Dr. Vu Minh Hoang, Faculty Member in History & Vietnam Studies
Dana Difilippantonio, Visiting Faculty in Music
Dedicated to the Fulbright University Vietnam Class of 2025
Why Do We Hope? celebrates Fulbright University Vietnam’s core values of liberal arts education, academic excellence, and public service at a moment of great opportunities, challenges, and change. It also pays homage to the ideas of our namesake, the United States Senator J. William Fulbright, and to the Tonkin Free School (Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục). Fulbright University Vietnam embodies the hopes and dreams of generations of educators, students, and parents for a school in Vietnam where the best education is made accessible to any person of talent, so that they may find success and give back to society.
Why Do We Hope? is written in the key of F in tribute to Senator Fulbright. The Chorus, Bridge, and Oratory are classic four-part choral arrangements in the hallowed tradition of American college alma maters, extolling their subjects as the nourishing mothers of the nation’s youth. The lyrics quote the speeches of Fulbright, who graduated from Oxford University in 1928 as a Rhodes Scholar appreciative of how international educational exchange could help build understanding and empathy transcending borders. After serving as President of his alma mater, the University of Arkansas (whose alma mater we sampled for the Oratory), Fulbright would go on to set up the Fulbright Program that continues today to sponsor international students and language teachers to come to the United States, and American students and academics to study and research across the world. As the longest-serving Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Fulbright was one of the earliest and most influential voices in Washington questioning the wisdom of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. The Fulbright family has granted Fulbright University Vietnam permission to use his name in recognition of these deep connections between the missions of the institution and Senator Fulbright’s personal legacy.
Why Do We Hope? is set to the 6/8 time signature in honor of the 6/8 verse form, which is quintessential in Vietnamese poetry. Emerging organically from the tonal and rhythmic properties of the Vietnamese language, the 6/8 verse was the form of choice for literary classics such as Nguyễn Du’s The Tale of Kiều and Nguyễn Đình Chiểu’s The Tale of Lục Vân Tiên. The Verses’ melody features the pentatonic scale, which is archetypical of traditional Vietnamese music, particularly of lullabies. Their lyrics are excerpted from the “Song Encouraging People to Study Abroad,” which was taught at the short-lived Tonkin Free School. Inspired in part by Japan’s Keio University, the Meiji Charter Oath, and Chinese reformers like Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, it was the joint effort of two major groups of Vietnamese nationalists: The Reform (Duy Tân) Movement led by Phan Chu Trinh that operated publicly to encourage study abroad in France and other Western countries, liberal constitutional reforms, and scientific modernization; and the Eastern Study (Đông Du) Movement led by Phan Bội Châu that worked clandestinely to facilitate study in Japan and China, national self-strengthening through education, and armed insurrection against colonial rule. Even though it was shut down by the French colonial authorities within a year, the Tonkin Free School’s intellectual legacy continues to inspire succeeding generations who recognize the value of liberal arts education in the service of the nation. Our adaptation of the final line echoes President Hồ Chí Minh’s “Letter to students on the occasion of the first school opening day of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam” in 1945: “Whether Vietnam can become beautiful, whether the Vietnamese people can step up to the glorious podium to stand shoulder to shoulder with the great powers of the five continents, depends in large part on your efforts in studying.”
Why Do We Hope? In many ways, neither J. William Fulbright nor the Tonkin Free School were perfect models for our youths today. Despite enabling students of all races and creeds to study in some of America’s most hallowed halls and contribute to their countries’ development once they returned home, Fulbright also opposed domestic civil rights legislation at many points in his career for procedural and electoral reasons. Even as it lauded the achievements of other nations, the Tonkin Free School was influenced by Social Darwinism, which was the dominant scientific paradigm of that era – and as David Lowenthal reminds us, “the past is a foreign country.” Their examples are not for us to be perfect, but only to strive hard to improve ourselves and be our best in our time. That is why, and for what, we hope and we strive.
With many thanks for input from Dr. Nguyễn Nam, Director of the Vietnam Studies Center, and Jackie Trần Thịnh, Graduation Choir Director. Written based on materials compiled by the University of Arkansas, the École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), and the Vietnam State Archives and Records Department.
LYRICS
Chorus
We hope, we strive, for each other
We hope, we strive, for Fulbright
We hope, we strive, for our country
To be our best.
Verse 1
Người ta sinh ở trên đời, / People born into this world,
Phải cho học được nghề tài mới hay. / Should aim to master a discipline.
Người nghề ấy, kẻ nghề này, / Some pick this craft, others pursue that,
Trước là ích quốc, sau này lợi dân. / First, to benefit the nation; then, to help the people.
Thử xem những nước xa gần, / Look at the countries near and far,
Nước nào nước ấy mười phần kỹ năng. / Each one excels in many fields.
Verse 2
Bao nhiêu nghề khéo nước ngoài, / All the fine trades of foreign lands,
Học sao cho được hơn người mới nghe. / We must learn and surpass them to make a mark.
Bấy giờ rồi liệu trở về, / Then, when the time is right, return home,
Mở trường trong nước lấy nghề dạy nhau. / Establish schools to pass this knowledge to our compatriots.
Làm cho trong nước mạnh giàu, / So that our nation may grow strong and prosperous,
So vào các nước năm châu kém gì. / An equal to any other in the five continents.
Chorus
Bridge
Why do we hope, why do we strive?
cause we’re alive, we hope to try
Why do we hope, why do we strive?
cause we’re alive, we hope to try
We hope to make the world a better place
Oratory
Wisdom is the product of perspective.
Let us educate our children to be
Knowledgeable, but not omniscient;
Wise, but not infallible;
Compassionate, but not pretentious.
Power is not a virtue.
We will exchange our weapons for words
For the common interests of humanity are more important
than the differing ideologies of nations.
Final chorus
Coda
We are Fulbright, we are Fulbright
Fulbright will lead the way!
