After the end of the First Indochina War he moved north with his family to Hanoi and enrolled in the oil painting intermediary course at the Vietnam Fine Arts College under director Trần Văn Cẩn from 1956 to 1959.
[1] In 1960, he was sent to the Soviet Union to study watercolour painting at the All-Ukrainian Art Institute in Kiev, which provided the basic skills behind much of his future work.
After a nine month journey down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Laos and Cambodia, Châu arrived in the south, in Tây Ninh Province.
[4] He witnessed battles in places such as on the Tiền River, on Black Virgin Mountain (Núi Bà Đen) and near the tunnels of Củ Chi before his advance with the army on its final assault on Saigon in April 1975.
After the war, he held positions as Deputy Secretary General of the Vietnam Fine Arts Association and Secretary General of the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Association before retiring to a quiet riverside village suburb in Ho Chi Minh City.