Trần Tế Xương

Trần Tế Xương (Chinese: 陳濟昌; 5 September 1870 – 29 January 1907), also known by the pen name Tú Xương, was a Vietnamese poet and satirist.

Quotes

• What earthly use are these Confucian graphs?
  Masters and doctors lie curled up and wilt.
  Why not take lessons and become a clerk?
  At night champagne, at break of day cow's milk!
  • Poem 71 in An Anthology of Vietnamese Poems, trans. Huỳnh Sanh Thông (Yale University Press, 1996), ISBN 978-0300064100
  • Variant translation:
    • What good are Chinese characters?
      All those Ph.D.'s are out of work.
      Much better to be a clerk for the French:
      You get milk in the morning and champagne at night.
    • In: Understanding Vietnam by Neil L. Jamieson (University of California Press, 1995), ISBN 978-0520916586, p. 55