From businessman to collector
While Chloe Hsu’s understanding of the Vietnamese national character has helped her to be an effective manager there, her father’s deep knowledge of the historical origins of Vietnamese culture is rare among Taiwanese outside of academia. When we reach a break in the conversation, Eddy Hsu leads us out of the living room and up the stairs. Walking along a corridor that looks like a museum gallery hung with calligraphy and paintings, we finally reach a small room on the top floor with a sign reading “Hsu’s Archive” hung on the wall.
Eddy Hsu has a second identity as a collector of historic and cultural artifacts from Vietnam. After nearly 30 years of collecting, he has more than 3,000 items including imperial proclamations, memorials to the throne, documents, old books, officials’ hats, and official seals. Such a rich collection far surpasses that of many international academic institutions. These treasures have attracted visits from many scholars and have incalculable cultural value for Vietnam.
As for how Hsu transformed from focusing on making money as a businessman to becoming a collector whose mission in life is to gather together Vietnamese cultural and historic artifacts, the story begins with his relocation to Vietnam to start a business. After Vietnam took its first steps towards reform and opening in 1985 and began to welcome foreign investment, Hsu, who had failed in business in Taiwan, went to Vietnam at the invitation of a friend, bringing with him US$2,000, in search of an opportunity to turn his fortunes around.
He began selling Japanese cosmetics through dedicated counters in Vietnamese supermarkets. Riding the tide of economic development, his business prospered. However, spending most of his time traveling around inspecting his operations, Hsu felt far removed from his native place, and he got the idea that he wanted to read something written in Chinese characters. “In 1995, at a secondhand bookshop on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Road in Saigon [Ho Chi Minh City], I bought a copy of Michuan Wanfa Guizong [an old Daoist text] for about 20,000 Vietnamese dong [about NT$50].” He remembers the time, place, and purchase very clearly.
In days gone by officials in Vietnam wrote using Chinese characters, switching over to a romanized writing system only during the French colonial era. As a Taiwanese, Hsu was naturally able to read Chinese, but few people in Vietnam today have this skill, making such historical documents inaccessible to them. Back then, when Hsu was looking at old books on secondhand book stalls, he didn’t have much understanding of Vietnamese history. But he thought to himself that even if he did not read these old texts himself, they would fetch a high price back in Taiwan.
Because Hsu was liberal with his money, he quickly caused a stir among booksellers, who hurried to get introduced to him by their peers. Although at that time the market for Vietnamese artifacts in Taiwan was far less active than that for Chinese objects, and moreover Hsu naturally had concerns about the authenticity and value of the artifacts, the Chinese characters and the underlying culture they revealed still made his heart flutter.
Hsu’s landlord at the time, Nguyen Phu Huy Quang, noticed his growing interest in culture and history and lent him two books: One was The Tale of Kieu, a classic work of Vietnamese literature and a national treasure, and the other was An Outline History of Vietnam. Flipping through the history book, Nguyen told Hsu of his family background: It turned out that this guy who played French billiards with Hsu, who sat with him in his courtyard eating beef tripe and fish heads and drinking beer and cola, was actually a descendant of the Nguyen Dynasty, the last imperial family of Vietnam before the French conquest. Moreover, his great-grandfather was Prince Cuong De, an activist in the anti-French independence movement who spent a short time in Taiwan. Learning about these serendipitous connections, Hsu was dumbfounded and felt as if called by destiny to immerse himself in Vietnamese history.
Eddy Hsu is entranced by Vietnamese culture and has a profound curiosity about every detail of related artifacts.
Eddy Hsu’s collection of Vietnamese artifacts includes a woodblock carving of Lac Long Quan, mythical progenitor of the Vietnamese people, together with an eight-oared boat (far left); a military communication inscribed in bronze (right, top); and officials’ hats from the Nguyen Dynasty (right, bottom).
Eddy Hsu (left) and his friend Nguyen Phu Huy Quang. It was Nguyen’s loan of a copy of An Outline History of Vietnam that aroused Hsu’s interest in Vietnamese history. (courtesy of Eddy Hsu)
