BOOKS FOR VIETNAM
1989 - 1996
The First 1,500 books >>> After my first trip back to VN in
1988, realizing an urgent need for books, I launched a project... ... to send books to VN. 100
letters were sent out in Jan 1989, asking for book donation. 1,500 books were received and sent
to the 2 Economic Institutes in Hanoi & Saigon. Meeting Simon & Schuster
>>> First
Container of Books >>> To find more books, I called on a
few book publishers in Singapore, and visited Simon & Schuster (S&S) Here I met Mr Steven Smith,
Managing Director of S&S (Singapore) S&S is the regional distributor for
Asia and always has lots of surplus brand-new books... These surplus books would normally
be pulped, ie. destroyed... S&S did not want a single copy of
these surplus books to remain in Singapore as they will spoil... It took me a year to convince S&S
to sell these books to me and their condition was that... ... the books must be packed into
sealed containers... and not a single copy is left in Singapore! Due to the embargo, I was asked to
list all the titles sent to VN... but this was impossible! I then declared the content as
..."waste paper", and the first container went through! First Book Donation >>> Book Exhibition >>> A ceremony was then held at the
Institute... ... other organizations... The Institute organized a book
exhibition ... among them was Mr Phan Van Khai... The lady in right was Mrs Ho Anh
Nga at the Institute... Mrs Nga was the one I have
entrusted the entire shipment. A great person who has helped
so much! More Book Donation ...
>>> Mr Khai was so impressed with the
books, and wrote me a nice letter ... Representatives of many VN
universities were invited... .. to come anh select whatever
books they need for their libraries. The first one was Dalat
University... Recording all the books to bring
back was such a hard task... ... since there too many to choose. Finally, the books were packed in
boxes to bring back to their libraries! ... some construction books to Dr
Le Van Nam... Dr Nam was the Chief Architect of
HCM City .. a friend ... a book recipient Dr Tan Ha Nam Scitech - I later
sent 1 container (25,000 books) for distribution via Scitech... Buying more books in
Singapore>>> Beside S&S, I also bought books
from other publishers, such as medical books from PG Publishing... In 1993, PG ceased operation and
donated 7 tons of medical books, which I sent to the Econ Institute For the next few years, I continued
to buy more books from Simon & Schuster ... .... whenever there were surplus
books, S&S called me to come and view the books... my book selection criterion is very
simple: NO fiction books! I made many trips to the warehouse
... ... and the books which I bought
were different each time! for subsequent shipments, there was
no time to pack nicely... ... so I just bought them as is ... ... and paid for the books by the
tons... ... books ... glorious books! ... I loved them so much ... and bought them all !!! ... some were stacked quite neatly! ... but most of the time, they came
just like these! ... I didn't know exactly how much
I have bought... ... but the arrangement with S&S
was that ... ... whenever they have stocked
enough for up to 5 contaniners... ... then they just called me ... ... I would come to the warehouse
... ... looked at the ..mountain of
books already packed... ... took some photos for souvenirs ... shook hand .. and the books
were mine - the bills would come later! ... the next step was to contact
the shipper... Packing Books Into
Containers ...
>>> ... Books were moved by truck lifts
to the container loading bay ready to load... ... up to 5 containers were
required each time ... ... ready to load boxed of books still had to be
carried by hand into the container ... the containers were then sealed
and ready for shipping! Books in FAHASA warehouse ...
>>> These old buildings of FAHASA at
Pasteur St were used to store the books Inside these warehouses, books were
sorted out and stored ... ... according to shipments No
1,2,3,4 etc... ... and kept separately, in various
warehouses A, B, C, D... My uncle, Hoang Cong Loi was the
one who helped me to look after these books in VN... He was my representative to liaise
with FAHASA ... He also took these photos for my
records... Uncle Loi has played a major role
in this book project! I really owed him a debt of
gratitude! Here are some more of his photos
taken over several years... I forgot to mention that .... ... we needed to pay for a team of
inspectors... ... from the Ministry of Culture &
Information ... ... who came to inspect every
single book ... for about 2 weeks, whenever
each shipment arrived. Some books were kept aside by the
inspectors.... ... but since I bought only
non-fiction books... ... virtually all my books were OK
for distribution... Donation to VI NGAY MAI
PHAT TRIEN ...
>>> Books were sent to TUOI TRE
magazine for donation .... Meeting with TUOI TRE. My
uncle Loi was the man on the right... A photo for the album... The team behind VI NGAY MAI PHAT
TRIEN - book donation project A book donation ceremony... ... organized at TUOI TRE Head
Office Donating medical books ... Some happy young medical students
... Donating computer books to students
... The last shipments>>> Over 2,000 medical books for
University of Tay Nguyen (Buon Ma Thuot) Books were also sent to Hue,
University of Economics in Siagon, FPT Co. in Hanoi ... By 1996, I felt that enough have
been sent to VN BYE ... FOR NOW >> and we needed time to .... digest all these books... From 1989 till 1996, I probably
have sent over 500,000 books to VN... 17 years have passed... In 2006 I
got 18,000 books from World Scientific and sent to DHBK Ha Noi.
A container of Medical Books >>>
Donation to others >>>