Buddhists Fan Fires of Patriotism

As the South Vietnamese national anthem began, Phong Tran faced the direction of South Vietnam’s yellow-and-red-striped flag that stood side by side with the U.S. flag inside the Edison Community Center in Huntington Beach.

“Every time I hear that anthem it sends a shudder through my heart,” said Phong Tran, a proud Vietnamese who was among the more than 300 followers and friends crowding into the center Sunday morning to celebrate the 48th anniversary of Hoa-Hao Buddhism.

The little-known sect, which originated among rebellious peasants in South Vietnam, is considered one of Vietnam’s most active anti-communist religions.

Festive banners in Vietnamese commemorating the anniversary were hung throughout the center. Some women were clad in the ao dai, the traditional dress of their native land.

Rekindle Fire

For Phong Tran, a Cypress resident who has been in the United States for more than a decade, Sunday’s celebration was an opportunity to rekindle “that old fire” of anti-communist sentiment.

“In 1939, when (prophet Huynh) Phu So founded Hoa-Hao, the enemy was at that time the French colonialists,” Phong Tran said.

He said the French claimed vast farmlands for themselves, which transformed former Vietnamese landowners into tenant farmers.

“We kept the religion to help rise up against the North Vietnamese communists,” Phong Tran said.

Hoa-Hao (pronounced “wa how”) means unity and harmony. The Hoa-Hao sect has about 2 million followers in Vietnam and about 600 in Southern California, said Nguyen Long, who heads the church in California from headquarters in Santa Fe Springs.

Members who follow the teachings of Phu So shun temples and have no need for monks or permanent altars, he said. Instead, their belief, a mix of Buddhism and nationalism founded in the flatlands of the Mekong River Delta, gave peasants the “spiritual food” to fight and defend their country against the French and then the communists, church leaders said.

Revolutionary Poet

Phu So, a revolutionary poet, was born in the village of Hoa-Hao. While some of his poems and teachings gave instruction on the virtues of love and respect for parents, neighbors and others, most dealt with taking pride in one’s country and defending it by “rising up against the enemy,” church leaders said.

It has given way to a core of super-patriots, willing, if necessary, to return to Vietnam and regain the homeland from the communists, said Thinh Van Tran of Westminster.

Phu So, according to one version of the story, was killed during an interrogation by the North Vietnamese in 1947, though many followers insist that the prophet is still alive.

“But his death served only to make the Hoa-Hao hate the communists even more,” Phong Tran said.

“I think Hoa-Hao is the main organization that’s going to revive the fight against the communists,” Thinh Van Tran said.

Other speakers at the anniversary ceremonies included

members of South Vietnam’s old-guard anti-communists, Thinh Van Tran said. One guest speaker was Dr. Ngoc Ninh Tran, an Orange County surgeon, who was with the revolutionary Dai-Viet political party in South Vietnam.

The celebration attracted followers from Orange, San Diego and Los Angeles counties, and was being tape-recorded by the Voice of America for broadcast via satellite to Vietnam later today.

“We’re taping the celebration to send back to Vietnam to let them know what the Hoa-Hao are doing in this country,” said Ai Nguyen of the Voice of America’s Los Angeles office.