Tran's Resistance In Red Earth

Throughout the course of its text, the book Red Earth follows the life of Tran Tu Binh and how he was able to transform and organize the workers of a Colonial Rubber Plantation under French rule. In order to organize and gain the trust of the workers, Tran uses many methods of protest and resistance. In many ways he was very successful but not all of the tactics worked out as planned. On several occasions his plans would falter and in return would either pay the consequences or come up with a new one. From an early age, Tran was showing signs of resisting authority. Before he went to work on the rubber plantation he was attending a Catholic based school. He was highly unsatisfied with how the school was ran. He often complained that the food was below par and that the whole thought of Christianity was a hoax. Tran was a very high strong and stubborn person, he claimed “Being inquisitive and stubborn by nature, I always had to hold something in my hand and see it with my own eyes before I would believe it” (2). His stubbornness often got him into trouble. He was not always able to dance out of every situation. Eventually, Tran was expelled from his school because his would
They were not fed properly. According to Tran at lunch they were given “only one bowl of rice with a piece of dried fish the size of three fingers (17). This anger the people into a hunger strike. They refused to eat and their growing anger scared all the Tao’s men. Phan Tat Tao was their adversary at the time. The strike momentarily stopped the the mistreatment for a little while. Tao saw that the men were not going to calm down until something was done so “that very noon meal he prepared extra rations”(17). This remarkably was quite amazing. This showed an early side that the men could be organize and go up against the French if angered and motivated. This was a small step in a big