The painful love story of Dao Anh and Trinh Cong Son

Trinh Cong Son and his sister Trinh Vinh Trinh

The memory with Dao Anh was simple but still left a deep impression in Trinh Vinh Trinh's memory when she was just a little girl.

“Mr. Son’s deepest love is for Ms. Dao Anh. When I was a child, Ms. Dao Anh’s family had a very delicious longan tree. Every time she would put longan in a purple bag for me.

She is a beautiful, elegant, gentle person, speaking very softly and very slowly. Sometimes so slowly that in the past it seemed normal, but nowadays it sounds a bit impatient,” Ms. Trinh recalled.

At first, the musician had his eye on Ngo Vu Bich Diem - Dao Anh's older sister - but his unrequited feelings were not reciprocated. At that time, Bich Diem's ​​parents did not want their daughter to love an artist because they were afraid of an unstable life. Later, Bich Diem had the opportunity to study in Saigon, the two were out of sight, out of mind, so that love was not worth it.

Seeing that her sister’s feelings for “Mr. Son” were not reciprocated, Dao Anh shared her sadness with the musician Trinh through handwritten letters. “Sister Dao Anh was very young, about 16 years old. She must have had feelings for Mr. Son, secretly loved him and sent him letters to comfort him, from which their feelings developed,” said Trinh Cong Son’s sister.

In the following years, the two continued to correspond, even when the musician went to B'lao - Lam Dong to teach. The appearance of Dao Anh made his heart blossom, expressing his passionate love through Pink Rain, What Age Is Left for You, Ru Em Tung Ngon Xuan Nong, Loi Buon Thanh...

Trinh Cong Son's first love letter to Dao Anh, dated September 2, 1964, began with sincere, romantic lines that were not at all vulgar.

"Dear Dao Anh,

The dream woke him up at 3am.

Now the mountains and hills of B'lao are still covered in mist and sleep. I light a white candle to write a letter to Anh and cover myself with a blanket. It's cold all day on this plateau... Anh...".

Two years later, those letters became more intimate and mature... When Dao Anh turned 18 and Trinh Cong Son was 27, he confessed his love.

“I love Anh. It’s just that simple, but I have to be cautious, to consider, to escape from the conscious mind. It shouldn’t be said, it’s a duty to see and sympathize, but I also say it because it’s the pinnacle of emotion. Saying it out loud, love has turned into a still life, has solidified like a block of glass.

It was also the first time he had to confess it first. So he had to confess it first. So he had to consider himself a failure in this common love. But so what. We should have confessed it once. But it was no use.

This is also the starting point. From there, he will love Anh longer or he may lose Anh. He chose the time when he felt Anh was wise enough to say it. He forgot the sad things of the past year and started to renew his perspective and thoughts from here.

There, like that, Anh has been placed before something clearer than before. Look and choose. If that does not bother Anh, then come to me with another appearance, with a moment and with the look and passion that I have always longed for" - (August 1966 - Excerpt from Love Letter to a Person, Trinh Cong Son, Tre Publishing House 2011).

Over the course of 37 long years, Trinh Cong Son wrote more than 300 letters to Dao Anh and they were published in the book Love Letter to a Person.

For Trinh Vinh Trinh, his brother's love for Dao Anh was beautiful and romantic, causing the musician to lose sleep many nights. "He often lit candles to write music. Sometimes he used a candle to drop the word 'Anh' on a piece of paper, drop by drop. During a business trip, he picked up and pressed dry leaves to send to his sister. Those things show how deep Son's love for her is," Ms. Trinh shared in a television program.

She revealed that her sisters all innocently became "passenger pigeons" to connect the feelings between Dao Anh and her brother at that time.

But that love was unfinished when Trinh decided to say goodbye to his muse. The musician wrote in a letter to Dao Anh in 1967: “A very difficult decision and no one in the situation dared to be decisive with themselves. Every decision has its own suffering. I am willing to be the traitor who opened up the suffocation for Anh for so long, in which this person or that person tried to play their role to the fullest. I would like to thank you for the 4 years of cherishing that love, and also thank you for the gentle waiting that will never be possible again...".

The feelings about Dao Anh still linger in his soul. One time in Da Lat, he accidentally met his ex, and the song "There is a river that has passed away" was written.

“At that time, Dao Anh was with a man, who was known to be her husband, and the two were on their honeymoon in Da Lat. Son was very sad and told his sisters that at that time he was crossing a bridge, under which a river flowed. Son thought that his lover was like a river that had passed through his life. And so the song was born,” said Trinh Vinh Trinh.

After the breakup, Dao Anh moved to the US to start a family and still kept in touch with Trinh Cong Son. Two decades later, they met again. This time, the musician wrote a song full of torment: "The sadness of sorry for the hand/The lonely body sitting drunk alone..." Returning to the US, Dao Anh got divorced.

Trinh Cong Son and Dao Anh meet again after 20 years

In the last days of his life, Trinh Cong Son fell seriously ill. Lying on his hospital bed, Trinh still missed Anh. The letter written on January 17, 2001, typed by the musician's friend, was the last love letter they exchanged.

“During the last days of Son’s life, all of his siblings returned from Canada, and Dao Anh from the US also returned. The two rarely talked because Son was tired. They sat looking at each other, and Anh occasionally held his hand. She sat next to him every day that week, but 8 days later, Son passed away. She was lucky to see Son and visit him in his last days,” said Trinh Vinh Trinh. Dao Anh often returned to Vietnam to take care of her ex-lover.

In 2017, musician Trinh Cong Son's family organized a music night called Love Letter to a Person. From far away America, Dao Anh sent the late musician's sister a letter with a photo of her when she was young. "Lighting incense and sipping wine, Anh of the past is the same as Anh of today, missing you today is like missing you in the past days, months, and years, and the days, months, and years to come," Dao Anh wrote in the letter.

The entire original copy of 300 letters Trinh Cong Son sent to Dao Anh was cherished, preserved and given to the late musician's family in 2022 so that tomorrow the museum about him will display these beautiful memories.

According to Tien Phong