The Red Earth: A Vietnamese Memoir Of Life On A Colonial Rubber Plantation

“The Red Earth: A Vietnamese Memoir of Life on a Colonial Rubber Plantation” by Tran Tu Binh give the reader a close look into French ruled Indochina rubber plantation. The story takes place in Vietnam in the Phu Rieng plantation. This was one of twenty-five French rubber plantation which were all found a long a three hundred kilometer long area from the South China sea to Mekong River in Cambodia (Binh VII). Binh came village in the Ha-nam Province located in Red River delta in Northern Vietnam. Binh parents were very poor and his father would sell manure in village. His mother and father scrap together enough coin to be send Binh to seminary, Hoang Nguyen, which is religious studies at a college level for preparing students to become priest.

Phan Boi Chau came from a poor family and Trinh came from a wealthy family. Phan Bio Chau choose the religious life and took the Confucian exam in 1910 and did very well. Chau was able to take any job he wanted. Phan Boi Trinh father was killed in front of him when he was 13 years old. This led him avoid bleed shed and violence at all cost. He would take the Confucian exam and would also do very well and which allow him to take any job. Chau and Trinh had different opinions on free Indochina most specifically free Vietnam. Chau believe that a royal family should rule after and he would trace the lineage of Nguyen dynasty and found Prince Cuong De to be the new king of Vietnam. He would bring the Prince to Japan in 1907 and the Prince never go back to Vietnam. Trinh agree to disagree with Chau on his plan for free Indochina/Vietnam. He wanted the people of Indochina to learn from the French and modernize they government and he would publically ask the French what was their goal here and when will they be leaving. Chau would be arrested and sentence to life at hard labor, but the people protested and French decided to give Chau house arrest. Trinh was arrested multiple times, but he would die in 1926. Trinh public protest against the French with his writings and not hiding behind a pen name. Binh sent the summer

He choose to go to the plantation to lead a rebellion against the plantation owner. The French schooling system lead to majority of the population being illiterate and would lead to massive unemployment. The illiteracy and unemployment led to people doing anything for money which cause them to work for the plantations. Binh would write about how the other works and himself would rebel against the plantation onwers. First, Binh notice that in numbers the worker have more power than plantation owners. They would use this to they advantage by striking and resulting to work until “x” was fix. Binh and the others knew that if they threaten the owner profit they would get their demands. He and others would organized strikes by telling the workers to pretend like they were working when the French overseer look away and Binh and other workers started killing one out three sapling rubber trees, so the French wouldn’t notice. Binh and other went on strike when another worker was attack by French worker. He would get the worker to form their own communist party in 1929 under the moonlight before Hoi Chi Minh formed his in communist party in 1930. With majority of labors being part of the communist party, in 1930 after the three day tet holiday the labors rise up took over the plantation one by one, but because