Talk:Ho Chí Minh

A note or my own edification: The categorization under "Ho" is correct, as Ho is his surname.

isn't his name spelled Ho Chi Minh?
 * I believe so. Moved.  Stancollins 20:13, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

"I for one would rather sniff French shit for five years than eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life."

I've never heard such a stupid thing like that from Ho Chi Minh. I'm a VIETNAMESE, and I know what our leader said. He didn't say that, in Vietnamese or other languages.

This quote MUST be removed from this article.


 * Is this guy serious?!?. This is, in fact, a very well known quote, expressive of Vietnamese concerns about Chinese intentions and the nationalistic elements of the NLF. Personally, I can't imagine why he/she is offended, except perhaps the shock of discovering a scatological bent in Uncle Ho's vernacular. "I'm Vietnamese, and I know what our leader said." Take it up with the Politburo, comrade. For the quote, see Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Viking Press, 1983)p. 153. 192.43.227.18 12:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The version I heard went like "It's better to eat the French dung for 100 years than the Chinese dung for 1000 years. 208.101.169.103 23:00, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Where is the source of this quote? A Vietnamese blogger did some research and it turns out that the earliest source for this quote he can identify is the 1952 work by Paul Mus, Viêt-Nam: Sociologie d’une Guerre (Paris, Éditions du Seuil), in which Mus claims to have heard from “a good source” that Hồ Chí Minh said the final sentence – “Plutôt flairer un peu la crotte des Français que manger toute notre vie celle des Chinois.” - not the extended paragraph that Karnow later provided. Paul Mus was a French scholar, and after WW II he played an important role in attempting to gain the return of Vietnam for the French. In other words, Mus was deeply invested in the colonial enterprise. Considering the obscurity and the bias around the origin of this quote, it's authenticity is highly dubious. It was originally used by the French as a political slogan to lobby for a continuous colonization of Vietnam under the French, and now it is re-invented as a political slogan to counter the Chinese business ventures in Vietnam. What an irony!

http://leminhkhai.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/ho-chi-minh-said-what/ --109.91.7.81 17:45, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Eating Chinese shit quote has been challenged by a historian from the University of Hawaii, suggested that it was faked by a French colonialist
http://leminhkhai.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/chiang-kai-shek-and-vietnam-in-1945/

https://leminhkhai.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/ho-chi-minh-said-what/

The blog can be used as a valid source since it's a notable historian who runs the blog, Professor Liam Kelley of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Le Minh Khai is the name he uses for his blog.

http://manoa.hawaii.edu/history/node/44

Rajmaan (talk) 13:37, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

"It is not the American people who are bombing us..."
Attributed quote (in bold):
 * Our guide tells us that while the Americans were bombing Hanoi, children were reading the words of Ho Chi Minh in bomb shelters: "It is not the American people who are bombing us, it is the American Imperialists. We must learn to love the Americans because they will return after the war." 

However, I didn't put it in the article, as I couldn't find another source besides this quote from somebody quoting a tourist guide. Does anyone know if he said something like this? Is there a source? --Singkong2005 04:52, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Unsourced

 * "Nothing is more valuable than independence and freedom."
 * "Those who wish to seize Vietnam, must kill us to the last man, woman, and child"
 * "I follow only one party: the Vietnamese party."
 * "You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win." - referring to France and America in their wars in Vietnam.
 * "It is better to sacrifice everything than to live in slavery!"
 * "The Vietnamese people deeply love independence, freedom and peace. But in the face of United States aggression they have risen up, united as one man."
 * "We have to win independence at any cost, even if the Truong Son mountains burn."
 * "In (Lenin's Theses on the National and Colonial Questions) there were political terms that were difficult to understand. But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy. Sitting by myself in my room, I would shout as if I were addressing large crowds: "Dear martyr compatriots! This is what we need, this is our path to liberation!" Since then (the 1920s) I had entire confidence in Lenin, in the Third International!"
 * "When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out."
 * "It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me."
 * "Remember, the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability."
 * "My only desire is that all of our Party and people, closely united in struggle, construct a peaceful, unified, independent, democratic and prosperous, and make a valiant contribution to the world Revolution." (Hanoi, 10 May 1969.)
 * "I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid."
 * Reported reaction to the overthrow and assassination of Ngo Dienh Diem.
 * "Vietnam has faced many conquerors over the centuries. The Mongols, the French, the Japanese, the Americans. They come and go. Unfortunately for us, the Chinese will always be there."