Phan Khôi Phan Khôi Phan Khôi (August 20, 1887 (Đinh Hợi) Bảo An village, Điện Bàn county, Quảng Nam Province, Vietnam – January 16, 1959, Hanoi, North Vietnam) was an intellectual leader who inspired a North Vietnamese variety of the Chinese Hundred Flowers Campaign, in which scholars were permitted to criticize the Communist regime, but for which he himself was ultimately persecuted by the Communist Party of Vietnam. Phan Khôi was born to an elite family. His father was "Phó Bảng" Phan Trân (1826–1935) who was the son of Judge Phan Nhu. His mother was Hoàng Thị Lệ (1826–1882) who was the
Phan Đình Phùng consecutive generations of the Phan family had been successful mandarinate graduates. All three of Phan's brothers who lived to adulthood passed the imperial examinations and became mandarins. Early on, Phan indicated his distaste for the classical curriculum required of an aspiring mandarin. He nevertheless persevered with his studies, passing the regional exams in 1876 and then topping the metropolitan exams the following year. In his exam response, Phan cited Japan as an example of how an Asian country could make rapid military progress given sufficient willpower. Phan was never known for his scholarly abilities; it was his reputation for principled