La Doãn Chánh ( zh, t=羅允正, s=罗允正, 1920–2 April 1945), known by his stage name La Hối ( zh, t=羅開, s=罗开), was a Vietnamese musician of Chinese heritage.

Biography

Born in 1920 to a

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...

family with origins in

Dongguan Dongguan,; pinyin: alternately romanized via Cantonese as Tungkun, is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province, China. An important industrial city in the Pearl River Delta, Dongguan borders the provincial capital of Guangzhou t ...

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

, China, La Hối started writing songs at the age of 14. Between 1936 and 1938, he studied in

Saigon Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) ('','' TP.HCM; ), commonly known as Saigon (; ), is the most populous city in Vietnam with a population of around 14 million in 2025. The city's geography is defined by rivers and canals, of which the largest is Saigo ...

and began to embrace Western musical conventions. In 1939, La Hối returned to his hometown of

Hội An Hội An () is a city of approximately 120,000 people in Vietnam's Quảng Nam Province, registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999. Along with the Cù Lao Chàm archipelago, it is part of the Cù Lao Chàm-Hội An Biosphere Reserve ...

, where, along with some of his close friends, he founded the Faifoo Philharmonic Society. From this period until his passing, he authored songs by himself and collaborated with other well-known musicians of the time on others, such as ''Gấm vàng'' (Golden Brocade) with Dương Minh Ninh, ''Nắng chiều'' (Sun in the Afternoon) with Lê Trọng Nguyễn and ''Chiều tưởng nhớ'' (Afternoon of Mourning) with Lan Đài. 1944 was when La Hối composed his last and most popular song, ''Xuân và tuổi trẻ'' (Spring and Youth, zh, 青年與春天) and a year later, in the wake of the

Japanese coup d'état in French Indochina The Japanese coup d'état in French Indochina, known as , was a Empire of Japan, Japanese operation that took place on 9 March 1945, towards the end of World War II. With Japanese forces losing the war and the threat of an Allies of World War I ...

, he made the Philharmonic Society an anti-Japanese resistance group. However, the

Kempeitai The , , was the military police of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The organization also shared civilian secret police that specialized in clandestine and covert operation, counterinsurgency, counterintelligence, HUMINT, interrogated suspects ...

captured and executed him on the foot of a mountain outside

Da Nang Da Nang or DanangSee also Danang Dragons (, ) is the fifth-largest city in Vietnam by municipal population. It lies on the coast of the Western Pacific Ocean of Vietnam at the mouth of the Hàn River, and is one of Vietnam's most important p ...

on 2 April – he was 25. Nine of his comrades also met an identical fate.

Legacy

Out of La Hối's estimated 20 self-made works, only ''Xuân và tuổi trẻ'', as well as ''Xuân sắc quê hương'' (The Colours of Spring), remains. In his memory, poet

Thế Lữ Thế Lữ (June 10, 1907 – June 3, 1989; born Nguyễn Đình Lễ or Nguyễn Thứ Lễ) was a Vietnamese poet and author. He became known as one of the pioneers of the Thơ Mới Movement with several critically acclaimed and popular poems. ...

wrote the lyrics to ''Xuân và tuổi trẻ'' during a visit to Hội An in 1946. Many of his descendants and relatives also became musicians, most notably La Gia Thắng (or La Xuân, 1919–1966) and pianist La Gia Quảng (or La Châu Quảng, 1926–2014). A memorial in Hội An is dedicated to La Hối and his comrades.

References

{{reflist 1920 births 1945 deaths 20th-century Vietnamese musicians People from Quảng Nam province Hoa people Hakka people People executed by Japanese occupation forces Japanese war crimes Hoi An