Biography
From 1961 to 1971 he was a professor in the Department of Biology of Hue University, South Vietnam, during which time he founded the Cuong Nhu style of martial arts. After the devastating 1968 Tet offensive and the communist Massacre at Hue, Grandmaster Dong organized a civil defense organization, the People's Self-Defense Forces of Hue, to help protect the public from the violence spawned by the war. His organization engaged some 25,000 people in a program of karate, games and friendly competition to rebuild morale and spirit during the Vietnam War.
In 1974, Dong earned his PhD in Entomology from the University of Florida, Gainesville, and during this period (1971–74) founded and incorporated the first Cuong Nhu Karate club in the United States. He then returned to South Vietnam and served as the President of Da Nang College until the fall of Saigon and the communist victory in 1975. An outspoken opponent of communism, Dong was placed under house arrest in 1975, and spent time in a re-education camp. He and his family escaped by boat to Indonesia and eventually reached the United States in 1977. From then until his retirement he served as a professor in the Department of Entomology and Nematology at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
In 1986 Dong took up long-distance running. He soon completed his first two marathons, on consecutive weekends. His first ultra-marathon was the 100-mile Western States run in Squaw Valley, California. In all, he completed 23 marathons, eight 50-mile ultra-marathons and fourteen 100-mile ultra-marathons.
Upon his retirement from the University of Florida, the City of Gainesville and Alachua County, Florida, honored him by declaring August 14, 1994 as Dr. Ngo Dong Day. To commemorate his life, his family commissioned an oriental plant garden to be built and maintained in his honor at Kanapaha Nature Center in Gainesville. This garden contains plants and flowers that he liked as well as a plaque dedicated to his memory.
Martial arts
As a boy, Dong learned Vovinam, the Vietnamese system of martial arts, from Ngo Quoc Phong, one of the top five students of Vovinam's founder Grandmaster Nguyen Loc. Dong also learned Wing Chun from his two elder brothers, who had studied with Chinese Master Te Kong. Although their father, Ngo Khanh Thuc, was Attorney General of Vietnam, the Ngo brothers tested their fighting skills on the street by engaging hustlers and professional street fighters from the alleys and back streets of Hanoi. After moving south to Huế in 1956 after the partition of Vietnam, Ngo Dong began Shotokan karate training under former Japanese captain Choji Suzuki. After years of training, Ngo Dong earned his fourth degree black belt in Shotokan, and a black belt in judo. Later, Dong studied with American Marine Lt. Ernest H. Cates, a judo and Goshin Jujitsu instructor who had placed first at the U.S. Olympic judo trials. He eventually synthesized his broad martial arts knowledge into his own style, Cuong Nhu, which means "hard-soft" in Vietnamese.
During a special ceremony in May 1994, Grandmaster Dong was promoted to 6th degree in judo, by Sensei Ed Szrejter, then Executive Director of the U.S. Judo Association. Grandmaster Dong is the 47th judoka out of 20,000 USJA members to reach 6th dan.
The Cuong Nhu Oriental Martial Arts discipline now has over 3,000 active members under the leadership of Grandmaster Quynh Ngo. Cuong Nhu has its roots in Shotokan karate, Wing Chun, boxing, aikido, judo, vovinam and tai chi. [1]
Ngô Đình Diệm was a South Vietnamese politician who was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955) and later the first president of South Vietnam from 1955 until his capture and assassination during the CIA-backed 1963 South Vietnamese coup.
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Articles related to Vietnam and Vietnamese culture include:
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On November 11, 1960, a failed coup attempt against President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam was led by Lieutenant Colonel Vương Văn Đông and Colonel Nguyễn Chánh Thi of the Airborne Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).
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The Xá Lợi Pagoda raids were a series of synchronized attacks on various Buddhist pagodas in the major cities of South Vietnam shortly after midnight on 21 August 1963. The raids were executed by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces under Colonel Lê Quang Tung, and combat police, both of which took their orders directly from Ngô Đình Nhu, younger brother of the Roman Catholic President Ngô Đình Diệm. Xá Lợi Pagoda, the largest pagoda in the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon, was the most prominent of the raided temples. Over 1,400 Buddhists were arrested, and estimates of the death toll and missing ranged up to the hundreds. In response to the Huế Vesak shootings and a ban on the Buddhist flag in early May, South Vietnam's Buddhist majority rose in widespread civil disobedience and protest against the religious bias and discrimination of the Catholic-dominated Diệm government. Buddhist temples in major cities, most prominently the Xá Lợi pagoda, became focal points for protesters and assembly points for Buddhist monks from rural areas.
Charlie Nguyen, Vietnamese name is Nguyen Chanh Truc, is Vietnamese–American film director, screenwriter and producer.
The Krulak–Mendenhall mission was a fact-finding expedition dispatched by the Kennedy administration to South Vietnam in early September 1963. The stated purpose of the expedition was to investigate the progress of the war by the South Vietnamese regime and its US military advisers against the Viet Cong insurgency. The mission was led by Victor Krulak and Joseph Mendenhall. Krulak was a major general in the United States Marine Corps, while Mendenhall was a senior Foreign Service Officer experienced in dealing with Vietnamese affairs.
NHU, Nhu or Như may refer to
