Anti-war song sparks three-decade quest

In 1972, with the aim of bolstering the invasion of Viet Nam, US President Richard Nixon planned to dispatch M-48 tanks from US military bases in Japan to Viet Nam.

However, the move came up against fierce opposition from people in Kanagawa Prefecture.

A young Japanese singer named Yokio Kumiko penned an anthem for the protest called Stop the Tanks. The song proclaimed:

Tanks could not go, could not cross this city

Tanks are not allowed to turn their guns to Vietnamese children

Tanks should not point guns to Viet Nam...

Youths stand up to fight for peace.

In late 1973, the song was played over and over again o­n the Voice of Viet Nam Radio and the Ha Noi Radio. It eventually reached the ears of a paralysed 14-year-old girl named Tran Thi Phuong Lien. While she o­nly heard the song o­nce, it touched off a personal quest that would last three decades and shape the rest of her life.

Song of protest

Even though she did not understand Japanese, the melody of the song touched Lien’s mind and heart and inspired her to learn Japanese.

Following the country’s liberation in 1975, Lien followed her parents back to Hue City. She graduated from the Hue University’s History Faculty in the early 1980s, and took up Japanese in her spare time. With the help of Japanese professionals and students in Hue, she eventually became a Japanese teacher and also a member of the city’s Viet Nam-Japan Friendship Association.

Whenever Lien met a Japanese she asked them about the song and the singer. But the tune was now 30 years old and no o­ne could tell her who sung it.

Ray of hope

While she was downcast, Lien didn’t stop seeking the singer.

Then, good fortune struck. In November 2005, she accompanied a Vietnamese delegation to Japan. While there, she visited the US military base in Okinawa. Lien grasped this chance and continued asking Japanese friends about the unknown singer.

A professor from Ibaraki University eventually helped her get in contact with Kumiko.

Ballad of peace: Kumiko entertains soldiers o­n the battlefront in the province of Quang Binh in 1973. — VNS File Photos

She got a reply almost immediately.

The letter said: "Lien, friend, this has moved me to tears. I wish to have the chance to meet you Lien san. I am strongly convinced such a chance will come and surely I will perform that song again for you. Please wait. And take care until then."

Kumiko was known as a singer with great love for peace and for Viet Nam as well. To protest the American War in 1973 she travelled to Viet Nam and spent weeks touring the country.

She performed Stop the Tanks at Ha Noi’s Hong Ha Theatre and in the central province of Quang Binh Province, which was a major battlefront. The song was recorded and broadcast many times by the Voice of Viet Nam Radio and Ha Noi Radio. After that trip, Kumiko also performed the song across Japan and many parts of the world.

After the war, she performed several times in Viet Nam, including a recent concert for young Vietnamese Agent Orange victims at Thanh Xuan Peace Village, Ha Noi. In 2005 she was bestowed with the International Friendship Medal by the former Vietnamese Vice President Nguyen Thi Binh.

Tearful meeting

A year after the email exchange, in early May of this year, Kumiko came to Hue to visit Lien. They hugged as tears ran down their cheeks.

"It was really a dream come true," said Lien. "Her song and her voice changed my life, even though I heard it just o­nce more than 30 years ago."

The feeling was mutual.

"I did not think my first performance in Viet Nam had been admired and loved by a young girl in Ha Noi," Kumiko said, tears rolling down her face. "And such love has lasted for more than 30 years. That makes my love for Viet Nam much deeper."

Together, the pair visited Agent Orange victims at Hoa Binh (Peace) Village in Hue where Kumiko showed a series of photos she took during her stay in Viet Nam.

They showed Kumiko with guitar in hand singing for soldiers o­n the Quang Binh battlefield, regaling patients in Ha Noi’s Bach Mai Hospital, and meeting statesmen like Prime Minister Pham Van Dong.

"I was 29 that year. I sang but my heart had a knife-like pain because the soldiers were so young. Young but they had to take guns to fight for their nation’s liberation," she said, pointing to the picture o­n Quang Binh battlefield in 1973.

"I had at that time a strong belief that my Vietnamese friends would win."