A Vietnamese Painter Remembers

"I learned by only hearing them talk."

In 1969, as American bombs were falling on Hanoi, Sweden was the first Western country to establish diplomatic relations with Vietnam. And recently, 45 years of cooperation between the two nations was recently celebrated in Stockholm. 

The reception was also a time for reflection especially for artist Maj Trang who was there to exhibit her paintings. She was a teenager when the bombs fell on Hanoi in 1960s... many of her neighbours and relatives perished. 

The carnage she lived through has affected her ever. Maj met a Swede working at a Vietnamese paper mill, married him, and  moved to Sweden in 1990. She’s now found what she was looking for: ”Freedom.”

Maj Trang now lives in the southern Swedish city of Örebro… a long way from Vietnam.  At home, she’s busy cooking Vietnamese-style soup... 

The smell brings back memories of her childhood she says. I ask her how it was to grow up during the daily air raids in Hanoi. ”When I was 16, or 15 I remember 12 days in Hanoi of bombing.   Running and hiding under the house. In the sky a lot of fire.”

In the main room of Maj’s apartment and studio is a black and white photo of a man seated in front of a huge mural of Ho Chi Minh, the leader who led Vietnam to independence. The man in the photo is Hong Van, Maj Trang’s father who was the official portrait painter of the leader. Maj’s brothers took painting lessons from their father, but she was shut out.

”I learned by only hearing them talk. If you paint with oil, you must paint slowly, many times. I hear him teach my brother how to make the forms, the light. I only hear because my father wasn't interested in the girls. Only in the men, my brothers. Nothing for me.”

But Maj learned to paint by experimenting on her own.  Over two decades she’s come up with a style that’s uniquely her own. With brigh colours abound, her work is a mix of styles: part abstract, part naivistic, part traditional. 

Squeezing her clothes into an overstuffed suitcase , she’s packing for her next showing. in Italy.”I’ve had exhibitions four times in Italy, in Venice and a gallery in Venice collects my art, and many people in Italy also collect my art.”

Maj lives a different life now, but reflects often on the past... the suffering during her childhood. Maj has two daughters – a photo of them is on the kitchen wall – while she grew up in a poor family of eight. 

“I don’t have lights at home, I used to buy oil for the lamp to learn at school. I didn’t have shoes either, I went barefoot.”

Those times have changed for good in Vietnam. 

Today the country is experiencing an economic boom. It may become a good market for Maj’s work . Her plans for the future include going back to Hanoi.”When it’s winter time in Sweden, cold and snow, to come back to Vietnam for 6 months. That’s my dream.”

• Sweden
• Painter
• Maj Trang
• Vietnam
• Ric Wasserman