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 Foreword of the HCM City Youth Publishing House introducing the work entitled MODERN JAPANESE by Doctor Nguyen Manh Hung, published in September 1995 in HCM city.
 - Dr. Nguyen Manh Hung Doctor of History - President of Hong Bang University
- Lecturer at the HoChiMinh City University.
- Visiting professor at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies Japan (1989-1992).
- Former student at the Law faculty, Faculty of Letterof Saigon University (1963-1968).
- Aesthetic Body Building and Swordsmanshipinstructor (1962-1969), Sabre champion at the CSS (Saigonese Sporting Club).
- Kendô athlete in Osaka - Japan
In 1990, on a page dealing with Foreign Culture, the special - subject review NIKKEI-SHINBUN (Japanese Economic Review) published in Tokyo has introduced a professor from South Vietnam, the first one selected by the Higher Education Ministry and sent to teach at the Thai-Viet faculty of the Osaka University of Foreign studies in Japan (period of time covering the years 1989 - 1992).
 This professor is also the compiler and publisher of the first Chinese-Japanese dictionaries in Vietnam such as: KANJI dictionary, Japanese-Vietnamese dictionary, Vietnamese-Japanese dictionary... eversince the 70s in former Saigon known to many Overseas Vietnamese students studying in Japan. Among the said dictionaries the KANJI dictionary has been evaluated by the Inter-departmental Scientific Council of the Philology and Foreign Languages departments of the HCM city University in 1979 and recognized as a means for searching through Japanese text, very close to the compiling method applied for the Chinese-Vietnamese dictionary of author Thieu Chuu which is not only so necessary for Higher Education but also for our whole society with regard to Chinese and Japanese scripts.Throughout the last 30 years, though having to undergo political and social changes... the researcher has been continuing to work, and at certain times and places, has participated in a number of scientific conferences and symposiums both inland and abroad, while at the same time authoring remarkable research works and compilations.
 Being a former student at the Saigons Faculty of Letters and Faculty of Law, and recently at the Department of History and the Department of Philology of the Hanoi University, and being previously able to study researching methods of Japanese, American and French University professors... our researcher has had the chance to conduct in-depth studies on languages, cultures, and Oriental history.
As results, he has contributed to the Japanese bookcase a number of translations of ancient and modern Japanese tales such as "The intelligent little Hikoichi", "In the hands of slave traders thousands of years ago", "The diamond"... and has also achieved a number of translations of scientific research works such as "Studying the Chinese sound adopted by the Vietnamese" by Toru Mineya, used for contributing to the comparison between similar works authored by a number of Chinese and Vietnamese professors or Introducing the method used for compiling the Great Japanese Language Dictionary authored by a group of Japanese scholars, aimed at providing the compilers of the Encyclopaedia Vietnamitica with referring documents. (*)
Also recently, an important event had occurred in the researching circle, our researcher has contributed in a fairly complete manner, towards making public a great work that has been concealed - or at least has fallen into oblivion - of an unfortunate young French Orientalist whose name is H. OGER entitled: "Technique of the Annamese People" (period covering the years 1908-1909 in Hanoi) which the Youth Publishing House had published under the title: "Vietnamese sketches toward the beginning of the XXth century". Its quite surprising when many reviews, radio and TV stations... and a number of branches, organizations researchers, scholars have been, later on, extracting sketches and texts from that said research work to use them in their own research works on the Vietnamese people and their living under the feudalist and colonialist regime (*).
 Although very busy with his research works, the researcher has never stopped attending school - he continually follows his road leading to a better understanding of Chinese-transcribed Vietnamese and Chines-transcribed Japanese by means of consulting a number of well-known Chinese-transcribed Vietnamese scholars inland and abroad - particularly throughout the last 20 years, he has been studying with an old Vietnamese scholar living in retirement - a person that has spent a whole lonely life for compiling the Great Dictionary of the History of the Structure of Chinese-transcribed Vietnamese. The researcher will tell us in his work "I'm learning Chinese-transcribed Vietnamese" quite surprising and interesting elements, gathered in the days he strove to collect the type of words that has transformed Chinese in the area under Chinese influence as well as in the comparative method used for comparing between the two Chinese-transcribed Vietnamese and Chinese-transcribed Japanese structures.
Being granted encouragements and assistance from his friends from everywhere, the researcher is forming a Bibliotheca Vietnamitica - in preparation for the research work on the History of the Press in Vietnam as well as for the establishment of the Hong Bang University which he is the founder. Such a heavy load of works must be carried out throughout a life, half of which had been spent in wartime, the researcher has ground to hope for some sympathy and kindness from the part of his readers.Today, through this foreword, the Youth Publishing House has the honour to introduce the basic activities of a kind and familiar young man in the former Saigon students circle, who now wishes to be allowed to continue to silently face the difficulties in his remaining part of life amid heaps of old books.
YOUTH PUBLISHING HOUSE
Contact address:
NGUYEN MANH HUNG - President Hong Bang University
No. 215 Dien Bien Phu st. - Binh Thanh District - HCM City - Vietnam
Email:nguyenhung@hbu.edu.vn
Website: http:// hongbangunivesity.com.vn
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