Phan Khôi (October 06, 1887 – January 16, 1959) was an intellectual leader who inspired a North Vietnamese variety of the Chinese Hundred Flowers Campaign, in which scholars were permitted to criticize the government, but for which he himself was ultimately persecuted by the Communist Party of Vietnam.
[2] Phan Khôi was born in an elite Confucian family in Bảo An village, Điện Bàn county, Quảng Nam Province.
In 1906, he joined the Progressive Movement (Duy Tân) led by Phan Chu Trinh (1872–1926), Huỳnh Thúc Kháng (1876–1947) and Trần Quý Cáp (1870–1906).
Phan Khôi moved to Hanoi to learn French and Quốc ngữ (Vietnamese written in the Latin alphabets).
In 1912, his grandmother died, Phan Khôi came home for the funeral and stayed at his village, opened his own school and started teaching.
Phan Khôi represented a Vietnamese elite class in the transitional time from Chinese education to the new era of Western values.
He provided the best spirit to a debate in Bàn thêm về "bút chiến", which until today is still the foremost valuable lesson the Vietnamese ought to learn.
His research Phan Khôi: Việt ngữ nghiên cứu was a well of knowledge for young Vietnamese to follow.