Nguyen Ngoc Bich

Vietnam, America and the entire Vietnamese diaspora have just lost a good man and much-beloved citizen, an accomplished scholar, a proud teacher and publisher of Vietnamese literature, culture and history, a humble and loyal public servant of the South Vietnam and U.S. governments but most important of all, a tirelessly staunch anti-communist fighter for Vietnam's freedom and democracy and its people's human rights to the point of neglecting his own health and life while making contributions until his last breath. Nguyễn Ngọc Bích died of a massive heart attack on March 2, 2016 during his flight from Washington, D.C. to Manila, Philippines, where he was scheduled to attend a regional conference on the ongoing South China Sea dispute to present his study of history and to lay his claims for Vietnam to the Spratly and Paracel Islands. He died doing what he believed in. Born on July 26, 1937 in Hanoi, North Vietnam, Nguyễn Ngọc Bích migrated in 1947 with his family to Saigon, South Vietnam to live free of the Communists after their take-over of North Vietnam. Upon graduation from high school in 1956, he went to study at Princeton University on a Fulbright scholarship and received his B.A. in Political Science in 1958. Thereafter, he did graduate work in Asian studies at Columbia University (1959-65), Japanese literature at Kyoto University (1962-63), bilingual education and theoretical linguistics at Georgetown University (1980-85). America was practically Nguyễn Ngọc Bích's home country from 1956 until his death, except for a short break between 1971 and the fall of Saigon in April 1975, during which time he returned to Saigon to serve the South Vietnam government successively as Director of Foreign Press Directorate under the Ministry of "Information, War Mobilization and Open Arms [Repatriation for Viet Cong soldiers]", Director General of Vietnam Press Agency and Special Envoy of President Nguyen Van Thieu in the final lobbying campaign for war aid with the U.S. Congress during the Viet Cong's final offensive months. He also helped his wife, Dr. Đào Thị Hợi, run Mekong University, which they co-founded with Older Brother Nguyễn Ngọc Linh. In 1975, he returned to the US, settled in Virginia, where he held a number of teaching posts, including adult education, elementary school and high school in Arlington, then Studies in Vietnamese Literature and Vietnamese Culture and Civilization at Trinity College, George Mason University, and taught at Georgetown University as a teacher trainer in bilingual and Multicultural Education. From 1991 to 1993, he joined the G. H. W. Bush administration as Deputy, then Acting Director, OBEMLA (Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs), U.S. Department of Education. Starting in 1988, he joined a team of lobbyists urging the U.S. Congress to fund the second-generation Radio Free Asia (RFA) to broadcast to Vietnam, among other communist countries in Asia. As a result, President Bill Clinton and Congress enacted the incorporation of present-day RFA in March 1996. In 1997, he joined RFA as the first Director of the Vietnamese Service at Radio Free Asia in Washington DC. Nguyễn Ngọc Bích is the author of a number of acclaimed books mainly in English, demonstrating the great pride he holds for his Vietnamese heritage and documenting his lifelong fight against Communism in Vietnam. He was editor of the anthology War and Exile: A Vietnamese Anthology, an anthology of stories and poems, published by Vietnamese PEN Abroad East Coast Center in the US (1989). His first book 'The Poetry of Vietnam' published by Asia Society of New York in 1969 was followed by three others: North Vietnam: Backtracking on Socialism (1971), An Annotated Atlas of the Republic of Vietnam (1972), and A Thousand Years of Vietnamese Poetry (Knopf, 1975). He is also one of the founders of National News Service, which provides news of interest to readers of Vietnamese language newspapers worldwide. Among other works, he translated two famous verse collections by Nguyen Chi Thien: Hoa Dia Nguc / The Flowers of Hell (1995) and Hat MauTho / Blood Seeds Become Poetry (1996). After his retirement from official public service in 2003, Nguyễn Ngọc Bích devoted the rest of his life to serving the Vietnamese people and diaspora with even more passion and energy. His most notable literary accomplishments during this period included the publication of the comprehensive Dictionary of Nôm or the original Vietnamese demotic writing, the publication of his books on the national poets Nguyễn Du and Hồ Xuân Hương. In 2006, he co-founded the Free Viet Labor Organization helping lend overseas support of unionization rights for the Vietnamese worker in Vietnam. At any time of the day, he could be found at his computer working, when not traveling frequently across the country or internationally for social, cultural or political events. The time that Nguyễn Ngọc Bích spent in a day writing in support Vietnam's freedom and democracy and other causes of the diaspora did not discriminate between day or night and spanned several continental and international time zones. He was incessantly answering calls and e-mail from across the globe - all of which he treated with equal urgency. He napped between calls or slept whenever he found time to briefly recharge himself. In response to appeals from his family to stop working so hard and to enjoy his retirement, he responded that he could not stop working until he had completed everything he had started. But then he kept starting new projects every so often. He believed that he must take advantage of all the time given to him on this earth and that he was invincible. He is survived by his wife of 48 years, Dr. Đào Thị Hợi, his siblings, as well as numerous nephews and nieces across the U.S., Europe and Vietnam. Nguyễn Ngọc Bích will be greatly missed for his generous heart, his grand vision and steadfast hopes for Vietnam, the Vietnamese and their future, as well as his leadership and mentorship. Foremost, Vietnam has lost an unyielding soldier against communism. For Nguyễn Ngọc Bích, his mission in life is not completed as long as the Communists continue to rule Vietnam. The world has also lost a truly dedicated human rights warrior and his capable hand that he readily lends to any worthy cause.