Huỳnh Thị Bảo Hòa (1896–1982): A Woman Who Wrote to Change Vietnamese Society

For centuries, women in Vietnam had to respect the three obediences of Confucian morality. However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, a radical change took place: women went to school, wrote in the press, gave lectures, published novels and books, led associations, and campaigned for the status of women. In this chapter, we examine the life of a woman who lived during this time. Mrs. Huỳnh Thị Bảo Hòa, born in 1896, is known for her activities on behalf of women, as well as for her account of a trip to the mountains near Đà Nẵng, her essay on the kingdom of Champa and her novel telling the story of a Vietnamese man who was enlisted to fight in France during the First World War and who married a French woman. Through an examination of her biography, we will gain a better understanding of the life of an educated woman in Vietnam at the beginning of the twentieth century. We will then analyze her novel, The Western Beauty, published in Saigon in 1927 to gain a deeper sense of Mrs. Huỳnh Thị Bảo Hòa’s views on the place of Vietnamese women in colonial Vietnam.