Contents

1 - Land, People, and Language......................................................2

2 - History and Institutions............................................................13
3 - Thought and Religion...............................................................33
4 - Literature..................................................................................48
5 - Art and Architecture.................................................................72
6 - Cuisine......................................................................................88
7 - Family, Gender, and Youth Culture........................................101
8 - Festivals and Leisure Activities..............................................114
9 - Performing Arts......................................................................126
 1 - Land, People, and Language
GEOGRAPHY
VIETNAMESE DESCRIBE VIETNAM as resembling a shoulder pole with a rice basket
at each end. The image is useful, for the heavily populated, grain- producing areas of
modern Vietnam are in the extreme North (in the Red River Delta, also called the Tonkin
Delta) and South (the Mekong Delta), with a thin, less productive, and less densely
inhabited coastal region linking them. Modern Vietnam is bordered by China to the
North, by Laos and Cambodia to the West, and by the South China Sea (Vietnamese call
it Bien Dong, or "Eastern Sea") to the South and East. The distance from the Sino-
Vietnamese border to Vietnam's southernmost point-the Ca-mau peninsula is about 1,000
miles. It is about 300 miles from the northern Vietnamese port of Hai-phong to the Sino-
Laotian-Vietnamese border.
The triangle-shaped Red River Delta is enclosed to the North and West by hills and
mountains jutting southward from the Yunnan Plateau and called the Viet Bac, some of
which are more than 9,000 feet in elevation. The northern highlands are rich in minerals,
including iron ore, coal, and lead. The Red River (Song Hong), originating in China's
Yunnan Province, is about 750 miles long. The Red River and its major tributaries, the
Clear (Song Lo) and Black Rivers (Song Da), are vital for irrigation, transportation, and
hydroelectric power but are subject to violent and unpredictable flooding. Flood control
has always been crucial to the Delta's habitation and exploitation, and a vast system of
dikes and canals contains the Red River and irrigates the Delta's flatlands. Despite their
dangers, the rivers deposit rich silt on the lowlands, and the Tonkin Delta has been
intensively cultivated since the origins of Viet settlement. This remains true today, with
irrigated or "wet" rice the principal crop.
South of the Tonkin Delta, a narrow gateway of flatlands allows access to central
Vietnam, an extremely thin region, only about thirty miles from the South China Sea to
Laos at its narrowest. To the West, along the Vietnamese- Laotian border, run mountains
known in Vietnamese as the Giai Truong Son, or "Long Mountains," still usually known
in English as the Annamite Chain. The central Vietnamese lowlands are narrow coastal
strips, sometimes wide enough to support only a single village and its fields between the
sea and the mountains. Given their proximity to the South China Sea and its teeming
marine life, most of these coastal villages combine farming with fishing, and some are
devoted almost exclusively to marine pursuits, with pisciculture increasingly important as
catches of fish and crustaceans decline due to pollution and over-fishing. Central Vietnam
is intersected by the Seventeenth Parallel, which was a contested political boundary from
1954 to 1975.
About 100 miles below the Seventeenth Parallel, Vietnam widens again, becoming almost
100 miles from West to East on the average. Heavily forested mountains and high
plateaus, called the Tay Nguyen, or Central High- lands, dominate most of the southern
part of central Vietnam. The sparsely populated Highlands, parts of which are more than
6,000 feet above sea level, yield valuable harvests of rubber and coffee as well as wood
and other forest products. In recent years, Vietnam has become a major coffee- exporting
country, largely thanks to crops produced in the Central Highlands and its foothills.
About fifty miles north of Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh, or Ho Chi Minh City (the former
Sai-gon), the Central Highlands yield to southern Vietnam's alluvial plains. The South's
major river is the Mekong, known in Sino- Vietnamese as Song Cuu Long, or "Nine
Dragons' River," given its many branches that open on the South China Sea. One of the
world's great rivers, the Mekong is more than 2,700 miles long from its recently
discovered source in Tibet to its mouths on the South China Sea. The Mekong River's
annual floods, usually calmer and more predictable than the Red River's due to the flatter
local terrain and the stabilizing influence of Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake, deposit rich silt
throughout the Mekong Delta, making it one of the world's most fertile regions. The
Mekong Delta is modern Vietnam's second great agricultural and population center,
although the Viet did not begin significant settlement there until the 1600s. In addition to
rice, still the main crop, sugarcane, bananas, and coconuts are produced abundantly.

GEOGRAPHICAL TERMINOLOGY
Geographical terminology is a problem for students of Vietnamese culture. Given the
country's tumultuous history, there have been many changes in regime and in place
names; to complicate matters, the former names are sometimes still used along with the
newer ones, and speakers indicate political preference by choosing one over another.
Vietnamese from the nineteenth century until today have generally known their country
as Viet Nam-two words, each with a distinct meaning. Viet refers to the ethnolinguistic
group composed of people of mainly Mongoloid and Indonesian racial stock who speak
Vietnamese as their native tongue. Nam means "South" and is understood in relation to
China, the northern neighbor. Viet Nam thus means "southern land of the Viet people."
Nam, alone or in combination, is also often used independently of Viet to refer to things
Vietnamese in juxtaposition to those pertaining to China. Thus, Nuoc Nam (literally
"southern land") is another name for Vietnam, the inhabitants of which are also called
Nguoi Nam ("southerners"). Thuoc Nam ("southern medicine") refers to Vietnamese
traditional medicine as opposed to thuoc Bac ("northern medicine"), or Chinese
traditional medicine, both of which are widely used among Vietnamese today instead of
or in complement to modern, or Western, medicine.
However, Vietnamese lands have not always been called Viet Nam. For example, An-nam
was used by officials of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, which colonized Vietnam from the
seventh century until the tenth. For the Chinese, it meant "pacified South," a conquered
land that accepted and presumably benefited from Chinese civilization. This was
abandoned when independence from Chinese rule came in 938 C.E. Independent states in
the Vietnamese- speaking lands were henceforth alternately called Dai Viet or Dai Co
Viet ("Greater Vietnam"), Dai Nam ("Great South"), Viet Nam, or Nam Viet. In the
nineteenth century, French colonizers resurrected An-nam, using it until 1945 and
beyond, calling its possession Annam and the people Annamites or Annamese. So used,
Annam and Annamites were considered insulting by many Viet because they invoked a
formerly dependent status vis-à-vis China. Vietnamese today never refer seriously to their
country as Annam or to themselves as Annamese, some use them jokingly, satirizing
French pretensions. French people nostalgic for the "good old days" of colonial rule still
use the terms Annam and Annamites, but this is increasingly rare.
The names for Vietnam's regions also changed during colonial times. The French attached
their Vietnamese holdings to a larger empire in mainland Southeast Asia called
l'Indochine française, French Indochina-the lands be- tween India and China that were
under French control. French Indochina comprised the territories of the modern nation-
states of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. For political and administrative reasons, the
French also divided Vietnam into three units called pays ("lands"): Tonkin, Annam, and
Cochin- chine (Cochin China in English). Tonkin referred to the northern part of the
country and comes from the Sino-Vietnamese Dong Kinh, meaning "eastern capital." The
Sino-Vietnamese Annam referred to central Vietnam and means "pacified South." This
creates potential confusion, because the French used Annam indicate all of Vietnam as
well as its central region alone. If a modern writer uses it, it probably means just the
central area; if a colonialera writer uses it, it may mean either. Cochinchine referred to the
South and comes from Giao Chi, an ancient Sino-Vietnamese administrative term for part
of today's northern Vietnam. When Europeans began trading in Asian waters in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they pronounced it "Cochin," adding "China" to
distinguish it from what was for them the better-known Cochin, in India. The French
pronounced it "Cochinchine" and applied it to the Vietnamese lands as a whole and to the
southern region alone. Today it would probably mean the latter, although it is no longer
commonly used. To describe these entities created and named by the French, the
Vietnamese began using Bac-ky, Trung-ky, and Nam-ky, the northern, central, and
southern "zones" (ky), respectively.
A final complication derives from the Second Indochina War (i.e., the Vietnam War),
1960-1975. The northern territories above the Seventeenth Parallel, controlled by the
Communist-led Democratic Republic of Vietnam (D.R.V.), were designated by the
Western media as North Vietnam, even though no state by this name had ever existed.
The southern lands under the control of the U.S.-supported Republic of Vietnam
(R.V.N.), were termed South Vietnam, although there had never been a state bearing this
name. Today, well-informed English speakers refer to modern Vietnam's three regions as
northern, central, and southern Vietnam (or as the North, Center, and South). This
corresponds to contemporary Vietnamese usage, which is to call the three regions Bac Bo
("northern part"), Trung Bo ("central part"), and Nam Bo ("southern part") in recognition
of Vietnam's overall unity.
CLIMATE
Vietnam lies between roughly eight and twenty-three degrees north lati- tude, which
places it within the tropical monsoon belt. Due to differences in latitude and uneven
topography, Vietnam's climatic conditions are far from uniform. The differences in
average annual high temperatures may be illustrated by looking at the major cities of each
of the three regions. In northern Vietnam, Ha-noi has an average annual temperature of
seventy- four degrees Fahrenheit. In central Vietnam, Hue's mean annual temperature is
seventy-seven degrees. In southern Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City has an annual average of
eighty-one degrees. It is cooler in mountainous areas: Da- lat, for example, located in the
southern Central Highlands, has an average annual temperature of seventy degrees.
During colonial times, it was a favorite vacation spot for French officials and Vietnamese
royalty seeking relief from the steaming lowlands.
Vietnam's weather is controlled by seasonal monsoons called gio mua. The relatively cold
and dry winter monsoon comes out of the northeast between October and March,
affecting mainly central and northern Vietnam. From April to October, the warm and wet
summer monsoon blows out of the southwest, depositing moisture from the Indian Ocean
and Gulf of Thailand on southern and southern-central Vietnam, Vietnam's average
annual rainfall is generally high (about fifty-nine inches) but varies from place to place.
Hue is probably the "wettest" major lowlands city, receiving more than 110 inches of
precipitation per year. Overall, about 90 percent of Vietnam's total rainfall occurs during
the southwesterly summer monsoon season. Rainfall in the North and Center is erratic,
and destructive typhoons often strike there be- tween July and November, 1999 was one
of the worst years of flooding in modern times.

ETHNOLINGUISTIC GROUPS
Although the precise physical origins of the modern Vietnamese people remain in
dispute, most scholars agree that they derive from a combination of aboriginal Australoid
peoples with Indonesian and Mongoloid peoples from outside the region. Since historical
times, the Viet have been a sedentary, rice-growing, village-dwelling people. They have
clustered in the deltas at the northern and, beginning in the seventeenth century, southern
extrem- ities of the country-the Red and Mekong Deltas-as well as, to a lesser extent, in
the coastal deltas of central Vietnam. Today there are more than 80,000,000 Vietnamese
citizens, most of whom are ethnic Viet and live packed together on about 20 percent of
Vietnam's territory, an area that roughly corresponds to the percentage of the national
territory that is on level ground. Indeed, the Vietnamese deltas are among the most
heavily populated and intensively cultivated areas in Asia. The rest of Vietnam-the
remaining 80 percent, which has a more uneven topography-is for the most part left to
non-Viet peoples. These areas are mountainous and covered by jungle and brush; they are
less suitable for the irrigated rice cultivation and residence in compact villages that have
been the historical prerequisites of Vietnamese civilization.
The mountains are also more dangerous to the Viet, because the anopheles mosquito,
carrier of the plasmodium parasites that cause malaria, breeds more readily in the
mountains than in the deltas and low-lying plains, although it is found in both areas. The
non-Viet peoples seem to be more resistant to malaria than are the Viet. Before modern
times, the Viet, observing that people sickened and died shortly after going to the
mountains, concluded that the water was poisonous (nuoc dec) and the regions inhabited
by vengeful ghosts (ma qui). Taking advantage of the situation, the Viet emperors exiled
rebels and criminals to such regions, knowing that they would fall ill and die. Hence, the
Viet have long been content to leave the mountains and high plains to the non-Viet
peoples. In the post-World War II era, however, independent Viet states including the
D.R.V., the R.V.N., and today's Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.)-have encouraged
Viet migration into these regions to relieve overcrowding in the deltas and to facilitate the
economic development and political control of the highlands; this phenomenon has been
especially noticeable since reunification in 1975.
Vietnam's mountains and high plains are thus inhabited by a variety of non-Viet ethnic
groups, many of them similar to the peoples who live in Laos and Thailand. There are at
least sixty different peoples in this category: collectively they total more than 4,000,000
people. They mostly live in the mountainous provinces surrounding the Red River Delta
and in the Central Highlands. The French called them montagnards, or "mountaineers." In
English they have been called the "hill peoples." "tribal minorities," or, more recently,
"highlanders." Under the S.R.V., they are designated nguoi thuong, or "highlands
peoples," as opposed to the nguoi Kinh, or "ethnic Vietnamese (literally, "people of the
capital"). Official euphemisms aside, Kinh still privately often refer to Thuong by
pejorative terms such as moi, "savage," re- flecting the long-standing tensions between
the two groups. These tensions were militarily significant during the post-World War II
conflicts in Viet- nam, for many strategic regions were inhabited mainly by highlanders.
Any policy applied by Western forces or Vietnamese antagonists had to take the
highlanders into account, something that the revolutionary forces usually did more
skillfully than their opponents.
Several non-Vietnamese ethnolinguistic groups also inhabit the lowlands of today's
Vietnam. In southern Vietnam, there remains a group (approxi mately 300,000 at the end
of the Vietnam War) of Khmers Krom. The Khmers are the lowland people that constitute
the majority population of the present nation-state of Cambodia. Krom means "South" in
Khmer, and the Khmers Krom are the remnants of the time when the Khmer Empire
controlled the Mekong Delta. Since the Vietnamese and Khmers developed different
cultures and rival polities and coveted the same territories, their interactions have often
been violent. When the Viet seized the Mekong Delta from the declining Khmer Empire
in the eighteenth century, some Khmers remained in what has since been Viet territory.
The Khmers Krom are mostly Theravada Buddhists, in contrast to the Viet preference for
Mahayana schools, and live in communities that are distinct from Viet settlements.
Modern Khmers and Vietnamese still bear the weight of these historical hatreds, which
continue to influence their views of each other.
The Chams are another non-Viet lowland people, the human vestiges of an ancient
empire called Champa that was conquered and absorbed by the Viet in the fifteenth
century. The ruins of their beautiful Hindu-influenced temples still dot the central
coastline and are currently being restored by the Vietnamese government in light of their
historical interest and attractiveness to international tourists. Today about 50,000 Chams
live in the central Viet- namese plains.
There is also a large Chinese population in Vietnam, totaling almost 1,000,000. Many are
descendants of Chinese who came to Vietnam shortly after China's Ming Dynasty was
replaced by the Qing in 1644. They are called Minh Huong, those who burn incense
(huang) in honor of the defunct Ming (Minh in Vietnamese) Dynasty. Other Chinese,
whose ancestors arrived during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, are
called nguoi hoa, or "ethnic Chinese." Many Chinese from both groups have in-
termarried with Viet and are presently almost indistinguishable from them. Others have
retained their Chinese identities by living in distinct communities, teaching their children
the Chinese language and culture, and maintaining clan organizations.
Vietnam's Chinese community has historically been successful in the landowning and
commercial sectors of the economy, particularly milling and export of rice as well as
moneylending. The Chinese quarter of Ho Chi Minh City is still called Cho-lon, "big
market" in Vietnamese, in reference to the commercial aptitudes of its Chinese residents.
Some Chinese became wealthy, especially in colonial times. This was in part due to the
prejudices of the French, who did not trust the Viet and gave the Chinese opportunities
denied to "natives." Some Viet still resent Chinese successes, a situation typical of
relations between majority peoples and Chinese minorities throughout Southeast Asia.
One of the pejorative Vietnamese terms for Viet- nam's Chinese, for instance, is khach, or
"guest," which implies the speaker's hope that they will soon leave.

THE VIETNAMESE LANGUAGE

Scholars do not agree on the best way to classify the Vietnamese language, which seems
to share structures with and borrow words from many of the languages spoken in East
and Southeast Asia. Vietnamese is tonal, suggesting an affinity with the Sino-Tibetan
family, which includes the Chinese and Tai languages. It also has structural similarities to
languages in the Mon- Khmer group (e.g., Khmer, or "Cambodian") of the Austro-Asiatic
family, which are not tonal. Some linguists have argued that Vietnamese should be
classified as a member of the Tai group and placed in the Sino-Tibetan family, whereas
others consider it part of the Mon-Khmer group and place it in the Austro-Asiatic family.
Still other scholars view Vietnamese as a unique language that virtually constitutes a
family unto itself, albeit one that has borrowed extensively from other families.
Throughout their history, the Viet have used a variety of writing systems: chu Han, or
"Chinese characters," also called chu nho, or "scholars' charac- ters"; chu nom, "southern
characters"; and chu quoc ngu, or "national language characters."
Like many other Asian peoples, the Viet began their experience with writ- ing by
borrowing the "ready-made" system of Chinese characters (chu Han) and used it for
representing the spoken Chinese language. Long after direct Chinese political domination
ended in 938 C.E., the Chinese language and characters continued to be used in the
independent Viet dynastic states for official business as well as in education, literature,
and correspondence, ce- menting its position as the prestige language. Elite Viet could
carry on "writing-brush conversations with classically educated Chinese, Koreans, and
Japanese, even though they did not always speak the Chinese languag in mutually
comprehensible ways. Chinese may thus be considered the func tional equivalent of Latin
for Sinitic Asia, including Vietnam.
From at least the thirteenth century onward, Viet scholars developed a second system, an
indigenous character-based vernacular (chu nom) that adopted and adapted some of the
symbols of Chinese characters to express Vietnamese-language sounds. Nguyen Thuyen,
who lived during the reign of Tran Nhan-tong (1279-1293), is often credited with
inventing or at least vulgarizing nom characters. According to legend, he composed a
short nem poem entitled Van te ca sau ("Crocodile Oration") and recited it to the Red
River's crocodiles. It boasts of the Viet people's fishing and fighting skills and orders the
crocodiles to return to the South Sea "where you belong." Upon hearing it, the reptiles
left the river and returned to the sea. Despite the questionable veracity of this account, the
Van te ca satu is one of the oldest surviving nom poems. Vietnamese vernacular
characters look superficially like Chinese ones but are mostly indecipherable to people
literate only in the latter. Although nom succeeded in representing native Vietnamese
sounds as well as the many Chinese terms that had entered elite Vietnamese speech, it did
not enter widespread usage alongside Chinese until the early fifteenth century. Even then,
however, nom was used mainly in populaçiterature and unofficial documents and lacked
the prestige of the officially sanctioned chu Han.
Each of these systems requires of study to master tens of thousands of characters, and
neither is widely used in modern Vietnam. A third system, chu quoc ngu, which remains
in usage today, was invented by Catholic missionaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. Needing to learn Vietnamese but wanting to avoid the years of study required
to master character-based systems, the missionaries, with the assistance of their
Vietnamese speaking acolytes, developed an alphabetical system based on a smaller
number of Latin letters, which in combination express the sounds of spoken Vietnamese,
including Chinese loan words. Two sets of diacritical marks indicate the pronunciation of
vowels and identify the tonal quality or pitch with which each syllable must be said (or
"sung"). The Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes is usually credited in the West with
inventing quoc ngu, but it is more accurate to consider quoc ngu a collective achievement
that was first presented to Western readers in a systematic form by Father Rhodes, who
published a Latin-Portuguese-Vietnamese dictionary in 1651.
This romanized Vietnamese was for several centuries the exclusive property of the
Catholic missionaries, indigenous priests, and Vietnamese faithful. It began to enter wider
usage in the nineteenth century due to efforts of the French colonial regime, which had it
taught in schools as a means of giving basic instruction on Western subjects while also
alienating France's Viet "subjects from their Sino-Vietnamese cultural heritage and
reducing their exposure to potentially subversive ideas carried by Chinese-language
materials. In the twentieth century, Viet nationalists, including communists, seized upon
quoc ngu as a means of raising literacy and generating popular support for their
programs. Given its limited number of letters and diacritical symbols and nearly "one-
sound, one-syllable" correspondence, modern quoc ngu is quickly learned by Vietnamese
speakers and well suited to mass literacy programs. After the end of colonialism in 1954,
quoc ngu became the official writing system for government business and public
education on both sides of the Seventeenth Parallel, and it remains so today in the S.R.V.
Almost 92 percent of Vietnam's population is currently classified as literate, which means
literate in quoc ngu. Only a few traditionalists and scholars still learn the character-based
systems.
There are three main regional variations in Vietnamese pronunciation. They correspond
to the three regions in which they are spoken-northern, central, and southern Vietnam-and
are known as the Ha-noi, Hue, and Sai-gon "languages" (rieng). Many Vietnamese
consider the Ha-noi "lan- guage" to be the "official" or "correct" one. It is also the version
most learned by foreigners. Despite some differences in pronunciation and vocabulary,
these variations do not prevent the Vietnamese from understanding each other, regardless
of their region of origin. Regional stereotyping, some of which is the result of France
colonial division of Vietnam into three pays, is perhaps a greater barrier to interregional
understanding than are the rela- tively minor linguistic differences. Southerners see
themselves as friendly, honest, and easygoing, they see northerners as cold, cunning, and
ambitious; they see centrists as conservative, stingy, and strict. Northerners and centrists,
for their part, consider southerners lazy, simple, frontier people lacking in culture.
Whatever their veracity may be, such feelings of regional distinc- tiveness contribute to
tensions when Vietnamese from different regions in- teract. When the people are faced
with external threats, however, a common Vietnamese identity tends to assert itself,
leading to the solidarity of "we
Vietnamese against the outsider. From the phonological point of view, Vietnamese is a
monosyllabic and tonal language. Its monosyllabism is manifested in the articulation of
syllables in connected speech, but many of its words are disyllabic and even polysyl-
labic. For English speakers, the tonal quality of Vietnamese is one of its most interesting
aspects. Each word is formed with at least one vowel that is voiced with either level or
changing pitch. Depending on regional variations, there may be four to six of these
pitches or tones. Unlike the intonations that English speakers use to express shades of
meaning or emphasis, these changes in tone or musical pitch affect the lexical meaning of
Vietnamese words. A word's tonal quality is indicated in quoc ngu by diacritical marks
over or under the main vowel (or by their absence). Although we do not generally
indicate the tonal quality of Vietnamese words throughout this text, it may be useful to
consider the following example. In northern Vietnamese pronunciation, for example, the
six tones (thanh) are as follows: the level tone (thanh khong dau), such as ma ("ghost");
the high-rising tone (thanh sac), such as må ("cheek"); the low-falling tone (thanh huyen),
such as ma ("but" or "then"); the falling-rising tone (thanh hoi), such as må ("tomb"); the
high- rising tone with glottal stop (thanh nga), such as mă ("horse"); and the low- falling
tone with glottal stop (thanh nang), such as ma ("rice seedling"). If the tone is
mispronounced or omitted, it may produce a meaningless syllable or a word completely
different from the intended one, with confusing or embarrassing consequences.
Vietnamese is an isolating language: words do not change their forms, and grammatical
categories cannot be expressed by prefixes or suffixes. Although syntax and context are
usually relied on to indicate grammatical meaning, function words may be added for
clarification. However, Vietnamese words remain invariable, be they singular or plural,
masculine or feminine, subject or object. For example, the word toi (literally, "servant" or
"slave"), may serve as subject ("1") or object ("me"), depending on its placement in a
sentence. Vietnamese verbs do not change their form to express contrasts berween past,
present, and future actions; the same word is used for past, present, and future actions as
well as for first, second, or third person. For example, the verb di (to go") may be used
alone to indicate action taking place in the past, present, or future, although the function
words da, dang, or se may be added to clarify the past, present progressive, or future
locus of the actions.
Vietnamese has also appropriated words from foreign languages, particu- larly Chinese
and, more recently, French and English. Vietnamese speakers usually change the original
pronunciation of a borrowed word to fit the Vietnamese system. For example, the Chinese
term for "China," Chong guo (literally, "Central Kingdom"), becomes Trung Quoc in
Vietnamese. Poly- syllabic French words may be shortened as well as broken up into
manageable combinations: for example, "cinema" has come cine. The most commonly
learned foreign languages in twentieth-century Vietnam have been French and English.
Today the educated or elite Vietnamese of the older generation often know French,
whereas the younger generation of students is more likely to know English, which is
avidly studied in public and private schools and is seen as the business language of the
future.

FORMS OF ADDRESS
Given the emphasis on social status and familial hierarchy that pervaded Viet society in
the pre-colonial period, the modern Vietnamese language is permeated with indicators of
status and of the relationships between speaker and interlocutor.
Within the family, hierarchy was based on a person's relationship to other family
members in terms of age, sex, generation, paternal or maternal lineage, and marriage.
Older siblings are addressed as anh ("older brother") or chi ("older sister"). Younger
siblings are addressed generally as em and may be referred to as em trai ("younger
brother") or em gai ("younger sister"). The father's older are called bar, the mother's
siblings are called cau (for males) and di (for females); younger siblings of the father are
called chu (for males) and thim (for females). Grandmothers and grandfathers are called
ba and ong, respectively, with a further distinction made between paternal (ong ba noi,
the "inside" grandparents) and maternal (ong ba ngoai, the "outside" grandparents).
Although the basic equivalent to the English "T" is toi, it is usually replaced with a word
more specific to the relationship between speaker and interlocutor. For example, one's
older sister would be addressed as chi ("elder sister"), while the speaker would refer to
him or herself as em, or "younger sibling."
Many of the terms deriving from these familiar relationships are applied by extension to
social address to express differences between speaker and interlocutor in regard to
gender, social status, age, and profession. Three commonly employed forms of social
address, mentioned above in the context of familial address, are ong, ba, and co. Ong, the
basic meaning of which is "grandfather," is used to address men, in particular those older
and of higher status than the speaker, but also men of any age who may be only casual
acquaintances or business associates of the speaker. Ba, which means "grand- mother," is
applied to married women or to single women older than the speaker. Co, or "aunt," is
used for unmarried women who are younger than the speaker.
English speakers put the given name first, followed by a middle name and I completed by
the family, or "last," name. For Vietnamese speakers, family name comes first, followed
by the middle and then the given name. Nguyen Ngoc Tho, who was vice-president of the
R.V.N. in the early 1960s, may serve as an example. The family name is Nguyen which-
along with Ho, Le, Phan, Pham, Tran, Ngo, Dinh, and Trinh-is one of the most common.
Vietnamese middle names usually have meanings. In Nguyen Ngoc Tho's case, the
middle name Ngoc means "precious stone," and may be applied to men or women. Other
common middle names are gender-specific. Van, meaning "literature," is a male's middle
name, while Thi indicates that the bearer is female. Given names also usually have
meanings that may or may not be gender-specific. Names such as Hong ("rose"), Lan
("orchid"), and Huong ("fragrance") are used exclusively for females; names such as
Hung ("heroic") and Tien ("progress") are reserved for males; names such as
("prosperity") and Phuc ("happiness") may be applied to members of either sex. In
Nguyen Ngoc Tho's case, the given name Tho means "poetry" and is usually reserved for
males. It is customary to address people by given names rather than by family names.
Nguyen Ngoc Tho would have been addressed as Ong Tho, or "Mr. Tho" (literally,
"grandfather" Tho)-never as Ong Nguyen, or "Mr. Nguyen." There are exceptions: Ho
Chi Minh (a pseu- donym), the D.R.V.'s late president, was publicly referred to by the
family name Ho combined with an indicator of respect such as bar ("uncle") or cu
("venerable"). The use of the last name as form of address is reserved to well- known
historical or literary figures, however.
A special convention is followed for naming imperial rulers. Before the Nguyen era, upon
assuming the throne, a monarch's personal name became taboo, and he took instead a
reign name, or nien hieu, to evoke the prosperity of his reign. These names were
sometimes changed in the course of a reign in order to commemorate a fornuitous turn of
events or to attempt to alter a difficult situation. Rulers also received a posthumous
dynastic title, or mieu hieu, by which they would henceforth be known. Le Loi, for
example, who founded the Later Le Dynasty in 1428, is known to posterity by his
dynastic title, Le Thai-to. The Nguyen Dynasty's rulers, however, generally adopted but a
single reign name and were known by it during their reigns as well as after death. The
Nguyen founder, for example, whose personal name was Nguyen Phuoc Anh, assumed
the niem hieu of Gia-long, by which he was known to contemporaries and is known to
history. The practice was followed by the other Nguyen rulers. Like their predecessors,
the monarchs of former dynasties, the Nguyen rulers attempted to choose reign titles with
felicitous meanings, although in some cases historical events later gave them ironic
connotations. Nguyen Vinh Thuy, whose reign as the Bao-dai Emperor co- incided with
World War II, the Japanese occupation of Indochina, and the termination of the Nguyen
Dynasty in the August Revolution of 1945, is a case in point: the reign title Bao dai
means "Protector of Greatness."
 2 - History and Institutions

ORIGINS AND EARLY HISTORY

THE ANCESTORS of the modern Vietnamese appeared in the second millennium B.C.E.
as part of a group of peoples spread throughout the lands stretching from the Yangzi
Basin in today's People's Republic of China to the Red River Valley in modern Vietnam.
These peoples were known to the Chinese as Yueh ("Viet"), and most would be
assimilated during the Han expansion of the early Common Era. The southernmost Yuch,
who inhabited the Red River Valley and were called Lac, however, constructed a distinct,
non-Han identity that would endure repeated attempts at conquest and assimilation.
During the middle of the second millennium B.C.E., the Lac founded an organized
society characterized by aristocratic predominance under a loosely structured monarchy
based in the Red River Delta and called Van Lang. In addition to their political
precociousness, the Lac were among the first peo- ples in Asia to employ irrigation
systems and practice wet-rice agi culture; they were also among the area's earliest masters
of bronze casting.

THE ERA OF CHINESE DOMINATION

Like other Yueh peoples, the Lac would confront the expanding Han Chinese of the Qin
and Han Dynasties during the last centuries B.C.E. The Han empire initially dominated
the Lac peoples indirectly by working through the indigenous aristocracy, but rebellions
led by the latter in 39-43 C.E. brought a more direct rule and greater efforts at
Sinification by the victorious Han. The territories of the Lac states were annexed and
ruled directly, along with other former Yuch territories to the North, as provinces of the
Han empire. With only periodic interruptions caused by Chinese dynastic interregnums
ог regional rebellions, the Chinese bureaucrats and their indigenous collaborators would
implant much of Chinese high culture, including Legalist bureaucratic techniques and
Confucian ethics, art, litera- ture, and language. Some Viet welcomed the chance to
assimilate to what they considered to be a superior culture. These literati studied
Confucianism avidly, some even passing the Han Dynasty's civil service examinations
and taking bureaucratic positions locally or in China itself. Remarkably, however, and in
contrast to the northern Yuch, the Southern Yuch retained historical memory of ancient
Van Lang's independence and preserved aspects of Lac cultural patterns beneath multiple
layers of Chinese culture. These conti- nuities contributed to the repeated rebellions
against Chinese domination, the most famous being that of the Trung sisters in 39-43
C.E. Finally, taking advantage of the disunity that signaled the end of the Chinese Tang
Dynasty (618-907), insurgents led by Ngo Quyen defeated the resident Chinese forces in
938 C.E. and initiated the era of independent monarchies in 939.
INDEPENDENT MONARCHIES
The early independent states would usually be called Dai Co Viet or Dai Viet, but, for the
sake of convenience, we often call their majority people by their modern name of
Vietnamese. The Vietnamese dynasties guarded their independence zealously but did not
abandon Chinese culture. The pattern was set by the Later Ly Dynasty (1009-1225),
which seized the Viet throne in the wake of civil wars following the death (in 944) of Ngo
Quyen and the collapse of the Ngo Dynasty (in 965). The Ly founders applied the lessons
of the Chinese occupation regimes and began the process of bureaucratic centralization,
implementing civil service examinations on Chinese texts about Taoism, Buddhism, and
Confucianism. They also yielded to Chinese demands to send tributary missions to the
northern court, submission was perfunctory and preferable to invasion.
These trends continued under the Ly's successor, the Tran Dynasty (1225-1400). Under
the Tran, the Viet faced threats by the Mongols, who had obliterated the Chinese Song
Dynasty in 1279 and founded their Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368). When, in 1285, the Tran
refused the Mongols demands to traverse Viet territory in order to attack their southern
neighbor, Champa, the Mongols attacked Dai Viet instead. Although the Mongol
onslaughts were devastating to Dai Viet, the Mongols were repeatedly defeated and
finally expelled by Tran Hung Dao, who mobilized resistance and applied guerrilla tactics
against the invaders.
The last sustained Chinese effort at conquest and assimilation of the Viet came when Ho
Quy Ly, regent for an immature Tran emperor, seized Dai Viet's throne in 1400 and
attempted an administrative reorganization. Prof- iting from the resulting confusion and
uncertainty, the Chinese Ming Dynasty overpowered Viet defenders and annexed the
rebellious province (as the Chinese saw it) in 1407. The Ming occupation attempted to
undo 500 years of Viet independence by returning the region to the status of a Chinese
province and applying Sinification with a vengeance-even destroying works of literature
in the Vietnamese vernacular.
The experiment was to be short-lived. In 1418, Le Loi, a commoner land- lord and ex-
official from Thanh Hoa province, proclaimed himself to be a "pacification king" and
gathered partisans to wage guerrilla warfare against the occupation. With the help of
powerful military leaders including Nguyen Trai, Le Loi expelled Ming forces and
returned Dai Viet to independence under his (Later) Le Dynasty (1428-1788).

DIVISION AND WESTERN PENETRATION UNDER THE LATER LE

DYNASTY
Having repulsed the Chinese, the Le founders adopted Chinese-style government and
Confucianism. Legalist concepts guided bureaucratic reorgan- ization to help the emperor
control and tax his people. Confucianism justified imperial authority by linking it to a
Heavenly Mandate. While the concept of a Chinese-style emperor retained its potency,
real power eluded the Le monarchs, who soon became the pawns of military leaders. The
Nguyen and Trinh families came to the forefront in the 1500s. Each took the title chua
("lord") and claimed to serve the Le while denouncing the other as usurper of the Le's
mandate. Le emperors remained enthroned in Thang-long, but the militarists wielded
power. The Trinh held the North, dominating the Le court, and, in 1558, forced the
Nguyen into exile at the country's southern- most extreme. A de facto partition resulted,
with the Trinh to the North and Nguyen to the South of the Eighteenth Parallel. From the
mid-1500s to the late 1700s, the Le nominally reigned while the Nguyen and Trinh
fought. each claiming to be the Le's servant. Meanwhile, important developments
occurred: the Nam tien, or Southward Movement, which expanded Vietnamese territory
southward; and Catholic proselytization.
With Trinh expansion blocked, the Nguyen advanced southward. Nguyen chus
encouraged migration to increase production and tax revenues. Viet settlers moved to the
southern extremes of Viet-occupied areas and founded villages. The chua provided arms,
tools, and tax exemptions to encourage settlement. Conflicts arose between the settlers
and the Chams, whose state covered much of present-day central Vietnam; and between
the settlers and the Khmers, whose state extended from what is now Cambodia through
the Mekong Delta in today's Vietnam. Localized conflicts were handled by set- tlers, but
Nguyen forces intervened when states were involved. During the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, Nguyen forces took Cham lands and drove the Khmers from the
Delta. Vietnam's central coastline is littered with Cham temples to the Hindu deity Shiva;
and Cham and Khmer minorities still live in central and southern Vietnam, respectively.
Other non-Viet peoples were also assimilated or expelled.
The first Catholic missions in Viet lands were founded in Cochin China in 1615 and
Tonkin in 1626. A remarkable early missionary was the Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes
(1591-1660), who believed missionaries should learn indigenous languages and began
studying Vietnamese upon his arrival in northern Vietnam in 1627. To facilitate his
confreres' progress, he developed a system that came to be called quoc ngu, or "national
language." A limited number of symbols were used to express Vietnamese sounds, and
learning to read and write was simplified. He also published a Portuguese-Latin-
"Annamese dictionary, an "Annamese" grammar, and a quoc ngu catechism. Rhodes also
helped to found an institute to train missionaries. After winning approval by Pope
Innocent X and King Louis XIV, he founded the Société des Missions-Etrangères in 1665
in Paris, French missionaries had not been very active in Viet lands; henceforth, French
priests from the Society would always be present.
To understand Viet reactions, one must remember the elite's attitudes as well as the
wartime context. Viet Confucians viewed religion in terms of a dichotomy between
orthodox and heterodox doctrines. Confucianism was orthodox: it taught reverence for
parents and the emperor. It was considered the only correct moral system, and political
stability required its unaminous acceptance. Confronted with Catholicism, Viet
authorities the Le, Trinh, and Nguyen-banned it because it placed God above the emperor.
Due to the wartime context, however, the Trinh and Nguyen rarely enforced such edicts.
Each wanted contacts with Western states, sources of weapons and supplies. The
missionaries, hoping to avoid expulsion, served as commercial agents and interpreters.
The era of civil war was not a happy one for most Viet: both chua enforced high demands
for taxes, soldiers, and laborers. Neither practiced Confucian government or enjoyed
popular support. In 1771, the situation was transformed by a movement led by three
brothers from Tay-son village in Bình-dinh province. They rallied the people against such
excessive demands and never-ending wars. By 1788, the Tay-son had defeated the
Nguyen and Trinh and then did what neither had dared: abolished the Le Dynasty, found-
ing their Tay-son Dynasty (1788-1802). Having tasted power, the brothers grew alienated
from their supporters and from each other. They divided Viet lands among themselves
and competed for supremacy. Their regimes resem- bled military dictatorships rather than
benevolent monarchies. The Tay-son lost their supporters, leaving themselves vulnerable
in turn.

REUNIFICATION UNDER THE NGUYEN DYNASTY

Finally, a survivor of the Nguyen family mobilized this discontent. The Tay-son had tried
to exterminate the Nguyen in 1777, but Prince Nguyen Anh had escaped, fled to Siam,
and gathered partisans. Assuming that popular pro-Tay-son sentiment would fade,
Nguyen Anh invaded the Mekong delta region in 1788 and began to reestablish Nguyen
power there. Acknowledging that his ancestors' exploitative rule had caused their loss of
the South, he took care to portray his perspective as Confucian-inspired and benevolent.
The new Nguyen regime took advantage of the fertility of the underexploited southern
lands. Nguyen Anh settled supporters on uncultivated land, which helped southerners
meet their needs and generated supplies for the reconquest. The successful program
allowed him to tax lightly while marshaling resources to support the war effort. Produce
was traded to West- ern merchants for war materials. Nguyen Anh organized an
administration and military machine that was effective relative to the Tay-son's disunity
and corruption. Nguyen forces began advancing northward, supplying themselves from
the South. By 1802, they had destroyed the Tay-son and executed their hard-core
supporters. For the first time in 200 years, Viet lands were united under one ruler,
including areas added during the Nam tien. Nguyen Anh took the title of Gia-long (1802-
1820) and built a capital at Hue. After obtaining the approval of the Qing authorities in
China, Gia-long officially announced that the name of his kingdom would be Viet Nam.
In 1813, however, he changed the name to Dai Viet. His successor, Minh-mang, forbade
the use of Dai Viet, replacing it with Dai Nam. For convenience, we often refer to the
lands controlled by the Nguyen emperors as Vietnam.
France played a role in the reunification due to the actions of Bishop Pigneau de Behaine
(1744-1798). In Siam, Behaine convinced Nguyen Anh to offer France concessions in
return for aid and to use him, Behaine, as intermediary. When Nguyen Anh agreed,
Behaine went to France in 1787 to negotiate with Louis XVI (1754-1793), producing the
Treaty of Ver sailles, according to which France would effectively aid Nguyen Anh, who
would grant France commercial contracts, territory, and toleration for Cath- olics.
Behaine left for French India, where French forces were to assemble; but Louis
reconsidered, declaring the treaty void. When the news reached India, Behaine assembled
a fleet by combining Nguyen Anh's funds, his own resources, and contributions from
local French traders, who hoped to gain preferential treatment. Behaine also recruited
European mercenaries. The Europeans joined Nguyen Anh in July 1789 and contributed
to his efforts by forging cannon and training Nguyen forces in Western tactics. Mission-
aries helped to purchase supplies and weapons. French aid was significant to the Nguyen
victory but not decisive. The main causes of victory were the Tay-son's factionalism and
failure to maintain popular support; Nguyen Anh capitalized by establishing a regime in
the South with a solid economic and fiscal base. Having done so, he was able to win
popular support by playing the role of the benevolent monarch. With popular support in
the South and that region's resources at his disposal, he advanced northward to victory in
1802. France would later insist that the Nguyen Dynasty owed it the con- cessions
promised in the 1787 treaty, arguing that Behaine had fulfilled its obligations. Nguyen
Anh refused since the treaty said that France would help him but said nothing of
individuals.
After 1802, Franco-Vietnamese contacts were interrupted by the Napo- leonic Wars, but
French missionaries would remain in Vietnam. Gia-long tolerated them lest he appear
ungrateful, but he began a Confucian revival that would increase tensions between
Catholic and non-Catholic Vietnamese. Gia-long and his heirs followed Le precedent in
adopting Chinese models of bureaucratic government and political thought. The Nguyen
state established six boards (for taxation, works, rituals, war, public office, and justice)
and otherwise resembled China's government in many respects. Vietnam was divided into
provinces, to which centrally appointed officials were sent to collect taxes and enforce
laws. Confucian studies were linked to bureaucratic appointment. After Gia-long's death
in 1820, these trends would provoke conflict, giving France an excuse to attack in 1858.

PRE-COLONIAL INSTITUTIONS
Social Classes
On the eve of the colonial conquest, Vietnam's elite accepted Confucian conceptions of
society as comprising four ranked classes: scholars (u), peas ants (nong), artisans (cong),
and merchants (thuong). In theory, rank reflected each's contribution to society. Scholars
ranked highest as they provided eth- ical leadership and held office in the monarch's
service. Peasants came second since their labor provided necessary resources. Artisans
ranked third as they made useful or beautiful objects. Merchants were lowest because
they were considered parasitic elements who profited from exchanging goods produced
by others. However, this schema represented the Confucian scholars' world- view and did
not correspond to Vietnamese realities.
Early Nguyen-era society actually functioned as follows. At its pinnacle were the
emperors and their relatives, who held positions by hereditary right or marriage. Next
came the central-level officials, who worked in Hue, and local-level officials, who staffed
the provincial- and district-level offices. These officials, who generally won their
positions by passing examinations on the Confucian canon, history, and administration,
exercised authority on the em- peror's behalf and shared his prestige.
Below officialdom was a diverse class whom Western scholars term the "gentry." Strictly
speaking, Vietnam's gentry comprised scholars who held examination degrees but had not
entered or had retired from civil service; it included by extension scholars studying for
the examinations and locally powerful landowners. Gentry members, by virtue of their
association with Confucian studies and nearness to the bureaucracy, enjoyed a level of
prestige just below that of officeholders.
Similar to the gentry were religious specialists such as Buddhist monks, Taoist masters,
and geomancers. Local practitioners were supported by fol- lowers or clients, with
income dependent on their local reputations. All par- ticipated in the prestige that scholars
enjoyed, in that their positions derived from ancient learning, with pride of place going to
the Confucian scholar- officials.
The peasantry, officially ranked second, was the most numerous and least prestigious
sector. Eighty percent of Viet lived in rural society, and cultivating rice in the fields
surrounding the villages was the main economic activity. Until colonial times, most
farming families owned some land and, barring natural disaster, banditry, or warfare,
produced enough to support themselves and pay taxes. Although powerful landowners or
officials sometimes dispos- sessed peasants, familial ownership remained generalized
before the colonial era. This was in part due to the Nguyen Dynasty's efforts to prevent
the rise of powerful landed interests. Also important were
opportunities provided by migration to the southern frontiers. Most production was for
consumption rather than the market. Money was not widely used: taxes and rent were
usually paid in rice; farmers traded rice for other foods or goods. Most people practiced
subsidiary activities such as fishing, raising ducks, and weaving The third-ranking class,
the artisan class, was in fact almost nonexistent late traditional Vietnam, if we mean a
distinct and significant sector of society practicing a specialized trade. Most farming
families practiced a non- agricultural trade some of the time: fishing in rivers or lakes, or
weaving hats for sale at local markets. Some villages focused more exclusively on a trade
to the virtual exclusion of farming. Some northern villages, for example, followed a
single trade such as pottery making, teaching its skills to the boys of each generation.
Villagers sometimes forbade daughters from marrying outside the village to prevent rival
villages from learning trade secrets-Like- wise, some coastal villages relied almost
entirely on ocean fishing, but these were exceptions to the pattern of reliance on
agriculture. In cities, some Vietnamese artisans practiced trades like silversmithing, but
generally markets were dominated by articles made by Chinese artisans in China or
Vietnam. Moreover, Vietnam's imperial state hindered the development of an inde-
pendent Viet artisan class by ruinous taxation and the impressment of gifted artisans into
royal service. Thus, a true artisan class did not exist in pre- colonial Vietnam, the artisan's
relatively privileged place in the four-class hierarchy notwithstanding
Finally, only part of the merchant class was as lowly as its ranking. Perry retail commerce
in urban and rural markets was and remains the prerogative of Vietnamese women. Some
operated permanent shops in towns and cities, but most opened stalls or displayed wares
on the ground in periodic village markets. Large-scale trade, including interregional and
international trade in items such as precious metals or sacred texts, was controlled by
Chinese merchants, whose wealth and influence were vastly greater than that of
Vietnamese retailers.

The Village
The village was the basic administrative and social unit of rural life. Each village (lang or
xa) was divided into clusters of settlements called hamles (ap). Northern villages were
surrounded by bamboo walls, making it hard 1 for outsiders to enter. The typical village
had between 500 and 1,000 resi- dents who lived in from five to ten hamlets of about 100
people each and farmed in nearby fields.
Each village had a meeting house, or dinh, which was its administrative and spiritual
center. Administration was the prerogative of a council of no tables (hoi lang), twelve
men chosen by co-option. When a council needed a new member, members consulted
lists of resident males ranked by age, wealth, and learning. Voting was secret and
unanimity was required. Council membership was ardently desired, for it brought honor
as well as local power; the notables ran village affairs since the state rarely interfered.
Families were not directly taxed; the state kept records of how many lived in each village
and presented the notables with demands. The notables assigned obligations to each
family and collected the proceeds on the state's behalf, the state intervened only if
villages failed to meet obligations. The council also ad- ministered communal lands (cong
dien), inalienable lands owned by the village as a corporate body. Under its supervision,
cong dien were let to in- dividuals or families, the proceeds allowing the council to meet
its expenses, sponsor festivals, and support widows and orphans.

Villagers' solidarity was reinforced by the worship of a patron deity, or thanh hoang. The
deity, often the spirit of the village's founder or local beast, was responsible for protecting
villagers and was worshiped in the dinh. Organizing festivals in its honor was one of the
notables' most important re- sponsibilities, and their participation was a manifestation of
their local status. Villages were not democratic or socialist, as some scholars have
maintained, but they did enjoy limited self-government and aid some of their less
fortunate members.

The Imperial State

Founding the dynasty in 1802, the Nguyen emperors based their policy on their
admiration and fear of China: they admired Chinese culture and statecraft feared Chinese
domination. Their solution was to adopt China's political theories and institutions to make
Vietnam capable of re- sisting its domination. The Nguyen tried to remake Vietnam in
accordance with the Chinese model, emphasizing Confucian idology and Legalist state-
craft. In many ways the Nguyen state was a miniature model of the Qing: a centralized
system with the emperor at the top; a Grand Secretariat and a Privy Council to help
formulate policy, Luc Be, or Six Ministries, each with a specialized function (war,
taxation, public office, justice, public works, rites); and officials working for these
ministries assigned to govern the prov inces and districts. Impressed by Nguyen
Vietnam's borrowing, some scholars have dubbed it a "Smaller Dragon" or "Little China."
Such terms exaggerate the emperors' success, however. Sinicization was never so
complete as they wished, even among the elite, and popular culture remained the
religious focus for most villagers, despite Confucian influences that trickled down.

Cities
The Nguyen Dynasty's centralization stimulated the development of ad- ministrative
centers, with 31 provincial seats and 250 district-level capitals. Three cities may be
contrasted in terms of their differing roles and subsequent development.
The preeminent administrative city was Hue. Under the name of Phu- xuan, it had been
the locus of the Nguyen lords' power since the 1600s. When the Nguyen Dynasty was
founded, Hue became its imperial capital, the hub of administration and home of the
court and its highest officials. Hue became a scaled-down model of the Chinese capital,
Beijing. It was laid out in accordance with geomancy, which placed structures in relation
to the environment and each other. Buildings and gates associated with the emperor
opened to the South, as the Sage faced southward to impart wisdom. When completed,
Hue was three cities in one. At its center was the walled "forbid- den city" called Dai Noi,
or "Great Within," where the royal palaces and halls were housed. Surrounding this was
another walled city called the Hoang Thanh, or "Imperial Citadel," which housed
ceremonial halls such as the Thai Hoa Dien, or "Hall of Supreme Harmony." Both of
these were sur- rounded by a larger, capital city called the Kinh Thanh, in which were
housed the Six Ministries and other offices. High-ranking officials worked in the
outermost or capital city. Other structures associated with the court were beyond the city
proper, including the Esplanade of Heaven and Earth, site of royal Nam Giao rituals;
court-sponsored monasteries such as the Chua Thien Mu, or "Heavenly Lady Pagoda";
and the imperial tombs. The Nguyen tombs were major works. For Tu-duc's necropolis,
3,000 laborers worked for three years on pavilions, gardens, and lakes covering thirty
acres.
Hue was not a major commercial center in Nguyen times; its population numbered but
60,000 in the 1820s. With colonial rule, France's adminis- trative and commercial
interests focused on Ha-noi and Sai-gon, to Hue's detriment. With the Nguyen monarchs
reduced to figureheads, Hue's policy- making role was eliminated. Even this reduced role
was ended by the 1945 August Revolution. Many of Hue's buildings and artifacts were
destroyed in the Indochina Wars. Hue and its monuments are now considered part of the
World's Cultural Patrimony by the United Nations and benefit from funding for
restoration. Postwar Hue has developed small-scale industry, particularly weaving, but
with a population of a quarter million, it has not experienced the growth that has
characterized postwar Ha-noi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Under the names Thang-long and Dong Kinh, Ha-noi (the latter, used since 1831, means
"Between the Rivers") had been the capital of Viet dynasties from the eleventh century
until the nineteenth. Thus, it had long been the political and cultural model for the states
it served, housing the Temple of Literature (Van Mieu), examination fields, and an
eleventh- century temple, Chua Mot Cot ("One-Pillar Pagoda"). More of a political,
administrative, and cultural center than a commercial or industrial one, Ha- noi was still
tiny (several tens of thousands of people) when seized by the Nguyen. Nguyen Anh
demoted Ha-noi to "auxiliary capital," believing Hue's location more suitable for uniting
Vietnam. However, Ha-noi, though dam- aged during France's conquest, found an
enhanced importance under colo- nial rule. Given its proximity to China, it became
French Indochina's capital in 1902. A major center of French finance, commerce, and
society, Ha-noi's population grew to 150,000 by the period between the World Wars,
mainly due to the Viet and other Asians who came seeking employment. Held by the
French throughout most of World War II and the First Indochina War, Ha-noi has been the
capital of the D.R.V. from 1954 to 1976 and of the S.R.V. from 1976 to today. Ha-noi
suffered from bombing during the Sec- ond Indochina War, but many monuments (or
restored versions) can still be seen, including the One-Pillar Pagoda and Temple of
Literature. Other cities were prominent for commercial reasons. Sai-gon had been (as Prei
Kor) a Khmer outpost until the late 1500s, when the region came under Viet control.
Although it became an administrative center for Nguyen lords and Nguyen monarchs, its
characteristics as a Southeast Asian market town were never effaced. Western observers
in the 1820s noted the bustling atmo- sphere of its commercial quarters, where Chinese,
Viet, and other merchants exchanged silks, paper, and teas. Sai-gon was captured by the
French in 1859 and ceded to them in 1862. As French Cochin China's capital, it became a
major port through which the Mekong Delta's production passed en route to international
markets. By World War II, Sai-gon (including Cho-lon) housed a quarter million people.
Sai-gon continued to be administered by the French during most of World War II and the
First Indochina War. During the Second Indochina War, it was the capital of the R.V.N.
and the headquarters of U.S. military operations. By the 1960s, swelled by refugees, its
population grew to 2,000,000. After reunification, Sai-gon lost its position as national
capital to Ha-noi, but as Ho Chi Minh City it has led by example in the post-1987
reforms. Its prosperity-based on its port facilities, role in the export of agricultural
production, and position as an international com- mercial center-currently supports more
than 3,000,000 people. Despite the official change of name, most of its inhabitants still
refer to it as "Sai-gon" rather than as "Ho Chi Minh City."

THE FRENCH CONQUEST

Vietnam's Nguyen-era institutions and the beliefs that underpinned them came under
attack during colonial rule, beginning in 1858.
The Nguyen emperors viewed Catholicism as heterodox and resented the missionaries'
activities. The emperors knew that missionaries had ties with foreign powers and
supported rebellions against imperial authority. From 1830, the emperors banned
Christianity, ordering missionaries to leave and forbidding Vietnamese Catholics from
practicing their religion. Many mis- sionaries appealed to France's Emperor Napoleon III
(1852-1871). Antici- pating increasing Western trade with China, Napoleon sought bases
nearby and realized that the Christians' plight could legitimize intervention in Viet- nam.
In 1858, French troops landed at Da-nang, planning to advance to Hue and seize the Tu-
duc Emperor (who ruled 1848-1883). Missionaries had described Vietnam's
administration as disorganized and corrupt, promising that "Catholic as well as pagan"
Vietnamese would welcome liberation. De- spite technological disadvantages,
Vietnamese defenders resisted staunchly, containing French forces on the coast. Unable to
bring ships into the interior given the lack of deep rivers, the French could not advance
inland; lacking firepower, Nguyen forces could not push them into the sea.
In mid-1859, French forces moved to the South, where the rivers are deep and wide,
allowing them to move inland and destroy Vietnamese fortresses. By 1861, imperial
forces in the South had been crushed. The French began to patrol the rivers and coast to
prevent rice from reaching the Center, plung- ing Hue into famine. In 1862, Tu-duc sent
emissaries to French-held Sai- gon to negotiate. In the Treaty of Sai-gon, Vietnam agreed
to pay France an indemnity to permit French navigation of the Mekong River to cede
three southern provinces and to stop "persecuting" Catholics.
Entrenched in the area around Sai-gon, which they dubbed French Cochin China and
ruled as a colony, French officials planned to use the Mekong River to communicate with
China. Naval officers steamed up the Mekong in 1866, arriving in China in 1867 and
returning to Sai-gon in 1868. But the "river road to China" was impractical, given the
rapids in the upper Mekong valley.
Undeterred, the French shifted focus to the Red River, which offered a direct route to
China's interior, but they had no rights to its navigation, and the Governor of Cochin
China, Jules-Marie Dupré (1818-1881), schemed to provoke a fight. In 1873, he sent
Francis Garnier (1839-1873) with four gunboats into the Tonkin Delta with orders not to
leave until he had ex- torted, at the least, commercial freedom on the Red River. Arriving
in Ha- noi, Garnier declared the Red River open to commerce in the name of
"Civilization and France." He bombarded Ha-noi and cruised throughout the Tonkin
Delta, attacking forts and administrative centers. Vietnamese officials, despairing of a
military solution, signed the Treaty of Ha-noi in 1874, granting France access to China
via the Red River, several northern ports; and a veto over Hue's diplomacy to preclude
negotiations with other powers.
French officials soon concluded that Sino-French trade would reach its potential only if
France had full authority in northern Vietnam. They provoked a conflict by expanding
upon the 1874 treaty, claiming that navigation on the Red River implied rights to police it
and demanding that Hue cease tributary missions to China. When Hue refused, Captain
Henri Rivière (1827-1883) was sent to Tonkin in 1882 to replicate Garnier's actions. By
1883-1884, he had forced Hue to sign the Convention of the Protectorate, according to
which France assumed authority over the Center and the North and reduced the Nguyen
monarchs to figurehead status.

VIETNAM UNDER FRENCH DOMINATION

Tonkin (protectorate), Annam (protectorate), and Cochin China (colony) were linked with
Cambodia (a protectorate since 1863) and Laos (1893) to make French Indochina.
Heading the federal administration was a French governor-general based in Ha-noi, the
capital. Under the federal government were the governments of the five "countries"
(pays): Laos, Cambodia, Annam, Tonkin, and Cochin China. Protectorates were ruled by
indigenous officials under French control; the colony by Frenchmen directly.
Protectorates were more economical than colonies since the indigenous officials
remained in office while French residents "advised them. Cochin China was ruled di-
rectly as a colony since most mandarins had left their posts in the 1860s rather than work
for the French. By 1885, however, most officials in the North and Center had been ready
to collaborate. In Laos and Cambodia, traditional authorities collaborated through a
resident system.
French domination brought socioeconomic change to Indochina, particularly Vietnam.
The governorsgeneral strictly enforced existing taxes, imposed new taxes and
monopolies, and created an exportoriented plantation economy. The precolonial
Vietnamese economy had stressed self-sufficient, village-level agriculture. When
Vietnamese forces were defeated, the French granted the lands of the defeated soldiers to
Vietnamese and Chinese collab- orators. The French also encouraged notables to take
private ownership of communal land. Whereas the Nguyen monarchs had taxed lightly
and in kind, using the village as the responsible unit, the French taxed family heads
heavily, directly, and in cash. People had to sell rice at often unfavorable rates or face
imprisonment. Many were forced to borrow from usurers, using land as collateral.
Borrowing was often the first step to losing land to the creditor, after which ex-peasants
became tenants or wage-laborers for larger, market-oriented owners. Indochina became
the world's leading rice exporter, enriching all but the direct producer. From 1900, tension
rose between estate owners, who favored the French, and masses of the dispossessed,
who blamed France for their losses.
The French regime also encouraged mining and plantation agriculture in products other
than rice by building roads, railroads, and ports for exporting minerals and plantation
products. It leased exploitation rights to French firms, which recruited the landless as
laborers. The industries of extraction- iron, coal-were in the North, their products
exported via Hai-phong. Coffee thrived in the central mountains and rubber in the
plateaux above Sai-gon. The great rice lands were in the Mekong Delta. Working
conditions were deplorable. On rubber plantations, for example, people were housed in
barracks and worked long hours-from 3:00 A.M. until dark-for starvation wages. Bosses
had the right to punish "troublemakers" by beatings or imprisonment.
Apologists argue that France brought Vietnam the benefits of Western civilization,
pointing to hospitals, schools, and roads. Although there is some truth to this, hospitals or
schools were available only to a minority of Vietnamese, while the majority suffered
from the regime's taxation, brutality, and racial prejudice.

THE RISE OF NATIONALISM

The social tensions created by colonialism, along with its destruction of the imperial
order and its underpinnings, stimulated nationalism. During 1885-1954, resistance
developed in several stages.
Traditional anticolonialists fought the French in support of the Nguyen Dynasty. Their
ideology was Confucianism, their goal to restore the independent monarchy. An ex-
official named Phan Dinh Phung (1847-1895), for example, led pro-Nguyen guerrillas in
the Center until his death in 1895.
By 1900, most had been killed or captured, and, given Nguyen collaboration, the
monarchy as a unifying symbol had been discredited.
The next stage was led by men who had come to prominence after 1900. They were anti-
French but, disillusioned with Confucianism, looked to the West and Westernized Japan.
Phan Boi Chau (1867-1940), an intellectual of gentry origins, was among the first to
recognize that Vietnam had to draw upon Western models to strengthen itself to win
independence. He traveled throughout Asia in search of organizational forms and political
ideas, partic- ipating in many anti-French risings. Phan Boi Chau was captured in 1925
and sentenced to house arrest for life. Afterwards younger leaders emerged as modern
nationalists, noncommunist and communist.
The first noncommunist modern nationalist organizations in Vietnam were formed by
members of the urban middle class. This small group had arisen after 1900 and comprised
clerks, journalists, and lower-level admin- istrators. French-educated, they admired the
French conceptions of liberty. equality, and fraternity and were outraged by the difference
between legal equality and democratic freedom in France and the discrimination and re-
pression in Indochina. For example, in 1927, Nguyen Thai Hoc (Vinh-yen, 1904-1930)
founded the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnamese Na- tionalist Party, VNQDD), which
sought to overthrow the colonial regime and found a Vietnamese republic. He planned an
insurrection in spring 1930 at Yen Bay, planting agents in its sgarrison who were to
poison their officers. The French crushed it, however, decimating the VNQDD leadership
and bombing nearby villages in retaliation. By repressing the noncommunist na-
tionalists, France inadvertently opened the way for Marxists to dominate the movement.
The founder of Vietnamese communism was born Nguyen Sinh Cuong but is best known
as Ho Chi Minh (Nghe-an, 1890-1969). His father, an ex-mandarin, despised Hue's
collaboration and refused to let his son pursue Chinese studies. Instead, Ho studied
Western science, geography, and his- tory. In 1911, he left Vietnam by working on a
French ship, spending years at sea. In 1918, he settled in Paris and participated in émigré
politics. During the Paris peace talks following World War I (1914-1918), he obmitted
demands for Vietnamese autonomy and democratic rights. Allied leaders ignored him, but
these actions made him well known in émigré and French leftist circles.
In 1920, Ho became a founding member of the French Communist Party (FCP) and
eventually an agent of the Comintern, through which the Soviet Union (USSR) controlled
the world revolutionary movement. By 1923, Ho was studying in Moscow, after which he
went to South China to found a Communist Party. He began to instruct the Vietnamese in
Marxism and organizational techniques. In 1930, Ho founded the Indochinese Commu-
nist Party (ICP), dedicated to overthrowing colonialism and building social- ism in
Indochina; it was the ancestor of today's Vietnam Communist Party (VCP).
Many factors account for the ICP's success. The French police imprisoned and executed
dissidents. In this context, the ICP had advantages over its rivals. Its agents could go to
parts of China held by the Chinese communists or to the USSR for training. It had
financial resources provided by the USSR. As a Leninist party, its underground
organization was durable. It had a rural reform program and village-level ties; cadres
could hide among peasants. Thus, the ICP survived as a working entity until the Pacific
War, which created the circumstances for its seizure of power.
Germany conquered France in 1940, and a collaborationist regime was founded in Vichy.
Japan pressured French colonial officials. France would retain sovereignty and administer
Indochina, while Japanese forces would exploit its infrastructure and resources. As Vichy
collaborated with Germany, French Indochina worked with Japan. ICP leaders organized
to fight the Japanese and pro-Japanese French collaborators in preparation for a power
seizure, founding the Vietnam Independence League (Viet Minh) in May 1941.
Dominated by the ICP, it was supported by many noncommunist nationalists. Its
guerrillas attacked Japanese or French soldiers in isolation, taking their weapons. The
Viet Minh gathered intelligence for the Allies, passing it to America's Office of Strategic
Services (OSS) in China in return for These activities solidified the Viet Minh's
reputation as the nationalist opposition to Franco-Japanese rule.
As Japan's prospects declined, Japanese officers launched an anti-French coup in March
1945, imprisoning French officials and seizing the adminis- tration. The Japanese invited
Nguyen Vinh Thuy, the Bao-dai Emperor (who ruled 1926-1945), to reign over an
"independent" Vietnam, hoping to retain control behind the scenes and to appeal to the
Vietnamese to help Japan resist an Allied invasion.
Following Japan's surrender announcement of August 15, 1945, its forces throughout
Asia collapsed, leaving a power vacuum in Indochina. Who would fill it French forces
had been decimated by the March coup. Bao- dai's regime was tainted by collaboration.
The Viet Minh was respected by many Vietnamese as the only organization that had
fought for independence, and it had the only broadly based indigenous armed force.
Marching into Ha-noi unopposed, Viet Minh cadres occupied administrative offices. OSS
men confirm that Ho received a hero's welcome when he read on September 2, 1945, a
Declaration of Independence based on French and American precedents. The Viet Minh
founded the D.R.V. Bao-dai, lacking support and fearing arrest by the Allies, abdicated.
The D.R.V. initially enjoyed broad support based on the Viet Minh's wartime record and
nationalist stance. However, despite the nominal participation of noncommunist
nationalists, the D.R.V. soon became a Leninist dictatorship.

THE FIRST INDOCHINA WAR

Seeking to return as the colonial power, France initiated the First Indo- china War, from
1946 to 1954. French forces outnumbered and outgunned D.R.V. forces, now called the
People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), yet by 1954 the French were willing to withdraw. To
see why, one must understand the revolutionary warfare implemented by the D.R.V. The
D.R.V. accepted the fact that the French had the stronger conventional force and initially
avoided direct confrontations. When the French returned in 1946, it with- drew to the
Viet Bac mountains. It began the conflict with small-unit tactics: the booby trap, hit-and-
run attacks, and ambushes, allowing the D.R.V. to choose the time and place of
confrontations. Though inferior overall in num- bers and weaponry, D.R.V. forces were
often superior at the points chosen for attack. Gradually, the D.R.V. sought to develop
conventional capacities that would bring victory in positional warfare.
To conduct revolutionary warfare, the D.R.V. needed peasant support: it needed
intelligence, food and shelter, weapons caches, and recruits. It at- tracted the well-off
peasants by appealing to their nationalism.ted the poorer ones by implementing rent
reduction and land-distribution programs. These gave ex-tenants or laborers claim to land
but obliged them to support the D.R.V. Conversely, the D.R.V. terrorized or executed
those who refused. French forces controlled the cities and policed the deltas, but despite
their technological and numerical advantages were unable to expel D.R.V. cadres from
the villages.
France's position declined with the founding of the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.) in
1949. The P.R.C. gave the PAVN access to China, where its soldiers could rest, repair
equipment, and load supplies. Fearing wider war, France did not attack Chinese
sanctuaries. Soon the PAVN was mount- ing attacks against large French units. By 1953,
French forces were losing on the ground, and Paris was facing domestic opposition to
what was seen as la sale guerre, a "dirty war" defending colonial interests. To capitalize,
the PAVN invaded Laos from the northern mountains; reasoning that the French would
either abandon Laos or block the invasion, which would draw forces away from Tonkin
and stretch their air power to its limits.
The French responded by building a fortress at Dien Bien Phu, a valley through which the
PAVN had to pass to enter Laos. The French believed that their defenses, which could be
supplied by air, were impregnable. They believed the PAVN incapable of bringing
artillery and anti-aircraft guns to such an isolated spot. But during spring 1954 the PAVN
sur- rounded Dien Bien Phu, cutting supply routes. The PAVN was well armed with
Chinese-supplied cannons and anti-aircraft guns that had been disassembled, carried over
trails, and arrayed in camouflaged positions around the fortress. The PAVN attacked on
March 16, 1954, taking Dien Bien Phu on May 6, 1954.
At the Geneva Conference, France and the D.R.V. signed a truce setting up regroupment
zones North and South of the Seventeenth Parallel to sep- arate their forces. There were
to be elections in 1956 to choose the form and personnel of an independent Vietnamese
regime. Meanwhile, the D.R.V. would administer the northern zone, and France the
southern one. The elec- tions would never be held, setting the stage for renewed conflict.

THE SECOND INDOCHINA WAR

During the First Indochina War, America had supported France because of the European
priority of U.S. interests after 1945. Fearing Soviet aggres- sion in Europe, President
Harry Truman (1945-1953) wanted a strong, pro- Western France. The FCP was the
largest party in a multiparty system; losing Indochina might create discontent that it could
exploit. Although this factor stayed operative for a time, others arose to reinforce and
then replace it. Most important were the Cold War's internationalization and the Truman
Doc- trine, which sought the USSR's containment. In this context, the D.R.V.'s Leninism
became critical for U.S. leaders. Domestic anticommunism also became a factor after
1949. In the McCarthy era, charges of being "soft on communism" ruined careers,
motivating politicians to support defending In- dochina from perceived communist
aggression. To transmute colonial war into an anticommunist crusade, the French
pretended to give the Indochinese states independence in 1949. France made Bao Dai
chief of a State of Vietnam (S.O.V.), with like arrangements concluded with pro-Western
Lao and Khmer elites. The French claimed that they were helping independent states to
defend themselves, but France did not grant its creations real power. For example, the
S.O.V. army was com posed of Vietnamese draftees commanded by French officers, and
they fought alongside French troops. In the war's final years, most of France's expenses
were met by the United States.
Weakened and disillusioned, France was prepared to implement the Geneva Accords.
President Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961), wanting to con- tinue the fight for a
noncommunist Indochina, knew that Ho Chi Minh, a hero due to his anti-Japanese and
anti-French leadership, would win a free election. The United States pressed France to
leave in 1955, a year before the elections were to occur, and used Bao-dai and S.O.V.
personnel to erect an anticommunist state based in Sai-gon and controlling territory corre-
sponding to the southern regroupment zone. The United States provided economic aid to
Bao-dai, encouraging him to accept as prime minister Ngo Dinh Diem (1901-1963).
Diem had supporters in Washington, who liked him as an anti-French and anticommunist
nationalist; as a Catholic, he might rally his coreligionists.
With U.S. support, Prime Minister Diem organized a referendum in 1955 that allowed
him to depose Bao-dai and elevate himself to the pres idency of the R.V.N. The United
States poured aid and advisors into the South to create a state with an armed force (Army
of the Republic of Viet- nam, ARVN) that could contain the D.R.V. With U.S. support,
Diem canceled the elections scheduled for 1956. There were now two Vietnams: the
D.R.V., founded by Ho in 1945 (capital at Ha-noi); and the R.V.N., founded by Diem in
1955 (at Sai-gon). Indigenous support for the R.V.N. was largely limited to the civil
servants and military officers who had served France or the S.O.V.; the landed elites of
the Mekong Delta; and Catholics, many of whom had fled the D.R.V. Most of the rest of
the R.V.N.'s population either supported the communists or wanted to be left alone to
rebuild their lives.
The Communist Party, leading the D.R.V., sought to reunify Vietnam under its authority.
Its attempts to destroy, and U.S. efforts to save, the R.V.N. constituted the Second
Indochina, or Vietnam War from 1960 to 1975. The R.V.N. was vulnerable, for Diem's
misguided policies and arbi- trary brutality alienated many southerners, communist and
otherwise. In spring 1960 the Party supported the founding of the National Front for the
Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF) (which Diemists called Viet Cong). dedicated to
destroying the R.V.N., terminating U.S. influence, and reuni- fying Vietnam. Led by the
Party's Ha-noi-based Central Committee, NLF's rank and file were mostly southerners,
which allowed the D.R.V. to deny fostering insurgency.
President John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) continued America's commit ment to the R.V.N.
but tried to make its responses flexible and appropriate. Among the measures
implemented were increased aid and advisors, special forces, and programs to isolate
guerrillas from the population. None had much impact. Confident of foreign backing and
unwilling to conciliate its nationalist opposition, Diem's regime was corrupt, repressive,
and unpopu- lar. The NLF mobilized peasants by exploiting their discontent. It claimed to
be carrying on traditions of opposition to foreign domination. It imple- mented land
reform to attract landless and land-poor peasants, the majority in some southern
provinces. Like the Viet Minh, the NLF terrorized and eliminated the recalcitrant. By
these means, it founded a village-level infra- structure, and the R.V.N. could not destroy
it. The NLF's local recruiting was supplemented by the infiltration of cadres, troops, and
supplies from the D.R.V. via the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which wound from the D.R.V.
through Laos and Cambodia into the R.V.N.
Diem had become so unpopular that ARVN officers decided to oust him. Encouraged by
promises of aid from the Kennedy administration, the officers overthrew Diem and
murdered him on November 1-2, 1963. The South was ruled by successive juntas until
General Nguyen Van Thieu (b. 1923) emerged supreme and had himself elected president
in 1967; he would head the R.V.N. until 1975.
By 1963, the R.V.N. held the cities, but most villages were controlled by the NLF.
President Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969) intervened directly by bombing the D.R.V. and
sending U.S. troops to the South: in 1968, at the height of U.S. involvement, they
numbered a half million. U.S. forces used search and destroy tactics against the NLF's
(and later PAVN's) main-force units while the ARVN focused on bringing villagers under
control. In 1964, the D.R.V. began sending PAVN units to the South. Revolutionary
forces (PAVN and NLF) in the South were outnumbered by the United States and ARVN
three to one in manpower, with greater disparities in equipment. The war was stalemated
by 1967, making the situation untenable for the United States. Bombing tiny Vietnam had
made America an international pariah, and so many U.S. troops were in Vietnam that
other global corp mitments could not be met. Contrary to expectations, bombing the
North rallied people around the Communist Party in a perceived common effort against
aggression. The U.S. government, conscious of international opinion and fearful of
Chinese or Soviet intervention, observed self-imposed constraints: it limited bombing of
population centers, at least initially, it did not use nuclear weapons; it did not invade the
North. The bombing was also militarily problematic for the United States: the D.R.V.
used Soviet anti-aircraft systems that downed more than 1,000 planes and as many pilots.
Eventually U.S. public opinion turned against involvement: before 1967 most Americans
had supported the war, afterwards, most opposed it. Fol- lowing the PAVN's 1968 Tet
Offensive, Johnson, fearing an increasingly costly, inconclusive war, stopped bombing
the D.R.V. and initiated negoti- ations in Paris between the United States and the D.R.V.,
with R.V.N. and NLF participation.
In the context of the Paris talks, President Richard Nixon (1969-1974) began
"Vietnamization": withdrawal of U.S. troops while reinforcing the ARVN. The goal was
to calm domestic antiwar pressure by bringing U.S. troops home while forcing the
Communist Party to settle by denying it the possibility of victory. In 1973, a
breakthrough occurred, leading to the Paris Accords. The United States, the D.R.V., the
NLF, and the R.V.N. signed a treaty calling for an end to U.S. intervention and for
Vietnamese reconciliation through peaceful means, but the parties had not resolved their
differences and so provided no viable mechanism by which it could occur.
After American withdrawal, the Vietnamese sides violated the cease-fire, leading to a
"postwar war." Congress prevented Nixon from intervening and began reducing aid to the
R.V.N., but the ARVN, larger and better armed than the NLF/PAVN, retained the means
to defend itself. Its prob- lems were psychological and strategic. ARVN officers were
demoralized by their "betrayal" at the hands of the Americans. Unaccustomed to relying
on themselves, they felt that the end was inevitable so they focused on feathering their
nests and planning their escapes. Strategically. Thieu erred by trying to hold too much
territory, spreading troops thinly, making them vulnerable. When the PAVN attacked the
Central Highlands in spring 1975, ARVN units retreated in disorder, local defeat became
gen- eralized rout. ARVN officers and troops felt the end was near; in the main, they
acted to save themselves. They thought that the end had come, and so it had.

THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC

When the R.V.N. fell on April 30, 1975, the PAVN administered the South until the
D.R.V.'s structures expanded. In 1976, Vietnam was reunified, becoming Viet Nam Cong
Hoa Xa Hoi Chu Nghia, or Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.). Ha-noi, the D.R.V.'s
capital, became the national capital: Sai-gon, ex-capital of the defunct R.V.N., became
Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh or Ho Chi Minh City. The Ha-noi-based Dang Lao Dong Viet
Nam, or Vietnam Workers' Party (VWP), renamed itself Dang Cong San Viet Nam, or
Vietnam Communist Party (VCP). In 1980, a new Constitution was promulgated to stress
the regime's Leninist nature and socialist goals. Government was based on parallel
hierarchies of Party and state: policy is set at the Party's higher levels, with application
left to the state. The VCP general secretary controls the personnel and agenda of the VCP
and the S.R.V.'s state structure. Le Duan held the position until 1986, when he was
replaced by Nguyen Van Linh; Linh retired in June 1991; the torch was passed to his
protégé, Do Muoi; from 1997 to the present, it has been held by Le Kha Phieu.
At war's end, Vietnam faced dire economic problems. From 1955 to 1975, the R.V.N.'s
economy had relied on U.S. aid and the expenditures of Amer- ican personnel. This
ceased in 1975, by which time the South had been devastated, its forests defoliated, its
farms cratered. The war also left millions of refugees; hundreds of thousands of
demobilized ARVN soldiers; hundreds of thousands of drug addicts; hundreds of
thousands of invalids; tens of thousands of prostitutes.
Such problems would have been daunting regardless of the approach, but S.R.V. policies
exacerbated problems. Le Duan implemented centralized eco- nomic planning:
nationalization of industry, and agricultural collectivization. This model had been tried in
the D.R.V. in the 1950s and failed to meet the growing population's needs, but Soviet
bloc aid had allowed the Party to conceal that failure and ignore its lessons. In 1978, a
like program was im- plemented in the South. Industry was nationalized and run by the
State Planning Commission, which determined the production of each sector and plant. It
coordinated the exchanges among units to ensure that raw materials were available and
that products had buyers. State-appointed managers were told what to make, where to
buy raw materials and at what price, to whom to sell, and how much to charge. To
succeed, managers had to meet quotas; if a factory ran a deficit, the state would make it
up. Since managers did not face market competition, they were not motivated to maintain
quality. There was much latitude for corruption.
Substandard products were accepted by inspectors for bribes. Industrial products were too
old-fashioned or shoddy for sale in global markets, con- straining imports. The USSR
provided two billion dollars annually, but most of this went into large-scale projects,
many of which were troubled by mis- management or corruption. Collectivization began
in 1978, with similar results. Landholders lost their holdings and became wage-laborers
on communally owned farms. Farmers were told what and how much to produce; the
state bought rice at fixed rates for distribution at subsidized prices. The goal was the
socialist one that the state should provide for all, but the system failed to provide
adequately for the Vietnamese of the South, as it had failed in the North. Farmers had
little incentive to produce beyond their subsistence needs: they could keep only about 20
percent of the harvest, with the rest going to the state. Increments in production generated
by producers' dili- gence or creativity could be obtained by the state by manipulating
quotas and pricing. Unable to keep pace with a growing population, the state bought rice
from other Asian countries but was unable to ensure decent nutrition. Lines formed at
state stores to buy scarce rations. Malnutrition became chronic. Some survived by the
black market, selling medicines sent by rela- tives abroad.
Given the VWP's monopolization of political life and the desperation created by its
economic measures, an exodus of hundreds of thousands of "boat people" began in spring
1978. Leaving was illegal, but officials co- operated in return for bribes. Those who could
not afford protection took their chances; many were caught and jailed, some repeatedly.
Those who escaped spent months or years in refugee camps in nearby countries before
being accepted for resettlement in the West. Thousands drowned or were victimized by
pirates, who robbed, raped, and murdered them. Neighboring countries' receptivity
waned; they began turning away boats, firing on them or towing them to sea.
International outcry finally forced the S.R.V. to meet with the concerned countries.
Meeting in Geneva in July 1979, the partici- pants founded the Orderly Departure
Program, ODP. Vietnam agreed to end illegal emigrations and begin processing refugees
for emigration; South- east Asian states agreed to accept boat people until they could be
resettled in the West: Western states agreed to accept more refugees for resettlement;
Japan agreed to pay many of the program's expenses. ODP reduced the flow of illegal
refugees but did not stop it.
These difficulties discredited Le Duan's policies. After his death in 1986, the Party's Sixth
Congress elected General Secretary Nguyen Van Linh. who launched Dei Moi
(Renovation), attempting to raise production via market incentives with limited political
liberalization. The VCP would re- main supreme in politics but would partially withdraw
from economics to let the market operate. Under Nguyen Van Linh and Do Muoi, who
took control in 1991 due to Nguyen Van Linh's ill health, the state discontin- ued forced
purchases and distribution of rice. The borders were opened to foreign trade, and foreign-
investment laws were passed to attract capital. Control over land was returned to farming
families via long-term agree- ments: in return for paying fixed amounts to the state each
year, they were allowed to use land for fifteen years with a right to renew the contract.
Produce above the fixed fee was theirs to keep or sell. Many large-scale, state-owned
projects were abandoned. Emphasis shifted to agriculture and consumer goods, and the
state's role in these sectors declined. Factory managers were told that they would have to
de ide what to make, and purchase raw materials inside or outside Vietnam, and market
goods on their own initiative. If factories were not profitable, bankruptcy became a
possibility. Private firms were free to set up businesses and trade domesti cally and
internationally. The result has been rising production and im- proved living standards.
Vietnam is a rice exporter for the first time since the 1930s. Despite these improvements
and vast potential, Vietnam is one of Asia's poorest countries. Many years and much
investment will be needed for it to catch its neighbors.
The new route to growth is not without hazards. Economic liberalization has rewarded
people with capital, knowledge, entrepreneurial skill, and po- litical connections; those
lacking these prerequisites have lagged, raising the specter of a new class structure, with
elite "red capitalists" (tu ban do) at the top and impoverished masses at the bottom.
Moreover, since economic liberalization has dismantled much of the public sector, the
New Poor, a sig- nificant minority, are losing access to health care and education. As
industrialization accelerates without effective regulation, ecological costs are mounting:
pollution of air and water, destruction of forests, and over-fishing of rivers and coastal
seas. Finally, whether economic reform will lead to political liberalization is uncertain.
While the 1992 Constitution no longer proclaims Leninism's centrality, it continues to
insist on the Party's leading role.
 3 - Thought and Religion

INTRODUCTION
VIETNAM IS OFTEN DESCRIBED as a Buddhist or Confucian country, and atlases
display shaded maps indicating its Buddhist, Confucian, and other populations. In reality,
position at a crossroads of civilizations has the peoples inhabiting what is now S.R.V.
territory to many traditions, and most pre-colonial Viet held beliefs derived from multiple
sources. It is thus impossible to say with certainty the number of followers of particular
faiths in any era, past or present.
In addition to Animism (the belief that spirits inhabit nature), which was common
throughout Asia, most major religions, including Taoism, Bud- dhism, Confucianism,
Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam have penetrated and are still followed in the lands that
constitute the S.R.V. The Viet rarely accepted beliefs or practices wholly as presented to
them. They adopted and adapted foreign traditions, blending them with indigenous beliefs
and with each other. By Nguyen times Vietnam presented a diverse mosaic, its peoples
followed many traditions and did not see them as contradictory. Most Viet- namese
followed varieties of Animism flavored with religious Taoism and devotional Buddhism.
Scholars and officials, though not so distant from the village world as they purported to
be, criticized the "superstitious" nature of such practices, stressing "rational" Confucian
ones instead.

ANIMISM
In the early 1900s, one observer noted that "the true religion of the Viet- namese is the
cult of the spirits. This religion has no history, because it dates from the origins of the
race." This "cult of the spirits," or Animism, denotes beliefs, mostly indigenous, that the
world is inhabited by multitudes of spir- itual beings.
Pre-colonial Viet believed that spirits inhabited rocks, trees, animals, and the rest of the
natural world; and that people should propitiate them to avoid disasters and attract
success. Spirits inhabited large trees, oddly shaped rocks, bodies of water, or shaded
areas, and villagers tried to propitiate their deni- zens-or to avoid them entirely. Villagers
were careful not to mention spirits by name, by saying the name, one evoked the being
and risked its wrath. For example, tigers, seen as vessels of powerful spirits, were called
ong ("grandfather"). Villagers gave children unattractive names so that spirits would not
harm them; the names were changed when the child reached adulthood. In many families,
children were referred to by their family ranking instead of by names. Southern families
began counting from two, as the firstborn son would likely be of interest to malevolent
spirits. Thus, siblings addressed their eldest brother, who was really older brother number
one, as anh hai, "older brother two."
The spirits of large animals, such as whales, dolphins, and tigers, were venerated. In
coastal southern and central Vietnam, villagers notified imperial authorities when a
beached whale was found, and, with their approval, buried the animal. The person who
found the carcass assumed the role of the whale- spirit's "firstborn son" in the
ceremonies, mourning as if his own father had died. Three years later villagers disinterred
the bones and installed them in a temple. The Nguyen courts gave villages licenses to
conduct these rituals and granted the whale-spirits titles such as Nam-hai Tuong-Quan
Ngoc-Lan Ton-Than ("Honored Spirit, Jade-Scaled Admiral of the South Sea"). Villagers
believed that these ceremonies induced the whale-spirit to protect them and ensure
bountiful catches.
Humans were believed to have two kinds of souls: three hon, and seven (for men) or nine
(for women) phach or via. Distinctions are made between the hon, considered to be more
spiritual, and the via, more material. Some sia were thought to be helpful entities, called
via lanh, ("kind" spirits), while others, via xau ("wicked" spirits), were malicious. A
person could harbor by fragrant breezes, evidence of an auspicious spirit's entry. Spirits
might temporarily leave a living person's body if the host suffered a fright, as re- flected
in the expression se mat hon ("so frightened that he lost his soul"). Death was the final
separation between spirits and body, with the via staying in the corpse's vicinity and the
hon leaving for the next world-and reincar- nation, Buddhists believed.
Since people's spirits survived the host body's death, they, like other spirits, were capable
of acting in the world of the living. With a medium's aid, they were asked for advice,
protection, and material benefits. Ancestral spirits were the most important since they
cared about their descendants' well-being. For an extended family, the proper burial of
deceased ancestors and worship of their spirits ensured the latter's welfare and prompted
their benevolent in- tervention. Wealthier lineages maintained inalienable lands called
huong hoa ("fire and incense") to provide resources for the ancestral cult; poorer families
tried to reserve a room or section of the home for an ancestral altar. Cere- monies
involving offerings (of food, incense, drink, and betel) and prostration were conducted in
the deceased's honor on Tet (the New Year) and the gio, or death anniversary. Pre-colonial
Vietnamese did not celebrate birthdays per se, although children received gifts of money
called tien mung tuoi (age- celebrating money") at New Year's celebrations, and a
person's sixtieth year (luc tuan) was considered an important milestone. Since colonial
times, some urban families have taken up the practice of Western-style birthday celebra-
tions complete with cakes and candles. Smaller offerings of fruit, incense, or alcohol
were made to mark milestones in family members' lives, such as the birth of children.
Ancestor worship was common to Viet of all faiths, in- cluding, in attenuated form,
Catholics, despite the ecclesiastical hierarchy's prohibition of it. Today, even the most
Westernized Vietnamese, in Viet- nam or abroad, maintain an ancestral altar in the home
before which they burn incense or make offerings. There is currently a revival of ancestor
wor- ship in the S.R.V., manifested in ordinary people's efforts to set up altars, repair and
visit familial graves, or assemble family members to commemo- rate gio.
The spirits of people who had died far from home, or of those with ne- glectful
descendants, became "wandering souls" (vong hon). They might harm anyone they
encountered, causing illness or accidents, and villagers protected themselves by erecting
altars in fields and along roads; passersby made offer- ings of flowers or incense to
appease the spirit. During the "Feast of Wan- dering Souls" on the full-moon night of the
seventh lunar-calendar month, incense and food offerings in banyan leaf containers were
left in outdoor shrines to nourish song hon. Apprehension about vong hon persists in the
S.R.V., whose highways are lined with altars to appease accident victims spirits.
At the community level, villagers placated local spirits linked to the village and charged
with protecting it. Since about the 1400s, each village has had a dinh, or communal
house, used for council meetings and rituals honoring the thanh hoang, the village's
patron deity. As a lineage worshiped its ancestors to obtain family-specific benefits, each
village honored its patron deity in hopes of winning support for the village as a whole.
Deities were chosen from among many candidates, including village founders, historical
figures, and animals. The deity was enshrined in an altar in the dinh and honored by
sacrifices of pigs or buffalo that were ritually offered to the deity and consumed by the
notables. The imperial states regulated Animistic practices to legitimize imperial rule and
prevent ta giao ("heterodox teachings") from corrupting morals and pro moting rebellion.
We have seen how the Nguyen-era courts granted burial licenses to whale-worshiping
villagers. The courts also tried to formalize local ancestor worshiping along Confucian
lines to encourage filial piety. Filial sons and daughters, it was believed, became loyal
adult subjects. Emperors also tried to regulate the worship of villagers' protective spirits.
The Nguyen required that villages secure court approval of candidates for a protective
spirit. When it accepted a nominee, it issued a "spirit-warrant," or sac-than, which named
and ranked the deity, described its services, and confirmed its duty of protecting locals in
return for worship.

TAOISM
Tanism (Dao-rise) orieinated in China durine the strueeles precedine the founding of the
Qin Empire in 221 B.C.E. Its seminal text is The Classic of the Way and Virtue, a
collection of works attributed to Laozi, a mythical figure whose name means "Old
Master" (Lao-tu). Living in turbulent times, the Taoists looked back to a Golden Age,
when, they believed, humans had lived in harmony with the Tao, a transcendent principle
that acted by com- bining two properties, "concentration" (am) and "expansion" (duong).
All things derive from a combination of the two, with am supplying matter or solidity,
and duong subtle principle or spirit. Golden Age kings had lived in harmony with the Tao,
pacifying the world by "nonaction." As humans became "civilized" and corrupted, rulers
and subjects ceased to follow the Tao, instead contending for wealth and power. The
solution was to return to the simplicity and harmony with natural forces that had preceded
civili- zation. Taoists longed for a sage-king who would not meddle in people's affairs or
provoke futile wars, but who could return humans to their former affinity with the Tao.
However, China's political stage would be dominated by rulers espousing Confucianism
while utilizing Legalist administrative techniques. With no sage-ruler to provide a model
of Taoist statecraft or ecclesiastical structure to enforce philosophical conformity,
Chinese Taoism assumed a popular or religious coloration. Believing that understanding
nature allows one to com- mand its powers, Taoist priests explored alchemy and inner
hygiene as routes to immortality. They also worshiped deities such as the Jade Emperor,
the king of heaven, and practiced shamanism to contact spirits to ask their advice and
protection.
Although Chinese philosophical Taoism has had little impact in Vietnam, religious or
popular Taoism, resembling spirit worship, was well received from the early centuries of
Chinese domination. Taoist concepts of using purification and incantations to manipulate
the universe's natural forces or to invoke its spiritual inhabitants appealed to Animistic
worshipers. Chinese Taoist masters must have looked like sophisticated practitioners of
the same magical or spirit-worshiping arts that Yueh peoples had known since pre-
Chinese times. Likewise, the Taoist pantheon's deities blended easily into the Viet
spiritual universe. The Jade Emperor (Ngoc Hoang Thuong De) and his court became and
remain-common objects of worship in Vietnamese temples. Animist-Taoist blending was
so seamless that, in modern times, scholars and even practitioners cannot always tell
which practices are indig- enous Animism and which are imported Taoism.
By Nguyen times, Taoist masters called thay, "father" and, by extension, "teacher" or
"master," were entrenched in the Vietnamese scene, serving as healers, mediums, and
geomancers. For example, since illness was thought to be caused by spirits, thay were
asked to identify the culprit and explain how to propitiate it. The victim's relatives
invoked the spirit and beseeched it to accept worship and offerings in exchange for
leaving the afflicted party alone. Likewise, burial involved selecting an auspicious spot
for interment, and masters of geomancy (phong thuy, "wind and water") would analyze
the relationships among mountains, rivers, and other formations before render- ing a
verdict.
Confucian rulers looked askance on such "superstitions" (me tin) and tried to regulate or
suppress them, but popular demand for Taoist ritual and wor- ship ensured their survival.
For example, anthropologists have documented Taoist practices among the Perfume
River's "boat people" in the 1990s. Despite the opposition of the S.R.V.'s officials, who
condemn such practices as superstitious, locals continue to consult Taoist masters as
healers, for- tunetellers, and mediums.

BUDDHISM
Like Taoism, Buddhism developed abroad before entering Viet lands. In traditional
accounts, the historical Buddha was born a prince around 566 B.C.E. in the Sakya
kingdom (on the border of modern India and Nepal). His given name was Siddhartha, his
clan name Gautama; after enlighten- ment, he was called Sakyamuni or "Sage of the
Sakya" (Thich-ca-mau-ni). Finding court life meaningless in the face of omnipresent
suffering, he left to seek By living simply and practicing meditation, full of reality came
to him under a pipal tree, and he became a Buddha, or an "Enlightened One." He spent
the rest of his life teaching and founding mo- nastic communities in the Ganges Valley.
His doctrine, or dharma, is based on Four Noble Truths: (1) Life is suffering. (2) The
origin of suffering is desire. (3) To end suffering, eliminate desire. (4) Desire can be
ended by following the Eightfold Path: Right Un- derstanding. Right Resolve, Right
Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right
Meditation. The Buddha emphasized that, given reality's variable nature, attempts at
worldly happiness fail. Only by accepting the Four Noble Truths and following the
Eightfold Path can one extinguish the (false) sense of self and its cravings. Early Bud-
dhism thus stressed self-discipline aimed at attaining nirvana (Sanskrit, "blowing out";
Vietnamese, Niet Ban), liberation from suffering during one's lifetime and escape from
rebirth. The Buddha did not claim to be a savior, prophet, or deity. After his death around
483 B.C.E. disciples interpreted the dharma differently, and rival schools arose.
The school that claims to hold to the original teachings calls itself Ther- avada, "Way of
the Elders." It stresses that nirvana must be sought by fol- lowing the path laid down by
the Buddha, with each person working out his or her It attracted followers in India and
abroad, but to some its seemingly selfish focus on individual salvation meant that only a
few could reach nirvana.
In the first century C.E. new interpretations arose in India stressing the Buddha's
superhuman nature and emphasizing semidivine previous and future Buddhas as well as
bodhisattvas ("wisdom beings"), who had liberated themselves but remained in the world
to help others. Buddhas and bodhi- sattvas were worshiped and asked for help, material
and spiritual. Since pro- ponents claimed that their doctrines could save all beings, they
called it Mahayana, or Great Vehicle, in contrast to earlier doctrines, which they termed
Hinayana, or Lesser Vehicle. (In Vietnamese, Mahayana and Hina- yana are Dai Thua and
Tieu Thua, respectively.)
Although Buddhism declined in India after the twelfth century, by then it had spread
widely. Theravada Buddhism eventually spread to Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Laos,
Cambodia, and southern Vietnam, where it is still practiced. Mahayana Buddhism
penetrated Tibet, China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, remaining popular in all of them.
Everywhere, Buddhism blended with indigenous customs, beliefs, and practices.
Buddhism entered Viet lands in the first centuries C.E. during Chinese rule, although the
precise dates of entry and means of transmission are un- known. The Viet were probably
introduced to Buddhism by seaborne monks en route from India to China; terrestrial links
with China later became com- mon. While Theravada influence via the sea route or
contact with Khmers living in what became southern Vietnam cannot be discounted,
Vietnamese Buddhism mainly derives from Mahayana traditions developed in China. The
Viet were not passive recipients, however; they elaborated on received doctrines and
contributed to developments in Chinese Buddhism as well.
During the early independence era, from the tenth century until the founding of the Later
Le Dynasty in the fifteenth century, Buddhism played a vital role in Viet society and
government, sometimes serving as the state religion. Buddhist monks needed to be
literate in Chinese to read Mahayana scriptures, and this qualified them for state service
at a time when the loyalty of Confucian scholars was suspect in light of the support that
some had given to Chinese occupation regimes. Monks also seemed less threatening to
rulers, for their severing of family ties (xuat gia) and commitment to celibacy sug- gested
that they would not covet the throne. During the early Viet monar- chies, monks served as
imperial advisors, officials, and diplomats; royally sponsored pagodas in distant corners
of the land symbolized royal power's reach and acted as a unifying factor. For monks,
political activity was justified by the doctrine that "abstention from the world" (xuat the)
was compatible with "worldly participation" (nhap the); insights gained from withdrawal
and meditation could benefit living beings through political activity. Buddhism's
influence on political life in this era is reflected by the fact that several mon- archs were
ordained as monks, either before accession to the throne or after leaving it. In short, the
early dynasties derived legitimacy from sponsoring Buddhism and found monks useful in
exercising power. Given its promi- nence at court and in the villages during the first four
centuries after Chinese rule ended, later Vietnamese Buddhists consider this a "Golden
Age."
From the founding of the Later Le Dynasty in the fifteenth century, Con- fucianism's
revival as state ideology and the increasing role it played in the training and recruitment
of bureaucrats meant an eclipse of Buddhism at the imperial courts and reduction in the
formal political roles of its priesthood. Nonetheless, some members of the imperial and
warlord families were lay practitioners and sponsors of temples and monasteries.
Moreover, Bud- dhism's local influence continued during this period, even growing
during the noi chien (civil war), given the decline of central power and struggles among
military rulers less committed to Confucianism. With diminished access to royal or
princely power, Buddhism entrenched itself deeply in the villages, its monks adapting to
local society by practicing geomancy, astrol- ogy, and healing.
Then, after 1802, the Nguyen emperors, considering Buddhism an im- pediment to
Confucian policies, tried to control its practice. Measures in- cluded curbs on building
pagodas, limits on the size of the sangha, and examinations to ensure its doctrinal
competency. The Nguyen also supported monasteries and pagodas in the Hue region to
concentrate high-level Bud- dhist personnel and activities in a central location, where,
dependent on royal patronage, they could be supervised. It was under Nguyen rule that
Hue became a center of Buddhism, and many of its celebrated Buddhist structures date
from this time.
While some elite Viet explored doctrines derived from Chinese meditation sects, most
Viet practitioners were attracted to devotional and spiritualist aspects. Given the
Animistic ability to fuse or blend with other religious beliefs, the Mahayana's multiple
Buddhas and bodhisattvas were readily adopted; like Taoist divinities, they were useful
for seeking worldly success and advancing the fortunes of departed spirits in the
hereafter.
Vietnamese Buddhism's blend with Animism can be seen in the array of statues installed
in pagodas. An early colonial-era pagoda in Tonkin, for example, was usually an H-
shaped structure hidden behind trees and sur- rounded by walls. Once inside the walls,
practitioners entered the pagoda proper through the right side of the H. as it were, and
walked into the bar joining the two sides. At the entrance were statues of Ho-Phap, or
"Guardians of the Law," the Thien-Huu and Ac-Huw, who encouraged the good and
punished the wicked. The main sanctuary and hall of ceremonies was housed in the
rectangular central structure (in the "bar" joining the two sides of the H), in which most
of the statuary was displayed. Sakyamuni Buddha ap- peared as a newborn baby, as an
emaciated ascetic, and as a reclining adult. The scenes represent, respectively, his
miraculous birth, in which he emerged from his mother's side and walked in the four
directions, proclaiming that this was to be his last birth; a period during which he sought
wisdom via asceticism; his last sermon, given while reclining on his right side, before
entry into final nirvana.
In most pagodas, statues and images devoted to the historical Buddha were
overshadowed by those of Amitabha (A-di-da), Buddha of the Pure Land of the Western
Paradise (Tinh do). A-di-da is believed to transport petitioners to his Western paradise,
where, free of distractions and instructed by Buddhas and bodhisattvas, they practice
diligently and attain nirvana. Maitreya (Di- lac), a corpulent figure with an exposed torso
and smiling face, symbolizing absence of worldly cares, was also prominently featured.
He is the "Future Buddha," who waits in the Tushita Heaven for the end of Sakyamuni's
reign, when he will to earth to teach the dharma anew. Pagodas also housed statues of the
Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, "the Lord Who Looks Down" in compassion for worldly
suffering. A male figure in early Indian Buddhism, Avalokitesvara's identity changed in
East Asia, where compassion is often considered a "feminine" virtue. While most Chinese
visions of Avalokitesvara range from gender-neutral to female, Vietnamese emphasize the
female Quan The Am, the "Perceiver of the World's Sounds," who responds to suffering
beings' cries. She often appears as a thousand-eyed, thousand-armed deity, symbolic
attentiveness and helpfulness.
Statues of non-Buddhist deities were also found, including Taoism's Jade Emperor.
Smaller buildings attached to the sides at the rear of the main structure housed statues of
Buddaism's eighteen arhats, or saints. As a de- terrent, statues of the Kings of Hell
inflicting on sinners tortures appropriate to their sins were displayed. A separate room
was reserved for cults devoted to a pagoda's deceased abbots, whose cremated remains
might be housed in stupa outside the pagoda but within its grounds. Another room housed
shrines to deceased lay followers whose relatives had paid a sum called hau so that the
monks would conduct rituals to ease their suffering in hell and speed felicitous
reincarnation.
Buddhism played a political role during the Indochina Wars, particularly the Second.
Claiming that Diem favored Catholics at the expense of the R.V.N.'s Buddhist majority in
regulating religious practices, selection to state posts, and aid distribution, activist monks
mobilized urbanites for anti- R.V.N. protests. Blaming the United States for the war,
which they described as one pitting Vietnamese against Vietnamese while devastating
their home- land, they advocated the R.V.N.'s overthrow and national reconciliation un-
der a coalition government to include the NLF, Buddhists, and other nationalists. The
movement garnered a large urban following, including many who were not necessarily
devout but supported the monks as symbols of resistance to foreign influence and the
Diem regime. In May 1963, R.V.N. policemen shot into a crowd of demonstrators, killing
nine. In protest, monks went into public places, had themselves drenched with gasoline,
and lit matches, meditating as they were consumed by flames. Such scenes appeared in
the international media, outraging public opinion. President Kennedy urged President
Diem to negotiate with Buddhist leaders, but Diem cracked down: thousands of students
and demonstrators were arrested; many were beaten by the police. In a raid on Xa Loi
Pagoda in Sai-gon, for example, a number of monks were killed. The resulting outrage
contributed to the Ken- nedy administration's decision to support the ARVN in its
November 1963 coup d'etat.
Conflicts between state and sangha in the R.V.N. did not end with Diem's death. In spring
1964, Buddhist leaders institutionalized their political role by founding the Unified
Vietnamese Buddhist Religious Association (Giao- hoi Phat-giao Viet Nam Thong-nhat).
It grouped Vietnamese Buddhists under a central hierarchy, which divided southern
Vietnam into seven zones, each of which was subdivided into provincial-level, district-
level, and village-level administrative units. As the head of the Association's policy-
making body, the Council of the Buddhist Hierarchy. Thich Tri Quang militated against
politicians supporting escalation of the war and in favor of those supporting neutralism.
Finally, the Buddhist movement, never so unified as its name suggested, was suppressed
by force in 1966-1968, its key figures silenced by imprisonment or exile. While
Buddhist-inspired opposition to the American- supported regimes in Sai-gon continued at
a lower level until 1975, Buddhists would never again bring such sustained pressure
against any Vietnamese government. Despite the Association's opposition to the R.V.N.
and the United States, Buddhism has not fared better than the other organized relig- ions
under the S.R.V.

CONFUCIANISM
Confucianism derives from the thought of Kong Fuzi (551-479 B.C.E.), a Chinese thinker
roughly contemporaneous with the early Taoists. Like them, Confucius (as he is known in
English) was troubled by the times in which he lived. He believed that his historical
studies had revealed the answer to contemporary problems and sought ministerial rank to
put things right. He never attained sufficient authority to put his ideas into practice,
however, and withdrew to become a teacher, a role in which he found enduring influence.
Confucius taught that ancient rulers had practiced the Way of Virtue, and the people had
followed their positive examples. He described these rulers' attributes as ren
("benevolence"; Vietnamese nhan). The problem, Confucius believed, was that his
contemporaries had forgotten how to act in such a fashion. For this he blamed the
reigning kings: they pursued wealth and power rather than virtue, setting bad examples.
Scholars who knew the Way of Virtue-Confucius and his disciples-had to teach kings
how to return to the Way. The people would follow a virtuous ruler's example, as reeds
bend before the wind. To help rulers and people act virtuously, Confucius argued that
people must accept fixed roles within a social hierarchy: "Let the ruler rule as he should
and the minister be a minister as he should. Let the father act as a father should and the
son act as a son should." If each would meet the obligations of his or her role-for
example, if rulers would practice ren-harmony would be restored. The teachings of
Confucius and his dis- ciples, along with older texts on which they relied, were
eventually canonized as the Four Books and the Five Classics.
Confucianism was adopted by Chinese states, becoming their official doc- trine from Han
times (206 B.C.E.-222 C.E.) onwards. While the organization of Chinese states owed
much to Legalist statecraft, Confucianism provided the rationale for imperial rule. As
Confucianism evolved in China, it blended with other ideas regarding parallels between
the human and natural worlds. A universal reason, it was believed, permeated and
regulated natural phe- nomena, including the movements of the celestial bodies and the
changing of the seasons. A virtuous emperor united the natural and human worlds by
allowing this principle (ly) to pass undiminished through his person and then to permeate
all people. Such a ruler, the Son of Heaven (Thien-tu), held a "Heavenly Mandate"
(Thien-menh), a cosmic sanction that could be passed to his heirs as long as they were
virtuous; and reflected on his officials when acting in their official capacities.
Thus, while the emperor was not, strictly speaking, divine, his family's claim to power
rested on his role in linking the natural with the human worlds, ensuring prosperity,
peace, and harmony on earth. Chinese emperors participated in rituals intended to
maintain this making sacrifices to heaven and earth, appeasing the agricultural gods to
ensure fertility and prosperity. The Confucian canon also became the curriculum on
which can- didates for administrative positions were tested. As such positions brought
wealth and honor, generations of scholars poured over the canon, and Con- fucianism
permeated Chinese society, particularly in education and fam- ily life.
Confucianism entered Viet lands during Chinese domination as the doc- trine of state,
imposed by Chinese officials and their local collaborators. With the rise of independent
Viet monarchies in the tenth century, Confucian scholars, associated with China's
occupation, were reduced to competing for influence with Buddhist monks, royal
relatives, and militarists. Confucianism was but one of three doctrines on which rulers
relied: with Buddhism and Taoism, it constituted the tam giao dong nguyen, the "three
teachings from one source.
It not until the Later Le Dynasty in the 1400s that Viet rulers adopted Confucianism as
state ideology and initiated a Chinese-style bureaucracy and legal codes. The use of
examinations on the Confucian canon for training and selection of officials encouraged
men to master the Confucian doctrines, and for the next 400 years, elite thought was
more heavily influenced by them. Reinforced by the state, Confucianism reached the
masses, and family life was influenced by its ideas about the virtues of male domination,
ancestor worship, and filial piety, although older practices, including those giving a
relatively higher place to women than was the case in China, were not lost. The zenith for
Confucian orthodoxy, bureaucratic procedure, and the influ- ence of scholar-officials
came under the early Nguyen Dynasty, just before Confucianism and the state that it
legitimized began to face Western impe- rialism.
Even in Nguyen times, however, Confucianism's hold was firmer on the elite than on the
common people, who were still attached to Mahayana Buddhism, popular Taoism, and
Animism. Despite the Confucians' preten- sions to rationalism and humanism, imperial
Confucianism, in Vietnam as in China, admitted many religious practices-for example,
the emperor's role as First Plowman, who opened the first furrow of the planting season.
Confucianism's sway among the elite began eroding with the Nguyen failure to deflect
French aggression during the nineteenth century. In this context, many ex-officials led
anti-French resistance movements based on Confucian concepts of monarchical loyalty
(trung quan). When these move- ments failed to restore independent Confucian
monarchy, it became obvious to politically conscious Vietnamese that the Confucian
model of state and society could not generate the power to resist Western aggression. To
make matters worse, the many Nguyen princes willing to serve as "puppet emper- ors"
degraded the monarchy and Confucianism. Finally, with the ending of the civil service
examinations in 1918, Confucian studies were divorced from bureaucratic appointment.
By the 1920s Confucianism's influence had faded, and many Vietnamese opposed to
colonialism and the social evils that it fostered found Marxism an attractive alternative.
Marxism served as a political religion, providing an historical explanation of Vietnam's
crisis and promising liberation through revolutionary action. Still, even today many
Communist Party members re- tain some attributes of Confucian scholars of old: a
paternalistic attitude toward the people based on a sense of mission as carriers of a
superior doc- trine. Confucianism per se, however, never again exercised its former influ-
ence on Vietnamese public life, despite the efforts of scholars such as Tran Trong Kim to
restore it; or those of Diem, who offered a refurbished Con- fucianism as an
anticommunist national identity. Its residual effects can be seen in the continuing
importance placed on the family and education.

CATHOLICISM
Introduced by missionaries in the 1500s, Catholicism is the most recent world religion to
have a significant impact on Vietnamese life. The Viet elite found the new religion
shocking in its worship of a single creator-deity to the exclusion of ancestors, village
genii, and the emperor, the Le monarchs and the Trinh and Nguyen chua banned it.
However, the severe du cam dao, or "edicts of interdiction" against the "heterodox
teaching" (ta giao) of Ca- tholicism, were often waived in practice, for the Nguyen Trinh
conflicts had created a context in which foreign support or technology might be decisive.
Catholicism's appeal was enhanced by the fact that missionaries learned Vietnamese and
presented doctrines to peasants in ways the latter could understand. Their emphasis on the
allegedly miracle-working powers of the saints or curative properties of holy water
attracted villagers seeking super- natural "insurance." Further, the missionaries served as
community leaders, distributing aid and helping reclaim land from the sea. By Nguyen
times, Catholicism had had considerable success among the peasants of the North, where
overcrowding and poverty were acute; its influence in the Center and South was more
limited. By the French conquest, about 5 percent of Viet- namese (half a million people)
were Catholics, and it was mainly among the masses that converts were found.
The missionaries, Viet priests, and their followers were resented by the unconverted Viet.
The Le monarchs and the Trinh and Nguyen chua were by the missionaries' tendency to
isolate the Catholic from the non- Catholic Viet, often founding separate Catholic
villages. Moreover, the mis- sionaries forbade followers to worship their ancestors and
village deities. Since the dynasty regarded ancestor worship as training for political
loyalty and regulated the worship of village deities, it was worried by the Catholics
refusal to participate fully. Many peasants were offended by the Catholics' refusal to
contribute to communal festivals and rituals, which expressed the villagers solidarity.
When Catholics refused to contribute because of the "superstitious" nature of the
ceremonies, the non-Catholic villagers had to increase their contributions to compensate.
The material difficulties of non- Catholic villagers also increased when the Catholics
withdrew to form their own communities. In such cases, the remaining villagers faced
crushing tax- ation, for the monarchy did not take account of their reduced numbers.
Feuding arose between Catholic and non-Catholic villages and villagers over land
ownership, water rights, and the like. After centuries of erratic efforts to stamp out
Catholicism, the Nguyen Dynasty's Minh-Menh, seek ing to safeguard Vietnam's
independence and preserve (as he saw it) its Con- fucian morality, began issuing anti-
Catholic edicts in the 1830s and enforcing them vigorously. His policies backfired, for
the limited numbers of executions of missionaries (most of whom, by this time, were
French) and Vietnamese Catholics under him and his successors would give France a
justification for invasion.
The conquest further drove a wedge between the followers of the tradi tional faiths and
the Catholics, for the French used the "persecution" of Catholics to rationalize attacks on
Vietnam and called upon missionaries and Vietnamese Catholics for support. Some
Vietnamese Catholics aided the French, deepening the chasm between the Catholics and
the followers of traditional faiths. Many of the Vietnamese insurgents who resisted
France's conquest condemned all Catholics as pro-French collaborators. After "paci-
fication," French officials looked more favorably upon missionary work than had the
independent Nguyen courts. Thanks to this privileged position under the colonial regime,
the number of Catholics continued to grow, although many Vietnamese priests resented
subordination to missionaries and chafed at charges that Vietnamese Catholics followed a
"foreign religion" and sup- ported colonialism.
The Vietnamese Church supported the August of 1945, and many Vietnamese Catholics
joined the Viet Minh, at least until 1949, when its Marxist-Leninist orientation hardened.
By then, many Vietnamese Cath- olics left the movement, turning to the French for
protection or charting a middle course. With France's defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and
the partition of Vietnam at the Seventeenth Parallel, more than 800,000 north- ern
Catholics fled South.
During French times, there had been one ecclesiastical structure for all Vietnam,
subordinate to the Vatican but (by the 1900s) with a largely Viet- namese clergy. After the
1954 partition and throughout the Second Indo- china War, the Catholics of the South
remained under the Vatican, whereas those of the North came under a "patriotic" Catholic
hierarchy, which was controlled by D.R.V. authorities and expected to cooperate with
Party pro- grams. By the 1960s, there were approximately 750,000 Catholics in the
D.R.V., with close to 1,500,000 residing in the South due to the migrations of 1954-1956.
Catholic refugees provided a reliable base for Sai-gon's anticommunist regimes,
particularly for Diem, who was a Catholic himself and saw to it that his coreligionists
were well treated by the state. Catholic support was a mixed blessing, however, for the
R.V.N.'s favoritism of the Catholics alienated the South's non-Catholic majority. While
precise statistics are lacking, southern Catholics were well represented in the first waves
of refugees who left Viet- nam after the R.V.N.'s defeat in 1975. There are now about
5,000,000 Catholics in the S.R.V., with the increases mainly resulting from natural
growth rather than conversions. Although restoration and construction of churches
supports S.R.V. claims of religious freedom, the reality is more complicated, as this
chapter's concluding section indicates.

THE NEW SECTS

Many Vietnamese responded to the crisis of colonialism by adopting sectarian religions
that combined and reinterpreted existing traditions. The most significant were the Cao
Dai and Hoa Hao.

Cao Dai
Cao Dai beliefs draw upon Taoist, Confucian, Buddhist, Animist, and Catholic traditions,
the last being critical for organization. Cao Dai means "High Platform," a supreme deity
derived from the Taoist tradition. The formal name is Dai Dao Tam Ky Pho Do: "Great
Way of the Third Amnesty of God." Cao Dai asserts that the Supreme Being had
proclaimed two pre- vious Ways to salvation: to the West through Moses and Jesus, and
to the East through Laozi and Sakyamuni. Caodaists do not reject these doctrines but
believe their "Third Amnesty" to be superior.
Caodaism began in 1919, when the Cao Dai supposedly manifested itself to Nguyen Van
Chieu, a lower-level administrator in Cochin China, telling him to proclaim claim a new
religion, the icon of which was an eye from which sunrays emanated, symbolizing
omniscience and omnipresence. Shieu, timid by nature, preached for several years but
attracted few followers. Then in 1924 he attended a séance in Sai-gon with Vietnamese
who were merchants and officials in the French hierarchy. Caodaists believe that the
Spirit ordered those attending to proclaim the doctrine widely. Among them was Le Van
Trung, who became a devout believer. Chieu withdrew from an active role, and the
dynamic Le Van Trung assumed the title of Great Master of the Cao Dai, reorganized the
movement along Catholic lines (including a papacy, cardinals, bishops, monks, and
nuns), and began intensive proselytizing. Given the crisis provoked by colonialism, such
a "neo-traditionalist" faith, which drew upon familiar elements but presented them in a
new and dynamic way, was attractive, especially to peasants in the Mekong Delta. By
1926, it boasted 20,000 followers; at the height of its influence in the late 1950s and early
1960s, it had more than 1,000,000.
Cao Dai first steered a middle path between the Viet Minh and the French but eventually
allied with the latter in return for promises of aid and auton- omy. After the First
Indochina War, the Cao Dai's autonomous status and independent military power were
crushed by Diem's forces in 1955 when the Cao Dai joined other sects in a failed anti-
Diem coup. Many Cao Dai members, however, embittered at Sai-gon's actions, supported
the NLF in the Second Indochina War, which has earned them limited tolerance in the
post-1975 era.

Hoa Hao
Phat giao Hoa Hao ("Hoa Hao Buddhism") was founded by Huynh Phu So from Hoa Hao
Village in the western Mekong Delta. A sickly child, So was sent by his parents to a local
sorcerer for treatment. He learned the magical practices and millenarian views common
among the region's Bud- dhist monks and Taoist masters but returned uncured after the
master's death in 1939. He later experienced a seemingly miraculous recovery before his
family altar and began healing and proselytizing in the area.
So's doctrines were a simplified devotional Buddhism mixed with Animist and Taoist
practices and emphasizing the imminent ending of the world. Hoa Hao eschewed
elaborate temples and paraphernalia. Its family-based rituals were limited to four daily
prayers before a table draped in a red cloth and adorned with flowers, water, and incense.
So criticized expensive funerals, gambling, and the use of alcohol and opium. He soon
had more than 100,000 followers, who admired his apparent miracle-working ability and
found the doctrine's simplicity and economy attractive; by the end of World War II, the
Hoa Hao had more than 1,000,000 believers.
Like Cao Dai, Hoa Has became politically active. So's apocalyptic proph- ecies and
appeal to the Mekong Delta's peasants aroused the suspicions of the colonial regime,
which exiled him to Laos. Japanese occupation forces returned him to Vietnam,
protecting him while exploiting his anti-French nationalism. At the end of World War II
the Hoa Hao controlled territories in the southwestern delta and sought to hold them
against the returned French administration and its challengers, the Viet Minh. Since the
Hoa Hao appealed to the peasantry and refused to enter the Viet Minh-dominated anti-
French alliance, So was assassinated, presumably by Viet Minh, in 1947. This drove So's
followers into the arms of the French, who supported the Hoa Hae's new leaders against
the Viet Minh until the end of the First Indochina War. When Diem was installed in Sai-
gon in 1955, Hoa Hao leaders resisted his curtailment of their autonomy and influence.
After a failed coup d'etat, Hoa forces were decimated by Diem's forces. This con-
frontation reduced Hea Hao's political role, though its religious influence among the
delta's peasantry lingers.

RELIGION IN THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC

After the Second Indochina War, the S.R.V. took power in a reunited Vietnam. The
Communist Party, which guides the S.R.V., is doctrinally atheist and of any group
capable of challenging its rule. In a sense, the party assumed the role of Vietnam's
Confucian-inspired dynasties, which believed that they had a monopoly of political
wisdom and attempted to regulate religious practice. However, the modern party-state
apparatus is more capable of interfering in the lives of its citizens than were the imperial
states of In practice, the Party-while encouraging a secular-scientific worldview and
outlawing customs that it considers superstitious, wasteful, or degrading-has not waged
violent mass campaigns to root out religious belief per se, as was the case in the Soviet
Union.
Church-state conflicts in contemporary Vietnam have more to do with perceived
institutional threats to the Party's power by the organized religions: Catholic, Buddhist,
and sectarian. The Party infiltrates these organizations and tries to control their activities.
Tension often derives from the Party's insistence that the religious organizations recruit
and promote "patriotic" (procommunist) clergy. The religious organizations try to satisfy
the Party's demands while maintaining their institutional autonomy and integrity. The
religious organizations are paradoxically warned to limit their activities to religious
matters, avoiding any political role.
Yet the Party also demands that they support for policies pro- claimed by the Party and
state organs on matters as unambiguously "political" as taxation and conscription. When
religious leaders resist the Party's direc- tion on issues deemed political by the Party, the
security services do not hesitate to imprison monks or priests. The Party justifies such
actions by pointing to alleged security risks posed by the supposedly illegal actions or
foreign contacts of particular individuals rather than in terms of conflicts between church
and state or between religious and Leninist viewpoints. By avoiding direct challenges to
religious organizations or their belief systems, the Party keeps believers in the officially
controlled institutions, where they can be more easily monitored, and does not risk
driving them undleground.
It is too early to discern Doi Moi's long-term impact on Vietnamese reli- gious practice. It
appears, however, that the loosening of social controls, increases in prosperity, and
disillusionment with Marxism-Leninism are re- sulting in more participation in traditional
religious activities. For example, pagodas in large cities openly celebrate major Buddhist
holidays, and these are well attended in a festive atmosphere by practitioners. Likewise, it
is again common to observe elaborate funeral processions in the streets of major cities,
despite official criticism and legal limitations of them in the recent past. In rural society
also, Buddhist monks remain active, and pilgrimage sites such as famous pagodas are
avidly visited by the faithful.
Ancestor worship is also experiencing a revival, perhaps as a way of preserving a sense
of belonging to a larger extended family as the nuclear family becomes more common in
urban areas. The continuing influence of popular Animism is evident in the plethora of
shrines to accident victims along the S.R.V.'s highways. Furthermore, some traditional
beliefs live on in official propaganda. For example, the Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hue
City, in ad- dition to exhibits illustrating the life of the late president, has a solemn-
looking room decorated in red in which a bust of Ho Chi Minh rests on an "altar" and in
front of which visitors leave "offerings" of flowers and incense. The continuity with
worship of patron deities is obvious. In sum, despite the Party's official atheism,
traditional religious beliefs, practices, and organizations give every appearance of
maintaining or even strengthening their influence.
 4 - Literature

VIETNAMESE LITERATURE may be separated into three categories according to

whether it was originally written in chu Han, or Chinese characters; in chu nom, or
vernacular characters; or in quoc ngu, or romanized script. As last is the most widely used
form at present, it will be the focus of this chapter.

IN CHINESE
As the Yuch peoples had not developed a writing system by the time of the Chinese
occupation, they first expressed themselves in writing in Chinese. Since the few
Vietnamese to have learned Chinese during this period were either involved in
government (Chinese was the language of administration) or religion (it was needed to
read Mahayana sutras), most of the texts pro- duced were historical chronicles or
Buddhist treatises. Few of these works have survived, but those that have suggest that
Chinese influences predom- inated.
With the advent of independence in the tenth century, Chinese remained the language of
administration as well as literary expression, and Chinese influence on forms and styles
continued. Nonetheless, a sense of Viet identity began to pervade the works, and they
may be considered part of the Viet namese literary tradition and not merely a provincial
form of Chinese liter- ature. Moreover, given this stress on establishing an independent
identity vis-à-vis the northern neighbor, Viet writing in Chinese was often indirectly
aimed at Chinese and not only Viet readers.
While the Viet Tran (1225-1400) and Later Le (1428-1788) dynasties followed Chinese
precedent in publishing Chinese-style dynastic chronicles, the texts reflected concerns to
establish the ancientness and thus the inde- pendent origins of Viet monarchical
traditions. For instance, Dai Viet Su Ky Toan Thu (The Complete History of Great Viet),
published under Le patronage in 1479, traces Vietnamese history back to the
semilegendary Hong Bang Dynasty. It was intended to demonstrate the existence of Viet
imperial houses predating the Chinese conquest, implying that the present dynasty was
le- gitimately continuing a time-honored tradition of independent dynastic rule.
Viet political and military leaders also often used Chinese to address their northern
counterparts directly, acknowledging nominal vassalage to China but stressing a separate
identity. For example, the scholar and military strat- egist Nguyen Trai (1380-1442)
composed Chinese-language works to this end. Nguyen Trai contributed to Le Loi's
defeat of the Chinese Ming Dy- nasty's occupation in 1428, leading to the founding of the
Le Dynasty that year. The battle won, Le Loi, who became the first emperor of the new
dynasty under the reign title Le Thai-to (ruled 1428-1433), asked Nguyen Trai to
compose a victory proclamation. His Binh Ngo Dai Cao ("Great Proclamation of the
Pacification of the Wu"), a masterpiece of Vietnamese literature written in Chinese,
begins by referring to Dai Viet's unique ge- ography and culture as well as to the
independent dynasties that ruled its people from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries:
Our country Dai Viet has long since been [a] land of old culture, with its own rivers and
mountains, ways and customs, different from those of the north. The Trieu, Dinh, Ly and
Tran built up our independence and stood as equals of the Han, T'ang, Sung, and Yuan.
We had known both days of greatness and times of decline, but never had we lacked
heroes.
It then recounts the hardships suffered under Ming occupation and the glo- rious struggle
to expel the Chinese and reestablish independent Viet rule. The outcome of the battle was,
the author asserts, in accord with heaven's will as attested by the restored harmony of the
natural world after the Viet victory. Thus Chinese-derived imagery had so impregnated
the minds of the Viet elite that it even invoked to justify anti-Chinese resistance. Like
many literati, Nguyen Trai despised the courtier's life, full of intrigues and corruption.
After the founding of the Le Dynasty, he withdrew to the coun- tryside to commune with
nature and compose poems in Chinese but also in the "southern script," which will be the
topic of a subsequent section of this chapter.

THE FOLK TRADITION

In addition to the texts in Chinese, which were largely incomprehensible to the common
people even if read to them, the masses produced a rich corpus of sayings, folklore, and
tales, much of which would eventually be in Chinese, vernacular characters, or quoc ngu.
Before turning to the Vietnamese literature in vernacular characters, let us consider
several examples of this popular culture.
The origins of the folk tradition cannot be precisely dated since it was not initially
recorded in writing, but it must pre-date the Chinese Conquest and stem from rural
society with its Animistic traditions. Many folk stories pur- port to describe the origins of
particular practices or institutions. One story explains the origins of rice farming and
comments as well on the "proper roles of men and women. In ancient times, there had not
yet been tiny grains of rice as we know them now; nor had it been necessary to grow and
harvest rice. Rice grains had been as large as a person's head and had grown without
human intervention; when mature, they would come to people's houses and present
themselves for cooking. In one household, a wife had not finished her chores when the
grain presented itself. Angry at being caught with her work unfinished, the woman struck
the grain with her broom, breaking it into tiny pieces. As punishment for her laziness and
violence, rice henceforth appeared as tiny grains, which had to be laboriously cultivated
and harvested. We note also the ethical content of this and other such stories: humans are
generally punished for the failure of a particular individual to meet her responsibilities,
here defined in terms of domestic chores assigned to women.
Likewise, many stories spoke to the relations between humans and animals, questions of
great interest in a rural context. One such story recounts how tigers came to have stripes.
One day long ago, a peasant and his buffalo were plowing the fields. Suddenly a tiger
appeared and asked the buffalo how it was that he, a large and powerful animal, did the
bidding of the smaller, weaker human. The buffalo replied that the humans had a
powerful talisman called "intelligence" that made the animals obey them. The tiger
demanded to obtain this talisman for himself so that he could summon his prey to appear
before him rather than hunting for his food. The frightened peasant agreed to return home
to get his "intelligence" for the tiger to examine, on the condition that the tiger allow
himself to be tied to a tree to prevent him from eating the buffalo. The tiger agreed, and
the peasant tied him to a tree, passing the ropes around his body many times. When the
peasant returned, he brought not any talisman but rather armfuls of hay, which he placed
at the base of the tree to which the tiger was tied and ignited. Howling in pain, the tiger
was saved only when the ropes burned through, allowing him to escape into the forest.
But the ropes had burned deep black marks into his flesh, which we can see even today as
the tiger's stripes.
In sum, the masses built up a storehouse of lore derived from their expe- riences as
village dwellers and petty producers; it would eventually incorporate elements from
world religions, Viet elite culture, and other sources. The elite Viet authors would in turn
enrich their own creations by drawing upon the forms and idioms of popular culture,
particularly for the vernacular works that are our next topic.

IN VERNACULAR CHARACTERS
Beginning in about the thirteenth century, Viet scholars developed a sec- ond writing
system, an indigenous character-based vernacular (chu nom, or "southern script") that
adopted and adapted Chinese characters to express Vietnamese-language sounds.
Rejected by most Viet dynasties, which re- tained Chinese as their official medium, it was
taken up by many members of the elite, who, while continuing to read and write in
Chinese, used nom in their literary pursuits until the early twentieth century. Aside from
giving the pleasure and pride of writing in one's native language, nom allowed authors to
produce works that drew upon the popular traditions described above. Furthermore, it
permitted them to produce works that could be understood and memorized by the masses
when read to them, thus becoming part of the popular oral tradition. Nom works could
bring an author a degree of influence or renown that Chinese-language ones, with their
limited elite readership, could not.
In part because of the ravages of the Ming occupation-the invaders destroyed or removed
many Viet texts and the blocks for printing them-the earliest body of nom texts that we
have dates from the early post-occupation era and is attrouted to Nguyen Trai. In this
collection of 254 nom poems, Quoc Am Thi Tap (Collected Poems in the National
Language), composed after his retirement from court life, Nguyen Trai gives vent to his
disenchantment with politics and expresses his preference for a rural life of rustic
pleasures and quiet contemplation. Despite his alienation from court life, Nguyen Trai's
philosophical orientation remained Confucian-influenced as evidenced by another major
nom work attributed to him, the Le Trieu Tuong Cong Nguyen Trai Gia Huan Ca
(Familial Instructions Put in Verse by Minister Nguyen Trai of the Le Court).
This didactic poem of 976 lines stresses the obligations of children vis-à-vis their parents,
and wives vis-à-vis their husbands. Such admonitions were by then standard fare among
the upper class of the time, but the Gia Huan Ca is noteworthy for its emphasis on
compassion for people in distress. For example, in describing the way that the poor suffer
in wartime, the author encourages his children not merely to meet their familial
obligations but to help the poor with material support and kind words as if they were
members of one's own family.
Nguyen Trai's nom poetry is also notable for its openness to popular cul- ture's proverbs,
tales, and expressions. He was, therefore, if not the originator, at least an eminent early
practitioner of the fruitful trend of cultural borrowing from the "rice-roots" by nom poets,
a trend that would culminate in the nineteenth-century "novels in verse."
The Later Le Dynasty that Nguyen Trai helped to found reached its apogee under its
fourth monarch, Le Thanh-tong, who reigned from 1460 to 1497. Chinese remained the
language of administration, but Le Thanh Tong wrote extensively in nom and encouraged
his entourage to do likewise. The collection of over 300 nom poems, written by the
emperor and his collaborators, is known as the Hong Duc Quoc Am Thi Tap (Collected
Poems of the Hong Duc Era in the National Language). The Hong Duc poems treat many
subjects, but two themes are outstanding: the elevated conception of the monarch's role,
demonstrating Confucianism's influence among the official elite; and efforts to make the
cultural borrowings of the Chinese-style court relevant Vietnamese villagers with their
homegrown traditions.
With the passing of Le Thanh Tong, the Later Le Dynasty began its slow decline, and the
rise of the military houses to de facto power would lead to centuries of turmoil and civil
war. The spectacle of the Le monarchs' captivity and the seemingly endless conflicts
between military houses forced members of the elite to choose their masters carefully or
to withdraw from politics altogether if they had not the stomach for it.
This political context left its mark on Nguyen Binh Khiem (1491-1585), dominant figure
among sixteenth-century poets. Like Nguyen Trai, Nguyen Binh Khiem abandoned an
administrative career for the life of a rural recluse. His collected poems, Bach Van Quoc
Ngu Thi Tap (White Clouds Poetry Collection in the National Language), express his
Confucian humanism tinged with Taoist wisdom regarding the vanity of worldly riches
and power. The best life, he suggests, is lived close to nature and devoted to simple
pleasures. He did not completely turn his back on politics, however, for his retreat
attracted many writers and officeholders who sought his advice on all manner of topics,
including political ones. His poetry often obliquely criticized those who used their
positions to exploit those under their control. For example, one of his short poems
compares corrupt officials to rats eating the crops of hardworking peasants.
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed advances in nom lit- erature, in part
because the writers' forced retreat from politics thrust them back into the world of the
villages. Although Chinese literature and Chinese- language works authored by Viet still
provided much of the subject matter Viet nom poets, writers increasingly gave their
Chinese materials a Viet treatment, drawing upon the oral tradition for their vocabulary as
well as form. For example, the oral tradition had long been poetic one that employed six-
eight (luc bat) or seven-seven-six-eight (song that luc bat) verse. This facilitated the
composition of lengthy works that could be easily memorized, so nom writers began
experimenting with these forms in this period. This of Chinese themes and Viet forms
would make the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries an age of nom masterpieces, of
which we here con- sider but a few.
The Chinh-phu Ngam (Complaint of a Warrior's Wife) was first written in Chinese by
Vietnamese author Dang Tran Con (1710-1745), who derived his themes from Chinese
poetry. The result was so similar to Viet folk poetry that many Viet authors attempted
nom translations and adaptations. Among the many existing versions, Phan Huy Ích
(1750-1822) created a seven- seven-six-eight nom versification that is among the best
known and most often cited. As the title indicates, the work is a ngam, or lament, a style
intended to be read in a low, plaintive voice. This produces a mournful impression upon
listeners that was particularly effective in this case, given the work's subject, the suffering
of a wife whose husband has been sent off to war. Beyond the dissection of pain suffered
by the couple in question, the work describes the broader impact of the sufferings
engendered by warfare, criticizing at least implicitly the powerholders in this era of
seemingly endless conflict.
Another famous nom poem employing the style is Cung Oan Ngam Khuc, or the Lament
of a Royal Concubine, by Nguyen Gia Thieu (c. 1741- 1798). Nguyen Gia Thieu was an
aristocrat related to the Trinh lords. He showed little inclination for officeholding,
resigning a command in 1783 and retiring to his lakeside villa in Thang-long (i.e.,
modern Ha-noi). When the Tay-son armies seized the North in 1786, he refused their
offers of positions and lived out his life as a reclusive scholar, drinking wine, fishing, and
com- posing poems, of which the Lament of a Royal Concubine is his masterpiece. The
Lament tells the story of an imperial concubine who briefly enjoys the monarch's favor
but is then discarded by him and forced to live out her life in isolation. This theme allows
the author ample opportunities to express his disappointment with the political system of
the day and more generally to make a Buddhist-inspired critique of the vanity of worldly
aspirations, be they for material wealth or political power.
The chaos and insecurity that derived from the Le dynastic decline, the Trinh-Nguyen
conflict, the Tay-son interregnum, and the Nguyen recon- quest also influenced the life
and literary career of Nguyen Du (1765-1820), considered to be the greatest Vietnamese
writer of all time. Nguyen Du had been a high-level official of the Le Dynasty who
reluctantly accepted service with the Nguyen Dynasty after its defeat of the Tay-son.
Thus out of ne- cessity he served a master whom he could not consider legitimate, and
this theme of the emotional conflicts arising from divided loyalties and compro- mise
solutions would pervade his nom masterpiece, Doan Truong Tan Thanh. The title means
"Severed Intestines, A New Telling," but it is widely known, by reference to its main
characters, as Kim Van Kieu (Kim, Van, and Kieu). or simply as Truyen Kieu (The Tale
of Kieu). The story, derived from a sixteenth-century Chinese novel and set in ancient
China, is based on the Buddhist concept of karma, in which actions in a previous
existence influence events in present and future lives. In the story, the heroine has
committed unspecified sins in a former existence and must expiate them in the present
lifetime by suffering calamities before she can find happiness.
Thuy Kieu is the oldest daughter of the Vuong, a respectable family of modest means.
She and her sister, Thuy Van, are described as beautiful and morally pure. Thuy Kieu falls
in love and promises to marry a scholar named Kim Trong, but before they can be
married, Kieu's father is arrested by local officials and tortured. Desperate to save her
father, Kieu tells her younger sister to marry Kim Trong in fulfillment of Kieu's promise
to him, sells herself in what she supposes to be marriage to a wealthy merchant named
Ma Giam- Sinh, and uses the money to buy her father's freedom. However, instead of
making her his wife, Ma Giam-Sinh forces Kieu to work as a prostitute in a brothel. After
a time, she wins the heart of one of the regular patrons, Thuc Sinh, who takes her from
the brothel and makes her his second wife. When Thuc Sinh's first wife, Hoan Thu, learns
of the arrangement, she dispatches ruffians who kidnap Kieu and force her into service as
Hoan Thu's maid; the cowardly Thuc Sinh dares not reproach his first wife for treating
Kieu so brutally. Kieu runs away and takes refuge in a Buddhist nunnery. Although the
head nun, Giac Duyen, cares for Kieu, she mistakenly entrusts her to an older nun, Bac
Ba, who tricks Kieu into marrying her nephew. The nephew then forces Kieu to work in a
brothel again. Kieu's fortunes seem to turn for the better when she meets Tu-Hai, a rebel
against the reigning dynasty. She becomes his wife and enjoys her revenge when Tu-Hai,
who establishes his rule over a large territory, allows Kieu to punish her tormentors. But
Tu- Hai's reign is short-lived. The imperial official sent to subdue him uses a ruse to
obtain his submission in return for the promise of an official position. Believing the offer
to be bona fide, Kieu urges Tu-Hai to accept, but once he has surrendered, the official
kills him and forces Kieu to marry a local chieftain. Kieu tries to kill herself but is saved
by Giac Duyen, the kindly nun who had tried to help earlier. At last, Kieu is reunited with
Kim Trong, who is now married to Kieu's sister, Van. Kieu agrees to marry Kim Trong
but, feeling that her experiences have left her impure, makes him agree that their
relationship will remain platonic.
While the plot may seem repetitious, Nguyen Du elevates the work to art by the beauty of
his poetry and his penetrating descriptions of the emotional states of the characters as
they move through trying situations. As such, the work speaks to the deepest feelings of
the Vietnamese, who consider its verses relevant to almost any situation that they
encounter. This was, no doubt, why it was so beloved in the nineteenth century and why it
remains so today. Indeed, in the last fifty years, with multiple foreign occupations, wars,
revolution, and now life under the S.R.V., millions of Vietnamese have had to come to
terms with the same emotional predicament as Nguyen Du and his heroine, Kieu: serving
masters other than those to whom they feel that they rightly owe loyalty. Even today,
almost all Vietnamese can quote lines from the poem at will, and many still use the text
as an oracle, selecting verses at random in hopes that they will shed light on the outcome
of events.
One of the last nom masterpieces was Luc Van Tien by Nguyen Dinh Chieu (1822-1888).
Nguyen Dinh Chieu was born in southern Vietnam and passed the local civil service
examinations in 1843. He subsequently moved to central Vietnam to prepare for the
higher-level competitions, held at Hue. Before he could begin the testing, he learned that
his mother had died, and so he returned home to assume mourning duties. On the way, he
fell ill, losing his sight. His blindness meant the end of his hopes for a career in
administration, and he began teaching and practicing medicine. When the French invaded
southern Vietnam in 1859, Nguyen Dinh Chieu supported the anti-French guerrillas; after
the Treaty of Sai-gon and the defeat the resistance, he criticized those who collaborated
with the colonial regime and refused the latter's efforts to buy his support. Nguyen Dinh
Chieu composed Luc Van Tien in six-eight verse around 1860 by dictating it to his
students, who transcribed it in nom. As the following summary will suggest, Luc Van
Tien is autobiographical in certain respects.
Set in the mythical country of So, understood to be a state in ancient China, the poem
begins as Luc Van Tien travels to the capital to compete in the examinations. En route, he
saves a woman named Nguyet Nga, who has been kidnapped by bandits, and wins her
love. Van Tien never makes it to the capital because he must return home to mourn his
mother's death. He cries continually and loses his sight, becoming easy prey for villains,
including the parents of another woman, with whom Van Tien's parents had been
discussing marriage. The prospective in-laws, fearing that the blind scholar would be a
burden to them, abandon Van Tien to die in a cave. Nguyet Nga, believing that Van Tien
has died, vows to honor his memory by refusing to marry anyone else. When Nguyet Nga
rejects a powerful suitor, the latter induces the king of So to send her as tribute wife to the
king of the nearby state of Phien. Nguyet Nga attempts suicide rather than violate her
pledge of fidelity to Van Tien, but she is saved by a bodhisattva and sheltered by a
sympathetic older woman. However, unknown to Nguyet Nga, Van Tien has been
supernaturally saved from his cave, recovers his sight, passes his examinations, and
enters So's political elite. The king of So asks him to lead a force against neighboring O-
Qua. While leading the army to victory, he is reunited with Nguyet Nga. After their
marriage, Van Tien is offered the throne of So by its king, who wants to retire. Finally,
Van Tien's tormenters come to bad ends: his intended bride's father dies of shame, while
her mother and the woman herself are eaten by tigers!
Some modern writers have criticized Luc Van Tien for the predictability of its action and
the lack of depth of its characters. To be sure, Nguyen Dinh Chieu's plots were unoriginal
and his characters were little developed. In context, however, such criticisms miss the
point. The work was beloved by contemporary Vietnamese (and remains so today), who
appreciated it as a lively, albeit predictable, adventure story with an important and
edifying message. In trying times, Luc Van Tien reaffirmed traditional values by
encouraging virtuous behavior through positive and negative examples: virtuous acts are
rewarded, and evil ones are punished. It thus spoke directly to Vietnamese audiences
searching for a response to the perennial problem of how to respond to invasion and the
French occupation, recommending the emotionally satisfying response of resistance.
Unlike Luc Van Tien, however, Nguyen Dinh Chieu never regained his sight, and Nguyen
Vietnam was vanquished by its invaders. The success of the French invasion was the
beginning of the end of nom literature, and the rise of literature in romanized Vietnamese,
to which we now turn.

IN ROMANIZED VIETNAMESE
Quoc ngu, or romanized script, was invented by Catholic missionaries in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries and was long the exclusive property of Catholic missionaries,
indigenous priests, and the Viet faithful. It entered wider usage in the nineteenth century
under the colonial regime, which in- troduced the printing press, encouraged the
publication of books in quoc ngu, and even made it the language of administration in
some areas. It was also taught in schools as a means of giving basic instruction on
Western subjects while alienating Viet from their Sino-Vietnamese heritage and reducing
their exposure to potentially subversive Chinese-language materials. In this con- text,
Vietnamese intellectuals soon began creating literary works in quoc ngu, adapting French
literary styles and concerns in the process.

Under Colonialism
The first steps in quoc ngu's popularization were taken in association with colonial
regime by Catholic Vietnamese scholars, Huynh Tỉnh Cua (1834-1907), and Truong Vinh
Ky (1837-1898). Huynh Tinh Cua, fluent in Vietnamese, Chinese, and French and literate
in quoc ngu, worked for the French in Cochin China as a translator and became the editor
of the officially sponsored Gia-dinh Bao (the Gia-dinh Newspaper), the first Vietnamese-
language newspaper, which began in 1865. He also produced a quoc ngu dictionary, a
book of Vietnamese proverbs and folk sayings, and a collection of short stories called
Stories for Fun.
Truong Vinh Ky was, like Huynh Tinh Cua, a talented linguist who found employment
with the colonial state, serving as editor of the Gia-dinh Bao, interpreter for Franco-
Vietnamese diplomatic missions, and instructor at interpreters' schools. He also wrote
widely, publishing more than 100 works on history and languages, as well as dictionaries
and translations of Chinese novels and nom "novels in verse." The latter works allowed
Vietnamese who lacked training in Chinese or nom but had learned quoc ngu to have
access to the Sino-Vietnamese cultural heritage as contained in such works as The Tale of
Kieu. Through their editorship and publications, Huynh Tinh Cua and Truong Vinh Ky
contributed to the popularization and modernization of quoc ngu, showing that it could be
used to express all kinds of ideas and subject matter, from classical to scientific.
During the first two decades of the twentieth century, French policies gradually created a
new Vietnamese urban elite, one that was literate in quoc ngu and often in French as well.
In the interests of satisfying this elite's yearnings for modernization and education while
"inoculating" them from the revolutionary ideas being popularized by activists such as
Phan Boi Chau, the increased its emphasis on defending its "civilizing mission" by
supporting quoc ngu publishing efforts.
In 1913, on the eve of World War I, a Frenchman named Schneider founded the quoc ngu
weekly entitled Dong Duong Tap Chi (Indochinese Journal), which was published from
1913 to 1916. The paper fulfilled the authorities' intentions of making propaganda for
their policies while criticiz- ing anticolonial activists. However, its chief editor, Nguyen
Van Vinh, and staff assigned themselves a broader mission as well: to popularize quoc
ngu, to disseminate Western knowledge in general, and to reexamine the Asian cultural
heritage in light of the new knowledge. In particular, Nguyen Van Vinh used the review to
criticize Chinese characters, which he considered an impediment to civilization, and to
encourage the dissemination of quoc ngu. One the most effective means to do so, the
editors found, was the publication, often in serialized form, of quoc ngu translations of
Chinese novels such as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which were popular with
Viet- namese readers. Nguyen Van Vinh translated a number of Western works quoc ngu,
including Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. It would be hard to overestimate the impact of
the Dong Duong Tap Chi, through which quoc ngu became increasingly popular,
particularly in the urban milieu. Furthermore, it was through its pages that many
Vietnamese readers had their first contact with classical and modern novels from the West
as well as from China.
However, given the politicized context of World War I, the regime decided to sponsor
another newspaper, one that would hold more firmly to the political goals that had
inspired the founding of the Dong Duong Tap Chi. Thus was born Nam Phong, or
Southern Wind, a trilingual monthly (Chinese, quoc ngu, and French) that would appear
for seventeen years (from 1917 until 1934). Its editor was an exlibrarian and former Dong
Duong Tap Chi staff member named Pham Quynh. There is no doubt that Pham Quynh
took his duties as pro-French propagandist seriously, publishing quoc ngu articles
praising French imperialism in Vietnam as a noble crusade to uplift a "back- people, and
he has been bitterly criticized by later Vietnamese nation- alists on this account.
Nevertheless, Nam Phong contributed to the popularization of quoc ngu and to the
dissemination of knowledge of modern literary genres, particularly the novel. Indeed, in
1921, Pham Quynh published in its pages the first Vietnamese-language analysis of the
novel as a literary form. Its bias toward the French novel notwithstanding, the work was
important in introducing the theory of the novel to Vietnamese writers and interesting
them in its possibilities. Vietnamese writers were not long in taking up the challenge of
the new literary forms and styles that the journalists had brought to their attention. The
1920s and 1930s were a time of great experimentation with these new forms.
Western-style poetry was the first genre to be seized upon, with French romanticism and
free verse stimulating a movement for the moi, or "new poetry, free verse in quoc ngu as
opposed to the stylized forms hitherto employed in Chinese and nom poetry. The
transition between the traditional styles and new poetry was made by Nguyen Khac Hieu
(1881-1939), whose pen name was Tan Da. Confucian-trained and French-influenced, he
wrote in a great variety of styles and was the dominant figure in Vietnamese poetry
during the 1920s and 1930s.
Vietnamese also began experimenting with the new prose forms described in Nam Phong
and the other early newspapers and reviews. Among the first short story writers in
Vietnam were Nguyen Ba Hoc (1857-1921) and Pham Duy Ton (1883-1924). Both
addressed issues that concerned educated urban Vietnamese of the day: the
transformations wrought by colonialism and their impact on Vietnamese institutions. In
Nguyen Ba Hoc's "A Family Story," for example, two brothers take different paths in life.
While elder son follows the traditional route of Confucian studies and finds his
opportunities have been foreclosed by the French regime, the younger one takes up
French studies and finds a well-paying position but is corrupted by the excesses of the
Western lifestyle. Their stories did not condemn the changes out of hand, recognizing that
French-stimulated economic growth could mean prosperity for an increasing number of
Vietnamese, but they encouraged readers not to become obsessed with wealth and
position to the extent that they neglected their familial obligations or exploited their
fellow Vietnamese.
Immediately after the publication of Pham Quynh's essay on the novel, the first novels in
quoc ngu began to appear. Although scholars do not agree who deserves the honor of
having produced the first true Vietnamese novel, three early authors deserve mention:
Nguyen Trong Thuat (1883-1940), Hoang Ngoc Phach, and Ho Van Trung, alias Ho Bieu
Chanh (1885-1958).
Nguyen Trong Thuat, a Nam Phong staff writer and close associate of Pham Quynh,
derived the plot for his 1925 novel, Qua Dua Do (The Watermelon) from a well-known
fable. Set in ancient times, the novel recounts the story of a faithful minister who is
wrongly accused of a crime and exiled to a deserted island. Determined to make the best
of a bad situation and believing that all wrongs will be righted in the long run, the
minister finds some watermelon seeds and plants them. When the fruits mature, he sells
them to people on passing ships, becoming wealthy. The business attracts settlers, and the
island becomes prosperous. The king learns of the minister's innocence, invites him to
return, and rewards him with positions and honors. Although it is possible to interpret the
work as mere escapist fare or as a reassertion of traditional values, one can also read in it
the conservative message that the Vietnamese should make the best of their colonial
status while working for a better future. One may assume that the editors of Nam Phong
interpreted Qua Dua Do in the latter sense, for their organization, Hoi Khai Tri Tien Duc
(Association for Intellectual and Moral Development) awarded Nguyen Trong Thuat a
literary prize for it.
Hoang Ngoc Phach, an education student at the University of Ha-noi, published To Tam
(Pure Heart) in 1925. It immediately became a smashing success, particularly among
young people, while provoking debate about the proper behavior for youth and literature's
role in providing role models. To Tam tells the story of a young Ha-noi male student
named Dam Thuy, who falls in love with a young woman whom he nicknames To Tam.
Although she returns his feelings, they accept that their relationship can never lead to
marriage because Dam Thuy's parents have already arranged for him to marry a woman
whom he does not love. When To Tam refuses the proposal of another promising young
man, her mother and Dam Thuy press her to reconsider. Finally, when her mother falls
seriously ill, she relents and marries the young man but is so unhappy that she sickens
and dies. Although Dam Thuy is so wounded by the death of his true love that he also
becomes ill, he recovers with the help of his older brother, accepts his parents' choice of a
marriage partner, and eventually recovers his health completely.
Despite its unoriginal plot, a virtual pastiche of Chinese and French romance novels, To
Tam did deal with issues arising from the social and cultural changes provoked by
colonialism, particularly with the pressures felt by young people torn between their
desires for independence and romantic love and their familial responsibilities. Its answers
to the questions, however, were consistent with the conservative tendencies favored by
the Nam Phong group. Dam Thuy returns to his family, marries the woman that his
parents had selected for him, and recovers from his doomed affair. The author's intended
message was apparently that Dam Thuy's and To Tam's problems were caused by their
flirtation with Western values of individualism and romantic love, not by the strictures of
the traditional family. Nevertheless, many young Vietnamese saw Dam Thuy and To Tam
as victims of the practice of ar- ranged marriages, identifying so intensely with their
plight that a number of brokenhearted young men and women committed suicide by
throwing themselves into Ha-noi's lakes after reading the novel.
Ho Bieu Chanh was an official in French Cochin China, eventually work- ing his way up
to provincial governor. His real passion, however, was literature. In the early 1920s, he
began producing quoc ngu translations of French romantic novels, and by 1924 he had
written Tinh Mong (Awakening from Dreaming), which, though influenced by French
romanticism, was an original work. Over the next decades, he would write hundreds of
short stories and novels that won him a devoted readership, particularly among
southerners. Tinh Mong, which by virtue of its early appearance and modern construction
is arguably the first Vietnamese novel, explores adultery's impact on a southern family.
Yen Tuyet, the teenage daughter of a local official, is seduced and impregnated by Truong
Xuan, her cousin. Desperate to preserve appearances, the family "hires" an impoverished
young scholar named Ky Tam to marry Yen Tuyet. However, despite his poverty, the
groom refuses monetary compensation for the marriage and proves to be of such noble
character that the couple, despite the unfortunate circumstances of the union, develops a
genuine mutual affection and agrees to make the marriage a real one. In terms of the
political tendencies displayed by his writings, Ho Bieu Chanh falls well within the
parameters established by the Nam Phong group. Although he criticized aspects of the
colonial society, overall his work encouraged a return to traditional morality, a message
manifested by his tra- ditional "happy ending" format, in which good and evil receive
their just deserts. In Tinh Mong, as we have seen, the poor scholar's virtues of
compassion and piety rescue the family from an unfortunate situation of its own making.
Although the enthusiasm for the new forms was widespread among urban intellectuals,
not all agreed with the conservative political message that Pham Quynh and other
French-sponsored journalists had attempted to inculcate and that some of the early writers
had adopted. In contrast to the Nam Phong group's collaborationist stance, the opposition
writers took two main tendencies, both of them nationalistic: those who advocated an
anticolonial but noncommunist reformism, and those who favored left-leaning or
communistled anticolonialism and social revolution.
The noncommunist reformist writers gathered in the early 1930s into the Tu Luc Van
Doan, or Self-Reliance Literary Group, a name chosen to mark their distance from the
French-sponsored Nam Phong circle. Their leader was Nguyen Tuong Tam (1906-1963).
Known by his pen name, Nhat Linh; he was a former art student at the University of Ha-
noi who had also taken scientific degrees in France. His chief collaborator was Tran
Khanh Giu (d. 1946), known as Khai Hung, a mandarin's son and the graduate of a
French lycée who worked as a teacher. One can measure the duo's talent by noting that
authorities on Vietnamese literature have disagreed on who was the better writer; each
has been called the greatest writer of his generation.
Under Nhat Linh's editorship, the Tu Luc Van Doan published several influential
magazines and newspapers, including Phong Hoa (Manners), Ngay Nay (Today), and
Chu Nhat (Sunday), in which they called for the modernization of Vietnamese society.
Their concerns were summarized in Muoi Dieu Tam Niem (Ten Points to Consider), a
manifesto issued by member Hoang The manifesto urged Vietnamese youth to modernize
themselves by adopting Western ways; to believe in progress and hold to high ideals; to
work for the improvement of society; to encourage the greater participation of women in
society; to strengthen themselves physically through exercise; to acquire a scientific
framework; to seek genuine accomplishments instead of chasing after positions and
honors. In addition to their proposals, which often ran afoul of official censorship, the
publications were innovative in their use of humor and satire to make their points, a
feature that endeared them to readers, particularly to urbanites, who were their primary
audience. Self-Reliance Literary Group members also expressed their modernizing vi-
sion by publishing widely in all of the new literary genres, including poetry, short stories,
and novels. It was in the last genre that the group, particularly Nhat Linh and Khai Hung,
had their greatest influence, establishing the novel as the genre of Vietnamese literature
and creating a direct and clear quoc ngu prose style, liberated from its reliance on
Chinese loan words and literary allusions. The group dominated the literary scene
throughout the 1930s, and their books are still enjoyed today; indeed, they are
experiencing a revival under the more liberal context created by the post-1987 reforms.
Among Nhat Linh's best-known novels are Nho Phong (Confucian Man- ners), Doan-
tuyet (Rupture), Lanh-lung (Loneliness), and Di Tay (A Trip to the West). In Doan-tuyet,
Loan, a modern-minded young woman, falls in love and plans to marry a well-educated
young man who has been disowned by his mandarin father for his political activities.
(They are presumably revolutionary and anti-French; but the author was constrained by
censorship from being more specific.) However, Loan is forced by her mother to marry
Than, the son of the family's creditor, and finds herself persecuted by family, which
objects to her Westernized ways. In an argument, Than beats Loan, and she draws a knife
to defend herself, killing him by accident. She is acquitted when her lawyer paints Loan
as the victim of an oppressive family system. Loan becomes a career woman, working in
education and journalism. Dung, learning of these events from afar, attempts to contact
Loan through intermediaries, and she is delighted at the prospect of renewing their
relationship. In Doan-tuyet, as in many of his other works, Nhat Linh expressed the
yearning of urban youth to be free of the constraints of the traditional family while urging
them to struggle for independence.
Khai Hung's most celebrated novels include Gia-dinh (Family), Thua-tu (The
Inheritance), Tieu-son Trang-si (Righteous Warriors of Tieu Mountain), Nua Chung Xuan
(Mid-Spring), and Hon Buom Mo Tien (Butterfly Soul Dreaming of a Fairy). Although
many of his novels advocated social and particularly familial reform along the lines of
Nhat Linh's novels, Khai Hung's works also evinced a pronounced romanticism,
particularly Hon Buom Mo Tien, a short and immensely popular novel published in 1933
and set in a Buddhist monastery located near Ha-noi. It tells the story of a young male
student from Ha-noi named Ngoc, who spends several months in the monastery visiting
his uncle, the superior monk. He is strangely attracted to one of the monks, who is in fact
a young woman named Lan who has disguised herself as a man to take refuge in the
monastery. Although the novel does allude to the lack of opportunities available for
women in rural society, its focus is on the relationship between the two protagonists as
they fall in love but decide not to marry since Lan has pledged her life to the service of
religion. Intrigued by Buddhist teachings and inspired by Lan's sacrifice, Ngoc declares
that he will no longer consider only his biological relations to be his family but will
broaden his vision to include all of hu- manity, whom he pledges always to serve.
The Tu Luc Van Doan's predilection for romanticism, pronounced in Khai Hung's Hon
Buom Mo Tien, caused its members to be anathema to the of the next group, those who
wrote under the inspiration of Marxist ideas or under the direction of the Communist
Party.
Popular or Realist Literature
While the Self-Reliance authors waxed hegemonic during most of the 1930s, they were
challenged in the latter half of that decade by writers influ- enced by Marxist ideas of
class struggle, anti-imperialism, and antifeudalism. Many of these writers were from the
lower levels of the new urban and rural classes and were thus closer to the poor workers
and peasants than were Self- Reliance Group members. In contrast to the often
romanticized focus on middle- and upper-class characters that one finds in the Self-
Reliance novels, the works of the class-conscious writers realistically depict the
experiences of the popular masses. Hence Vietnamese refer to this as "popular" (binh
dan) or Realist (ta chan) literature. Among the most influential Realist authors were
Nguyen Cong Hoan (1903-1977), Vu Trong Phung (1912-1939), and Ngo Tat To (1894-
1954).
A prolific writer of short stories as well as novels, Nguyen Cong Hoan was at his best
describing the travails of the northern peasants at the hands of local officials. He
addressed this theme in a number of novels, including his best-known work, Buoc Duong
Cung (Impasse), published in 1938. Impasse recounts the struggles of a Tonkinese
peasant named Pha who falls victim to a plot hatched by a powerful landlord named Lai.
Lai is an opium-addicted landowner who, wanting to take possession of Pha's meager
holdings, schemes with Pha's neighbors to plant illegal alcohol on Pha's land. Because the
production of alcoholic beverages in competition with the administration's monopoly is a
serious crime in colonial Indochina, Pha is arrested and taken before the district
magistrate. He suffers greatly at the hands of the magistrate's underlings, who beat and
rob him before finally allowing him to plead his case before the magistrate. Even when
Pha is allowed to meet the magistrate, the latter demands bribes before considering the
case. Although Pha is set free, he has been forced to mortgage his land to meet his
expenses. When he resists the seizure of his property by agents of Lai, his creditor, Pha is
arrested again. It is noteworthy that in the course of the narrative Pha undergoes a
metamorphosis: early in the story, he is passive and accepting of his fate, but in the end-
and partly as a result of conversations with a leftist acquaintance-he emerges with a
clearer vision of the system that oppresses him, and he curses his captors as he is led
away in chains. Later communist writers would point to Nguyen Cong Hoan's Impasse as
a transitional work leading to socialist Realism.
Vu Trong Phung's life and literary career were short but productive. Having lost his father
to tuberculosis when he was only seven months old, Vu Trong Phung was raised by his
impoverished mother and performed manual labor as a youth; he later supported himself
by working as a printer and a journalist, the profession allowing him to devote himself to
writing after 1930. His published work, which includes documentary reporting (e.g., Ky
Nghe Lay Tay, or "The Profesion of Marrying Frenchmen") as well as fiction (e.g., novels
such as Lam Di, or To Be a Whore), gives evidence of his familiarity with the realities of
working-class life under the colonial regime. One of his favorite topics, which he handled
with biting sarcasm in one of his best-known novels, So Do (A Fortunate Life), is the
corruption of the French authorities and of the Vietnamese who aggrandized themselves
under their patronage. In So Do, a young Vietnamese of humble origins called Red-
Haired Xuan works at a French Club, returning tennis balls to the wealthy players. Adept
at flattering superiors and conniving against competitors, he rockets up the social ladder
in colonial society, becoming successively a tennis champion, a shop manager, a medical
doctor, and even a Buddhist reformer! In the end, he is awarded medals by the French
administration for agreeing to deliberately lose a championship tennis match! What kind
of society has flourished under the French regime, the author seems to be asking, that
allows such opportunists to enjoy success at the expense of others?
The third Realist writer is Ngo Tat To, a Confucian scholar who became one of the
Realist school's most effective members. Born and raised in the countryside of northern
Vietnam, he was familiar with the problems en- countered by the peasants and made their
plight the leitmotif of his 1939 masterpiece, Tat Den (When the Light's Put Out). The
story illustrates the French taxation system, which increased the amounts imposed on the
peas- antry while demanding that they pay in cash instead of in kind, as under the
imperial regimes of yore. In particular, the author stresses that the system gave leeway to
the regime's local agents, the Vietnamese officials at the dis- trict, canton, and village
levels with whom the peasants had to deal, and criticizes the corrupt practices these
officials employed to enrich themselves at the peasants' expense. In Tat Den, a
resourceful peasant woman called Chi Dau (Elder Sister Dau) sells all of her belongings,
her dog and its puppies, and even her own daughter to raise money to pay her husband's
head tax in order to rescue him from the clutches of the local officials, who brutally beat
and painfully bind their victims until their taxes are paid in full. Nor is this all: even after
Chi Dau has purchased her husband's freedom, the local of- ficials make her pay her
husband's brother's head tax even though the man died, stating that the tax records had
been finalized while the man was still alive and the bill must be paid in order to close the
dossier of the year's taxation. Because of Tat Den's portrayal of peasants who do not
hesitate to take action against the forces that oppress them (e.g., Chi Dau's determined
response to her family's crisis), Ngo Tat To was widely praised by later communist
writers who considered his Tat Den to be the masterpiece of Vietnamese Realism, a
worthy precursor to their own Resistance literature.

Resistance Literature
Under the Communist Party, literature in quoc ngu assumed a largely uniform and
strongly political character during the two Indochina Wars (1946-1954 and 1960-1975)
and the first decade of unified rule (1976- 1986). This can be considered a single period,
characterized by what may be termed Resistance literature. With the August Revolution
and the outbreak of the First Indochina War, it was no longer sufficient for writers to
portray, in realistic terms, the sufferings of the peasants at the hands of mandarins as the
Realists had done. Following Soviet and Chinese precedents, the call went out for
Vietnamese writers to produce a revolutionary socialist Realism in which, for example,
the struggles of peasants and other oppressed classes could be shown to be part of the
larger struggle for liberation under the aegis of the Communist Party. Literature was, in
short, to serve the Party's goals of mobilizing the people for revolutionary struggle in all
its facets, including anti-French or anti-American resistance, land reform, and
industrializing the D.R.V. and then the S.R.V.
The most successful writers of this period included a "first generation" comprising
writers of established reputations who rallied to the revolutionary ranks, including
Nguyen Cong Hoan, Ngo Tat To, and Nguyen Huy Tuong (1912-1960). Joining them
were "second generation" Resistance writers- that is, those who matured artistically
during the First Indochina War, in- cluding Nguyen Dinh Thi (b. 1924), Nguyen Van
Bong, and Dao Vu. The Resistance writers' ranks were completed by the addition of
authors of the "third generation," those who came to intellectual maturity during the Sec-
ond Indochina War, including Chu Van, Anh Duc, and Nguyen Minh Chau.
Representative works will illustrate how these writers met the challenge put before them
by the Party's literary establishment.
The central issue addressed by the Resistance writers, of course, is the Resistance itself-
that is, the military struggle against the French and later the Americans. Nguyen Van
Bong's 1953 novel Con Chau (The Buffalo), which describes life in a village in the
D.R.V.'s liberated zones during the First Indochina War, shows how the struggle in rural
areas was portrayed. The narrative describes the efforts of the village's inhabitants and
their Party leaders to maintain production and provide for the welfare of village residents
in the face of French attempts at sabotage. The novel's title refers to the fact that the
French forces tried to destroy the material basis of the resistance by shooting the
villagers' buffalo, which were vital in field labor, as transpor- tation, and as provider of
fertilizer. Although many village residents, old and young, male and female, participated
in the struggle, the two main characters are a poor peasant turned guerrilla fighter named
Tro and the local Party secretary and military leader, a cadre named Chuc. Benefiting
from Chuc's guidance, Tro becomes a skillful guerrilla fighter, displaying courage and a
profound hatred for the colonialists. Chuc is presented as a model Party cadre and
guerrilla leader, the heart and soul of the village's efforts.
Resistance writers were also asked to depict the struggle in the urban areas of the country
that were, in the First Indochina War, occupied by the French. Nguyen Huy Tuong's novel
Song Mai Voi Ha-noi Thu Do (Forever with Ha- noi the Capital), for example, portrays
the lives of the Vietnamese who found themselves in French-occupied urban zones for
most of the war and had to choose between serving the Resistance or the French and
allied Vietnamese forces. Several upper-class intellectuals, including a teacher and an
artist, join the Resistance in hopes of finding more meaningful or exciting lives, and they
come to support it wholeheartedly as a result of the political conscious and sense of
commitment that they develop. The lower-class figures presented in the novel-soup
merchants, ironworkers, bicycle repairmen- support the Resistance, and they are well led
in their efforts by dedicated underground Party members. These figures, who are
presented in a positive light, are contrasted with others-for example, Tan, son of a
wealthy businessman with ties to the French, whose main regret is the war is destroying
the beautiful capital, previously a source of pleasure to him. Postponing any political
commitment, he tries to enjoy the capital's remaining pleasures. As the narrative
develops, and Vietnamese forces fight to retake the capital from the French, each of the
above figures is forced to chose sides, with the majority of the members of the popular
classes and even bourgeois intellectuals supporting the Resistance. However, wealthy
figures whose backgrounds tie them to the French, such as Tan, the businessman's son, go
over the French side. Paradoxically, although Nguyen Huy Tuong gives his characters
little scope for moral choice by attributing their political allegiances to their social
origins, he praises those characters who devote themselves to the revolutionary cause.
As even such a brief summary indicates, Resistance works tend to engage in stereotyped
characterizations and predictable narratives. Many foreign ob- servers as well as
Communist Party officials have called attention to the generally poor quality of
Resistance literature, as broadly defined here, and critics are hard-pressed to name a
single work of great artistic value. Indeed, U.S.-based Vietnamese literary historian
Hoang Ngoc Thanh asserts: "Regardless of the efforts of the Party to indoctrinate artists
and writers with Marxism and Leninism for the development of a revolutionary realist
liter- ature, the [D.R.V.] has produced so far no literary work of real great value, among
the various genres in general and the novel in particular." One can only suggest that while
many Resistance writers were genuinely committed to the revolutionary cause in its early
years, the increasing constraints of producing works on the topics and in accordance with
the formulas handed down by the Party's literary establishment sapped their creative
forces in the long run. Witness the explosion of creativity that followed the partial and
provisional lifting of these strictures under Nguyen Van Linh's Renovation policies,
initiated in 1987.

"Marking Time" Literature

Of course, not all of the writers of this era lived in the Resistance zones or served the
revolutionary cause. What of the writers who lived under French protection during the
First Indochina War and under the American- supported southern regimes during the
Second? While space constraints pre- clude an extended discussion of their work, which
some historians have characterized as a literature without commitment, one that "marked
time" while waiting for the conflicts of the age to be settled by others, it may be briefly
described as follows.
In the First Indochina War, the French and their S.O.V. allies held most of the urban areas
and significant portions of the larger deltas, including of the Mekong and Red River.
Thus, anticommunist and noncom- munist intellectuals had the option of fleeing the
Resistance zones and living out the war under France's military umbrella. In these areas,
Vietnamese intellectuals had a renewed access to Western culture, particularly French but
now including English and American as well. In response to the urbanites' curiosity about
life in the Resistance zones, memoir writing enjoyed a vogue, with a wave of published
accounts by people who had lived in the Resistance zones during World War II or the
early First Indochina War, sharing (mostly) their experiences of with the Viet Minh,
particularly after the increase of Chinese influence after 1949. There was a paucity of
creative writing, which has led some scholars to describe literature outside the Resistance
zones as having been "in cold storage" during the years 1946-1954. Several new
publishing houses were founded, however, in response to the popular demand for
translations (into quoc ngu) of Chinese novels as well as for reprinted editions of popular
pre-World War II novels such as those of the Tu Luc Van Doan.
During the Second Indochina War, the U.S.-supported Republican re- gimes controlled
the urban areas of southern Vietnam as well as roughly half its countryside. Intellectuals
in these regions enjoyed a freedom of thought that was relatively greater than that of their
northern confreres, despite re- pression of outright dissent and the official sponsorship of
anticommunism, linked strongly to Catholicism, particularly during the Diem era (1955-
1963). In this context, a new literature arose giving voice to the Vietnamese of the South
and the problems they faced because of the war. Many writers suffered agonizing
dilemmas, caught as they were between their fear of communism and their revulsion
toward the omnipresent destructiveness of the anticommunist effort by U.S. and R.V.N.
forces. Le Tat Dieu, Nguyen Thi Thuy Vu, and Tran Thi Nha Ca are examples of authors
in this category. Others turned away from the crisis entirely, producing novels with
romantic and individualistic tendencies. A number of southern intellectuals became
fascinated with the existentialism of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, and this
interest was reflected in philosophical discussions as well as in creative writing,
particularly in the poetry of, for example, Thanh Tam Tuyen. Other intellectuals busied
themselves with scholarly activities, producing historical and literary studies that are still
of value to researchers today: Vuong Hong Sen's works on early Sai-gon, for example, or
Toan Anh's research into Vietnamese popular culture.

Renovation Literature
Although the Party's preference for socialist Realist literature stressing the oppressed
masses' heroic struggles under the socialist banner has remained pronounced, the relative
liberalization brought about by renovation policies formalized by the Party's Sixth
Congress in 1986 allowed some writers to experiment with new themes and styles and to
address a number of formerly taboo topics. As General Secretary Nguyen Van Linh put it
in a speech to a writers' group shortly afterward, "Speak the truth. Whatever happens,
Com- rades, don't curb your pens." When writers responded eagerly to this op- portunity,
producing novels, short stories, and essays critical of the regime and its literary policies,
conservative Party officials objected, and, following the Seventh Congress in 1993, there
was a reassertion of the Party's authority over literary matters and a restatement of
writers' obligations to produce a "wholesome" and "socialist" literature. The new policies,
though not as re- strictive as those in place before 1986, have produced uncertainty, as
writers and editors cannot be sure what is permitted and what is forbidden.
It is nonetheless possible to describe the period from roughly 1987 to the present as the
era of Renovation literature. According to one Western literary critic, Renovation
literature is characterized by a "high degree of criticism of everyday reality"; focus on the
individual rather than the collective experi- ence; frank treatment of the "decline of
traditional morality"; and a "willingness to take a fresh look at important issues in the
past."" Five outstanding contemporary writers-Duong Thu Huong, Le Luu, Bao Ninh, Le
Minh Khue, and Nguyen Huy Thiep-have addressed these themes in their major works.
Duong Thu Huong was born in Thai-Binh province in northern Vietnam in 1947 into a
revolutionary family. She volunteered for army service in 1967 and was stationed as a
"cultural worker" with the PAVN in the Central Highlands of what was then the R.V.N.
Her faith in the cause began to waver in the post-war period, however, as she began to
question whether the "liberation" experienced under the S.R.V. was worth the suffering
endured by its wartime supporters. Since she began to publish in 1980, she has en- joyed
popular and critical acclaim in Vietnam and abroad. Two of her novels, Ben Kia Bo Ao
Vong (On the Far Bank of Illusions), published in 1987, and Nhung Thien Duong Mu
(Paradises of the Blind), published in 1988, were immensely popular in Vietnam. With
more than 140,000 copies sold, they were best-sellers by the modest standards of
developing countries. They also earned her official disapproval. Nhung Thien Duong Mu
was impounded by the authorities soon after publication. Her masterpiece, Tieu Thuyet
Vo De, which would be translated into English and published in 1995 in the United States
as Novel without a Name, was refused publication in Vietnam. She has also suffered
repeated interrogations, expulsion from the Party in 1990, and imprisonment in 1991.
Based on Duong Thu Huong's observations of combat, Tieu Thuyet Vo De tells the story,
in pseudo-autobiographical fashion, of a male PAVN sol- dier named Quan. In contrast to
the focus on the heroic masses that char- acterized the official Resistance literature, her
novel stresses how the grand struggles led by the Party devastated the physical and
emotional lives of its followers. The battle scenes focus not on heroic actions of
exemplary cadres but on the human cost of the war for the D.R.V.'s soldiers, who suffered
horribly under the American bombing and from the incompetence of their own leaders.
For example, in one scene, Quan's unit, a PAVN main-force fighting in southern Vietnam
around 1970, engages in deadly but confused nocturnal combat with a presumed "enemy"
unit, which is later identified by the soldiers one of their own. The PAVN authorities
never acknowledge the error, and Quan is horrified to read an account in the official press
that describes the encounter as a "glorious victory" by revolutionary forces.
Thuyet Vo De does not stop at reevaluating wartime sacrifices. Duong Thu Huong also
casts a critical eye on material and social life under the D.R.V. During his leave, Quan
travels from southern Vietnam, where his unit operates, to his village near Ha-noi. In
D.R.V. territory, he rides a train and observes the abject poverty of the passengers, one of
whom is described as relishing a tiny piece of moldy bread. This image is contrasted with
that of other passengers, high-ranking Party members who are well-fed, half-drunk, and
smoking foreign cigarettes. Quan cannot help overhearing a scandalous conversation
about the role of Marxism under what was then the D.R.V. Its function, they boast, is to
inspire the "ignorant" masses to greater sacrifices on the battlefield and lead them to
accept the privations that permit the Party elite's privileged (or "civilized," in the
speaker's words) lifestyles. When another passenger takes offense and summons the
conductor, who questions the men, they arrogantly brandish their Party identification
cards, and backs down apologetically. By juxtaposing the enormous sacrifices of the
soldiers and the people with the mediocrity and corruption of their leaders in the context
of generalized poverty, Duong Thu Huong questions the value of the revolutionary
struggle and the nature of the resulting society. Both of these questions, as we have seen,
are characteristic of the Renovation approach.
The second Renovation author, Le Luu, was born in Hai-hung province, northern
Vietnam, in 1942 and served in the Second Indochina War as an army signal man and
correspondent in central Vietnam. Since then he has worked as the editor of Van Nghe
Quan Doi, an official PAVN literary organ, and he won the prestigious National Award
for fiction in 1987. He has written a number of novels, most of which reflect his military
experience. His masterpiece is Thoi Xa Vang, has been translated into English as A Time
Far Past. Thoi Xa Vang spans the Indochina wars as well as the early postwar era by
following the life of Sai, a studious and likable village boy from northern Vietnam, as he
grows from adolescence into his fifties.
As a boy, Sai is married by his traditionally minded parents to a girl named Tuyet, with
whom he has little in common and whom he comes to despise. Although he loves a
village girl named Huong, who returns his affection, they are kept apart by his family's
insistence that he honor the commitments they have made with Tuyet's family. The author
here critiques the continuing domination of the individual by the traditional family, but
the story is more complex and the criticism broader than that, for Sai's relatives, some of
whom are powerful figures in the local and regional Party hierarchies, prevent him from
renouncing the marriage for fear that the stigma of divorce would hinder Sai's career and
damage the family's future position. Abandoning a promising academic career, Sai
volunteers for the army, not because of a spirit of patriotic self-sacrifice-as would have
been the case in Resistance novels but because service in a faraway region would allow
him to escape from his oppressive domestic situation.
After the conclusion of the war and the reunification of Vietnam, Sai returns from the
South as a wartime hero but finds it difficult to adjust to the peacetime environment with
its stress on careerism and materialism. Divorced from Tuyet at last, he tries to rebuild his
life, marrying a Ha-noi woman named Chau, who, unknown to Sai, is in love with a
married man, and pregnant by him. When Sai's relationship with Chau deteriorates, he
divorces for a second time and returns to his native region, where he finds a measure of
personal happiness and professional satisfaction by reestablishing a platonic relationship
with Huong, his old flame, and by working as a district-level official, in which capacity
he resolves a number of local economic problems.
Le Luu's Thoi Xa Vang is thus characteristic of Renovation fiction in that it reexamines
the historical events of the Indochina Wars, presenting them not as noble struggles of the
whole people for liberation but as periods of suffering and separation after which soldiers
are able to reintegrate themselves into society only partially and with difficulty. The book
is also notable for its criticism of everyday reality and its analysis of the decline of
traditional morality. The protagonist's family, traditionalist in its organization and ruthless
in manipulating the revolutionary political structures, selfishly forces Sai to marry a
woman whom he does not love and then forbids him to divorce despite the couple's
unhappiness. While Sai accedes to the family's wishes to arrange the marriage, he
protests passively by refusing to speak to his wife, later joining the army to temporarily
escape the situation. The work also portrays some Ha-noi residents who divorce freely
and take advantage of their lunch to conduct love affairs!
Ha-noi native Bao Ninh, born in 1952 and, like Duong Thu Huong and Le Luu, a veteran
of the Second Indochina War, fits the Renovation style by virtue of his reexamination of
the combat experience of the Second Indochina War and his dissection of the difficult
postwar lives of its veterans. His best- known work, published in Vietnam in 1990 as
Than Phan Cua Tinh Yeu (Love's Fate) has been reissued in Vietnam under the name of
Noi Buon Chien Tranh and translated into English as The Sorrow of War. It is a best-
seller in Vietnam and widely read abroad in translation. It earned its author a literary
prize in Vietnam in 1991 but also brought criticism from military and political authorities
in Vietnam, who found his descriptions of the wartime experience shocking and
subversive. Noi Buon Chien Tranh recounts the wartime and postwar experiences of
veterans by using a first-person narrator named Kien. Kien and his fellow combatants
participated in the war's latter stages, which led to the "liberation" of the South. They
suffer immensely in the fighting and perceive no real meaning in it; they intoxicate
themselves with local herbs so that they can continue to perform their duties without
breaking down psychologically. Even when the war is over, they do not feel that they
have won anything; they continue to struggle to come to terms with their experience.
They are haunted by the war's ghosts-by visions, for example, of the mutilated and
maggot-infested corpses of young women found by the soldiers. With Bao Ninh,
Vietnamese literature has traveled a long way from the glorification of victorious attacks
by courageous guerrillas and their sagacious leaders, the stock in trade of the Resistance
authors. Noi Buon Chien Tranh is also notable for its author's innovative use of a stream-
of-consciousness narrative technique, dream sequences, and flashbacks, which contrast
with the chronological narration employed in Resistance novels.
Le Minh Khue, born in Thanh-hoa province in 1949, joined the PAVN at the age of
fifteen and served in a youth brigade along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Vietnam.
She has since worked as a reporter and is currently editor of the Writers' Association
Publishing House in Ha-noi. She is a prolific writer of fiction, including novels and short
stories, winning a Writ- ers' Association award for her work in the latter genre in 1987.
Like much of Renovation fiction, her work is driven by an intense feeling of disillusion-
ment as the ideals of the revolution, which demanded so much sacrifice in wartime, have
seemingly been abandoned in the postwar period. One West- ern critic has described her
work as creating a "language of lost ideals."
A summary of two of her short stories will give the reader an idea of how language fits
the description of Renovation literature. Her 1990 story, "A Small Tragedy," presents a
critical on the D.R.V.'s leadership during the Second Indochina War. Set in the postwar
period, the story uses the first-person narrative of a female reporter whose uncle is a high-
ranking local official named Tuyen. When she travels with a group of reporters to the
region formerly under Tuyen's authority, her companions, unaware of her relationship to
Tuyen, talk about the late of young people assigned to wartime labor projects by him. In
one case, many were killed when they fell into a sinkhole beneath the soil on which they
were working for a construction project. Tuyen had been warned about the instability of
the soil but had paid it no mind, promoting the project with the usual fanfare. In another
instance, they recount, he ordered youths to fill in bomb craters during the daytime
despite the likelihood that they would be targeted by American warplanes; more than 100
were killed when a plane bombed the area. The reporters note ruefully that although the
tragedies were common knowledge in the area, no official action was taken against
Tuyen, and the newspaper accounts of the bombing only mentioned that anti-aircraft
crews had shot down one of the planes. Here Le Minh Khue breaks sharply with the
heroic treatment of Party officials typical of the Resistance school. The local leader
presented in her account is cynical, corrupt, and incompetent, but he prospers in spite of
his faults because of the failure of the D.R.V.'s system to hold its officials accountable.
Vietnamese readers would note, of course, that the situation still remains the same, the
wartime-era political system being unchanged in its essentials.
Her 1992 story. "Scenes from an Alley," critiques everyday life in contem- porary
Vietnam, in particular the decline in traditional morality. The alley is inhabited by several
families whose reactions to an accident are presented for the reader's consideration. Mr.
Quyt and his wife rent a room to a West- erner, who drinks heavily, frequents prostitutes,
and drives recklessly when inebriated. When the Westerner hits a local girl with his car
and kills her, he is forced to pay the girl's mother, Mrs. Tit, $1,000, a small fortune by
local standards. Having become a "millionaire," Mrs. Tit, who used to scav- enge scrap
metal and sleep on the street, buys a house in the alley, sets up a business, and takes to
wearing a gold chain and flower hat, all of which make her newly attractive to the local
men, who begin courting her. Mr. Quyt, the Westerner's landlord, bribes local officials to
allow the Westerner to stay on as a tenant and even closes his eyes to the fact that his wife
has begun to sleep with the guest, suggesting that he values the rent money more than
conjugal fidelity. Another neighbor, Mr. Toan, begins encouraging his aged father to take
his naps outside by the road, hoping that their family too will enjoy the "good fortune" of
having one of its members killed by a foreigner! This short piece of fewer than ten pages
is one of the most devastating critiques of day-to-day reality in modern Vietnamese
fiction.
The final Renovation author-and in the almost unanimous opinion of readers, critics, and
other Renovation authors, the best writer of them all-is Nguyen Huy Thiep. A native of
Ha-noi who spent much of his youth in the mountainous provinces bordering the Red
River Delta, Nguyen Huy Thiep is the only major Renovation writer who does not have a
military background. He was trained as a history teacher and worked in that capacity in
the D.R.V.'s northern highlands during the Second Indochina War. He is currently
entrepreneur and restaurant owner in Ha-noi, where he con- tinues to write novels, short
stories, and plays, which have created a sensation since they began to appear in the mid-
1980s among readers, most of whom loved them, and Party officials, many of whom
condemned them.
For Vietnamese readers, much of the appeal of Nguyen Huy Thiep's work lies in the
original way that he breaks down conventional modes of thinking and writing about
historical topics. In a short story called "Chastity," for example, he depicts one of the Tay-
son movement's leaders, Nguyen Hue, as a brutal and perverted figure. In a play called
Love Remains, he presents the nationalist leader Nguyen Thai Hoc as a a revolutionary
martyr. Both characterizations run counter to the Marxists' interpretations of these
figures: the Tay-son movement is seen as a harbinger of the communist one, and Nguyen
Thai Hoc's party competed with the early communists for nationalist lead- ership. Since
the Party still draws from its tation of history, it is obvious how dangerous such
revisionism can be in context.
Nguyen Huy Thiep has also fascinated Vietnamese readers with his almost clinical
dissection of social reality under the S.R.V., presenting slices of daily life that almost
everyone knows to be true but which are rarely spoken of, even in private. Such is the
case with his 1987 masterpiece, Tuong Ve Huu (The General Retires). The general is
introduced as having joined the PAVN at a young age to escape an unhappy familial
situation. As in Le Luu's Thoi Xa Vang, a military hero has joined the service not out of
patriotism- invariably the case in the Resistance stories but to escape unpleasant per-
sonal circumstances. He nevertheless serves honorably and finds meaning in his military
career, but it has not prepared him for the retirement to civilian life, which is the setting
of the novel. The general stays for a time with his wife, his son (the story's narrator), and
his son's wife and children. None of their relationships seem to work. The general's wife,
for example, is senile and relegated to a compound behind the family house. His
daughter-in-law is intelligent but ruthless: for example, to keep the family out of poverty,
she takes home aborted fetuses from the hospital and grinds them up as dog food for
guard dogs, the sale of which is the family's main source of income. To the general's
consternation, his son refuses to take a stand against the practice or to assert himself in
any way. Even social rituals a wedding and a funeral) are presumably intended to bring
people together turn out disastrously, with guests getting drunk and behaving crudely.
Perhaps seeking a return to the moral certainties that his military career had provided, the
general returns to visit his old camp, where he dies and is buried.
Despite its withering criticism of the present society, it is worth noting- and this is true
throughout Nguyen Huy Thiep's published works-that Tuong Ve Huu avoids direct,
moralistic condemnations of the S.R.V.'s pol- icies or officials. Part of this is simple
prudence, of course, but it is consistent with Nguyen Huy Thiep's artistic vision, which
eschews moral certainties and even straightforward narrative, preferring ambiguity and
leaving open the possibility of multiple interpretations.

PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE

Contemporary Vietnamese literature is in transition. For the major creative talents
working in the S.R.V. who have tasted the relative freedoms of the Renovation era, there
can be no turning back to the literature of the Resis- tance period. The Vietnamese public,
by its enthusiastic reception of Renovation writers, has also demonstrated that it finds
such fiction compelling, if controversial, which certainly could not be said of any of the
old-style socialist Realist works. It is by no means certain that the Party will continue to
allow writers the relative freedoms of the Renovation period, as the conservative turn
taken in the early 1990s suggests. Vietnamese authors of the highest caliber have learned
to adapt to this situation of uncertain and shifting literary freedom by adopting narrative
devices that allow them to tell their stories to perceptive readers while maintaining
"deniability" vis-à-vis the Party and state hierarchies.
 5 - Art and Architecture

INTRODUCTION
A VISIT TO ONE of the numerous galleries that have now opened in Ha-noi or Ho Chi
Minh City may lead one to note the seemingly overwhelming influence of Western
schools of painting such as Cubism, Abstractionism, Futurism, or Fauvism on Vietnamese
artists, and to conclude that their works are mere imitations of European masters' and that
the Vietnamese incapable of genuine creativity and lack any original aesthetics. This
would be a great error. Vietnamese art and architecture in their modern expressions are
but the offspring of thousands of years of tradition rooted in the immense bird-and-sun-
engraved bronze drums of Dong-son, in the wooden sculptures of But Thap (or Ninh
Phuc) and Thay pagodas, in the popular Dong Ho prints, or in the ceramics of They are
inspired by the agrarian background of Viet culture, trees with roots plunging deep into
the rivers and mountains and sky of Vietnam, and blossoms most fragrant in the
traditional surroundings of the village and its activities. Mythological tales of princesses
and dragons; historical epics of sister queens, peasant-kings, child- prodigies, heroes all,
and literary characters from the Tale of Kieu have long inspired Vietnamese arts and
aesthetics. Nevertheless the art and architecture of have also been strongly affected by the
colonial era, which intro- duced Western artistic concepts, expressions, and methods such
as figurativism, perspective, and oil painting, thus inaugurating the era of Vietnamese
modern art.

PRE-COLONIAL ARTS
Pre-colonial Viet art found its expression in bronze casting, stone and wood sculpture,
block printing, pottery, lacquerwork, and architecture, the last considered the premier of
all arts. Given the limitations of the scope of this book, only a few of these methods will
be discussed: pottery, wood-block prints, lacquerwork, and architecture. Unlike in
Europe, in Vietnam no distinction was made between fine arts and handicrafts. Vietnam
was an agrarian society that did not begin industrializing until recently; most of the
objects produced in premodern times, whether meant for the peasant's needs or the elite's
enjoyment, came from the hands of master crafters. These were artisans who had
acquired the knowledge and expertise from their ancestors, secrets transmitted from
generation to generation and kept within the confines of a village specialized in a
particular craft.
Throughout the Red River Delta sprang up villages reputed for one particular product: the
village of Vac for its bamboo and paper fans; the village of Bat-trang for its ceramics; the
village of Ngu Xa for its bronze casting, in particular, the bells used in pagodas and
temples; the village of Dong Ky for its firecrackers (since New Year's fireworks were
outlawed in the mid-1990s by the S.R.V., the village has switched to wood carving); or
the Chuong village for its conical hats. At the beginning of the twentieth century, labor
became so specialized that some villages would use one partacular element only in a
product and then sell it to another village, which would take up the next step; this process
formed an artisanal chain of production. For instance, the making of conical hats starts
with the village of Tao Dung, which makes the crowns. This is followed by the village of
Canh Hoach, which produces the frames that are then rimmed in the village of Don Thu.
The village of Chuong finishes the process by sewing the palm leaf frond onto the whole
frame. There are villages in the Red River Delta that have thrived solely on handicrafts
(e.g., the Van Phuc village for its silk and brocade, the village of Quat Dong for its
embroidery) and have been able to produce for numerous local markets as well as the
markets of the capital, Ha-noi, with its thirty-six streets. Each of these streets bears the
name of the particular merchandise sold in exclusivity there: Hang Bac is the
Silversmith's Street, Hang Chieu is the Grass Mat Street, and Hang Trong is the Drum
Street, it also sells wood-block prints. Nowadays, the products sold in these streets no
longer correspond to the original names. For instance, in the Flaxseed Street (Hang Gai)
one finds mostly silk fabric and clothes, and in Flower Street (Hang Bong), clothing
articles.
In central Vietnam, the stone carving of Quang-nam and Da-nang and the wood carving
and embroidery of Hue are famous. In the Mekong Delta, by contrast, because of the
dispersed settlement pattern, clusters of different handicrafts (xom nghe) would gather
along rivers and arroyos: wooden clog making, boat crafting, and tofu making in the
province of Vinh Long; brick making and sugar refining in the province of Binh Duong;
carpentry and silk raising and weaving in the province of An-giang, famous for its silk
from Tan Chau; and stone sculpting in the region of Buu Long, province of Dong- nai.
The pre-colonial art and architecture of Vietnam were, in large part, products of
anonymous and unrecognized artisans who catered to the daily needs of the peasant and
the luxury consumption of the elite. They provided for the social and religious activities
of these two groups from materials that surrounded them, such as bamboo, persimmon
wood, palm leaf, clay, ivory, mother-of-pearl, gold, and silver. The skills of the artisans
were undeniable as far back as the first millennium B.C.E., when bronze casting
techniques led to the crafting of the gigantic bronze drums of Dong-son (the name refers
to the area where the artifacts were first found), decorated with representations of
animals, the sun, and tall humans in feather headdresses harvesting rice, racing boats, or
hunting. Whether in wood carving (with or without mother-of-pearl inlay) and wood-
block printing, in stone sculpting, in shaping delicate ceramics, or in silk and brocade
weaving, over the centuries the Viet artisan has produced remarkable objects. Some of
them have survived the passage of time and can be found in museums or in family
collections, but most have been destroyed by the climate or the ravages of war.
Though springing from the soil of Vietnam, pre-colonial art and architecture have
absorbed integrated Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism while never losing touch with
their rural and Animistic roots. The fusion of external elements with domestic sources has
provided an inexhaustible well of inspiration to the artisans, as reflected in the dragons
and unicorns on the curved roofs of temples and communal houses, in the Buddhist
deities on sculpted lintels or as statues in pagodas; in the lotus, phoenix, turtle, and crane
represented on lacquerware, ceramics, and bronze objects; and in the simple buffalo boy
or village musicians and dancers represented on paper prints.

CERAMICS
According to archaeological findings that unearthed engraved diamond- patterned pots,
the making of ceramics (gom) in Viet lands dates to Neolithic times, but it only truly took
off during the independent monarchies in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In this era,
celadon-glazed ceramics made of fine white clay were produced in northern and central
Vietnam, often decorated with the lotus motif or having a lotus shape, reflecting the
influence of Buddhism. Urns with six handles for suspension, dragon-spouted pots, and
animal-handled (e.g., parrots, shrimp) vessels were crafted during this time. In the
fifteenth century, the use of ivory glaze over cobalt motifs (rooster, white elephant, crane,
pelican, and flowers) on ceramics dominated, with an ornamental brushwork that became
more skillful and elegant. The crackled glaze technique was applied by the crafter to
create cracks that would then be brushed with colored ink (black or otherwise) to suggest
landscapes, relief, or movements. By the seventeenth century, high-quality Vietnamese
ceramics were sold throughout Asia as far as Turkey and Japan. In the latter they were
called "Kochi" pottery (Japanese transcription of the word "Giao Chi"), and some of the
pieces were favored for the tea ceremony. Figural ceramics of piglets, parrots, and
ducklings made of crude brick clay and used as children's toys were much in demand,
whereas ornamental ceramics of dragons and unicorns went to decorate temple roofs.
Numerous pottery centers emerged in the Red River Delta, such as Bat-trang. Tho Ha,
and Chu Dau, which produced diverse hue-glazed ceramics (e.g., green or brown mon-
ochrome glazes or gray-yellow ones); and in the Mekong Delta, such as Lai Thieu and
Bien Hoa, which made glazed as well as unglazed everyday objects like jars and pots,
bowls and plates, cups and incense burners, as well as small coffins for burying children,
head supports, jardinieres, and terra-cotta roof tiles for pagodas and temples. The most
famous ceramics center, and one that is still in existence and actively producing, is Bat-
trang in the North.
Bat-trang, located about ten miles from Ha-noi, has beer active at least since the fifteenth
century and remains a thriving ceramics center, serving domestic and foreign markets.
Thanks to nearby sources of kaolin, clay, and oxides, Bat-trang artisans did not have to go
far for the primary materials that are used in making ordinary items such as rice bowls,
cups and plates, pitchers, and building bricks, as well as refined, luxurious, carefully
crafted objects such as flute-necked vases, delicate teapots and their accompanying cups,
wine ewers, incense burners, and, in former times, the tiles that covered the floor of the
Nguyen royal tombs in Hue.
Once taken from the ground, the clay is ground to a powder and mixed with water to
form a thick paste, which is then thrown on a potter's wheel to be molded. Once the
desired shape is attained, the potter brushes it with a glaze that, in Bat-trang's case, is
typically ivory in color. Other tints can also be attained, depending on the oxides used.
The Bat-trang brushwork is recognizable for its lightness and spontaneity and its blurred,
uneven intensity. The wares are fired in kilns that previously used wood but have
switched to coal. Vietnamese glazed and unglazed wares are not the only ceramics that
can be found in local markets; they compete with stoneware and earthenware produced
by the Highlanders or by Cham and Khmer of the central and southern plains.

LACQUERWARE
Lacquerwork (son mai) is of ancient existence, as testified by the lacquered items dating
back to the third and fourth centuries B.C.E., which have come to us almost Lacquering
was used for the preservation and decoration of wooden items like betel boxes, tea trays,
bowls, and cups, although it had also been applied to ceramics and leather, even silver
and gold. Traditionally it allowed only three colors: black (than), derived from the
oxidation of the resin, red (son), from the use of vermillion, and brown (canh gian
literally, the color of "cockroach wing"), from the mixing of black and red. Through- out
the country, communal houses, pagodas, and temples had lustrous lac- quered pillars and
beams; statues of the Buddha and Taoist deities and national heroes; ancestral altars,
along with their votive items, like ancestral tablets and candleholders, were equally
lacquered, allowing them to survive humidity and termites. The lacquer itself is a
substance obtained from the sap of the lacquer tree (Toxicoderdron succedanea),
cultivated in the hilly forests of Phu Tho province in the North. After a long process of
successive fermentation, heating, and mixing with other products, the secrets of which
vary according to each crafter, the varnish is applied to perfectly sanded wooden items in
multiple layers, each of which is left to dry, then polished to a shine. Traditional materials
such as crushed eggshell, wood ash, gold, and silver are used to impart colors and relief.
Over the centuries, and in particular during the heyday of Buddhism from the eleventh to
the fifteenth century, lacquer artisans perfected the techniques and produced marvels like
the beautiful vermillion-and gilt-lacquered miniature boat of the Keo pagoda or the
polychrome lacquered Quan Am statue of the But Thap pagoda, shining from its
centuries-old patina. During the French colonial period, thanks to the introduction of a
new technique known as chiseling, lacquerers began to use a wider palette of colors, the
painters' medium of choice along with oil and silk painting.

PAINTING
Painting, whether in the scroll form or as murals in premodern times, did not generate the
same interest among Viet literati and artists as it did for their Chinese counterparts, who
deemed it as high an art as literature. The tools (e.g., silk, paper, ink and brushes,
woodblock) were there, but the circumstances were not favorable. It was not that the
artistic impulse and creativity were lacking, only that they translated differently in the
Viet context. Where a Chinese artist would paint roof beams and supports, the Viet
counterpart would them. Where a Chinese artist of the Tang or Sung Dynasty would
compose portraits or landscapes, the Viet artist would turn to folk prints, although there
are a few nineteenth-century examples of Vietnamese silk painting.
Wood-block printing may be considered a major art form because of its creativity, the
profusion of its production, and its unique themes and their treatments. Wood-block
printing was a folk art that produced prints (tranh dan gian) meant for the peasant's
enjoyment during festive times such as the New Year (tranh Tet, or Tet images) or the
Mid-Autumn Festival, when even the poorest person could buy a few bright prints to
adorn a humble abode. Villages such as Sen Ho, Nam Du Thuong, and Binh Vong used to
specialize in wood-block printing, but Dong Ho (Bac-ninh) and Hang Trong (Ha- noi) are
the most renowned of them all for their colorful prints. In this handicraft as in the others,
the whole family participates in every step of the wood-block printing process, with each
person assigned a specific task. It begins with the drawing of the motif on paper, which is
then glued to a block made of persimmon wood. The precise carving is then carried out
by the artisan. The finished block becomes a family heirloom, passed on from generation
to generation. It is inked and a piece of paper carefully pressed onto it. Outlines appear
that are then filled in with different opaque and contrasting colors, which may also be
printed from other blocks. The paper used for the printing is dyed, using plants like the
yellow Sophora japonica and also minerals. A coating of diluted mother-of-pearl shell
powder is applied to the paper to give it a unique sheen. Gold and silver touches can also
be added, especially for religious paintings.
The themes are immutable but varied, springing from familiar rural surroundings as well
as from mythological and historical sources, but all carry a symbolism meant to convey
wishes of prosperity, happiness, and longevity, to impart moral, historical, or religious
lessons; or to satirize. Above all, they display a sense of humor, even a sharp witticism,
from the part of the peasant- artisan. Thus one may find the usual prints centering on
flowers and fruits, with the lotus as the symbol of purity, harmony in marriage, and
numerous progeny, or the peach as the symbol of spring, of marriage, and, above all, of
longevity. Animals like the sow and her piglets represent abundance of wealth or of
children; the rooster is seen as the symbol of courage, charity, and trust; and the toad is a
symbol of success in examinations. There are illustrations of village scenes and activities
(e.g., buffalo herding, wrestling, dancing), of chubby boys and girls carrying baskets of
fruits or fish-scenes evoke the peace and prosperity hoped for by all peasants at the New
Year. To ensure the home's protection from demons and wandering evil spirits, prints of
ferocious warrior-spirits are pasted to the door of the house. Other prints illustrate the
favorite themes of resistance and heroism: the Trung sisters riding elephants, swords in
hand, leading the charge against the enemy in the first century; the buffalo boy who
became emperor (Dinh Tien Hoang); and Tran Hung Dao, who defeated the Mongol
armies at Bach Dang in the thirteenth century. The prints often display a sharp humor,
mocking students by representing them as frogs mindlessly memorizing lessons, or a
certain eroticism, as in the print of a peasant boy harvesting co- conuts while a scantily
clad peasant girl awaits him at the foot of the tree. During the French and American wars
the D.R.V. used this medium for its propaganda. Nowadays, daly a few families still carry
out the tradition of popular prints.

Modern Painting
When Vietnam entered the colonial dominion of France, the government introduced
French aesthetics and art embodied in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine
(Indochina School of Fine Arts-ISFA), which opened in 1925 in Ha-noi. It was founded
on the erroneous conception that Vietnamese people, like their colonized brethren, the
Khmer and the Lao, were incapable of artistic concepts and could rise only to the level of
handicrafts, and the school was meant to train generations of artisans who would keep
handicrafts alive by producing them for the mother country-that is, for France. Despite
that faulty premise, and thanks to the leadership of its first director, Victor Tardieu, a
French painter and artist who appreciated Viet traditional art, an entire generation of
Western-trained urban artists was born who were introduced to the world of oil painting,
to new trends that were emerging in Europe in the twentieth century such as Cubism or
Fauvism, and to European conceptions of anatomy and perspective.
While introducing the Viet to this new world, the French artists and teachers who
presided over the ISFA, particularly Joseph Inguimberty, discovered Viet traditional art
and techniques such as lacquerwork. This traditional technique, applied to objects of
worship and for everyday use, found a new life as Inguimberty and his students made use
of it as a medium of expression as rich as oil on canvas.
The first generation of modern artists, who graduated from the school in 1930, comprised
such trailblazers as To Ngoc Van, Nguyen Gia Tri, and Tran Van Can. They studied
classicism and romanticism and followed the poetical realism trend in their works. This
trend inspired the artists to represent people interacting with nature in an idealized,
harmonious setting, to create concrete images as vessels of the artist's sentiments and
ideas; they experimented with impressionism and Fauvism; they were inspired by mas-
ters ranging from Renoir to Monet to Gauguin. Although the artists mastered oil painting,
they often preferred to work in mediums such as silk painting, lacquerwork, and wood-
block engraving as they continued to explore agrarian themes such as village dances,
harvests, or festivals. The pre-1945 world that they depicted was an innocent one where
life seemed to flow unchanged, as shown in engravings by Dinh (e.g., The Pagoda Gate)
or lacquerwork by Hoang Sung (e.g., A Market Day in the Highlands); women of this
prewar time, as they appeared in the silk painting of Mai Trung Thu (e.g., Young Woman
of Hue) or Le Van De (e.g., Young Woman by the Pond's Bridge). were of the upper class,
often portrayed as languid and melancholic and idealized as willowy silhouettes straight
out of Kim Van Kieu.
As an artist and a teacher, To Ngoc Van was among the most influential of the first
generation of painters. With a style that continually evolved, he contributed a large body
of work that covered numerous themes, from landscapes of famous sights like the Ha
Long Bay to village scenes to portraits, especially of women. He is most noted for two
paintings, Young Woman and Lilies and Two Young Women and Child, which have come
to epitomize the Ha-noi woman of the 1930-1940s, urbane, refined, and graceful through
his use of bold colors contrasted with restrained, minimalist lines.
Nguyen Gia Tri, his classmate, was among the first to master lacquer painting. At its best,
his work combined techniques from the West and the East, using the multiple layers in
lacquer painting to convey depth and il- lusion, the smoothness to bring a liquid but light
impression to the scene, and the limited range of colors (black, gold, silver, vermillion
red, and brown) to provide a distinct and unique dimension. As one can see in his Spring
Garden or his By the Surrendered Sword Lake, Nguyen Gia Tri's favorite theme was that
of the ao dai-clad city women, refined and demure, shown at their leisure against a
background of lush gardens brimming with tropical blooms, existing in a dream world as
conveyed by the artful use of shining red and gold in his lacquer painting and by the fluid
silhouettes of the women.
Bui Xuan Phai, through his two favorite media, oil painting and pastel sketches, was
inspired by the traditional village scenes of festivals and gatherings, by the local folklore
and mythology, and by Vietnamese literature and cheo popular theater. He was also a
passionate chronicler of Ha-noi and its thirty-six neighborhoods, which he showed
evolving throughout the sea- in his works collectively known as The Old Streets of
Hanoi.
All these artists left behind this sybaritic world when the war began and launched
themselves into paintings that would no longer speak of self and of the inner world but of
the heroism of a whole people. People like Nguyen Do Cung, for example, who had
introduced Cubism into Vietnam, forsook their former passions to follow a narrow
ideological path in arts when war hit home. The First Indochina War split the artistic
world along the lines of the political division of Vietnam forcing all of them out of their
inner world and into the chaotic and deadly of the war. With the partition in 1954,
Vietnam witnessed the emergence of two schools of arts, one in the North and the other in
the South. Through the choice of themes and techniques, the "southern school of arts"
displayed a greater awareness of the West and its influences from the 1950s to the 1970s.
In contrast, the more isolated "northern school of arts" turned inward, returning to its
village roots and ancient folklore. Both schools chose as their main forms of expression
oil painting, lacquer painting, and, to lesser extent, silk painting. During its thirty years of
relative isolation, the D.R.V. regime viewed the notion of "art for art's sake" as decadent,
and "self-indulgent" artistic expressions such as nudes and abstraction disappeared from
public view. Arts took on a more "pragmatist" approach, as they had to serve the country
during its dire hours of need. Return to the peasant roots and the realities of the worker's
everyday life was emphasized as the country took the socialist road. Thus was opened the
College of Industrial Arts in 1958, while the French-founded Fine Arts School was
renamed Vietnam School of Fine Arts in 1949. As the war became increasingly pressing,
themes such as heroism, dedication, and hard work were reflected in the artistic
expressions of the time, specifically in painting, as the artist was turned into a "soldier" at
the vanguard of the struggle against imperialism. In short, art became propaganda.
Soviet-style Socialist Realism, as a school of expression, dominated all: it was supposed
to serve the people and not the individual or the artist, to present ideas and not feelings,
and to inspire people to act selflessly. Works by artists like Nguyen Sy Ngoc, Tran Van
Can, and Nguyen Tu Nghiem reflected the spirit of the time. To Ngoc Van took the lead
by embracing revolutionary themes, and his works-for example, Uncle Ho at Work in Bac
Bo, Soldiers and Porters at Rest, and In Search of the Enemy in the Forestemphasize the
social over the personal. Scenes of battlefields, of the contribution by all classes and
ethnic groups to the war effort, and of the havoc wrought by the bombing of villages were
all expressed by artists in oil paintings, lacquerwork, wood-block engraving, and silk
paintings. Languid silhouettes, sensuous forms, a lone melancholic rider, and beauty for
beauty's sake were all renounced in favor of robust shapes, determined attitudes,
muscular arms and legs, ruddy complexions, agrarian and industrial group activities, and
themes like industry, socialism, and the military. In order to realistically capture the
movement, the light, and the energy of their subjects, painters accompanied the troops
into the jungles, went on night marches with them, slept in rice fields, and endured the
pain and hardship of combat; worked with the peasant; or went underground with the
miner. Throughout these works, an optimistic spirit emanated that banished despair,
sadness, and melancholy as destructive, bourgeois emotions. Tran Van Can, a master at
oil and lacquer painting, one of the leaders of Socialist Realist painting, was able to use
silk, a medium usually reserved for thereal topics, to deal with themes as mundane as
industrialization and to project through works like The Forge Producing Plowshares in a
War Zone a fiery sense of energy and enthusiasm as well as a palpable impression of
volume.
Along with oil paintings that presented Socialist Realism-inspired themes, the artists of
the North, cut off for from the outside world, sought inspiration by returning to the
village and the traditional popular arts of silk painting, lacquer work, wood-block
printing, communal-house carvings, and ancient ceramics as well as in landscapes and the
activities of the minorities in the highlands and mountains. Nguyen Tu Nghiem is a
perfect illustration of this tendency. He experimented with every medium and was
successful in all. Witness, for example, his lacquerwork Soldiers Playing the Flute, where
for the first time the color green was used successfully, or his wood-block engraving. The
Guerrillas of Phu Luu. Nguyen Sang, a painter from the South who had participated in
the battle of Dien Bien Phu, stood out for his anti-colonial message conveyed by the
choice of his themes (atrocities committed by French troops); strong brush strokes; sparse
colors; and linear, angular, and stark figures, as expressed in his paintings Admission to
the Party, The Bo Market, or The Enemy Burned My Village.
In the South, the National College of Fine Arts-which opened in Sai- gon in 1954 with
artists that had trained at the former ISFA-trained gen- erations of artists (e.g., Nguyen
Trung and Nguyen Than) who were widely exposed to Western influence. International
trends in painting such as Cub- ism, abstraction, or Futurism had enormous impacts on
the style of southern painters, although their inspirations remained rooted in the
Vietnamese world. These Western schools of painting coincidentally suited the
Vietnamese artistic temperament, which leaned toward poetry in painting and often
refused to differentiate the poet from the painter. Such were the influences informing the
work of the members of the Young Painters Association, among them Nguyen Khai, Dinh
Cuong, Nguyen Thi Hop, Ho Thanh Duc. Women in the paintings of the southern school
were often represented in the white ao dai-clad silhouettes of schoolgirls and as
elongated, ethereal, upper-class women with tapered, lily-white hands, by the river,
strolling to the market, or coming home from school.
Descriptive realism, as represented in portraits of individuals in the still life, was not
widely adopted, although there are a few exceptions, of which Le Huy Tiep and Do
Quang Em are talented examples. Do Quang Em's painting is unique in style and themes
and has often been referred to as belonging to the school of hyper-realism. Throughout
the war and contin- uing into recent years, his works-all on the themes of self and family
mem- bers appear, painted, in a gold-ochre atmosphere, lit in a sort of nimbus, with the
characters sitting or lying on bamboo beds or chairs and as if floating in another
dimension, uncluttered by any objects except one or two rudimentary traditional utensils,
and wrapped in a meditative inner world all their own. Along with lacquerwork, silk
painting has been the medium of choice for Vietnamese painters-though one extremely
tricky to master, as colors can quickly be diffused throughout the entire fabric. The
master of silk painting in the 1930s and 1940s was Nguyen Tien Chung. His work could
transcend the fickle nature of silk to project taut images in which colors are carefully
controlled to evoke an impression of tranquil force and measured peace. He masterfully
exploited the tendency of silk to permit a softening of features and an uneven but striking
dimension that neither oil nor lacquer painting can provide. His work often depicts the
figure of a young woman deep in reflection, leaning on a cushion, clad in a velvety ao
dai, her face perfectly oval and hands finely tapered. During the wars, silk was scarce, but
Vietnam- ese artists continued to turn to it as their favorite medium whenever possible.
Works from the prewar period that exuded a dreamy, sensuous quality ceded to those that
conveyed a robust quality, a martial air reflective of the time. Nguyen Tien Chung,
famous for his sensuous, romantic painting, also pro- jects rhythmic force and dynamism
in his landscapes, as can be seen in his work Harvest, which presents an immense golden
field with an almost infinite horizon, limited only by distant hills. Silhouetted against the
sky, bamboo hedges stand and peasants bend, busy harvesting the paddy or performing
other tasks.
Vu Giang Huong's work, A Liaison Post on the Truong Son, which takes as its theme the
liaison work carried out by women during the war, showed a few young liaison women,
arms at shoulders, standing outside a dimly lit cave. The impression that viewers have is
that of strong, independent, healthy women, unafraid, contributing their share to the war
effort.
Of a later generation, Do Thi Ninh's watercolor on silk work is dominated by dynamic
strokes and bursts of color that bring a powerful energy to her painting. In her Thay
Pagoda painting, the eye is drawn to the vegetation, giant areca and banana trees pushing
forth in large strokes of translucent green that practically dominate the ancient roofs of
the pagoda, with nary a silhouette to disturb the immutability of the scene.
With the return of peace and the reunification of the country in 1976, along with its
opening in 1986 under Doi Moi, Vietnam saw the emergence of a profusion of artists who
are now free to travel, to experiment, and to express themselves, no longer yoked to the
necessities of wartime service. The first individual exhibition of a single artist, that of the
well-known painter Bui Xuan Phai, opened in 1984. Artists from throughout the country
were allowed to present exhibits of their works without fear of being accused of
narcissism or of being "lackeys of the West." Artistic debates raged over the necessity for
Vietnamese art, specifically painting, to detach itself from Viet- namese tradition in order
to renovate itself.
Painters of the war generation, like Bui Xuan Phai (1921-1989) or Nguyen Phan Chanh
(1892-1984), yielded to those of the younger gener- ation, who have chosen to express
themselves diversely. Rather than forsaking traditional expressions like lacquerwork,
however, the younger artists are infusing them with new themes and techniques, opting
for abstract expression or Fauvism while using a profusion of colors. Individualism and
even artificiality have blossomed, and a profusion of galleries have sprung up in the
cities, particularly in Ha-noi and Ho Chi Minh City, where censored artists of yore (e.g.,
Nguyen Than and Nguyen Trung) and rising ones (e.g., Tran Van Thao, Viet Dung, Dang
Xuan Hoa, and Bui Minh Dung) take turns presenting their latest works. Nguyen Than's
painting evokes Chagall and Dali, as it seems to create a world where a dreamlike
element is dominant and yet where sadness seems to seep out. In Autumn Love Letter, the
viewer looks out and beyond a wooden door frame half-immersed in water, upon the
surface of which golden leaves are reflected. A white horse is ridden by a melancholic
eye staring into the emptiness as the horse drinks from the lake.
Bui Huu Hung, a Ha-noi man and former soldier, expresses himself through lacquer
painting, suffusing his work with themes of loss, tragedy, and destiny. Using Vietnamese
historical, mythological, or folkloric figures, the painter evokes the sadness of a doomed
dynasty or the mother's sorrow of losing her soldier son, ghosts from the past haunting
the present. His portraits, often lit from below, stand in an empty landscape of mist and
incense smoke, evoking an eerie sense of the nether world and of the weight of the past.
Shifting to another world, an aquatic one (water is a favorite in Vietnamese painting),
there is Tran Luong and his Under the Water series, with its real and unreal sea creatures,
jellyfish, anemones, and urchins undulating in the current.
A number of these artists have chosen to present their works through exhibits throughout
the world, gaining experience and recognition while earning a living from the sale of
their works. Such has been the approach of the young artist, Le Thiet Cuong, one of a
cluster of young painters and sculptors who have emerged over the past decade, including
Nguyen Tan Cong, Le Van Nhuong, Dang Hong Van, and Hoa Bich Dao. While still
evoking rural themes of villages and famous landscapes of Vietnam, these artists present
them through a fresh prism detached from social pressures and moral obligations. Take,
for instance, the theme of Ha-noi's suburbs as viewed through the eyes of Hoang Dang
Nhuan: in his My Faubourg, for example, the curved roofs of the houses are like boat
sails of vibrant purple, vermillion, and cobalt blue rising in the gray winter sky of Ha-noi.
Or take Le Thiet Cuong's abstract oil painting entitled Herding the Water Buffalo, in a
wide, flat, blue landscape seemingly dotted with faint puffs of clouds floats the buffalo
like a kite in the sky, tended by a brown, peasant-garbed boy holding the tether. The
painting evokes a feeling of lightness, joy, and detachment. Chinh Le, a young female
lacquer painter, is known for her Zen- like work, suffused with a certain mysticism,
tranquility, and reflection that be found in entitled Van Canh. By contrast, and in
testimony to her range, the joyfulness of youth is expressed in her New Year, a work
resplendent with vermillion-clad persons, golden turtles, and pink lotuses, a painting that
resonates with the vibrancy of the New Year and its rituals.
The Vietnamese arts, after a period of enforced slumber, have now revived thanks to
strong outside demand and to the state's patronage. Artists are producing for domestic as
well as international markets. Traditions that seemed perilously close to extinction are
being learned again by younger artists, and artisan secrets that were seemingly about to
die out with the last artisan in a given village are being carefully recorded for posterity.
Once again artists can debate the merits of tradition over modernity, of abstractionism
over realism.

ARCHITECTURE
Architecture in Vietnam, being born in the alluvial terrain in the Red River Delta, was
initially limited in its choice of construction material: wood and brick over stone, which
was not available in abundance as in Cambodia. Wooden monuments could not last
forever but became victims of Vietnam's humid and hot climate and rich fauna. The
historical condition of constant wars of resistance against invasion also contributed to
their destruction, leaving behind little to match the splendors of Angkor Wat or the Bayon
in Cambodia. Thus, only foundations remain of the ancient capital of Co Loa of the
kingdom of Au Lac, or of citadels and palaces mentioned in historical texts. Stylistically
and conceptually, traditional architecture in Vietnam bears the imprint of Chinese
civilization as well as Indian civilization, as reflected in the Cham monuments that have
survived time and war, mostly in central Vietnam at My-son or Po Nagar. However, only
Viet-that is, Kinh tradi- tional architecture, as embodied in the Hue palaces, in the
citadels, temples, and pagodas, and in the peasant's habitation-will be discussed here. It
should be noted that most of the monuments that can be seen nowadays are but new
incarnations of their old selves, which have been restored incessantly as the result of war
and intemperate climate.
Vietnamese architecture was influenced by China, although in this as in all else it adapted
to the particular climate and landscape with its greater humidity and heat and, above all,
to the Viet identity. The closer to the people, the more intimate and reflective of the Viet
the traditional architecture was; the further away from them, the more Chinese the
palatial architecture became. The buildings had a simpler quality, devoid of pretension
but graceful in curves soaring to the sky and in lines symmetrical to the horizon.
Depending on its function, Viet architecture can be divided into three categories:
religious, military, and civilian. However, it can be said that religious beliefs permeated
all three, and in any case geomancy dictates the choice of the site and the orientation of
the building along with its integration into the vegetation and landscape.
The typical Chinese-influenced edifice (palace or temple but not individual residence)
adopted by Viet architects usually includes four sections: a stone terrace, a horizontal
foundation and main body made of timber or brick, brackets, and an overhanging roof
with curved ends crowned with mythical unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes and covered
with glazed or enameled tiles. The successive edifices are symmetrically aligned on an
axis, interspersed with gardens and pools, giving an overall impression of stately calm
and grace. As they adopted these features, Viet architects modified them to harmonize
with the different natural environment and mentality of the people: the roof's ends are
deeply curved, like sea waves reaching to the sky, and richly decorated; the proportions
and the scale, though smaller and lower, are adapted to the setting, following the horizon
in their architectural lines. The wooden beams and brackets, along with panel friezes, are
richly carved in relief, with being inserted between the columns and the roofs.
Religious architecture involves pagodas (chua), communal houses (dinh), and deified
national-hero temples (den). The Viet pagoda is a religious edifice that is meant for the
practice of Buddhism, whereas the dinh and den are built for the worship of Taoist and
Confucian deities in addition to numerous village guardian spirits and deified national
heroes. Typically, a Viet pagoda is usually walled in, and the main entrance and the bell
tower are placed farther in front, where a beautifully decorated portico announces to the
visitor the name of the religious complex (traditionally written in Chinese characters but
nowadays spelled out in quoc ngu). The main building, topped by a saddlebag roof, is in
the shape of the letter H, with a wide frontal entrance. In the central room can be found
the statues of the Bud- dha a child, as the historical Buddha, and as the Buddha of the
future), flanked by bodhisattvas and arhats. The transversal wings are used for housing
minor deities (e.g., of the earth, of war), guardian spirits, judges of the afterworld, and so
on. Lacquered wooden columns rise to the roof and bear the supporting beams. Viet
pagodas, unlike the Chinese ones, seldom have paintings because the carving of columns
and beams is used as a dec- orative technique. Among the pagoda's edifices is the tower,
derived from the Indian stupa and multi-storied (five, seven, or nine stories), an example
of which can be seen at the Heavenly Lady Pagoda in Hue, which dates back to the
seventeenth century.
The dinh, or temple and communal house, is both a civil and religious edifice. It serves as
the worshiping place of the village's guardian spirits, the gathering locale for the entire
village during festivities and rituals and the meeting site for the council of notables. Not
vastly different in architecture from the chua it was, however, built on piles, a reflection
of its Southeast Asian past, reminiscent of the communal houses of the mountain
minorities. The dinh includes two parallel buildings, the principal one being a sanctuary
that is not open to the public. Constructed in the shape of an inverted T, it houses the
imperial decrees that conferred an official status on the village, that named it, or that
bestowed imperial ranks to the guardian spirits wor- shiped by the village at an altar
inside the sanctuary. The building is open only for the festivities and village notables'
meetings. The dinh is richly decorated with gold and vermillion lacquered parallel
sentences, with embroidered standards, ceremonial parasols, and ceramics; it is the very
symbol of the village and its standing. Among the most ancient dinh are the Dinh Bang
temple and that of Tho Ha.
The den, the national or regional hero deities temple, is in the shape of an H or an
inverted T and is always preceded by a courtyard fronted by a wall meant to protect it
from evil spirits (hence the representation of the tiger). It differs from the chua in the
sense that it has no Buddhist statuary, or at least none visible to the public; its rooms
contain a number of altars bearing offerings and incense burners along with a rack of
ceremonial hal berds and swords. In the temples by the seaside near fishing villages,
conse- crated whale or dolphin bones are encased in a glass box and carefully cleaned
every year during the purification ceremonies. Den abound in Vietnam as monuments for
the worship of national heroes; small and large, they dot the landscape-the Sisters temple;
the temple of the founder kings Hung Vuong, and the Marshall Tran Hung Dao den that
are found all over the country and to which people still throng to worship and celebrate
on the deity's day. In the Red River Delta, the cradle of Vietnamese civilization,
innumerable temples and pagodas rival each other in beauty and grace. This is true also
for the capital itself, as Ha-noi is dotted with Buddhist pagodas, national hero and Taoist
temples, like the Trung Sisters temple; the Bach Ma ("White Horse") temple dedicated to
Cao Bien, a patron deity of Ha-noi and the founder of the Dai La kingdom; and the Ngoc
Son temple near the Lake of the Surrendered Sword. Of note there are the Van Mieu, or
Temple of Literature, and the unforgettable One-Pillar Pagoda (Chua Mot Cot), both from
the eleventh century. The Van Mieu, following a North-South axis, is an complex of
several courtyards, porticos, pavilions, and lotus ponds in addition to two rows of eighty-
two stelae bearing tortoises that carry the names of 1,306 doctoral laureates inscribed in
stone. The temple was dedicated to Confucius, and its grounds served as a royal college.
The Chua Mot Cot was built in the shape of a lotus blossom, with its curved roofs
emerging from the square-shaped pond on a straight stem pillar, the edifice itself being
held aloft thanks to brackets sunk into the column and with a stone staircase bridging the
pond and leading up to the pagoda. Both have been rebuilt so often that they have
somewhat lost the patina that centuries confer to old buildings.
Outside the capital, one of the most important religious monuments is the Phuc But Thap
pagoda in Bac Ninh province, renowned for its architecture as well as for the richness of
its carving, in both wood and stone. This is reflected in the innumerable Buddhist statues-
ir particular, that of the magnificent gold and vermillion lacquer Quan The Am statue,
represented sitting on a lotus, with her thousand arms and thousand eyes and her huge
nimbus, a masterpiece of Vietnamese statuary. Another example is the ema- ciated
Buddha, who is represented sitting on a lotus, gaunt and skeletal; this is the Buddha
before enlightenment. The pagoda itself, built somewhere between the thirteenth and
seventeenth centuries and dedicated to Quan The Am, is a structure that includes eight
buildings, some reflecting a strong Chinese influence (the Thien Dien pavilion with its
stone bridge and bal- ustrade), and others more Viet in their features. Upon entering the
portico, one encounters the one-story bell tower followed by the temple complex:
pavilions with their roofs deeply curved at the corners and a number of stupas, the tallest
an octagonal, four-storied building made entirely of stone. In the same province can also
be found the more ancient and equally important Buddhist architecture of the Van Phuc
Pagoda.
The existence of Vietnamese military architecture with its varied edifices explained by
the constant necessity for the country to defend itself against invasion and the
concomitant construction of numerous citadels. The most famous one, Co-loa, the shell-
like structure snaking up into the sky from the third century B.C.E., was the capital of the
Au Lac kingdom, but its only are three-rampart foundations. The Ho citadel, built in the
four- teenth century, is described as being of rectangular shape, each facade closed by an
arched gate, with the external walls, the arches, and the foundations built of enormous
stone blocks; it is no longer extant. The citadels of Ha- noi, Hue, and Sai-gon-of more
recent (nineteenth century) and partially French-inspired construction (built according to
the Vauban model)-are also of note, with their square, octagonal, or pentagonal shape,
their watch- towers and gated entrances, and their enclosed walled buildings several
stories high. The one that has survived is the square-shaped citadel of Hue, which is, in
fact, a citadel within a citadel, inside which resides the imperial city. Another type of
military architecture is the defensive wall: the Dong Hoi wall, constructed in 1631 by the
Nguyen princes to interdict the entrance to the South by the Trinh lords, was a formidable
monument twelve miles long, from the Dau Mau mountain to the mouth of the Nhut Le
river; dozens of feet high, mounted with cannons and stone mortars; and with an inside
parapet wide enough to allow elephants and horses to circulate.
The civilian architecture includes imperial palaces as well as habitations of peasants and
mandarins, infrastructure, and so forth. Unfortunately, very few of these edifices remain.
The imperial palaces in Hue, for instance, built relatively recently in the nineteen century,
followed the same pattern as the Qing capital in Beijing, but they have been ravaged so
repeatedly by war and flooding (most devastatingly during the Tet Offensive in 1968 and
as recently as spring 2000 by serious flooding) that they stand nowadays as the sums of
successive repairs. These edifices reflect the division into three parallel sections common
to habitations. The main section, acting as a principal nave, is wider and higher than the
other two. Conceptually they are not very different from their Chinese counterparts, with
their symmetric pattern, enclosing walls, successive courtyards, pavilions, and elevated
terraces rising by the bank of the Perfume River. Vietnamese elements are contributed by
the rich wood carving of the supporting beams and pillars (lacquered in vermil-lion and
gold) and of the doors, which feature panel friezes encrusted with mother-of-pearl or
ivory and bearing illustrations of flowers and mythical animals and stylized Chinese
characters, often in parallel sentences and poems composed by the emperor himself.
Civilian architecture also includes covered bridges, remarkable by their harmony, of
which a rare surviving instance can be found in the village of Say Son, province of Son-
tay. This covered bridge dates back perhaps as far as the ninth century and bears Chinese
influences in terms of style, standing on stone arches and topped by a beautifully curved
wooden roof. Its survival is especially extraordinary, as this type of construction was
usually among the first to be destroyed during invasion.
Unlike the religious and military buildings that were built to last, Viet habitation is
impermanent because it is made of perishable material like bamboo, wood, palm leaf, and
mud. Nevertheless, its careful construction followed age-old principles, and the house
itself was often said to be a temple as well as a habitation because it houses the ancestral
altar. Its construction as well as orientation (on a North-South axis, facing East) strictly
follow rigid rules. Unlike their mainland Southeast Asian counterparts (e.g., Thai- land,
Laos, or Cambodia), the house (or nha) in Vietnam-from the Red River Delta to the
narrow plains of central Vietnam to the Mekong Delta-is generally not raised but built
directly on the ground. Throughout the coun- try, the steep roof (of palm frond or terra-
cotta tile), which is saddle-, ridge-, or straight-sloped, may differ slightly in terms of its
inclination or in the number of slopes (usually four). The house in general may use
materials like bamboo or wood for its frame, palm leaf for its matting walls (or cob for
the latter), some stone for the pillars to rest on (in the affluent houses), and bare, pounded
earth or tiles for the floor. A basic structure with logs and/or bam boo poles to support the
roof is set up first, with a frame tied to them. The more elaborate houses have a complex
system of cross beams and roof sup- port. Next comes the roof, followed by the walls.
There are usually one to three entrances and barred windows (when the walls are made of
wood), usually shaded by a veranda. Although there are stylistic variations depending on
the wealth of the owner and hence on the materials used, the disposition of the house and
the rooms is basically the same.
The traditional house, understood as an ancestral home, may consist of a single building
or several, with the principal edifice divided into one main room and two side rooms. In
the poorer houses, there may be only a single room. The main room, considered also as
the men's area, contains the ancestral altar (sometimes three, in an elaborate house)
placed centrally against the rear wall, a wooden polished (often carved and mother-of-
pearl inlaid) plank or bed, which serves as the reception place for guests to sit on, and
storage jars. Of the two side rooms, one is used by the parents and as a storage space for
the precious family mementos and possessions, and the other is a bedroom for the
children. The kitchen, with its three-pronged open hearth, is to be found in a rudimentary
shed in the back of the house, perpendicular to the main building; it is also used as a
storage space for the sauce jars, pots, and pans. In the rear, there is a garden of fruit trees
and at the foot of which lies a pond used for washing and for raising ducks and fish. A
well provides potable water, which can also be scooped out of earthenware jars set out for
the collection of rainwater. There may be additional sheds for utensils and animals. More
modern homes are generally masonry houses, usually multi-storied with a shaded terrace
on top in the city but single-storied and straight-roofed in the countryside. Recently, how-
ever, the construction of multiple stories, symbolic of wealth, is spreading quickly, even
in the countryside.
Because of the lack of space in the city, the disposition of the three rooms is often
compressed, with the rooms succeeding one another along a single axis. If a family's
means permit there is generally a courtyard with a tiny pool decorated with rocks and
trees to bring some relief in the hot summer months.
 6 - Cuisine

INTRODUCTION
JUST AS PRE-COLONIAL VIETNAM was a crossroads of cultures and religions, it was
also a place where Asia's and the world's foods, utensils, spices, and modes of preparation
and consumption blended, with the Viet selecting those that appealed to them and
creating a unique "food culture."
The nearly 1,000-year period of Chinese domination contributed to the Vietnamese
assimilation of staples such as soy sauce, bean curd, and noodles; as well as of techniques
of food preparation and consumption including stirfrying and deep-frying with the wok
and the use of chopsticks. The Mongol invasions during the thirteenth century contributed
to Vietnam's food culture as well, particularly in northern Vietnam. From this horse-
riding and herding people, the Vietnamese enhanced their taste for meat dishes, mani-
fested in northern specialties such as pho (beef and noodle soup) and thit bo bay mon
("Seven Dishes Beef"), and adopted the technique of cooking meat on a "Mongolian hot
pot," or lau. The Southward Movement, or Nam tien, which carried Viet settlers from the
North to what is today central and southern Vietnam between the sixteenth and nineteenth
centuries, brought them into sustained contact with the Indianized cultures of the Cham,
the Khmer, the Thai, and the Malay peoples, who contributed their knowledge of spices,
attained through international trade, and their fondness for curried dishes.
Viet lands also participated in the Columbian Exchange, the movement of plants,
animals, and technology from the "New World" of the Americas to the "Old Worlds" of
Africa and Eurasia. European explorers and traders from the 1500s introduced to Dai
Viet, directly or via third countries such as China, New World staples such as peanuts,
potatoes, corn, and tomatoes, which were quickly adopted and assimilated. Vietnamese
assimilation of Western foods was most intense during the nearly 100 years of French
col- onization (1862-1954), when many Vietnamese, particularly members of the urban
elite, developed a passion for French coffee, bread, butter, ice cream, and pastries. By
contrast, the shorter American involvement left rel- atively little imprint on Vietnamese
food culture. Ho Chi Minh City, for example, has several establishments that serve
American foods such as ham- burgers and fried chicken, but they cater to a primarily
foreign clientele.

UTENSILS AND MANNERS

Vietnamese cooking equipment and eating utensils are few and have changed little from
pre-colonial times. Refrigeration was impossible, and most fresh foodstuffs were taken
from the family garden or pond or purchased from the local market on the day of
consumption. Foods were cooked on a brick or clay stove. Charcoal or wood was the
preferred fuel because each gives a steady, moderate heat; poorer households resorted to
straw or dried leaves, which are less desirable since they generate an intense, short-lived
heat. Cooking methods included grilling, baking, boiling, and steaming. The basic
cooking implements were a large, curved-bottomed pan called a wok in China and a chao
in Vietnam, a wooden chopping block, and a large iron cleaver; from colonial times
onward, some southern cooks replaced or supplemented the chao with a French-style
sauté pan. Pre-colonial households also used a bronze or earthenware casserole (noi) and
elongated "kitchen chopsticks" (doi dua bep) for cooking rice. Meats and vegetables were
cut into bite-size morsels in the kitchen before serving, and cutlery was not used at the
table. Given the limited equipment and preference for copious amounts of chopped fruits
and vegetables, food preparation was a laborintensive and time-consuming process.
Well-to-do families took their meals while seated upon a low table or tray called a phan,
with food placed at its center. No tablecloths or covers were used, and the tables used by
elite families were made of beautifully carved wood. Rice was served in individual bowls
(bat or chen), while other prepared foods were served in communal bowls placed at the
center of the table on a raised tray called a mam. Diners held their individual bowls in
their left hands and their chopsticks in their right hands. Poorer families usually spread a
bamboo mat called a chieu on the floor, put a mam in the center of the chieu, and
crouched around it with their individual bowls in hand.
Pre-colonial Vietnamese used chopsticks (doi dua) made of wood, bamboo, or ivory to
pick up solid food, and ceramic spoons (thia or muong) to scoop up liquids such as soups.
Young children unable to manipulate chopsticks ate solids as well as liquids with spoons.
Given the prevalence of soups and broths, drinks of any kind were not served during
meals but were made available before or after for those who wanted them.
Etiquette governed food consumption. The basic conventions, most of which are
observed today in attenuated form, may be summarized as follows. The daughters or
daughters-in-law usually sat near the casserole and put rice in the individual bowls for
everyone; in wealthy families, servants would perform this task. Family members were
not to start eating until the senior male of the household (usually the father or
grandfather, occasionally the great-grandfather) had begun the meal by serving himself
from the dishes presented on the mam. Nobody was to leave until the meal had been
completed, at which time they had to ask the senior male's permission to do so. In some
elite households, the senior male was served individually by his wife or daughters and ate
apart from the family. Diners were not to move food directly from the communal bowls
to their mouths but had to put it in their individual rice bowls first, using the larger end of
their chopsticks for this purpose. When not in use, chopsticks were placed on the edge of
one's bowl or by its side. They were never placed upright, sticking out of the food, as this
calls to mind incense sticks and symbolizes funerals.

CEREALS, FRUITS, AND VEGETABLES

Rice has long been the staple of Viet cuisine. Indeed, the verb "to eat" in modern
Vietnamese is an com-literally, "to eat rice," but it is used whether or not rice will
actually be consumed at the meal in question. There are two basic kinds of rice:
glutinous, or "sticky," rice (gao nep), which is prepared by steaming, has been the staple
of the non-Viet highlands peoples; ordinary rice (gao te) has played that role for the
majority Viet. However, the Viet- namese also consumed limited amounts of steamed
glutinous rice, which they call xoi, mainly for breakfast, on festival days, at funerals, or at
weddings. Rice was consumed in other forms as well. Rice flour was used to make
noodles (bun), cakes, and rice paper for wrapping vegetables or fish in dishes such as
chao tom, a shrimp and sugarcane delicacy. Rice was also fermented in a fish or shrimp
base to produce condiments such as mam tom (shrimp paste). Finally, it was distilled to
make a variety of wines and liquors. (The general name for alcoholic beverages is ruou,
followed by a specific term as in ruou nho, "grape wine," or ruou bia, "beer.") It must be
emphasized, however, that in pre-colonial and particularly in colonial-era Vietnam, Viet-
namese farming families were often too poor to eat the rice that they grew, in which case
the common practice was for the household to sell most of the rice crop immediately after
the harvest, saving only enough seed grain for the next planting and perhaps a small
amount for consumption on special occasions. In such cases, the daily rice was replaced
in the diet by corn, the second most important grain, or tubers such as potatoes, sweet
potatoes, and manioc.
Pre-colonial Vietnamese consumed a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. The most
important fruits were bananas (chuoi), oranges (cam), grapefruits (buoi), lemons (chanh),
mangoes (xoai), papayas (du du), jackfruit (mit), du- rion (sau rieng), and pineapples
(dua). They were served in many ways- raw, cooked, and dried-and eaten before,
between, during, and after meals. Unripe fruits were also used. Green papayas, for
example, were sliced thinly and served with shrimp in a salad called goi du du. The list of
uses to which fruits are put has been constantly expanding because the Vietnamese have
been exposed to foreign cultures and new technologies. For example, most of the above-
named fruits are now used to flavor ice creams. Lemon juice, diluted by ordinary or
carbonated water, spiked with sugar or salt, and poured over ice, is now a popular
beverage in southern Vietnam.
In addition to the fruits themselves, Vietnamese made use of edible flowers. "Floral
cuisine," still enjoyed today, utilized, for example, the grapefruit tree's flowers, from
which an oil was extracted and used for flavoring desserts. Lotus seeds were used as a
stuffing for main dishes such as chicken or were cooked in syrup and eaten for dessert.
Jasmine flowers flavored candies and teas.
The most widely used vegetables and legumes were soy (dau nanh), con- volvus (rau
muong, a "floating plant" that flourishes on the lakes of Vietnam), aubergine (eggplant)
(ca), potatoes (khoai Tay), sweet potatoes (khoai lang), onions (cu hanh), shallots (cu he),
garlic (roi), mustard (rau cai), mint (rau hung), and ginger (gung). Among the most
important of these were soy, convolvus, and aubergine. Soy shoots were eaten fresh from
the garden, used in prepared dishes, and added as a topping on soups such as pho. Soy
beans were processed to make soy milk (nuoc dau or sua dau nanh), a popular beverage,
now commonly heated or iced and sweetened with sugar; curdled soy (dau phu),
extensively used in soups and as a main dish, often to replace meat or fish in vegetarian
cuisine; and to produce a spicy sauce called tuong, second only to nuoc mam, a
fermented fish sauce, as a condiment. Convolvus was harvested by farming families,
particularly in the North, who made it a staple because of its cheapness and availability.
Inventive cooks developed many attractive ways of serving it: boiled and eaten with a
nuoc mam or tuong dip; in freshwater crab soup; or thinly sliced as a salad. Given its
association with the home, family, and village life, this seemingly humble plant arouses
considerable emotion, as expressed in a folksong: "As long as the sky, water, and clouds
endure, there will be lakes of convolvus and jars of soy sauce."1 A similar role was
played by the eggplant, which was often salted and stored in large pots until needed. Like
the convolvus, eggplant was considered to be a reliable staple to which a family could
turn in hard times, as one would turn to a true friend when in trouble.
On the topic of vegetables, it must be mentioned that, under the influence of Buddhism's
teachings on abstaining from taking the lives of sentient be- ings, many pre-colonial
Vietnamese practiced vegetarianism (an chay) at least part of the time. Abstinence from
consumption of animal products (including milk and eggs) was (and remains) the rule in
most Vietnamese monastic orders, and monks and nuns were required to follow a
vegetarian diet (e.g., boiled vegetables and salted grilled sesame, with soy sauce
replacing fish or shrimp sauce) year-round. Some modern lay practitioners follow suit
and abstain from eating animal products on a permanent basis. Many more abstain during
limited periods: for example, on Buddhist holidays, before visiting a pagoda, or to give
thanks for a safe journey or successful examination performance. Although the daily
vegetarian diet at monasteries may seem austere by modern Western standards, for lay
practitioners, giving up animal products did not necessarily mean abandoning tasty and
varied fare. Vietnamese cooks developed vegetarian alternatives to many dishes. Meat,
fish, or fowl were replaced by peas, tofu, green bananas, or coconut meat. A skilled chef
can prepare tofu in such a way as to make it almost indistinguishable from duck or other
delicacies. A modern innovation is the "vegetarian take- out" restaurant. Located near
major pagodas and advertising with placards featuring lotus flowers (symbolizing
enlightenment) and the words do an chay ("vegetarian food"), these places prepare
vegetarian delicacies that can be taken home and consumed by lay practitioners or used
as offerings at the pagoda.

MEAT AND MEAT PRODUCTS

With most of Vietnam's arable lowlands given over to rice production, and with little
large-scale animal husbandry or hunting, meat and meat products played a relatively
small role in the daily diets of most Vietnamese. Many peasant households, taking
maximum advantage of the scarce resources at their disposal, raised fowl such as
pigeons, chickens, and ducks, which provide some of their own sustenance by
scavenging. The fowl were valued for their flesh and eggs as well as for their internal
organs, especially the intestines. The flesh of ducks, for example, was the main ingredient
in many dishes, including a rice-based soup called chao vit, fertile duck eggs (hot vit)
were boiled and eaten out of the shell with a garnish of fragrant knotweed (rau ram); and
curdled duck's blood (tiet canh), garnished with rau ram and served with sliced meats,
was considered a delicacy.
Elite cuisine utilized the larger domesticated animals, including goats, oxen, water
buffalo, dogs, and pigs, among which the last was the most widely consumed. Pigs were
nourished with rice bran (cam) and duckweed (beo) and were prized for their role in
religious sacrifices (e.g., as offerings to the village genies) as well as in consumption,
particularly on special occasions such as the New Year's Festival. Among the many ways
of preparing pork in pre-colonial Vietnam, roast pork (heo quay) was a prized main dish;
pig's intestines were the main ingredient in a spicy rice-based soup called chao long, and
seasoned ground pork was wrapped in banana leaves and boiled to produce a portable
snack called gio, of which there were many varieties and uses. Dog meat also played a
role in pre-colonial cuisine, but it was a delicacy that was rarely eaten, even among the
elite. Hunting and trapping were not highly developed as professions in pre-colonial
Vietnam, but elite cuisine did make use of the flesh, bones, blood, and internal organs of
larger mammals, such as deer, as well as those of larger reptiles, including iguanas,
pythons, and cobras. Smaller mammals, such as bats and mice, were a welcome ad- dition
to the diets of peasant households.

FISH AND CRUSTACEANS

Having more than 1,000 miles of coastline and countless rivers, lakes, canals, and rice
paddies at their disposal, pre-colonial Viet made fish, crustaceans, and batrachians (frogs
and toads) an essential part of their diets, much more important than the meats and meat
products discussed above. Most freshwater fishing was carried out with rudimentary tools
on a part- time basis by the members of farming families that derived the bulk of their
sustenance from agricultural activities. Crabs, shrimp, and tiny fish were hunted in
shallow waters with small bamboo baskets with openings at both ends. The wider end
was thrust into the water over the prey, and the fish- erperson reached through the smaller
opening, still above water level, to take out the catch.
Frogs were hunted within their holes by using two metal implements, one to widen the
hole and another to impale its inhabitants. Fish were taken in deeper rivers, canals, or
lakes by means of fishing lines with baited hooks or, more commonly, by nets that were
cast from or pulled by small boats. Peasants also dredged the bottoms of rivers and lakes
for snails and other mollusks. Coastal and deep-sea fishing was mainly practiced by
professionals. Many coastal villages devoted themselves almost entirely to fishing and
related ac- tivities, using their catches to purchase agricultural and other goods. Well-
organized fishing brotherhoods took multiple-mast sailing ships to sea for weeks on end
pursuing desirable species, netting and salting the catch before returning to shore to sell
the proceeds.
Fish was eaten fresh, dried, or salted. If eaten fresh, it was fried, boiled, grilled, or added
to soups. A Ha-noi specialty called cha ca, for example, featured grilled chunks of catfish
(ca bong lau) served on a hot plate in sizzling fat. The fish morsels were plucked from the
plate by individual diners, garnished with mint, coriander, scallions, ground peanuts, chili
peppers, and nuoc mam, and eaten. In the absence of refrigeration, drying in the sun was
often used as a method of preserving fish for later consumption; smoking of fish, by
contrast, was rare. Larger fish were gutted before drying, but smaller species were dried
and eaten in their entirety.
Crustaceans, mollusks, and other related animals were prepared and eaten in a like
manner. Fresh crabs and shrimp, for example, were steamed, boiled, grilled, fried, or
prepared in soups. A specialty of Ha-noi joined tiny crabs and asparagus into a soup
called mang Tay nau cua (literally, "Western bam- boo shoots cooked with crab"). Drying
was likewise commonly used to pre- serve shrimp and squid, although it was considered
inappropriate for crabs. Sun-dried squid (muc kho), for example, was a favorite snack (do
nhau) to accompany alcoholic beverages.
In addition to serving fish and crustaceans directly in soups, main dishes, and salads, pre-
colonial Viet also processed them with salt and other ingredients to produce condiments
and sauces, including crab paste (mam cua), shrimp paste (mam tom), and fish sauce
(nuoc mam). Among these, the most widely used sauce was nuoc mam, which was
considered indispensable in the daily meals of pre-colonial Viet; it remains so today.
Although many different kinds of fish were used in making nuoc mam, and many peasant
households simply used whatever kinds were available, the preferred variety-and the one
used in commercial production-was a tiny anchovy called ca com. In high-quality
commercial production, anchovies are heavily salted and left in a large barrel to ferment.
After about three months, the liquefied portion of the mixture is drawn off from the
bottom and reinserted on top of the remaining fish solids. Three months later, the dark-
brown liquid portion is skimmed off the top; the solid remains of the fish, having settled
to the bottom, are removed and may be used as fertilizer.
Alternatively, water may be added to the solid remains, which can then be pressed to
produce more batches of sauce, but the additional pressings yield a lighter-colored,
weaker-tasting product. The best quality nuoc mam, called thuong hang, is deep amber in
color with a pungent, salty taste. It was used as a flavoring in cooking and added directly
to food as salt would be at a Western meal. A popular dipping sauce (nuoc cham) was
made by mixing nuoc mam with water, lime juice, chopped chilies, pressed garlic,
chopped scallions, and sugar; it was used extensively to add spice to many different
dishes and salads. Even today, no Vietnamese meal, except for a vegetarian one, is
complete without nuoc mam or nuoc cham.
Unable to consume adequate quantities of meat, fish, or batrachians on a continual basis,
many pre-colonial and colonial-era families had diets that were lacking in protein.
Additional sources of animal protein were sought in the insect world. Southern peasants,
for example, searched coconut trees for palm grubs (con duong), which were rolled in
flour and fried. Northerners, for their part, captured and ate grasshoppers (con chau
chau), and boiled grasshoppers were commonly sold in rural markets of the North.
However, while palm grubs as a snack food were appreciated by all classes, grasshoppers
were considered a "poor person's food" and were disdained by elite consumers. Farming
families still seek to augment their diets by hunting for these and other traditional hedges
against hunger, but the increased use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in rice farming
has dramatically reduced the number and variety of fauna in the deltas.

DRINKS AND DESSERTS

The main beverage during pre-colonial times was tea, of which there were many varieties
and methods of preparation. Farming families used Vietnamese green tea, called che tuoi
or che xanh (che and tra are the general terms for teas), which was grown in household
gardens and picked right before use. The untreated leaves were boiled in an earthen pot,
from which large bowls of the strong, hot liquid were poured as desired. Given the warm
climate and heavy workloads of the peasants, copious amounts of green tea were
consumed daily for refreshment and for the mildly euphoric state that the leaves
produced. According to custom, anyone calling upon family or friends for help in
fieldwork or construction was expected to provide lots of hot green tea to keep up the
workers' energy and spirits. Other varieties of Vietnamese teas included dried tea (che
kho), grilled tea (che man), and tea made from seeds instead of leaves (che hat); in
addition to these domestic varieties, which provided the bulk of daily consumption,
Chinese teas of all sorts (generally called che Tau) were imported for elite consumers.
The Viet elite did not generally participate in an elaborate tea ceremony comparable to
that of the Japanese. Nor did Viet connoisseurs place the same emphasis on the myriad
varieties of luxury teas, as did their counterparts in China. However, the pre-colonial Viet
elite did develop an institutionalized practice of tea consumption. As noted earlier,
beverages, including teas, were not served during meals; generally speaking, tea and
other nonalcoholic beverages were served after meals, and alcoholic beverages before,
either alone or with snack foods such as palm grubs. Thus, a special table called tra ky
with three places was set up against a wall and reserved for tea drinking. Hot brewed tea
was poured from a teapot into a large bowl called the chen tuong, or "general's bowl,"
and placed on the tea table. The three connoisseurs then served themselves in tiny
"soldiers' cups" (chen quan), held with the thumb and forefinger and perhaps the middle
finger (but never the ring or little fingers). The use of the "general's bowl" ensured that
the tea in the "soldiers' cups" was of uniform strength, which would not have been the
case if they had been filled successively from the teapot. The drinking cup was never to
be completely emptied, because undissolved particles of leaves collected on the bottom.
Teas of all kinds, Vietnamese as well as Chinese, are still widely consumed in the S.R.V.
today, and hot green tea remains the Vietnamese peasant's drink of choice. However, teas
are being eclipsed by imported or foreign- inspired beers, soft drinks, and coffees among
urbanites who can afford them.
Alcoholic beverages were an important feature of life in pre-colonial Viet- nam, used by
all classes for ritual, medicinal, and recreational purposes. By far the most commonly
consumed variety of alcoholic drink was ruou nep, a liquor (ruou) distilled from glutinous
rice (nep) and resembling Japanese sake in taste and color. There were numerous
variations: rice liquor made with red glutinous rice was called ruou cam; lotus flowers
added flavor and aromato ruou sen; and goat's blood was mixed with rice liquor to
produce ruou tiet de, prized as a tonic. Most of the alcoholic beverages consumed by pre-
colonial Vietnamese were domestically produced, but some were imported from China,
particular a sorghum liquor called ruou cao luong. Rice liquor, being a distilled and
therefore purified product, was one of the traditional offerings to deities and ancestors.
According to the proverb Vo tuu bat thanh le ("Without alcohol, rituals lose their
character"), offerings omitting alcohol were meaningless. (This did not apply to Buddhist
offerings, however, since Buddhism advocates self-mastery and forbids intoxicants.) Rice
alcohol was also used therapeutically in Vietnamese and Sino-Vietnamese traditional
medicine, either alone or mixed with the blood of animals such as goats or snakes. Ruou
nep was consumed during the Fifth Month Festival because it was thought to kill worms
in the body. The most common use for alcohol, however, from pre-colonial times to the
present, was for relaxation and entertainment, usually in a social context, with groups of
males drinking together. Glasses of liquor, in contrast to those of tea, were drained
completely. Intoxication was permitted as long as disorderly behavior did not result.
However, this relatively tolerant view of alcoholic consump- tion was extended to males
only; drinking was considered immodest and improper for women, no matter what the
conduct.
While rice-based liquors are still consumed in Vietnam today, Western or Western-
inspired alcoholic drinks, especially beers (called ruou bia, or simply bia), well suited to
Vietnam's tropical climate and spicy cuisine, have been gaining in popularity since
colonial times. In addition to the many imported brands available, of which Singapore's
Tiger Beer is the most prized, many kinds of beers are brewed in the S.R.V., either in
cooperation with foreign firms (Huda Beer, for example, is a Danish-licensed product
brewed in Viet- nam's Hue City) or independently (Vietnam's "33" Beer). Bars,
restaurants, and cafes routinely offer an assortment of domestic and imported beers.
While the prices of imported brands remain too steep for the budgets of most working
families, many working men regularly consume copious quantities of inexpensive local
draft beers (bia hoi), which at about 2,000 dong per liter, cost no more than a pot of tea.
Some urban professional women have begun to use alcoholic beverages in recent
decades, although traditional taboos retain much of their potency.
Coffee is another rising star among Vietnamese beverages. Introduced by Western traders
and popularized by French colonists, who founded coffee plantations in Vietnam's
highlands, coffee is now avidly consumed by all but the poorest Vietnamese. The
European and particularly French origins of Vietnamese coffee drinking, as adapted to the
local climate and taste, are still evident in the way that the beverage is prepared and
served. Vietnamese usually put domestically grown, freshly ground beans in a small
metal filter (called phin after the French filtre), which is placed on top of a clear drinking
glass. Boiling water is poured into the filter, giving a small amount of strong, black coffee
similar to European-style expresso. According to preference, it may be served black (ca-
phe den) or with sweetened condensed milk (ca-phe sua), either of which may be served
hot (nong) or over ice (da). Condensed milk is used instead of fresh as it is easier to
preserve and is more pleasing aesthetically to Vietnamese, who, lacking a dairy tradition,
generally find fresh cow's milk disgusting and indigestible. A recent innovation is a Viet-
namese version of the Starbucks-style coffee shop chain called Trung Nguyen
("Highlands"). These shops can be found in most of the S.R.V.'s major cities, serving a
variety of luxury coffees by the cup or ground to be consumed at home.
Pre-colonial Viet enjoyed a wide variety of cakes, candies, and puddings. Banh Trung-
thu, the cakes that were served during the Mid-Autumn Festival, had a glutinous rice
crust that was oval-shaped, and they were stuffed with sweet sesame paste and decorated
with auspicious dragon images. Another delicacy, this one associated with the New Year's
Festival, was the banh chung, a square-sided cake made of glutinous rice and stuffed with
meat and beans. The log-shaped cakes were wrapped in banana leaves, boiled, and
allowed to cool. Before serving, the banana leaves were stripped away, and the portions,
sliced off as needed, were seasoned with pepper and other spices and served cold or
grilled. Candies called mut were made from papayas, coconuts, lemons, and other fruits.
Often sold by ambulatory vendors, they contributed to the gaiety of Tet and were enjoyed
year-round as well. Pre-colonial Viet also used fruits, vegetables, and legumes to
fabricate sweet puddings called che, which were consumed as desserts or with ice as
refreshing late afternoon snacks. Che chuoi, or "banana pudding," for example, blended
bananas, co- conut, and tapioca; che bap, or "corn pudding," utilized coconut and tapioca
but replaced bananas with corn as the main ingredient.
Whereas most contemporary Vietnamese confine themselves, by taste or budget, to the
sweets described above, a number of Western, particularly French, desserts have been
gaining in popularity among well-to-do consumers since the colonial era. Western-style
frosted cakes using wheat flour (called banh ngot, literally "sweet cakes"), for example,
may be ordered by elite families for special occasions such as birthdays or graduations.
Flan, or French- style custard, is considered a delicacy, and ice cream (kem) is a favorite
among upper-class youths, as the mushrooming of ca-phe kem or "ice cream cafes" in
urban centers testifies.
ARECA NUTS, TOBACCO, AND OPIUM
Though neither food nor drink, several other plant-based products consumed by pre-
colonial and colonial-era Vietnamese deserve mention: areca nuts, tobacco, and opium.
The areca nut chaw included nuts from the areca palm (Areca catechu; cay cau), betel
vine leaves (Piper betle; la giau or la trau), and lime. The smallish areca nuts were sliced,
mixed with slaked lime, and wrapped in the betel vine leaf. Although the ingredients were
nearly universal, the quality of instruments for preparing and serving them varied widely
according to social level, with ornate instruments being used by the well-do-do and basic
utensils by the poor. Chewing the resulting chaw (mieng giau or mieng tran) produces a
euphoric state, which some users enhanced by adding Vietnamese tobacco (thuoc lao) to
the mix.
Betel chaws were regularly enjoyed by all classes and played an important role in
enhancing social interactions. Guests were offered a chaw to welcome them, with the
household children often being asked to prepare chaws for guests. Also, since the betel
vine and areca palm so often appear together in nature, they came to represent marital
fidelity and I happiness. iness. The leaves and nuts, along with instruments for their
preparation and consumption, were exchanged in celebration of betrothal and marriage.
The practice of chewing betel contributed to the custom of blackening the teeth with
lacquer. Betel chewing stained the teeth unevenly in a way that was considered
unattractive; the solution to the problem was to blacken them entirely by lacquering,
which came to be considered attractive, especially in women, to the point that one could
describe (as the writer Le Qui Don did) a beautiful woman in eighteenth-century Vietnam
as having "rosy cheeks and black teeth" (ma hong rang den).
Under Western influence, the new standard, first felt in the cities in the early decades of
the twentieth century, called for white teeth, and both betel chewing and teeth blackening
gradually went out of practice. Today neither is widely seen, although elderly peasant
women, particularly northerners, still chew betel, which is, along with its accompanying
paraphernalia, still given as betrothal and wedding gifts.
As stated above, Vietnamese tobacco, or thuoc lao, was sometimes inserted into a betal
chaw to enhance its effects, but thuoc lao was also used independently, usually by
smoking in a long-stemmed water pipe. Increased contact with Western products and
practices during the colonial period brought Western-style tobacco (called thuoc la
literally, "medicine leaf") smoked in cigarettes into prominence, particularly among urban
males. Cigarettes have recently extended their range into the countryside as well, and it is
probable that most Vietnamese men are now smokers, which means that Vietnam must
expect significant increases in cardiopulmonary disease and cancers among males within
the next ten to twenty years. So far, Vietnamese women have been more reluctant to take
up the habit, probably because public smoking by women still connotes loose morals.
Vietnamese tobacco, how-ever, still has its adherents, particularly in the North, who
consider it more intrinsically Vietnamese than the varieties introduced from the West. Its
hold on users is described in a folk song: "I have never missed anyone the way I miss
thuoc lao. Every time I bury the pipe, I have to dig it up again."
Opium was also smoked by a minority of Vietnamese during the colonial era, when the
French government encouraged its use by granting monopolies on its sale to private firms
in return for a share of the profits. It has been estimated that approximately 2 percent of
the overall Vietnamese population and 20 percent of the Vietnamese officials working
under the French administration were addicts. Although old-style opium smoking has
largely been stamped out under the S.R.V., increasing numbers of young urbanites are
again using opiates, including heroin, usually through injections. While their numbers
remain small by Western standards, the phenomenon is alarming to Party and state
officials, who fear increased incidences of anti- social behavior and infectious diseases
such as AIDS among users.

DAILY FARE IN THE S.R.V.

The typical daily fare of urban and rural families living in the S.R.V. today is similar to
that of pre-colonial times. Urbanites generally eat three meals a day: a light breakfast
(bua diem tam or bua an sang), followed by a more substantial lunch (bua an trua) and
then dinner (bua an chieu). Snacks (do an choi) such as pudding (che) may be eaten
throughout the day as desired. Country people tend to have a heavier breakfast to fortify
them for the demands of agricultural work. Although the practice in pre-colonial times
was to drink alcoholic beverages before meals, if desired, and tea afterward, the modern
trend-at least among those urban families who can afford to do so is to have beverages
available throughout the meal, including soft drinks, beer, and iced coffee.
According to custom, breakfast is usually eaten in the home with the entire family present
before family members depart for their daily routines of work, study, or shopping.
However, given the system of regular workdays and hours (often six days a week and
more than ten hours a day) and the faster pace of life as Vietnam industrializes, breakfast
may now be eaten on the way to work or school, often at makeshift roadside stalls (com
bui, or "dust cuisine," as Ha-noi residents call them) or at tiny quan an binh dan,
"popular" (i.e., affordable) restaurants. For urbanites, breakfast commonly consists of rice
gruel (chao) with meat or fish added. Chao long, a rice gruel with pig's in- testines, or
chao huyet, rice gruel with curdled pig's blood, are common var- iants of this. Another
common breakfast option is soup, such as pho Bac ("northern-style" soup also called pho
Ha-noi, or "Ha-noi-style"). Boiling- hot beef stock, flavored with dried shrimp, nuoc
mam, and ginger, is poured over thinly sliced pieces of raw beef and rice noodles in a
bowl. The boiling stock quickly cooks the meat, and fresh bean sprouts, coriander, mint,
on- ions, lemon juice (or slices of lemon), and chili peppers are added by the individual
diners. (Pho is not just a breakfast food, though; it may also be eaten for lunch, dinner,
and as a snack.) Another breakfast option is xoi, steamed glutinous rice wrapped in a
lotus leaf and larded with, for instance, shredded coconut meat and sugar. In middle-class
families, Western influences are more evident. Ca-phe sua da, or iced coffee with
sweetened condensed milk, is likely to accompany an adult's breakfast, whereas children
might eat buttered French-style bread or banh mi thit nguoi, French-style bread with cold
cuts. Farming families stick closer to pre-colonial breakfast fare for reasons of taste and
economy; the xoi, soups, and breads of the urbanites are not for them. Farming families
will more likely consume copious servings of rice dishes, perhaps fried rice (com chien)
or rice gruel made from the previous day's leftovers. If rice is not available, they may
substitute a potato or corn gruel (chao khoai, chao ngo), flavored with shrimp paste (mam
tom) or salted eggplant (ca muoi).
Although many working urbanites return home to have lunch with their families, it is
increasingly common for office workers, civil servants, students, and the like to pack a
lunch of leftovers from home or to patronize roadside stalls or "popular" restaurants. An
inexpensive restaurant meal might include banh cuon (steamed ravioli) dipped in nuoc
cham; hu tieu (Sai-gon-style chicken and noodle soup); or com dia, a dish (dia) of rice
(com) topped with barbecued beef or pork and pickled vegetables, washed down with
sweetened sua dau nanh (soy bean milk) or iced coffee. Lunch at home with the family
might include a bowl of rice, a fish or meat dish, and a clear vegetable soup. Whether
eaten at home, at work, or in a restaurant, lunch is usually followed by a dessert (do trang
mieng, literally "something to wash the mouth") of fresh fruit-for example, sliced mango
(xoai) or jackfruit (mit), depending on the season-or sweets such as corn pudding (che
bap), and then a siesta.
In the countryside, lunches tend to resemble breakfasts, consisting of rice or rice gruel or
a rice substitute, flavored with shrimp paste or salted eggplant; only rarely will pieces of
meat or fish be included. Farmworkers whose fields are close enough to their homes walk
or bike home to eat with their families; those who work at greater distances have a family
member bring their lunch to them or bring their meal with them in the morning-most
likely, the leftovers from breakfast or some cold, compressed rice. Dessert, if any,
consists of a hand of bananas or a draught of green tea. Lunch is usually followed by a
nap in a shady spot.
Dinner is usually the most elaborate meal, as it typically reunites the family after the
day's work is done, with everyone sitting on grass mats (chieu) or on a low table (phan).
(The Western-style high table with chairs is increasingly common in cities.) Urban dining
at home usually includes one or more fish, fowl, meat, or boiled vegetable dishes and
rice. Because of the expense, dinner in a restaurant is reserved for special occasions, at
which time family members might enjoy a southern delicacy such as chao tom. Shrimp
meat is wrapped around sugar cane and barbecued; individual diners then peel off a
morsel of shrimp, garnish it with fresh herbs and bean sprouts, wrap the bundle in lettuce
leaves or rice paper, and dunk the packet into nuoc cham before eating it. Dinner at a
restaurant includes soft drinks, iced coffee, or beer; at home it includes iced coffee, black
tea, flower-blossom tea, or soy milk. As with lunch, dinner might be followed by fruits
and pudding, or perhaps a Western-style cake to mark a special occasion.
In the countryside, dinner is usually eaten at home after the family mem- bers have
returned from their work and gathered in the main (or only) room of the house on a mat.
Rice remains the basic ingredient for dinners in the countryside, mixed with or replaced
by corn or potatoes as necessary, enlivened by shrimp paste or salted eggplant, and
washed down with a clear vegetable broth. Dessert, if any, usually consists of green tea,
fruit, or perhaps some locally made candy.
 7 - Family, Gender, and Youth Culture

THE FAMILY IN VIETNAM nowadays seemingly straddles multiple worlds: tradition

and modernity; capitalism and socialism. From North to South, from countryside to
cities, the changes that resulted from decades of war, the return of peace in 1975, and the
opening of the country under doi moi (Renovation) have affected the very foundation of
Vietnamese society, the family (gia dinh). What the family is nowadays is a reflection of
the past with its deeply held values that encompassed thousands of years of existence,
and yet concurrently the Vietnamese family of the twenty-first century has been shaped
by profoundly different conditions that have influenced the society for the last fifty years.

THE VIETNAMESE FAMILY IN PRE-COLONIAL TIMES

In pre-colonial times, the Viet were defined first and foremost by their families, which
were fundamentally patrilineal and patriarchal in character. The "clan" (roc), which
included a number of families related to each other through a common male ancestor
(thuy to), formed the basis of society. Each clan was identified by a specific lincage name
(ho), or surname, of which there are approximately 300, the most common being
"Nguyen," followed by "Tran," "Pham," and "Le." To the clan leader (truong toc) -the
eldest male in the oldest branch directly descended from the founding ancestor- fell a
number of duties: for instance, keeping and preserving the genealogical register (gia pha),
which records the names, births, and deaths of members. Well-kept registers would list
the land or other properties used for the main-tenance of the ancestral cult. The truong
toc, who resided in the ancestral home and presided over the family council, was the one
to whom related families or members within each familial unit would turn to resolve
disputes; he made decisions related to lineage matters; and he served as the protector of
widows and minors as well as the moral anchor for all within the clan.
Within this larger body of the toc, there was the family (gia dinh): traditionally
multigenerational (grandparents, parents, and children, uncles and aunts, and sometimes
great-grandparents); it revolved around its central figure, the family head (gia truong),
who could be the grandfather or the father (bo or thay). All owed obedience to him. The
family head ruled over all family members in all matters, including property rights,
education, marriage, and profession, and he spoke on their behalf in dealings with the
outside world. He had the power to reward or to chastise; to him were incumbent the
duties of protection, of feeding, and of education, both morally and academically, vis-à-
vis everyone in the family.
In practice, such absolute patriarchal power was tempered by a tradition stemming from
Vietnam's distant past as a Southeast Asian matrilineal culture, which gave women some
rights and protection along with a stronger voice in the family's decision making. Thus,
although the patrilineal character was given precedence, the maternal lineage was not
neglected. On the con- trary, pre-colonial Viet identified themselves by reference to two
lineages (ho): the internal one of the father (ben noi) and the external one of the mother
(ben ngoai). Duties and obligations were owed to each, with the paternal lineage given
primacy. A complex kinship terminology existed that allowed for the distinction in terms
of reference between uncles, aunts, and cousins on the father's side and these on the
mother's side.
The Vietnamese family was shaped by three fundamental values and customs embedded
in the Vietnamese ethos: filial piety (hieu), moral debt or gratitude (on), and merit (duc).
Filial piety, the most heavily stressed value, encompassed the duties and obligations of
children toward their parents. It bound the son or daughter in an unbreakable parental
relationship because of the moral debt or gratitude that he or she owed and that could
never be fully repaid. Vietnamese were taught from birth through the telling of
innumerable folktales and songs, popular sayings, and mythological and family stories
about the sacrifices that parents had to endure in order to raise the child, who learned that
what he or she is today results from what the parents and ancestors had accomplished in
the past, stretching over many generations. He or she was admonished to always
remember "those who had planted the tree that gave the fruits that he is enjoying" and
"the spring whence the water came that quenched his thirst."
The child also learned that the prosperity, wealth, and happiness that he or she currently
enjoyed was the result of the merit accumulated by ancestors through successive
generations of ethical observance and good deeds. Such merit was considered to be an
inheritance as solid and worthy as land or a house, and the adult child was expected in
turn to contribute to the amassing of such merit to be bestowed on those that would
follow. Conversely, one's poverty, misery, and unhappiness were considered to be the
result of some past evil deeds committed in previous lives or by some ancestors, and thus
it was one's duty to make amends to prevent one's own child from experiencing suffering
and misery in the future. Filial piety, moral debt or gratitude, merit accumulation, and
their obligations were projected beyond the parents and ancestors to one's relatives,
friends, superiors, village, ruler, state, and people. Hence pre-colonial Viet paid enormous
attention to such values as loyalty, respect, and gratitude toward all these entities.
The internalizing of these three values obligated the sons to ensure the continuity of the
male line through procreation, which explains the centrality of the institution of marriage
and its obligatory and arranged character. Marriage as early as fifteen for the boy and
twelve to fourteen for the girl, the "normal age" being sixteen for the latter and eighteen
for the former, brought numerous children as insurance against the ending of the line,
whereas celibacy, a proof of filial impiety (bat hieu), was unacceptable, particularly for
males. The marriage match was arranged by a go-between (nguoi lam moi), usually an
elderly woman known for her cleverness and knowledge of the prospects, or in the case
of prominent families, a learned and high-ranking man of good repute, who was to
ascertain the honorability and social prominence of the prospective family as well as the
virtuousness and accomplished domesticity of the girl (if the investigation were initiated
by the boy's family). Extreme importance was accorded to the social concordance of the
families. as reflected in the saying "Houses equal in standing, comparable in income"
(Mon dang ho doi).
The process went through three stages: the preliminary discussions (cham mat), the
betrothal (le hoi), and the wedding itself (le cuoi), each stage being preceded by offerings
of betel leaves and areca nuts. When a match had been found, interminable sessions of
betel chewing ensued during which all details were probed, bargained about, and agreed
upon. The girl's horoscope had to concord with the boy's to ensure that the combination
of the elements and the signs would lead to a harmonious and fertile marriage. The
agreement for the match was to be sealed by a formal marriage proposal by the suitor's
parents. The two families discussed the formalities for the betrothal ceremony-in
particular, the amount of betel and areca and tea that the suitor's family was to bring on
the day of the ceremony. The more prominent the betrothed's family, the larger the
amount, which was to be distributed to relatives, friends, and acquaintances as a form of
announcement. The betrothal ceremony would take place on an auspicious day, with the
two sets of parents meeting to discuss the wedding day, as well as the presents that the
boy's family must offer: money, jewelry, furniture, silk bolts, and so forth. Poorer families
made simpler offerings of tea, rice, bananas, and extra betel and areca.
Several years might elapse between the betrothal and the wedding ceremonies, especially
if the prospective bride was very young, but the prospective groom had to visit and bring
presents to his betrothed's family to mark important occasions, such as the New Year and
the Mid-Autumn Festivals. On the wedding day, at the fixed hour, the groom-
accompanied by his father, brothers and sisters, relatives, and friends-formed a
procession heading toward the bride's house in a ceremony known as the "bringing of the
bride" (le ruoc dau) to her husband's house. Upon their arrival, all were invited to sit and
were served tea; meanwhile, the bride's father (or the eldest representative) invoked the
souls of the departed at the ancestral altar to inform them of the marriage; the groom,
followed by the bride, lit incense at the altar and bowed down three times to his wife's
ancestors to announce his taking the bride home. Both groom and bride performed
obeisance to the bride's parents, who acknowledged them in turn by presenting the couple
with their gift (in cash or kind) and their wishes for long life and numerous (male)
progeny. The same ceremony was performed upon the bride's entering into her husband's
home, which then became hers as well.
Marriage was patrilocal; that is, a couple lived with the husband's father, mother, and
unmarried siblings. It was expected that the eldest son would care for his parents in their
old age. Privacy was not highly valued, and aunts, nieces, grandparents, and
grandchildren could be found sharing the same room. Seldom did the son move away to a
distant land outside the confines of the ancestral home, defined and attached as he was by
his birthplace, land, and village, which had been those of his ancestors. Were this to
happen, he would become that most unfortunate, rootless person, "without a hearth,
without a tomb to call his own."
The patrilineal, patrilocal character of marriage was further affirmed by the fact that, once
she was married, the new bride became part of her husband's family and only saw her
own family on occasional visits. Thus, in pre-colonial families, the raising of daughters
was considered a "waste" of resources, for they were "children of others" and could not
be relied upon for succor in old age. The new bride was incorporated not only into her
husband's family but also into his ancestral line, which became her own. She then began
that fearful apprenticeship known as lam dau, "to serve as a daughter-in-law" to her
mother-in-law. This was part of the second stage of the "three subserviences" (tam tong)
of a woman to her father before her marriage, to her husband upon becoming his wife,
and to her son when she became widowed. A mother-in-law had full authority over her
daughter-in- law: she could work her to the bone from dawn to dusk, starve her to death,
or beat her black and blue, and few would find that reprehensible. A rich folklore
illustrates this aspect of the Vietnamese family: "Mother and daughter-in-law are like
mistress and servant; there is no love lost between them" is a representative expression.
Within the marital relationship, the husband had the right to chastise his wife physically
as well as verbally and to repudiate her if she was found guilty of lacking respect toward
her in-laws, of not producing a male heir, or of committing adultery. Nevertheless, the
husband was not totally free to do as he pleased with his wife, as his parents, relatives,
neighbors, and even village elders could intervene. Divorce existed but was rare, as it
brought oppro- brium to the divorced woman and a taint of scandal to the family. Men
were permitted to take several wives (although the first one was considered the wife of
first rank), especially if the first wife did not provide a male heir. In fact, the first wife
often participated in the selection of secondary wives to ensure that the latter would
"merge" harmoniously with the family. Secondary wives were obligated to obey the first
wife in all things, and their children were regarded as her own. When widowed, a woman
was to remain chaste and faithful to her husband's memory. It was incumbent upon her to
raise the children and, while her son was still a minor, to perpetuate the cult of the
ancestors, aided by her husband's relatives. If it happened that the family had no male
heirs, the eldest daughter inherited the eldest son's privileges as well as duties, the most
important being the perpetuation of the cult of the ancestors. If the couple was childless,
adoption was an acceptable practice. Whenever possible, the adopted child (con nuoi)
was sought within the extended family, leaving behind the family of origin to be an
integral and permanent part of the adopted family.
The patriarchal character of the Vietnamese family was further reflected in the fact that it
was the eldest male child in the family who had the duty to perpetuate the practice of
ancestor worship (tho cung ong ba). Ancestral spirits are believed to inhabit this world,
witnessing their progeny's every thought and action, helping their every move, appearing
in dreams to warn them of imminent disasters and dangers. Thus, prominently placed in
every pre-colonial home was the ubiquitous altar with its bronze incense burner,
candleholders, flowers and fruits, and the tablets bearing the names of the ancestors and
deceased family members. Every year upon the anniversary (ngay gio) of a death, it was
incumbent upon the eldest son to organize a celebration, the importance and
elaborateness of which increased in proportion to the recentness of the death and the rank
within the family. A vast array of dishes would be presented to the ancestors; incense
would be burned, and the whole family, beginning with the eldest male (and his wife),
would do their obeisance, calling on their ancestors to partake of the feast. Relatives and
other guests would follow their example in lighting the incense. Only after a decent
interval could all share in the feast (their seating being determined by their rank within
the family hierarchy), renewing familial bonds as well as sharing the latest gossips about
weddings, births, and deaths.
Within this prevalently patriarchal tradition, there were a few customs that corrected this
imbalance. One of them was the inheritance custom, which stipulated equality between
sons and daughters in the division of the patrimony, except for the provision that a
specific body of land, the "incense and fire" (huong hoa) parcel, be given to the eldest
male sibling to provide resources for the maintenance of the ancestral cult. Along with
that practice, the elder male sibling in the family, in the event of the death, absence, or
incapacity of the father, was also expected to be responsible for his mother and his
younger siblings, seeing to their education and marriage.
Vietnamese children of both sexes were usually doted upon by their parents, who
lavished them with love and care. A mother would sing her babies to sleep with age-old
lullabies and would breast-feed them until they were three. Fathers were often indulgent,
giving rise to the saying "If the children are spoiled, it is because of their father." Out of
fear that their children would be taken away or rendered mortally ill by evil spirits,
parents gave them coarse nicknames such as "pig, "dog," or "stupid," which were
supposed to make them undesirable in the eyes of the spirits. All parents' ultimate dream
was that the male child would grow up to become a laureate to bring honor to his family.
During their tender years, children were allowed to roam in bands through fields and
ponds and to play games (e.g., cricket fights, kite flying), watched over by their older
brothers and sisters. As they grew older, these children were given tasks, such as herding
water buffalo or ducks, baby-sitting the younger siblings, whom they would carry
wherever they went, and cooking in the absence of the mother.
Throughout childhood, Vietnamese children were taught the moral lessons of filial piety,
obedience, and proper social behavior through songs, sayings, and stories. Upon reaching
his sixth birthday (Vietnamese children are considered one year old at birth), a bright boy
might go to the village school to acquire an education that was the first step in the
preparation for the civil service examinations. A girl, however, stayed home to help her
mother in all the domestic chores and to begin her training as a future bride, for her
destiny was to get married. "A girl who is slow to marry makes her parents weary,' says
an ancient proverb.
Within such a patriarchal world, male and female assumed different, and not necessarily
equal, roles and worth. Although women in Vietnam-unlike their counterparts in China,
for instance-shared more equally in an inher- itance and had more rights because of an
ancient Southeast Asian tradition of matrilineal descent, they nevertheless were not
considered as standing on an equal footing with the men. Bound as they were by a set of
firmly entrenched values (chastity, obedience, fidelity, self-sacrifice) aimed at regi-
menting their behavior so as to ensure the perpetuation of the male- dominated family,
women from birth to death were expected to give precedence to males be they the father,
husband, or brother-in most mat- ters that counted (e.g., inheritance, marriage,
education).
Despite these constraints, throughout the centuries Vietnamese women had forged a
tradition that gave them supremacy within the family in terms of familial economics.
Thus, popular sayings referred to the housewife as noi tuong (the "general within"), as it
was she who managed the income brought by her husband and often supplemented it
through secondary economic activities such as weaving, animal husbandry, and
cultivation of fruits and vegetables to be sold in the village market. Within the pre-
colonial legal system, Vietnamese women had the right to jointly own their family prop-
erties with their husbands, and although they were led by them, they "co- officiated" with
their husbands in ancestor worship. Overall, Vietnamese women had never been
perceived or portrayed in folktales and popular say- ings as weak, subservient, and docile.
On the contrary, many folktales and songs perpetuated the image of a strong-willed,
resilient woman, sharp of tongue, quick of wit, and swift in her revenge on an unfaithful
husband.

THE FAMILY IN TIMES OF WAR

During the French colonial era, on the surface, few of the traits that char- acterized a pre-
colonial family changed. Still, some undercurrents began to manifest themselves in the
1920s and 1930s, especially among the educated upper class, which had more
opportunities to be in contact with Western civilization. Western values began to seep into
Vietnamese society, starting from the top down. Once unleashed, the forces of change
affected everyone, men and women in immeasurable ways in the case of the latter.
The wars that started in 1946 and went on for thirty years (with a brief and incomplete
interruption from 1954 to 1960) shook the foundations of Vietnamese society and in
particular the family. Families that had been bound together for generations and who had
never left the confines of their villages now found themselves disintegrating under the
pressures of military service, enforced migrations, separation, and, all too often, death
and dis- ability. Fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons left to fight a war that was to
become a seemingly endless one, scattering some of them from North to South, not to see
each other again for decades, if ever. In such circumstances, all the patriarchal
characteristics of the traditional Vietnamese family could not remain intact, since their
main actors and tradition holders were no longer there to enforce them. Women were
called upon to fulfill roles that were by tradition male, and they would both benefit and
suffer from these exceptional circumstances.
Under the R.V.N. in the South, to keep the social fabric intact the government saw to it
that the Confucian values for family life were reinforced by the law. Theoretically, it
emphasized the moral duty of all of its members and, in particular, of the woman. Yet
paradoxically, by necessity women were pushed to the forefront as their men were taken
away by the draft. Some of the impetus was provided by Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, the
sister-in-law of the president of the R.V.N., Ngo Dinh Diem. A headstrong woman who
did not hesitate to speak her mind (as when she blamed the existence of the atomic bomb
on male domination) or to grab the limelight, Madame Nhu launched her own women's
emancipation campaign, which was behind such spectacular decisions as the creation of a
female militia and her public condemnation of polygyny (polygamy for men). Madame
Nhu was instrumental in the passing of the 1958 Family Law, which attempted to
suppress the traditionally sanctioned polygyny that had led to so much dissension within
the family and to eradicate the forced character of arranged marriages. Yet while
theoretically affirming the right of women to choose their marriage partners, the 1958 law
nevertheless reaffirmed the sanctity of marriage by interdicting divorce, denying the
legitimacy of children born out of wedlock, and reaffirming the assumption that the
family was to be a woman's sole goal in life and the focus of her social obligations.
Feeble attempts were made to enroll women in organizations like the Vietnamese
Women's Solidarity Movement, but these were short-lived and narrowly based, as they
spoke only to the urban elites. Women of the countryside were barely affected by the
1958 Family Law. Lukewarm efforts were also made to recruit young people into the
Republican Youth organization, both in cities and in the countryside, in part to stem the
phenomenon of rising juvenile delinquency and, above all, the potential appeal of the
enemy. Overall, most of these family-, women-, and youth-oriented efforts led to
insignificant results, so vast were the problems of a rapidly militarizing society.
In the North, under the D.R.V., the situation was different because of the combined
pressure of the government's effort to mobilize the entire society for the war while trying
to enforce a socialist revolution in which both men and women would be equal in rights
and in duties, and in which women's emancipation was part and parcel of the class
struggle. A year after its counterpart had done so in the South, the D.R.V passed the Law
on Marriage and the Family in 1959, which contained provisions similar to the southern
1958 law-with, however, fundamental differences. Arranged marriages and polygyny
were abolished by the Marriage and Family Law, which also declared the equality of the
sexes and affirmed women and children's rights (e.g., freedom from abuse). Literacy
campaigns aimed especially at women were launched with the contribution of the
Vietnam Women's Union in order to give women better access to jobs and a stronger role
in the decision- making process in the government and the Communist Party. Improved
health care and child care were among the benefits enjoyed by women in the D.R.V
during the war decades.
Nevertheless, as the war intensified, women unavoidably became a larger force in the
daily activities of the D.R.V. Sixty percent of the "laboring peasants" and 33 percent of
the labor force in state enterprises were women. However, while positively contributing
to the war effort and making gains in the emancipation campaign, women were still
expected to shoulder the burden of housework and child care during a time of war-
induced shortages. By 1965, the "three assumptions of duty" policy (production, family,
and military work) meant that women's capacities were stretched to the limit of
endurance, and often beyond.
It was during the war, paradoxically, that Vietnam (or rather, the D.R.V.) was among the
Third World nations with the highest birthrates. Aware of the potential negative impact of
large population increases, the government began to launch birth control campaigns in
1962 that advocated the use of the IUD (Intrauterine Device) and legalized abortion in
cases of unwanted pregnancy. Positive incentives (work promotion, maternity and
nursery care, allocation of living space) and negative incentives (suppression of the above
advantages) were also applied to persuade the woman to use birth control. Over the long
term, the family planning policy as enforced in the D.R.V. was partly successful, but
women (and their men) also showed an often determined resistance to the two-child
policy and to the use of the IUD and other birth control methods.

FAMILY LIFE IN THE S.R.V.

Decades of war, the opening of the country, the demands of a fast-paced market economy,
and the ever increasing intrusion of globalization have affected the Vietnamese family
greatly, stretching its traditional fabric to the limit while leaving some core values intact.
The multigenerational and patriarchal aspects of the traditional Vietnamese family are
less prevalent nowadays, particularly in the cities. The nuclear, two-generation family
(parents and children), though not a new phenome- non, has been increasingly prevalent
since 1975. A number of factors account for such increase: migration from rural areas to
cities, from the overpopulated Red River Delta to the southern highlands and provinces in
the Mekong Delta, urbanization and industrialization, with the concomitant rise of the
job-providing service sector and factories, and the desire of a generation to live apart
from its parents, in a freer and less constraining environment. It also stems from the
government's family planning policy, which encourages the ideals of the nuclear family
with two children as part of a national effort to stem the demographic explosion. It has
encountered strong resistance as the result of the traditional patriarchal influence (the
need to have a male heir) as well as the desire by young couples to perpetuate their own
images and achieve their ambitions through their children.
Consequently, the customs and values that once defined the Vietnamese family such as
ancestor worship, filial piety, obedience, loyalty, the primacy of the ancestral home, and
the extended patrilineal and patrilocal family- have suffered from the intrusion of the
modern industrial world. The ties that used to bind all the participants of this entity
together have become somewhat looser, with the priority given to the more immediate
members (husband and wife, parents and children, and grandparents) while ancestors
recede further into the past in terms of familial memory. Although parental authority
remains strong, it is expressed less in decrees than in discussions with the children, and
this is reflected in many areas that used to define the Vietnamese ethos-for instance, filial
piety and marriage. Concern for the care of aging parents as well as the related notion of
family honor remain at the core of the Vietnamese value system, but the crystal clarity of
their past definitions has become murkier, and expectations have diminished. Although
still somewhat obligatory (in particular for the sole male heir), marriage, another pillar of
the Vietnamese family, has somewhat lost its "arranged" character, allowing for "chance"
to play a greater part. It does not, however, prevent parents, relatives, and friends from
attempting to match the parties, with parents choosing criteria based on the social
standing of the counterpart family, whereas friends look for psychological affinities
between the two potential partners.
The marriage ceremony in the present Vietnamese family often combines West and East,
the past with its various traditions and the future with its adoption of Western dress (suit
and tie for the groom; white, crinoline dress with bridal veil and gloves for the bride) and
other customs. Although it is less complicated and elaborate in terms of organization, the
ceremony stripped to its essentials still retains a few outward observations of the
traditional rituals, such as the offering of areca and betel by the groom's family to the
bride's; the greeting of the bride (le ruoc dau) by the groom's party; and the ceremony of
obeisance performed by groom and bride to parents and ancestors. However, the cost of
weddings-which even in the past drove families to ruination because of home-cooked,
sumptuous feasts held to accommodate entire villages and extended relatives-is ever on
the rise. Modern brides and grooms greet guests at the door of the restaurant where the
wedding banquet is to take place. A live band is a must among the young people, and the
felicitous event has to be recorded on video at steep prices. Thankfully, the onerous
tradition of lam dau, which caused so much suffering and led to a rich folklore about the
misfortunes of the daughter-in-law and the wickedness of the mother-in-law, is no longer
tolerated. The young bride does not feel obligated to live with her in-laws, and even when
she does live with them she no longer submits to the will and whims of her mother- in-
law.
The Vietnamese family today tends to be assimilated to the legal concept of a household.
Each household is provided with a family registry (ho khau), a booklet in which the
members are numbered and identified in terms of their relationships with the household
head. The registry provides the residency proof for the household members and makes it
possible to obtain essentials such as land-use rights for cultivation (but not ownership) in
the rural areas as well as housing allocation in the cities; the size and quality of the latter
depend on the number of members, widows and other elderly people, and on military
service and war veterans' status.
The proportion of families with gender equality-in terms of domestic chores as well
familial decision making is higher in the cities, in particular among the educated milieu.
In the rural areas women still bear a larger burden of both domestic and occupational
obligations. This is particularly true in the less urbanized North, where the different
phases of agricultural production are carried out largely (60 percent) by women, and
domestic chores solely by them. The tradition of women carning secondary incomes (in
addition to the husband's principal one) through outside economic ac- tivities is stronger
than ever, with increasing numbers of women setting up their own small-scale businesses
at home or at the market. Along with these changes, the reports of domestic violence have
also been on the rise, with physical abuse often resulting from drunkenness or a refusal to
allow the wife to adopt contraceptive measures (out of a desire to have more children, es-
pecially if there is no male heir).
In a population where females are a majority (53.6 percent, 1989 census), the percentage
of married women is higher than that of married men because polygyny is still a
prevalent social phenomenon. Concurrently, the number of widows, divorcees, and
separated wives is also much larger than the num- ber of widowed, divorced, and
separated men. It has always been easier for men to remarry several times, whereas social
constraints and the legacy of tradition make it hard for women to do so. Studies have
shown that the incidence of husband-absent families is quite common, usually because
the husband has perished in war, has left his family behind to find a job in a city or
abroad, or has begun another family without officially divorcing his first wife. Women
having children out of wedlock is also a common phenomenon, as more and more single
women in distant rural areas migrate to cities to find work. The responsibility of raising
children in or out of wedlock weighs heavily on women, who work long hours in
physically demanding jobs, rice fields, plantations, road repair teams, and factories.
Patriarchal influence lin- gers, especially in northern rural areas, where it has been
understood and accepted that a man's place ought not to be in the kitchen and that
domestic chores are women's "natural duty."
With a population that is now more than 80,000,000, more than half of which (53
percent) is under the age of twenty-five, Vietnam is a country composed primarily of
females and the young. With the opening of the domestic market to the outside world, it
has been presumed that women would have better opportunities and that, in the eyes of
the law, men and women are equal. Nevertheless, in reality, as shown by a number of
studies by the Center for Research on Female Labor of the Ministry of Labor, In- valids,
and Social Affairs, the gap between men and women has widened; so has that between
rich and poor. For instance, although there are more em- ployment opportunities for
English-speaking, educated women in the private sector (in foreign-owned companies,
for instance), who are now forming a newly emerging middle class, their sisters in the
countryside, which contains 90 percent of Vietnam's poor, fare much worse. Not only do
they carry most of the burden of agricultural and domestic work, they also encounter
obsta- cles in finding capital for start-up enterprises or loans because they lack col- lateral
(which is usually in the man's name). They also lack educational opportunities. All of
these factors explain why a large percentage of the low- skilled, low-paid workforce in
labor-intensive industries like food processing and garment making is female (mostly
young and single).
Notwithstanding the difficulties, there are examples that bode well for the future of
Vietnamese women, such as the success story of the two sisters, Nguyen Thi Anh Hoa
and Anh Hong, who are the owners and managers of Citimart and Maximark, among the
largest supermarkets in Ho Chi Minh City and Ha-noi, or the story of Mai Kieu Lien, the
general director of Vinamilk, the leading dairy products corporation in Vietnam. Women
who head corporations and small businesses can be found in greater numbers in the South
than in the North. It is not surprising that the first Women's Business Luncheon-organized
to allow businesswomen, both Vietnamese and foreign, private and governmental, to
meet, network, and exchange experience was formed in the South.

GENERATION 2000
The VCP-concerned by the rapid and pervasive corrosion of its image as society's
guiding light, and "the embodiment of virtue" (in the words of journalist Huu Tho, the
head of the Central Committee on Ideology and Culture) has been careful in nurturing the
post-1975 generations in the "right direction" through a number of its youth-oriented
organizations. The Vanguard Youth (Thanh Nien Xung Phong), for example, sends young
men and women (mostly orphaned or from low-income families) to settle in the
highlands or mangrove-covered, swampy coastal regions. The VCP sponsors a school
curriculum that insists on core values such as patriotism, heroism, self-sacrifice, respect
for elders, frugality, and hard work and it attempts to control the flow of information that
floods the country, particularly through the internet.
However, the Party's efforts have not been able to slow Vietnamese youth in its race to
embrace the outside world with all of its positive as well as negative traits. Young people
have absorbed Western ideas about self as an individual rather than as an appendage of a
larger entity; about love, marriage (at a much later age), and sex; and about the latest fads
in fashion and music.
Generation 2000, young men and women (in their twenties) born in a time of peace, have
aspirations and tastes that are similar to those of youth the world over, starkly different
from those of their parents' generation, a generation of war. Yet, with their roots deep in
the past, they are never- theless steeped in that pride of the ancestral land that made
Vietnamese nationalism such a force in the nation's history, albeit tinted with uncer-
tainty and cynicism. Their first concern is job-related; this is expressed in terms of global
market awareness, which guides their choices of career- computer-related and English-
based-whether in business administration, economics, law, or medicine. They fret about
their future and place in so- ciety, worry about an education that may be inadequate in
terms of prep- aration for the ferocious competition for job openings, refuse to follow
their parents' path of wartime self-sacrifice and hardship, seek that most elusive
attainment of hanh phuc ("happiness") through friendship and love, and above all, value
the rapid accumulation of material wealth manifested in the acquisition of consumer
goods: refrigerator, washing machine, big- screen television, house or apartment, and a
sleek motorbike from Japan, Taiwan, Korea, or China.
In the domain of music and fashion, one can see most clearly the influence of the West
through the adoption of musical styles (from rap to hard rock) imported from the United
States, Hong Kong, or Japan, with the formation of rock and rap bands and the popularity
of chart-listed singers playing to capacity audiences (see chapter 9). Vietnamese rap, for
instance, though having integrated the rhythms and fashions of its American model, still
shies away from its counterpart's glorification of violence and reliance on obscen- ities in
its lyrics, choosing instead to talk about love and heartbreaks and youthful angst, or
adopting a comical style that makes light of the foibles of scorned swains and shallow,
vain belles. Overall, the music that Vietnamese youth (and their elders) listen to morning
and night, blasted out in karaoke bars and cafés, is the Vietnamese equivalent of pop
music in the form of perennial, saccharine love songs accompanied by a synthesized
orchestra. Rather surprisingly, the public has shown an inordinate fondness for Western
music of the 1960s and 1970s, embodied by such hits as the Eagles" "Hotel California"
(in the original, or in Vietnamese translation!) or "Aline" by the French singer
Christophe, played endlessly over the radio in shopping centers and cafes.
Whether young or old, male or female, Vietnamese now mostly prefer to wear Western-
style clothes-professional men wear dress shirts and ties; women wear dresses or, more
frequently, pantsuits. These are the mores of city people; the farther South, the more vivid
and fashionable. Fashionwise, urban Vietnamese youth have totally and wholeheartedly
adopted Western-style fashion, becoming a brand-conscious, jeans-clad generation that
would never want to be seen cruising on their Honda motorbikes in downtown Sai- gon
or Ha-noi wearing anything other than Calvin Klein T-shirts, Levi's jeans (pressed and
starched stiff), or Armani-logo sunglasses, shod with Nike sport shoes (made in Vietnam)
and sporting the perennial baseball cap. No one seems to mind that the brand names and
logos are not authentic but are rather copies mass-produced in Vietnam, Thailand, or
China. The more affluent tout cell phones in the latest models, using them in bars, on
terraces of cafes, or in the smoke-filled rooms of trendy eateries.
The youth in rural areas (at least those whose parents cannot afford to send them to the
cities for their education) are less flashy and brand- conscious, as a Western-style suit can
cost two or three times a worker's or peasant's yearly income. The farther from the cities
one travels, the more "conservative" or "proper" is the manner in fashion and in social
mores, as the fear of social, neighborly, and parental disapproval is much stronger and
more dissuasive than any desire to imitate their urban brethren. It is mainly in the
countryside, for example, that the non la, or conical "leaf hat," is still commonly worn,
primarily by elderly men and women. Many young men have taken up the Western
baseball cap, which offers less protection from the rain and sun but symbolizes greater
sophistication.
The one symbol of the past that has weathered the passing of fashion is the ao dai, the
form-fitting tunic of the Vietnamese woman, slit up the sides but worn over white
trousers. Considered by many to be the Vietnamese women's "traditional" attire, it was
actually designed in the 1930s. Whether in the countryside or in cities, the wearing of ao
dai has become fashionable once again. Scorned a few years ago, it has made a comeback
in the guise of a bold, color-blocked, patterned dress, trimmed in contrasting ribbons and
lined with rich material. Fashion designers like Minh Hanh, for instance, have their
creations presented by Vietnamese models at local festivals and international fashion
competitions, splashed across calendars, and worn by fashion-conscious, affluent women
at soirees, weddings, and beauty pageants. For their weddings, Vietnamese women wear
immaculately white wedding gowns for the ceremony itself, but they also appear on that
day wearing the ao dai in glorious red and gold brocades, in patterns of apricot blossoms
and bamboo trees, and coifed with the tall turban headdress of yore. The ao dai's more
demure, everyday version, a white tunic worn over white pants, in simple cotton or
synthetic fabric, is still the school uniform de rigueur for females at middle and high
schools, whereas their male counterparts wear a white shirt and blue pants as a school
uniform.
 8 - Festivals and Leisure Activities

INTRODUCTION
THE PRIMARY FESTIVALS celebrated by pre-colonial Vietnamese were Tet Nguyen-
dan (New Year's Festival), Le Han-thuc (Cold Foods Festival), Le Thanh-minh (Pure
Brightness Festival), Le Doan-ngo (High Noon or Double-Five Festival), Tet Trung-thu
(Mid-Autumn Festival), and Le Tao- quan (Household Gods' Ritual).
These festivals derive from the amalgamation of religious beliefs discussed in chapter 3.
Like the beliefs on which they were based, the festivals were observed by most
Vietnamese rather than being the exclusive property of a particular faith, although
regional preferences and variations were marked. Given the extensive contact with
Western powers and the tragic events that have marked recent Vietnamese history, many
of these festivals are no longer celebrated or have been reduced to abbreviated or
localized observance. The major exception is the Tet Nguyen-dan, or New Year's Day
Festival, which is still widely celebrated in Vietnam and has assumed the character of a
national holiday. It is also popular among overseas Vietnamese. To a lesser degree, the
same may be said of the Tet Trung-thu, or Mid-Autumn Festival.

THE LUNAR CALENDAR

The celebration of festivals in pre-colonial Vietnam was regulated by a lunar calendar.
Like the Chinese lunar calendar, from which it is derived, the Vietnamese calendar begins
with a date equivalent to 2637 B.C.E. in the Gregorian calendar. It features a 355-day
year, divided into twelve months of twenty-nine or thirty days each. To bring the twelve-
month cycle of 355 days into accord with the 365-day solar year, an intercalary month
(thang nhuan) is periodically inserted between the third and fourth months, an adjustment
necessary every three or four years. In practice, the Vietnamese year begins in spring, but
the precise day varies by as much as several months in comparison with the Gregorian
calendar.
The important unit in the traditional calendar is a sixty-year cycle, termed van-nien luc-
giap and based on repetitions of ten- and twelve-year cycles, called thap-can and thap-
nhi-chi, respectively. The ten-year thap-can cycle, based on a doubling of the five
elements (ngu hanh), runs as follows:
1. Giap (Water in Nature)
2. At (Water in Usage)
3. Binh (Fire)
4. Dinh (Latent Fire)
5. Mau (Wood in General)
6. Ky (Wood Set to Burn)
7. Canh (Metal in General)
8. Tan (Wrought Metal)
9. Nham (Uncultivated Land)
10. Quy (Cultivated Land)

The twelve-year thap-nhi-chi, based on zodiac animals, runs as follows:

1. Ty (Rat)
2. Suu (Buffalo)
3. Dan (Tiger)
4. Mao (Cat)
5. Thin (Dragon)
6. Ty (Snake)
7. Ngo (Horse)
8. Mui (Goat)
9. Than (Monkey)
10. Dau (Rooster)
11. Tuat (Dog)
12. Hoi (Pig)
Years are not designated by numbers but by combinations of the symbols from the ten-
and twelve-year cycles: a pairing is made of the first symbol of the ten-year cycle with
the first symbol of the twelve-year cycle, followed by a pairing of the second symbol
from each cycle, and so on. Once the ten- year cycle has been repeated six times and the
twelve-year cycle has been repeated five times, the full sixty-year cycle is completed and
a new one begins. No named year is repeated within a single sixty-year cycle, giving each
year a distinct appellation composed of the two elements. In popular speech, though, only
the second of the two, the animal names, are used: Year of the Rat, Dragon, Tiger, and so
forth.
Requiring periodic adjustment, Vietnam's lunar calendar was regulated by the ruling
dynasties, which considered fixing the date of New Year's Day to be an imperial
prerogative. In Nguyen times, the lunar calendar was drawn up by the Hue court's
Imperial Observatory. When Bao-dai abdicated in 1945, the observatory ceased to
function. The D.R.V. government, which accepted the Gregorian calendar and made it the
basis for official functions, refused to take up the relay. Since traditional festivals,
marketing, and rice- planting cycles still followed the lunar cycle, private publishers
began issuing their own lunar calendars, but their results did not always agree, and con-
fusion reigned. Finally, in 1967, the D.R.V. solved the problem by issuing a lunar
calendar alongside the Gregorian calendar which remained in force for official business.

FESTIVALS
Tet Nguyen-dan, the New Year's Day Festival, was and remains the most important and
longest lasting of all Vietnamese festivals. Its celebration for- mally began on the first day
of the New Year, but preparations often started at least one month in advance and
continued for another month or more after New Year's Day. The coming of a new year
was regarded as an important transition from one time-cycle to another. The word Tet
comes from Tiet, meaning "section" or "period"; by extension, Tet refers to the passing
from one season or year to another. Given the importance of the transition, pre-colonial
Vietnamese made every effort to settle outstanding affairs before New Year's Day: for
example, to pay off debts or to collect them. Selection of clothing to be worn on New
Year's Day and preparation of foods with which to celebrate it also began well in
advance. Each household planted before its door a cay neu, a bamboo "tree" decorated
with leaves, gold- and silver-colored paper, and wind chimes; its bounty was intended to
attract benevolent spirits, its noise to repel malevolent ones. A fish image was also hung
from the "Tet tree": at the appropriate time, it would sprout wings and fly the household
gods to heaven, where they would report to the Jade Emperor, as will be explained below.
Stocks of firecrackers were laid in. Considered efficacious in frightening away wicked
spirits but harmless to beneficent ones, they would be set off to initiate Le Tao-quan
(Household Gods' Ritual) and the New Year's Festival. Branches of abricot or peach
blossoms were purchased to decorate the house, which was usually cleaned, painted, and
adorned with banners written in Chinese or Vietnamese nom characters.
One week before the New Year was to begin, each household celebrated Le Tao-quan, a
ritual honoring the household gods. According to a Vietnamese tradition (there are many
variations), in ancient times there lived a hus- band and wife named, respectively, Trong
Cao and Thi Nhi, who were devoted to one another but childless. The Vietnamese view a
childless mar- riage as tragic, and the couple began to quarrel. Trong Cao struck his wife
in a fit of rage. Thi Nhi, chafing at this unfair action, left the household and wandered
until, exhausted, she sat down at the roadside to rest. She was seen by Pham Lang, who
invited her to his home. Meanwhile, Trong Cao, con- sumed by remorse, swore that he
would find his wife and make amends, no matter how long it took. After searching for
years in vain, he stumbled upon Pham Lang's house, where the latter and Thi Nhi now
lived as husband and wife. Seeing her former husband at the door, Thi Nhi invited him in
and offered him food and drink. Hearing Pham Lang returning from the fields, she told
Trong Cao to hide in a haystack near the house. Unaware of Trong Cao's presence, Pham
Lang set fire to the hay to use the ashes as fertilizer. Fearing for Trong Cao's life, Thi Nhi
rushed to the burning haystack; finding him dead of asphyxiation, she hurled herself into
the flames to atone for causing his death. Pham Lang, seeing his wife aflame, rushed into
the fire to save her but met the same fate.
The Jade Emperor, impressed by such devotion, transformed all three members of this
"love triangle" into deities and assigned them the task of recording Vietnamese
households' merits and demerits and reporting to him on an annual basis. (They are
symbolized by the three blocks that support cauldrons in traditional kitchens.) Le Tao-
quan involved the propitiation of the household gods just before they were to ascend to
heaven to report to the Jade Emperor, who rewarded or punished the household's
members ac- cordingly in the year to come. Sometimes, for convenience, the three gods
are conflated into one, known as Tao-quan; hence the ritual's name. On the twenty-third
day of the last month before the new year, family members presented the household gods
with gifts, typically live carp, intended to fa- cilitate their flight to heaven, in the hopes of
winning their favor and influ- encing their report to the Jade Emperor. The carp, thought
to sprout wings to fly the gods to heaven, were released after the ceremony. The paper
carp hung from the cay neu was thought to accomplish the same mission. The household
gods' absence was believed to last for seven days, ending on the last day of the year. The
ritual thus symbolized nature's death during the winter and rebirth with the advent of
spring.
The most important spiritual event of the New Year's Festival proper was the le ruoc ong
ba, the "ancestor-welcoming ritual," carried out on the last day of the twelfth month.
Family members invoked their ancestors and invited them to take part in the Tet
festivities, as they had done when they were alive. The ancestral spirits were expected to
stay in the household for the first three days of the year, to share food offerings with their
living descendants, and to help the latter begin the year auspiciously. To make the
ancestors feel welcome, houses were perfumed with incense, and firecrackers were set off
to deter invasive evil spirits from consuming the ancestral offerings. Once the offerings
had been made to the ancestral spirits, the food and drink were consumed by the living
descendants in a spirit of reverent grati- tude to the ancestors but also of joyful
celebration of the coming of spring and the New Year. Young as well as older Vietnamese
enjoyed the feasting during the New Year's Festival, and delicacies such as candied fruits
were especially appreciated and characteristic of Tet. After three days' visitation, the
ancestral spirits were presented with gifts of paper money to cover their needs upon their
return to the spirit world for another year.
New Year's Day itself required careful planning, for events on that day were thought to
presage those of the entire year. Of particular importance was the need to ensure that the
first visitor to enter the house in the new year would be someone blessed with good
fortune, or phuc. After inviting an auspicious person to pay the first visit, some families
sealed their windows and doors to prevent a less felicitous visitor from entering while the
family was off its guard. Similarly, care was taken not to perform any onerous or
inauspicious task on New Year's Day (for example, sewing or sweeping), and above all
not to curse or quarrel, for the atmosphere established on that day would extend to the
whole year. Among the activities of New Year's Day, the most important was the New
Year's greetings and good wishes that a household's younger members owed to its eldest.
Prostration and recitation of formulas expressing the three traditional blessings of Phuc,
Loc, Tho (Good Fortune, Wealth, and Longevity) were customary. In return, the senior
mem- bers would distribute, in red envelopes, much anticipated gifts of money called tien
mung tuoi ("age-celebrating money"). Feasting and merrymaking usually continued
throughout the first week of the year, by which time most households had completed their
ritual obligations, exhausted their budgets, and returned to their working routines. Well-
to-do families might continue to celebrate for the rest of the month.
The Le Han-thuc, or Cold Foods Festival, was celebrated on the third day of the third
month. The primary ritual was the preparation, ceremonial of- fering, and consumption of
rice cakes called banh chay ("burnt cake") and banh troi ("submerged cake"). According
to Chinese tradition, in the year equivalent to 654 B.C.E., a Chinese monarch was
overthrown and forced to flee his kingdom. In exile, he met a general (known to
Vietnamese as Gioi Tu Thoi) who marshaled the necessary forces to put the ex-monarch
back on his throne. Once the campaign had been concluded, the king rewarded everyone
involved except Gioi Tu Thoi. Angered by the king's ingratitude, Gioi Tu Thoi fled into a
forest to hide. When the king learned of his over- sight and the offense it had caused to
his savior, he tried to find Gioi Tu Thoi to make amends, but the latter, deeply hurt, would
not leave his hide-away. Wanting to force Gioi Tu Thoi to show himself, the king ordered
the forest burned down, but the stubborn Gioi Tu Thoi refused to yield. He remained in
the forest, climbing its highest tree to avoid the flames. His flight was in vain, and he was
burned alive. Throughout Sinitic Asia, including Vietnam, the loyal general's memory
was honored and his spirit was appeased with offerings of rice cakes placed on altars
dedicated to him. Once the offerings were completed, participants consumed the cakes
themselves in a festive atmosphere. However, in order not to remind Gioi Tu Thoi of his
fiery death, no cooking was done on the day itself; the cakes were prepared the night
before, allowed to cool overnight, and eaten as cold food. Beyond this main event,
Vietnamese celebrated the Cold Foods Festival with other practices as well. For example,
in rural areas, young men and women gathered on opposite banks of rivers and released
flowers on the water; if the flowers sent by a boy and a girl met each other, it was
considered a sign that destiny favored their marriage.
The Le Thanh-minh, or Pure Brightness Festival, was celebrated during the third lunar
month, fifteen days after the spring equinox and likely to be a clear, sunny day; thanh
means "pure" and minh "bright." It was devoted to enjoying the beauty of spring by ring
by hiking, gathering flowers, and similar activities. This festival, with its emphasis on the
renewal and beauty of nature, reminded Vietnamese of their ancestors and encouraged
them to fulfill their filial duties. One of its main activities was the cleaning of ancestral
gravesites, before which offerings of incense, food, flowers, and votive objects were
made.
The Pure Brightness Festival is observed today throughout Vietnam. In order to preserve
arable land for farming, burial now more commonly takes place in established graveyards
rather than in isolated plots selected in ac- cordance with geomancy, as in former times,
and many municipalities or- ganize bus trips to allow residents to travel to their ancestors'
graves to "tidy them up" and make offerings.
The Le Doan-ngo, or Double-Five Festival occurred on the fifth day of the fifth lunar
month in recognition of the summer solstice. In a largely rural country with a tropical
climate, disease was more prevalent in the summer, and the Double Five Festival was
part of a number of observances intended to protect people from disease as they "entered
summer" (vao he). The con- sumption of raw fruits and vegetables, of herbal infusions
made with wild leaves, and of rice alcohol (ruou nep), which was intended to kill disease-
causing parasites, was one way of protecting oneself. Another was to appease the gods
controlling sickness by praying and burning gold- and silver-colored paper offerings.
Human-shaped paper images called hinh nhan were also burned to fool the death gods
into thinking that their intended human targets had already been killed. Warding off the
spirits by wearing amulets was also popular. Although many of these practices are
currently discouraged by the Communist Party as wasteful and superstitious, they are still
carried on in various ways throughout Vietnam. For example, inhabitants of Nha-trang
city still bathe in the sea to mark the solstice's arrival in the belief that parasites will be
killed in this way.
Vietnamese practices during Le Doan-ngo are also influenced by a legend borrowed from
the Chinese tradition. A third-century B.C.E. Chinese man- darin (known to Vietnamese
as Khuat Binh) warned his monarch against taking a seaborne journey that Khuat Binh
considered dangerous. When the monarch departed anyway, Khuat Binh committed
suicide by throwing him- self into a river. Learning of Khuat Binh's suicide, the monarch
ordered a bundle of food to be ceremoniously dropped into the sea as an offering. When
fish devoured the package, the monarch ordered another one to be prepared, this one to
be wrapped in banana leaves and covered with brightly colored paper to frighten sea
creatures. In honor of this loyal mandarin, many Vietnamese still float offerings on rivers,
wrapping the packages with brightly colored paper in order to protect them.
Next to the Tet Nguyen-dan, the Tet Trung-thu, or Mid-Autumn Festival (often called the
"Moon Festival" by Westerners), was the most important and widely celebrated festival in
pre-colonial Vietnam. Like the New Year's Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival is still
widely observed in contemporary Vietnam and in diaspora communities. It is held on the
fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. According to tradition, an emperor of China's
Tang Dynasty, known to the Vietnamese as Duong Minh-hoang, was strolling about the
palace grounds on the full-moon night of the eighth month when he was approached by a
Taoist saint who proposed to transport him to the moon. When the emperor accepted, the
saint erected a heavenly bridge, and Duong Minh-hoang spent a blissful night on the
lunar surface, dancing with beautiful fairies and listening to unearthly music. After
returning to earth, he longed to re-create the experience and organized annual festivals on
the fifteenth day of the eighth month that featured processions with multicolored lanterns,
unicorn dances, and feasting on seasonal delicacies, including special moon-shaped
cakes.
Vietnam's Mid-Autumn Festival is above all a time of excitement and merrymaking for
children, who parade about at night with colored lanterns,dancing the "unicorn" or "lion"
dances. Since the moon in Vietnamese tradition is the abode of Nguyet-Lao, the "Old
Man in the Moon" who arranges conjugal unions by binding couples with a silk thread,
the Mid-Autumn festivities permit much flirtatious behavior among marriage-age young
men and women, including "alternate-verse singing," in which couples engage in poetic
teasing. Adults, for their part, enjoy a relaxing evening with friends and family, gazing at
the moon, sipping tea, and eating Banh Trung-thu as well as other delicacies, such as
boiled snails and seasonal fruits.

GROUP-SPECIFIC OBSERVANCES
In addition to celebrating most of the above festivals, Vietnamese Catholics observed
their own, uniquely Christian ones, the most important of which were Christmas and
Easter, celebrated according to the Gregorian calendar. In contemporary Vietnam,
Western-style Christmas, called Le Giang Sinh (Festival of the One Sent to Be Born) or
simply No-en (Noel), is celebrated as a day of feasting and gift-giving by many urban
Vietnamese of all faiths, including Christians, for whom it retains a sacred significance.
Easter, or Le Phuc Sinh (Festival of Restored Life), by contrast, is observed almost exclu-
sively by Christians.
Vietnamese Buddhists, in addition to partaking in the festivals common to most pre-
colonial Vietnamese, also celebrated and still observe many events and festivals specific
to their religion. Sakyamuni Buddha's birthday is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the
fourth month of the lunar calendar, as is the date of his enlightenment, the eighth day of
the twelfth month. On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, Buddhists observe Le Vu-
lan, similar to Christianity's All Souls' Day, on which the spirits of the dead were released
from their torments in hell (dia nguc) and allowed to return to the earth. Rather than
visiting ancestral graves on this day, however, Vietnamese Bud- dhists usually decorate
their ancestral altars and invite the ancestral spirits to partake of offerings in the home.
For those unfortunate spirits who do not have living descendants or who died far from
their homes, believers leave offerings of rice in banyan leaf containers at roadside altars.
Hopefully, these lost souls (vong hon) will be appeased and refrain from venting their
frustrations on the living.
Finally, the VCP has added a number of celebrations commemorating turning points in its
march to power as well as its reference points in the international workers' movement.
Among these holidays, marked according to the Gregorian calendar, the most important
are the anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party in 1930, which falls on
February 3; Na- tional Day, which falls on September 2 and commemorates the founding
of the D.R.V. by Ho Chi Minh in 1945; Ho Chi Minh's birthday, May 19; Liberation Day,
April 30, which celebrates the ending of the Second Indo- china War with the "liberation"
of Sai-gon, the capital of the former R.V.N., in 1975; and International Workers' Day,
May 1. Party and state offices at all levels organize parades, speeches, and musical and
dramatic performances in celebration of these events. Their commemoration is
considered to play a crucial role in bolstering the Party's legitimacy by reminding the
people of its past victories against foreign domination.

LEISURE ACTIVITIES
Aside from the rituals and celebrations associated with the festivals dis- cussed above,
pre-colonial Vietnamese engaged in a number of activities and games for relaxation and
amusement, usually as members of associations organized for that purpose.
Pre-colonial villages housed a variety of organizational forms that brought villagers
together to pursue shared interests. Some focused on mutual protection, as in the case of
funeral societies, which helped members to afford dignified burials despite their limited
finances. Many associations were rec- reational in nature and permitted their members to
enjoy leisure activities together or with their families. For example, New Year's
Associations allowed members to pool resources and invest them to produce funds for
celebrating the Tet holidays. Participants made monthly contributions during the first five
months of the year. With the proceeds, the association made short-term, interest-bearing
loans; the returned capital with interest was used to buy grain during the tenth-month
harvest, when prices were lowest; the grain was then sold at year's end, when prices were
at at their height. If all went well, the association would buy meat, cakes, fabric, and
ritual items with which to ensure members a festive holiday season. A complete list of
such organizations would be endless, but a typical village might house organizations of
members of the same hamlet or the same professions (e.g., officials, soldiers, mer-
chants), of hobbyists (kite flyers, songbird breeders, cockfighting enthusiasts, of students
of the same teacher, or even of people born in the same year. Each of these had its own
rules and schedule of meetings and celebrations, as well as its patron deity or deities,
which were often spirits associated with the particular activity pursued by the association
or that of its founder.
As the variety of associations indicates, villagers had a world of activities from which to
choose, within or without organized groups. Many activities involved simple materials
such as a shuttlecock, which was kicked back and forth or tossed through a goal of
bamboo rods. Solid bamboo poles were also made into platforms for swinging games or
for suspending a tightrope above the ground and across an open space on which a person
would walk. A more flexible variety of bamboo was the main material (along with locally
made paper) used in fabricating kites, the flying of which was passionately pursued by
people of all ages. The kites came in many varieties, often bearing names indicating the
object, animal, or person that had inspired their design: swal- lows, butterflies, the moon.
Many kites were fitted with hand-carved wooden whistles, designed to produce a variety
of sounds, mainly for the amusement of human listeners; some whistling kites, however,
were intended to distract the malevolent spirits responsible for epidemic disease.
Given the rural context of village life, many amusements involved com- petition between
animals, fish, or birds. For example, large male thrushes were raised for fighting in
special decorated cages. The prized birds dined on a protein-rich diet of millet and egg
yolks, augmented with ginseng to fortify them as an important competition approached.
On the day of the contest, the birds were transferred to special fighting cages that allowed
the owners to place the cages face to face, show the male fighters a female to excite their
competitiveness, and then, by withdrawing the fronts of each cage, create a common
fighting chamber. Bets were placed on one or the other of the contestants. As the birds
proceeded to strike each other with their feet and beaks, points representing portions of
the wagered sums were awarded in response to the blows landed by the chosen animal.
The birds were so valu- able that fights were usually interrupted whenever one of them
was wounded or ceased resistance. Other competitions, such as those between fighting
fishes in southern Vietnam, continued until the death of one of the animals. Competitions
in which villagers would match their strength or fighting skills were also popular, with
awards of money or other prizes adding to the interest. On village festival days, for
example, a prize would be announced, and a wrestler claiming to be the village's
strongest man would claim it. If no challenger contested the claim within three days, the
prize would go to the self-proclaimed champion. If a challenger or challengers appeared,
how-ever, a match or matches would take place to decide the matter. The contestants,
wearing only a loincloth and with their heads shaven (wrestlers were called chui vat,
"shaven-headed fighters"), would first pray to the village spirit, showing it the prize for
which they were competing. Then, accompanied by drum rolls, the wrestlers would try to
pin each other back to the ground, with the match continuing all day or for several days
until one of them hadsucceeded. Sometimes similar contests were arranged between
groups of wrestlers from different villages, with each group representing the village of its
origin.
Less taxing physically were gambling games. Card games, particularly one called to tom,
or "shrimps" nest" (a modernized version is known in the West as mah-jongg) were
extremely popular, especially during the New Year's holidays. Board games such as
chess, which originated in India and has been known throughout Asia since ancient times,
were also avidly played in tra- ditional Vietnam. In addition to the usual variety of chess
played on a board, Vietnamese played "human chess" (co nguoi), in which people
wearing the insignia of the various pieces moved about a giant outdoor board under the
direction of the primary players. Another variety of game existed in which players would
attempt to toss coins or chopsticks into a small opening. In one popular version called dao
dia, or "hitting the dish," a small bowl was placed on a bamboo table located several feet
from the players or, ideally, in the middle of a stream while players gathered at its banks.
Contestants took turns trying to toss their coins into the bowl. The prize, usually some
object of value suspended above the bowl, would go to the best "shot," while the person
who had organized the game would keep the coins that fell wide of the mark or bounced
off the bowl. Gambling per se was generally not con- sidered improper unless indulged in
to excess, when high losses or unsavory connections could threaten the stability of the
gambler's family. As the prov- erb expresses it, "If the husband gambles and the wife
plays cards, then the husband must have two or three wives, and the wife several
husbands.""

SPORTS AND LEISURE IN CONTEMPORARY VIETNAM

In contemporary Vietnam, the busier pace of life and the generally dim view that the
Party and state take of unofficial organizational allegiances and gambling (except for
state-sponsored lotteries) have reduced the above- described activities to the margins of
life. Taking up the relay and replacing the traditional leisure activities are a variety of
sports as well as amusements associated with Western pop culture.
Early in the colonial era, a limited number of elite and middle-class youths took up
Western sports such as tennis, soccer, weight lifting, and bicycle racing. During the 1930s
and 1940s, such sports and physical fitness generally came to be associated with
nationalism because a connection was made, as elsewhere in Asia, between a people's
physical fitness and its ability to regain or defend its independence. Given this
connection, and despite limited means and the imperatives of war, the D.R.V. supported
physical education for the masses and national competitions for the more athletically
gifted during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
After the Renovation movement began in the late 1980s and reducing the state's role in
the economy became the order of the day, the state reduced its support for athletic
activities at all levels. The 1980s and early 1990s were a "dark decade" for sports and
physical fitness in the S.R.V.: facilities declined, personnel were released, and funds for
athletes' training and travel were reduced. As the middle of the 1990s approached,
however, the govern- ment began responding to popular demands for Vietnamese
participation in the international sports world, which was by this time avidly followed by
Vietnamese of all ages (including Party and S.R.V. officials). In 1994 and 1995, the
portion of the government's budget allocated to physical fitness and sports increased
dramatically, with several major stadiums being erected or planned and National Sports
Festivals organized for national competitions among schoolchildren. Since that time, the
S.R.V. has given priority to less expensive sports, such as martial arts (including the
Vietnamese style, called Vo Viet Nam), soccer, volleyball, table tennis, and chess, which
require little equipment and few training facilities. Private sponsorship of sporting activ-
ities, long frowned upon by the authorities, began to emerge as an alternative source of
funding. International corporations-including producers of soft drinks, cigarettes, and
alcoholic beverages began sponsoring Vietnamese national competitions in soccer,
bicycle racing, and other sports, and private Vietnamese firms have also begun to sponsor
competitions, albeit on a more modest scale. The higher-level athletic competitions,
whether officially or privately organized, are avidly followed by Vietnamese fans, whose
interest is stoked by ample television coverage for national and international events. The
Vietnamese national soccer team's success in the lower levels of the Tiger Cup games in
2000, played in Songkla, Thailand, for example, provoked Hag-waving pandemonium in
Vietnamese cities. Likewise, homegrown sports heroes are treated like celebrities by
Vietnamese magazines and newspapers, which feature athletes' images on covers and
print long articles and interviews on their lives and achievements. For example, Tran
Hieu Ngan, a twenty- six-year-old martial artist from central Vietnam, was hailed as "the
pride of the country" after winning a silver medal in Taekwondo (women's fifty-seven
kilogram weight class) at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.
Besides the higher-level and organized competitions, many Vietnamese are participating
ever more actively in informal physical fitness and sporting activities, despite a shortage
of available urban space. In major cities, early risers will observe groups of older people
out in the street doing group cal- isthenics or performing tai chi movements in unison;
others may be seen playing badminton in temple yards or bouncing tennis balls against
walls. Young men are particularly fond of soccer and play pickup games at every
opportunity in vacant lots, quiet streets, and even in deserted war memorials. Western-
style body building and weight lifting are also gaining in popularity, with private gyms
popping up seemingly on every block in the larger cities. People fortunate enough to have
access to Vietnam's lovely beaches (Nha Trang and Vung Tau are the most popular) can
enjoy swimming. The pau- city of well-maintained swimming pools and the widespread
pollution of lakes and rivers puts the safe practice of this activity beyond the reach of
most Vietnamese, however.
For the less athletically inclined, modern Vietnam's cities offer a variety of entertainment.
Affluent urban Vietnamese visit Western-style bars and nightclubs or socialize at
coffeehouses and cafe kem, which specialize in ice cream, popular since French times
(the Vietnamese term for ice cream, kem, comes from the French crème glacée). Movie
houses are frequented by urban Vietnamese, although the limited funding available to the
national film in- dustry and its tendency to produce political films of waning interest to
the population mean that the most popular films are now foreign ones, including
American blockbusters and Hong Kong martial arts adventures dubbed in Vietnamese.
Discos usually charge an entrance fee, which entitles clients to an evening of dancing and
listening to recorded music or local groups playing Western or Vietnamese songs.
Although it is too early to speak of a "car culture" among affluent Vietnamese youth, a
"motor-scooter culture" is de- veloping. (The recently coined Vietnamese word hon-da,
derived from the name of the Japanese manufacturer, means motorcycles in general,
given the popularity of Honda motor scooters and motorcycles, which dominate the
Vietnamese market despite increasing competition from Chinese, Tai- wanese, and
Korean brands.) Urban youths with some means like to "cruise" the main streets of their
cities on their hon-da, two or more people to a vehicle, socializing with their friends and
escaping temporarily the constraints imposed by the government, schools, and family.
Young well-to-do urbanites have taken to the Internet with enthusiasm. Since few
Vietnamese can afford personal computers, they rely on Internet service centers. They
pay by the minute for computer use, spending hours in "chat-rooms" and e-mailing their
friends and relatives in Vietnam and throughout the world. They also enjoy roller skating
at urban pleasure gardens or attending concerts by Viet- namese pop stars, such as singer
My Linh, as well as the rare Vietnam ap- pearances of Western performers. Some urban
Vietnamese have begun to enjoy Western-style tourism, usually within Vietnam itself,
visiting locales famous for their beauty or historical interest: for example, Ha-long Bay in
the North; Hue City in central Vietnam; or Vung Tau, the southern beach resort.
"Pilgrimage tourism"-that is, visits to famous pagodas or temples (the Heavenly Lady
Pagoda in Hue is one popular destination)-that combine entertainment and piety (and,
increasingly, photography), are likewise attractive outings for those who can afford them.
The Vietnamese tourist industry, however, is still oriented overwhelmingly to providing
services to Western and foreign Asian tourists (including some Viet Kieu, or "overseas
Vietnamese") since insignificant numbers of Vietnamese citizens can afford such
activities.
Indeed, most of the activities described above are beyond the modest means of working
urbanites and nearly all rural people, who must content themselves with less expensive
fare. In the poorer neighborhoods of the cities and in most villages, enterprising local
residents have set up karaoke, compact disk, and video bars, where clients sit at tables as
at an ordinary cafe but are entertained with CD music, video, and sing-along programs
shown on a television screen; the entertainment is free on the condition that one pur-
chases coffee or other drinks. In such bars or at private homes, rural people and the urban
poor pass their leisure time playing games such as to tom or chess; watching television
(in this medium also, the most popular programs are Western shows or movies, usually
reruns, dubbed in Vietnamese); drinking tea, beer, or coffee; and talking with friends and
family members long into the night.
 9 - Performing Arts

THE PERFORMING ARTS of Vietnam (i.c., music, theater, and dance) are alive and
well in today's scene. Whether in their pre-colonial forms or in their most contemporary
expressions, the performing arts are richly varied from North to South, keeping the
traditions alive through teaching and perfor- mances while welcoming and adapting
outside influences. New beats and trends are quickly adopted in cities still resonant with
melodies of decades ago. Whatever forms they may take, the performing arts are beloved
by the Vietnamese, young and old.

MUSIC AND DANCE

Music is at the heart of the Vietnamese soul. In whatever form, sung or instrumentally
performed, it is intrinsic to Vietnam's national character and a mirror to its history. Its
various forms are expressions of the external influ- ences that have shaped its
development as well as of its regional roots- initially in the North, the cradle of the
Vietnamese civilization, and later in the Center and the South. Vietnamese music can be
divided into traditional and modern music, and within the traditional forms, court,
folkloric, cham- ber, and liturgical music. Almost indistinguishable from Vietnamese
music are its traditional theatrical forms, both folk and classical.
Vietnamese music is pentatonic (five tones) in scale, closely adhering to the tonal
inflections of the spoken language, and in a society in which am- ateur and professional
singing (ca hat) are highly appreciated in festive gatherings, it stresses the voice rather
than the instrument. The musical notation as well as some of the instruments (strings,
wind, and percussion) were de- rived from both China and India-by way of Champa for
the latter. During French colonial rule, Western instruments like the guitar, piano, and
violin were introduced, and it was not until the eve of World War I that the traditional
musical notation written in Chinese characters was finally replaced by Western notation.
Some percussion instruments (e.g., trong com, a long, two-membrane drum) are similar
to the Indian ones (the Mridangam drum of South India). String instruments such as the
four-stringed, pear-shaped lute (dan ty ba), the short- and long-necked, moon-shaped
lutes, or the dan tranh, also known as dan thap luc, the sixteen-stringed zither, come from
China. Vietnam also has its own instruments uniquely suited to its culture: the monochord
(dan doc huyen), a single-stringed zither; the two-stringed, moon-shaped plucked lute
(dan nguyet); the sinh tien, a coin clapper, com- posed of two wooden pieces hinged
together, the top one fitted with copper coins; and the song lang, foot clapper. The
materials used for all the instru- ments include silk, bamboo, stone, bronze, shells, and
cow or buffalo skins.
Within traditional music, one can distinguish, on the one hand, the peas- antry's folk
music as manifested in a rich and complex lore of songs reflective of their geographical
and village origins and of the annual agricultural cycle. These are called dan ca (folk
songs). The music performed for the entertain- ment of the elite, mandarins, scholars, and
nobility, by contrast, had to be performed according to prescribed rules. However,
following the hoa la ("flowers and leaves") principle, which encouraged embellishments
upon established musical themes, both forms do allow for, and even invite, im-
provisations, which are considered a measure of the artist's talent. The Viet- namese
musical repertory is divided into two modes or scales (dieu): dieu bac ("northern
mode/scale"), pentatonic, of whole tones, conveying a happy or ceremonious mood; and
dieu nam ("southern mode/scale"), which carries a greater sadness in its pentatonic, half-
tone scale.
Vietnamese court music, influenced by China and Champa, was performed in rituals like
the Sacrifice to Heaven and Earth, during which giao nhac was played at the Esplanade of
Heaven in Hue, during imperial audiences (e.g., thuong trieu nhac music for ordinary
audiences; and dai trieu nhac for formal audiences) and banquets, during solar and lunar
eclipses, and for the court's entertainment. Viet kings from the Ly (twelfth and thirteenth
centuries) period onwards were fascinated by Cham music and dance, ordering musical
pieces based on the music of Champa. As the Viet made further inroads into Champa,
leading to the kingdom's extinction, Vietnamese music, court as well as folk, absorbed the
sadness of this lost land, which now permeates the plaintive melody of the Vietnamese
southern mode (dieu nam). The Hue court had also inherited a tradition of imperial dance
ensembles that used to sing and dance "civilian" dances (van vu), such as the Flower
Dance created under the Tran Dynasty, "military" dances (vo Vu), and dances that re-
created mythical animals like the phoenix or the unicorn.
The folk songs of Vietnam carry an imagery that reflects its agricultural roots, evoking
the songs of birds or insects, the blossoming of flowers, the flowing of rivers, and the
rising of the sun or the moon as symbols of faith- fulness, purity, the fickleness of love, or
a mother's love for her child. These folk songs can also be inspired by famous poems and
composed by classically learned scholars. Dan ca comprises different forms: lullabies
called in the North hat ru, in the Center ru em, and in the South au o; and the work, love,
and festival songs called ho and by. Lullabies, though meant to put children to sleep, also
narrate the activities of the mother or sister and how hard she works, planting rice,
catching fish, or spinning silk in order to feed the child: "Sleep, child, sleep, sleep
soundly. Your mother went planting in the deep rice field and has not come back yet. /
Sleep, child, sleep. / She will catch a catfish and bring it back for you to eat." Lullabies
from central Vietnam, often poignantly sad, speak of the homesickness of a new wife,
away from her mother and father, and her worry that there will be no one to care for her
aging parents: "Sleep, child, sleep. / Come afternoon, I stand in the backyard, Looking
toward my mother's land. / And my heart grieves and grieves." In the South, almost all
lullabies begin with the word vi dau ("imagine") as in "Imagine walking on a wooden
bridge held together with nails. / On a bamboo bridge creaking and cracking, / How
difficult and perilous!"
The work songs belong to the category called ho, issuing from the word ho, "to call out."
These are songs meant to galvanize teams of laborers inland or by the water, pushing
carts, pulling wood along the river, scooping water out of a rice field, rowing a boat,
calling to each other (call-and-response) in cadence, and responding to the call in turn
with nonsensical syllables like ho do ta or hu la khoan. There are countless ho that
describe activities like wood pulling (ho keo go), rice pounding (ho gia gao), lime
crushing (ho gia voi), or spinning and thread cutting (ho dut chí), as well as rest and
festivities. A wood-pulling ho, for example, sounds as follows: "Let's pull wood, Do! /
Pull wood to build the communal house, Do! / Assembly house of how many tiles? Do! /
I love you, love you very much! Do!".
While the rhythmic chant is meant to provide encouragement and cadence to the workers,
it also speaks of men's and women's eternal quest for the one and only. During a break,
these same workers could launch themselves into dual love songs, called ly, with men and
women alternating, re-creating a chance encounter under the full moon by the lotus pond
during harvest time, or lamenting that the loved one had married and crossed a river
never to return. Some of the best-known by are Ly Con Sao ("Song of the Myna Bird"),
Ly Ngua O ("Song of the Black Horse"), Ly Vong Phu ("Song of the Soldier's Wife"), Ly
Co La ("The Crane Glides Away"), and Ly Chim Quyen ("Song of the Nightingale"). Ly
Co La, for example, sung in the northern "voice," a solo with an accompanying chorus,
evokes the crane as it soars away, com- paring it to a departed loved one.
Each region has its particular form of he and ly, rich in local connotations and history,
performed during festivals at temples, on riverbanks, or in the fields. In the north, during
the festival season (e.g., New Year, Mid-Autumn), song contests were traditionally
organized in villages, some of which-in particular, the forty-nine villages of Bac Ninh
province-are farmed for their long tradition of hat quan ho. Others, for example, those
from Hai Phong (hat dum) or Phu Tho (hat co la) provinces are famous for other variants
of call-and-response songs. In hat quan ho, groups of young men and women, dressed in
colorful fineries, would gather to sing in a call-and-response or antiphonal style, based on
poems that they had prepared in advance. One group of girls would sing a song that had
to be responded to by the group of boys, who would take up the themes and elaborate on
them, weaving their own improvised verses into the song. The contest, requiring a good
knowledge of folklore, would last for several days, allowing friendships to form between
members of the different teams, which would tease each other with jests and challenges
as to their abilities in versification and vocalization.
In central and southern Vietnam, dan ca is as rich as in the north-perhaps richest in the
central provinces of Quang Nam, Quang Tri, and Thua Thien-but each has its particular
regional "voice," singing style, and mel- odies. For instance, Ly Con Sao ("Song of the
Myna Bird"), when sung in the Hue voice is inimitable because of certain gliding tones
that northerners and southerners cannot reproduce. The reverse is true for the other
regions. In the South, where the ho, or call songs, are mostly related to aquatic activities,
there is a slower, more languid, almost dreamy rhythm that conveys feelings of calm and
patience but also of joy and often humor: "Early morning, I went to market. / And bought
some fabric. / First Wife cut, Second Wife sewed, Third Wife overcasted, Fourth Wife
bordered, Fifth Wife stitched the buttons, Sixth Wife made the buttonholes. / I put the
shirt on. / But Seventh Wife held on to me. / And Eighth Wife pulled me back. /Oh, Ninth
Wife, Why don't you do something?" Folk songs in the South, both ho and ly, as they
issued from a region of more recent settlement, also integrate modern activities like
playing the lottery (ho lo to). In recent de- cades, Vietnamese folk songs have been
undergoing a sort of "renaissance" thanks to the efforts of musicologists like Luu Nhat Vu
and Le Giang. With state support, many songs have been "modernized" (thus the term
dan ca moi or "new folk songs") to adapt them to the taste of the urban younger
generation, integrating Western-style instruments and harmony. While this practice has
made the younger generation familiar with an important aspect of its heritage, it also
deprives the songs of their social functions and messages while stylizing them in a certain
way.
Unlike dan ca, a popular form that used to be performed by villagers and enjoyed by all
during festivities, hat a dao, ca Hue, and nhac tai tu-forms of chamber music specific to
northern, central, and southern Vietnam re- spectively were traditionally executed by a
small instrumental (string and percussion) ensemble in performances for an elite audience
of connoisseurs. Hat a dao, or "the singing of songstresses," rooted in the traditional
society of the North, evolved from ceremonial music to a music of entertainment. It puts
to song classical poems chosen for their beauty or specially written by the listeners and
performed by talented songstresses accompanying them- selves with percussion
instruments. Listeners beat specific cadences with a drum, trong chau, each cadence
signifying their appreciation of the singer's talent or the poem's beauty, the beginning or
end of the session, or the speed at which the musicians or songstress should perform.
Concurrently, in central Vietnam, ca Hue ("music of Hue"), emerged under the Nguyen
Dynasty's patronage as a specific repertory music of the region. More instrumental than
vocal, it stressed melody above lyrics, although it does include long songs and adapted
folk songs sung by professional songstresses. Ca Hue originated from the tradition under
the Nguyen Dynasty of organizing imperial or- chestras to play court music. The
musicians played for the court but also taught music to members of the imperial family,
their retinues, and the mandarins. Hue music was carried South with the settlers who
moved to the Mekong Delta, and adapted to the southern mood, becoming nhac tai tu, or
"music of talented persons," also called "amateur music." Nhac tai tu used to be played
by aficionados, from intellectual and musical milieus mostly, who performed for friends
and family. These "amateurs," while retaining
traditional string instruments like the sixteen-stringed zither, integrated Western
instruments like the guitar, the cello, or the violin. It was this music that nourished the
framework for the reformed theater or hat cai luong, to be discussed later in this chapter.
Finally, there is a form of poetic singing (ngam tho) that is not truly singing but is
halfway between declamation and chanting without a fixed rhythm. Its subject matter is
poems like the masterpieces Kim Van Kieu or Luc Van Tien, which tell stories and
legends and speak of heroic feats. One such example is the famous Chinh Phu Ngam
Khuc ("Complaint of a Warrior's Wife"), an eighteenth-century poem that evokes the
sorrow of a wife whose husband was called to the front,
Nhac Phat Giao and hat chau van form the body of ritual and religious music. Of long
historical tradition, Buddhist music, or nhac Phat Giao can be divided into two types: one
meant strictly for prayers, worship, or medi- tation, called tung, in which the monk,
accompanying himself on a slit drum called the mo gia tri, recites the sutras; and the
other, tan, a form of melismatic chant, involves a string and percussion ensemble which
plays during funerals and wakes. Percussion instruments commonly used in liturgical
music in- clude, for instance, the big drum (trong bat nha) and bell (dai hong chung).
Buddhist musical liturgy, like its counterparts, varies according to the regions. However,
one of the most recurrent and impressive ceremonies is the seventh lunar month soul-
salvation Chan Te ("Distribution") ceremony, which can last a whole week and involve an
entire ritual orchestra going through most
of the musical styles.
Hat chau van is a form of religious music performed to induce trances in a medium and to
bring him or her into contact with the spirits through songs sung by the high priest of the
cult. It was also performed during seances of exorcism to chase away evil spirits that had
possessed an ailing person.
Nhac le (liturgical music) also exists in the other religions (Catholicism, Caodaism). For
example, the priest-composer, Doan Quang Dat, had written numerous musical pieces,
such as "Celebrating the Birth of Jesus at Mid- night," which combine the tradition of
Vietnamese music with Catholic liturgy, making it easier for Vietnamese Catholics to sing
at mass.
Tan nhac, or "modern music," a Westernized popular music, emerged in the 1930s with
the adoption of Western rhythms, to fulfill the needs of a Vietnamese youth eager for
change and whose hearts were overflowing with idealism and romanticism. During the
times that led to the August Revo- lution of 1945 and the war against French rule, a
multitude of songs blos- somed that galvanized the combatants (nhac chien dau, or
struggle music), taking them to the battlefield singing, while others (nhac tinh cam, or
sentimental or romantic music) spoke of hopeless love in golden autumns of fallen
leaves. Of the struggle music, one may note composers like Van Cao, Luu Huu Phuoc,
Hoang Viet, Van Chung, or Tran Hoan with songs about separation from loved ones,
about Viet Minh soldiers departing for the North in 1954, or about the battle of Bach
Dang against the Mongol invasion. Of the romantic music, there was an abundance of
memorable songs that were remarkable because of the lyricism of the text and the
originality of the melody: for instance, Le Thuong with his song "The Sound of Music in
the Dark of Night," Dang The Phong's acclaimed "Autumnal Night," or La Hoi with his
famous "Spring and Youth." Many of these, composed in the 1930s to 1950s, have
survived decades of wars to be performed and appreciated again in the late 1990s, albeit
with a new orchestration. During the 1960s and 1970s, a form of antiwar music began to
appear in the South with songs by composers like Truong Thin, Ton That Lap, La Huu
Vang, Trinh Cong Son, and Pham Duy that spoke of murderous battlefields, charred
houses and fields, madness and suffering (e.g., "What Did We See in the Night" by Trinh
Cong Son), and the tears of mothers who had lost their sons to the war (e.g., "The Rain
on the Leaves" by Pham Duy).
In the post-1975 period, Vietnamese modern music went through a period of limbo,
producing mediocre melodies and lackluster and weakly attended performances.
Beginning in the late 1980s, as Vietnam opened to the outside world, modern Vietnamese
that is, Western-influenced-music has been on the upsurge, with more professional-
standard performances and a dis- tinctively greater Western influence. This music has
been drawing large, young audiences that buy Vietnamese-produced CDs and throng to
festivals and solo performances of their preferred artists. The current tan nhac scene is
very lively: festivals and individual performances are staged every week and strongly
attended. Young performers like My Linh, Phuong Thanh, Tran Thu Ha, Hong Nhung, or
bands like Little Wings, Guys by Chance, or the 3A, are experimenting with rhythm and
blues, hip-hop, alternative rock, and even American-style country music, although most
sing songs, predominantly romantic ones, that have been around for years or even
decades. Hence the need for young composers like Vu Quang Trang, Viet Anh, Xuan
Phuong, or Ngoc Chau, who can create music adapted to the tastes of the younger
generation, albeit on eternal themes like love and loss.
In this diverse pop scene, jazz per se has a devoted but minuscule and geographically
limited appeal, to be found solely in Ha-noi and Ho Chi Minh City, and only in a few
cafes like the Jazz Club in Ha-noi, where bandleader and saxophonist Quyen Van Minh
plays regularly. Jazz influences, however, permeate much of the new pop music, as My
Linh's hugely successful album Toc ngan ("Short Hair") demonstrates.
Western classical music is of a rather recent emergence in Vietnam and has evolved in
rarefied circles with a stronger tradition in the North, as the result of the influence of the
former Soviet Union and former German Democratic Republic, than in the South.
Vietnam boasts several classical performing artists, such as Dang Thai Son (piano) or Ai
Van (vocal), who have won prestigious awards at international festivals and competitions
(Chopin Competition of 1980 for the former and the Dresden Festival of 1981 for the
latter). One should also mention in this context the symphonic composer Nguyen Manh
Cuong, whose Phuong Vu ("Dance of the Phoenixes") received a composition prize at the
1984 Asia-Pacific Festival in New Zealand.
Besides the music composed, performed, and appreciated by Viet, there is the music of
the minorities of the mountains of the North, of the Vietnamese Cordillera, and of the
Central Highlands as well of the former Champa kingdom and of Cambodia. Musical
instruments used by the highlanders include the ancient lithophone, bronze gongs,
bamboo mouth organs (or khen), and xylophone (or ding but). The latter instrument,
known to the Bahnar and Sedan peoples of the Central Highlands, consists of ten hollow
bamboo pipes strung together and set on the ground; the performer claps hands near the
mouths of the pipes, producing musical notes. Ethnic minorities of the mountains and
highlands of Vietnam, the Cham of central Vietnam, and the Khmers living in the
Mekong Delta have a vast lore of folk songs consisting of work, love, festival, and
funeral songs, narrative songs that recount a lost past. For example, one song tells the
story of King Che Man, who foolishly exchanged the two districts of O and Ly of the
then Champa for the hand of the beautiful Viet princess, Huyen Tran. There is also the
theater form as, for instance, the tuong gia hai of the Tay of northern Vietnam or the du ke
theater of the Khmers of the Mekong Delta, inspired by the Indian epic of Ramayana or
Mahabharata.

TRADITIONAL (MUSICAL) THEATER

Traditional Vietnamese theater encompassed all the artistic expressions of song, dance,
mime, and declamation, in which the performers act alone, without the support of a single
stage prop or scenery, and are surrounded by the spectators (adults and children).
Springing from the common source of ancient Viet folk songs and dances, hat cheo and
hat tuong (also called hat boi) are the two ends of the traditional theatrical spectrum, the
former is considered as popular theater and the latter as classical, but both are per-
formed in open air at temples where religious festivals usually take place, as well as in
courtyards of art patrons.
Folk theater (hat cheo), rooted in rural life, is found mostly in the North and is played by
actors and actresses garbed in the peasant style-women in the ao tu than ("four-piece
tunic") of contrasting colors and men in the mostly brown peasant dress, with only one
character, the buffoon, wearing heavy makeup. Originally, hat cheo was a form of peasant
entertainment acted by farmers. Thus, its plots carry a markedly social and sometimes
political emphasis, with realistic characters assuming roles close to those of everyday life
within a rural setting.
Meant to entertain, hat cheo also carries moral lessons, chastising the cor- rupt and
extolling the virtuous. To the accompaniment of a small ensemble, hat cheo opens with
the jester singing the prologue and dancing with his torch to clear the stage. An actress
then sings the play's introduction, sum- marizing and commenting on it as she walks
around, clicking and opening her fan. One of the most popular plays is Quan Am Thi
Kinh, which tells the story of a devout young Buddhist woman named Thi Kinh who
disguises herself as a man to enter a monastery. In her monk disguise, she is pursued by a
young peasant woman named Thi Mau, who, upon being rejected by the "monk,"
becomes pregnant by a local peasant but falsely accuses "him" of fathering her child.
Unwilling to reveal her identity lest she be expelled from the monastery, Thi Kinh accepts
the beatings meted out by the local authorities and raises the child herself. As a result of
the positive karma generated by her sacrifices, Thi Kinh is transformed after her death
into a bodhisattva.
Hat cheo plays used to be unscripted, and both singing and speaking (in a melodic form)
are used along with dancing. All three expressions are stylized but allow more
spontaneity than hat cheo's classical counterpart, hat boi. Cheo focuses on women, with
lead characters played by women, who show their steadfastness, vivaciousness, sadness,
or cruelty by comparing themselves to animals like the catfish, spider, or dragonfly. Like
the other forms of theater and music, cheo did not remain static, and in order to survive it
attempted to adopt new styles and urban-related themes. Nowadays, cheo has been
revived in its more rural forms to be performed mostly in yearly festivals by professional
troupes in the North.
Hat tuong, or hat boi, was staged for the entertainment of the court from Tran times in the
thirteenth century until the Nguyen era in the nineteenth century by court-appointed
groups, which the emperor would occasionally join for a part in a favored play.
Thereafter, hat boi was performed by small theater groups that would tour the countryside
to present well-known clas- sical pieces such as Xuan Nu ("Young Girl"). The plays were
inspired in part by Chinese history and literature and used to be written in Chinese and
nom, although a number of them (written by librettists like Dao Tan) are derived from
Viet mythology and history, often stressing the heroism of figures like the Trung sisters in
Trung Nu Vuong or The Trung Queens.
These plays carry moral lessons and emphasize virtues such as faithfulness, loyalty of
subjects toward rulers, sacrifice, valor, and dedication. The hero almost always goes
through trying times while keeping faith with king and country to eventually find himself
justly rewarded. Certain characters may sing in a falsetto voice to express sadness; others
may declaim verse, which is in turn sung in prose to clarify the meaning. Percussion
instruments are central to hat boi to signal the beginning of a scene or the entrance of
char- acters, to accompany the singers, and to signify the public's pleasure or dis-
pleasure with the performance. Inseparable from the singing, acting, and miming,
dancing is used to convey and enhance the messages or the plot line of a particular piece.
Movements of the eyes and hands, inclinations of the head, caressing of the beard,
closing or opening of the fan, and gliding or springing of the step are accentuated by the
rolling of the drums, the clanging of the cymbals, and the sad lament of the monochord,
which carry as much significance as the voice and the words.
For example, in order to show that he is riding a horse, the actor would use a whip and,
through different gestures and steps, indicate the mounting or falling off of a horse, or the
leading of a horse through mountainous gorges. The nature of the hat boi characters is
signaled by the colors used in the heavy makeup worn by actors and actresses: red for
virtue, black for honesty, and so forth. Although it has been criticized as a fading,
stagnant art of the past that fewer and fewer people can comprehend and appreciate, hat
boi is still performed throughout Vietnam with regional nuances and adaptations,
depending on whether the play is presented in cities or in villages.
During the 1920s, the need arose for a theater that would be less rigid and difficult to
understand than hat boi, that would integrate music and dance and not be just spoken, as
in the French-inspired "talking theater" (kich noi), which translated and adapted French
plays into Vietnamese. Thus was born in the 1920s in the South hat cai luong ("renovated
theater"), which fused the southern amateur music (nhac tai tu) with the Western-inspired
realist modern theater. Central to it is a musical piece, initially a love song, which later
became a musical mode called da co hoai lang ("listening to the drum sound at night,
thinking of the loved one"), finally evolving into vong co ("nostalgia of the past"), a
melancholic melody aimed at conveying sadness, nostalgia, or the poignancy of betrayed
love. The plays were initially Chinese-inspired, but in terms of plot, acting style, and
music, the renovated theater soon strayed from the stylized hat boi, using a less formal
language and adding scenery and lighting. As it evolved, the renovated theater, appealing
to a wider, if less cultivated, audience, has focused on plays that have modern, social, or
religious themes. These may be derived from the French repertoire (e.g., Tra Hoa Nu, or
The Camellia Lady), Vietnamese novels (e.g., Hon Buom Mo Tien, or Butterfly-Soul
Dreaming of a Fairy), or works written for the theater (e.g., Tim Hanh Phuc, or In Search
of Happiness). Artists famed for their voices and capacity to sing the vong co were Nam
Chau, Phung Ha, Ut Tra On, Thanh Nga, and Thanh Duoc, who performed in theatrical
troupes like Van Hao or Thanh Minh Thanh Nga. Although hat cai luong incorporated
new, Western-inspired rhythms like cha-cha-cha or rock-and- roll, accompanied by guitar,
violin, saxophones, and even synthesizer, it has kept traditional instruments like the two-
stringed fiddle dan nhi, the trans- versal flute sao, the foot clapper song lan, and the
monochord, originally used in nhac tai tu. Overall, cai luong is an eclectic form that
allows the inclusion of almost all musical genres and inspirations from East to West and
permits almost all mediums from circus acts to documentary segments projected in the
background. Unfortunately, in recent decades, the quality of the reno- vated theater, both
in terms of content and performance, has decreased. In cities throughout the country, the
audience for the renovated theater has dwindled over the years, losing the battle to Hong
Kong kung fu videotapes and Hollywood movies. In the countryside, however, cai luong
is still the entertainment of choice; it can be heard floating in the air, amplified in the
marketplace, and sung by aficionados during family celebrations or public festivities.
Modern theater-that is, the Western-style talking variety (kich noi)-was born under
French colonial rule, when plays such as Moliere's The Miser were translated into
Vietnamese and performed for Vietnamese audiences. Like hat cheo and, to a certain
extent, hat boi, kich noi is meant to entertain while conveying moral lessons. Although
initially influenced by French theater, during the anti-French struggle Vietnamese talking
plays often critically examined the negative impacts of French culture on Vietnamese
intellectuals and the petite bourgeoisie. For example, a play entitled The Annamite
French- man derided the latter groups by accentuating the ridiculous character of their
exaggerated and fawning imitations of French mannerisms. In the 1930s and 1940s,
novels like Nua Chung Xuan (Mid-Spring) or Doan Tuyet (Rup- ture), written by
members of the socially concerned Self-Reliance Literary Group, were adapted to the
modern theater. In the era of the D.R.V. and the S.R.V., modern plays have treated a
variety of topical themes. In the early 1980s, for example, The Red Metallic Stars
celebrated the heroic part played by border minorities during the Chinese invasion of
1979. Likewise, the plot in In the Name of Justice centers on a murder committed by the
spoiled son of a high-level cadre and his family's failed effort at covering it up. Some
plays even venture into the sensitive field of historical revisionism. Nguyen Huy Thiep's
Love Remains, for example, presents an account of the 1930 uprising organized by the
nationalist leader Nguyen Thai Hoc. Nevertheless, the most successful plays carry plots
that dissect themes of gener- ational conflicts or passion, love, and betrayal. For example,
The Last Passion tells the story of the patient love of a forgiving wife whose husband
betrays her repeatedly until the last fatal affair.
Generally speaking, in the era of the D.R.V. and the S.R.V., music, dance, and theater
have been perceived as political instruments. As such, they have been patronized by the
government, which supports efforts at renovating hat cheo, hat boi, dan ca, hat cai luong,
and kich noi, organizing festivals, launching folklore-gathering programs, establishing
schools for training artists and per- formers, and recognizing artists through the
conferring of awards, medals, and the creation of categories like "Artist of the People."

WATER PUPPETRY
No discussion of Vietnamese performing arts would be complete without treating an
ancient folk art form unique to Vietnam called mua roi nuoc, or "water puppetry" (as
opposed to "land puppetry," or mua roi can). Public performances by village-based
artisans manipulating wooden puppets over bodies of water date from at least the tenth
century. The practice originated in the villages of the North and is derived from harvest
festivals involving
dancing, wrestling, boat races, and other popular amusements. Their impressive skills
notwithstanding, puppeteers were not professional entertainers but were farmers or
fishermen who had formed a local water- puppetry guild and performed free of charge in
their leisure time, mainly at local festivals. The guilds were usually founded by pooling
funds for the support of the craft and for mutual aid among members. Some supporters
enjoyed the prestige of membership but were not themselves performers or puppet
makers. Since participation would bring knowledge of the puppets' manufacture and
manipulation, a new member's initiation required unani- mous support of existing
members and often involved a ritualized drinking of blood and swearing not to reveal the
guild's secrets to outsiders. Further- more, because patrilocal marriage meant that village
girls might go to live with their husbands' families in a different village, females were not
allowed to join puppetry guilds, and so membership was an exclusively male prerog-
ative.
The Vietnamese term for water puppetry, mua roi nuoc, literally means "dancing on
water," and the "stages" on which the puppets "danced" were indeed bodies of water,
usually natural or artificial lakes. Village-based per-formance guilds usually owned a lake
as well as a pavilion located about twenty feet from the shore. The pavilion faced the
shore and contained three chambers, a central "manipulation room" and two lateral
chambers. The lateral chambers' floors were above water level and were used for storage
and for seating the musicians, chorus, and other performers. The central chamber had a
sunken floor, where the puppet masters would stand, waist-deep, and, from behind an
opaque bamboo screen, manipulate the puppets on the wa- tery stage between them and
the audience on the shore. Modern troupes are usually peripatetic (traveling), and
simplified pavilions often have a single elongated chamber, with the front section's floor
below the water level, and a raised rear floor; the aquatic "stage" is now more often a
portable basin than a lake.
The puppets were made by members of the guild, carved of wood, covered with
protective resin, and brightly painted. Rather than being manipulated directly by hand,
rod, or strings, water puppets were controlled at consid- erable distance by submersible
rods and sometimes by wires concealed be- neath the water. Through their skillful
manipulation of the rods and strings, often with ringed stakes placed in the lake's bed, the
puppeteers could cause their charges to perform a variety of movements. From
submerged invisibil- ity, the puppets could spring upward into the spectators' view and
then move forward, backward, or transversally across the water before sinking out of
sight. Many of the more complex puppets were fitted with strings and pulleys that
allowed rotation of the torso, head, or arms. While the puppeteers ma- nipulated a variety
of puppets on the watery stage, other hidden performers in the lateral compartments
supplied the character's voices, sang choral ac- companiment, or played a variety of
percussion instruments including fire- crackers! The water itself heightened the effect of
the performance, concealing the attached rods and strings while reflecting the sky and
surroundings as well as the puppets' images. The sounds of the chorus and orchestra
rever- berated from the water's surface, creating an impact on the audience unlike that in
any other theatrical tradition.
Rather than presenting a single long and complicated piece that might be taxing for both
performer and audience, the traditional water puppet theaters would undertake ten or
twenty vignettes of several minutes each and relied mainly on visual impact rather than
on the spoken word. The themes derived from three main sources: scenes from the daily
lives of ordinary people, including farming, fishing, and hunting; events from Sino-Viet
mythology and history, such as Le Loi's victory over the Chinese; and excerpts from
tuong or cheo pieces. All would be known to the audiences in advance and require little
elaboration. Modern professional troupes sometimes attempt longer and unitary pieces,
but one may question whether these are suitable for water puppetry, given its rural and
popular origins.
Given the tumultuous events in Vietnam over the last 150 years, the traditional village-
based corporations have all but died out in their birthplace, the villages of the North.
However, the governments of the D.R.V. and S.R.V. have encouraged the preservation of
this ancient craft by funding urban-based troupes, the most representative example being
Ha-noi's Thang- long Water Puppet Theater. These have kept alive the artistry of carving
and manipulating water puppets, and the best of these state-supported troupes continue to
delight domestic as well as international audiences.