Hồ Văn Nhựt was born on 15 July 1905 in the village of Tân Qui Đông, Sa Đéc province, to a traditional family of scholars and mandarins (nho giáo) in the Southern part of Vietnam, which was then a French colony known as 'French Cochinchina.' .
He obtained his father's permission to travel to Saigon to study at the French-founded Collège Chasseloup-Laubat in the section for Vietnamese children or "quartier indigène."[REF]