed at the Hanoi Opera House. After finishing, going out the wings I saw a lot of journalists. I thought they were waiting there to congratulate me, but they weren't. The first question I got was: "What is your nationality now?".

* So how did you answer? What is your nationality then and now?

- I answered that I still had Vietnamese nationality. Both now and then I have two nationalities, I still keep my Vietnamese citizenship. Now there are many Vietnamese with dual citizenship, but at that time that was very rare. Prime Minister Pham Van Dong helped me a lot at that time.

I was indebted to Mr. Dong for many decades, starting in 1976 when the government was still hesitating if I should be allowed to study music in the Soviet Union. Thanks to him, I was able to go abroad. I am the first child of the people involved in the Nhan Van-Giai Pham affair to study abroad, thereby setting a new precedent for the policy.

Then after I won the First Prize at the Tenth Chopin International Piano Competition in 1980 in Warsaw (Poland), Mr. Dong was the first to allow me to perform in other countries, including those of Western Europe, At that time, only a few very "mature" cadres were allowed travel to the West.

After winning the prize at the Chopin Competition, I received many invitations to perform, but I thought those were just fantasy, I would never be allowed to travel. When I got the green light, I had a very strange feeling: the feeling of a future. The artist community at that time looked at what was happening to me, and they too saw a future.

Then it was Pham Van Dong himself who decided to award one of the first titles of People's Artist to me in 1984, to the shock of many people. I was only 26 years old at that time. I remember that for the public it was a shock

* It seems that Prime Minister Pham Van Dong at that time also helped your family materially?

- It was a long story, starting with the Chopin Prize in 1980. The Prize for me felt like Destiny, thanks to it that my father received an operation that gave him another 10 years of life which was much more comfortable, both materially and spiritually. My father was luckier later in his life than at its beginning.

Back then, when I was finishing that competition, my father was hospitalized with a tumor in his lungs. It looked like my dad was going to die. Then suddenly I won the First Prize. Someone heard the news from a foreign radio station and informed my dad and mom right away.

For three consecutive days, the Nhan Dan newspaper carried news about me on the front page. These were articles with all the details about my biography, my life, and even our calico cat was mentioned, but there was absolutely nothing about my father.

I returned home and was taken straight from the airport to the Prime Minister's Palace. Mr. Dong came out to greet me. During our meeting, I told him that I had two wishes: that I am allowed to take my father abroad for medical treatment and that my mother is allowed to live with me in the Soviet Union.

Mr. Dong acceded to my second wish, but on my first wish he said he would not send my father abroad for medical treatment. Instead he would be treated by the best doctors in Vietnam at the time. Immediately two top lung surgeons at that time, Dr. Hoang Dinh Cau and Dr. Ton That Tung, operated on my father together.

Mr. Dong also helped me, that is my father, with an apartment. At that time my father was living in a cramped mezzanine on the stairs in an apartment building on Trieu Viet Vuong street. Someone probably thought that this was too much of an ungainly sight, so the next day after I came back, someone brought me the key to an apartment in the Giang Vo apartment complex. Thanks to that, my father was able to live the last 10 years of his life relatively comfortably.

I am telling these stories so that you understand that my father's very innovative poems and paintings were born in extremely difficult times. But I never look at these times in a negative light. It was just a period of transition. And even during that period of misery, there were still many beautiful acts.

After the Nhan Van-Giai Pham affair, many people started to avoid my father, but there were also people who kept their relationship with him. These were not only the group of comrades in distress like Van Cao, Hoang Cam, Tran Dan ... but also the artists who were in high positions at that time, such as musician Do Nhuan, musician Van Ky, writer To Hoai or musician Le Yen. They still visited and helped my father like friends would do.

* So can it be considered that you have fulfilled your filial duties to your father?

- That why I said, my Chopin Prize felt like Destiny at the time. And now I have published a book for my father. Somewhere right now he must be looking down and smiling. My dad is not interested in prizes. I know what he likes. Even his grave is small and simple.

* Can you share more about your maternal family which used to be very famous in Saigon?

- My grandfather was the first Vietnamese to get an engineering degree in France. My maternal grandfather's family has French citizenship. My mother and aunt were the first two Vietnamese to learn piano professionally. I am not the first international piano concert performer in my family, it was my aunt. My aunt studied music in Paris and in the 1950s performed in various countries, and she also composed music. That's why I have had the opportunity to interact with the piano very early.

My mother and her brother, Uncle Thai Van Lung, joined Viet Minh. One of my uncles died in a concentration camp during World War II because he, as a student in France, participated in the anti-fascist movement.

* Between dad and mom, who influenced your music career more?

- My mother was the one who set me on the path of becoming a pianist. She raised me and financially took care of everything since I was born. Talking about finance, I think another woman would have complained that her husband was bad, was a drunkard, did not support his wife and children.

But my mother didn't utter a word. Only when I grew up did I feel my mother's compassion and her understanding of my father.

My father could not support me, nor did he teach me to play the piano like my mother, but he greatly influenced the formation of my personality as well as my artistic thought. In terms of personality, it was my father who taught me to have a heart. There are lessons that he taught me that I carry my whole his life. For example, he told me: "Your karma is to play the piano, not to involve in politics." I follow this the whole life.

My father also gave me my musical aesthetics: straight-to-the-point simplicity, avoidance of flamboyancy, expressiveness. There is a lot of this in his poetry and in my music too.

* How can a Dang Thai Son who has surprised the whole world with his talent of music performance emerge from such a severe environment of that time ?

- Art that is smooth will not succeed, its path has has to be thorny and bumpy. I lived in a family that was not completely happy, my dad and my mom both remarried ...

But God is always fair. If life is smooth and easy, then art will be bland. Genius musicians like Beethoven, Chopin ... did not have a perfect life; loneliness permeates their music. As my dad said, loneliness has to be total in order to generate energy, loneliness gives people the focus on doing something.

* God gave you an admirable world-class musical career, so what did he take from you?

- The first thing I had to pay was probably my father's suffering. The day I brought the Chopin Prize back, I rushed to hug him when he was almost dying without being treated. Ten years later, I was unable to return when my father died.

The second cost is perhaps the total loneliness. But this is not something is that I suffer from, torment myself over, or try to escape. Anyone else would be very upset if they have to be quarantined for two weeks when they get back home, but I felt extremely happy.

I just need to have a piano by my side, and WiFi too, since right now without WiFi it's impossible to live (laughs), and all my needs were met. In the quarantine hotel, I was privileged to have a spacious room on the top floor with a balcony, with two pianos, one for the day and the other for the night. I don't need a companion, female or male, I just need a piano.

* You are famous and happy with the piano, but do you, as an artist, suffer?

- I keep the suffering to myself. There are things I keep for me, I don't share with anyone. If I were more ambitious, then in 1980 when I got the Prize at the Chopin Competition, I could have fled to Western Europe and certainly would have had a great career. But no, I didn't choose that path. I do not sell my values ​​out of selfishness.

Instead, I've chosen another path. I was able to remain free and to not bother anyone. I'm not the type of person who like conflict or war. If I took that drastic step, it might be good for my career, but it would have affected my family, my dad. I even saw it as a betrayal of my country. I wouldn't do that.