A Vietnamese Family Chronicle Page 10
When my grandfather died, an old man told me: “It seems that I can still hear him reading classical texts and chanting poetry when he was a student. It was a resonant voice. Just by listening to him, I could tell that he would go far. Now that voice has fallen silent.” When he sat for the licentiate examinations, there was great excitement. Our family, after so many generations without success, had high expectations of him. Village folks knew of his talents. They sensed that success was bound to come. A large group of people made the trip from Kim Bai to Hanoi, a day’s march away. Led by a former village mayor, they were to attend the ceremony announcing the results.
The mayor was from the Chu, a prominent family in Kim Bai. He was my grandfather’s maternal uncle and a figure well-remembered by later generations. He held his office when France had just imposed its protectorate. Government authority did not reach very far out into the countryside. Villages had to defend themselves against bandit attacks or encroachments by neighbors. A tough village leader, Mayor Chu had the reputation of being himself something of a ruffian and a bully during his youth. He built up his family’s assets in a way which made some envious people gossip that the methods he used were not always aboveboard, but when he presented himself as a candidate for mayor, there was very little opposition. Those were turbulent times. The need was not for a scholar with a soft voice. Our villagers made a good choice because Mayor Chu served them well. His son, whom I called great-uncle, told me that he was a big man of great physical strength. Knowing the son, I could imagine what the father was like. Great-uncle still worked at sixty in the fields like a young man. He had a huge appetite. I had seen him eating a whole chicken, which in itself was nothing really extraordinary, but in this case, there were just one or two bones let when he had finished. The rest of the bones were all eaten, his strong teeth cracked them as if they were prawn crackers.
A serious incident occurred at the village one day when Mayor Chu was out. People from a neighboring place alleged that several of their water buffaloes had been stolen by our villagers. They accused the mayor himself of having, along with others, committed that offense. A large group of men, armed with sticks and knives and in a very angry mood, descended on Kim Bai. Our people withdrew behind the gate. Insults were thrown back and forth between the two sides and the assailants were on the point of storming the gate when the mayor returned. He rolled up his sleeves, seized a big knife and rushed to the gate, ordering that it be opened. Standing in the middle of the way, he invited the other people to come in, saying:
You can go anywhere you want inside the village to look for your buffaloes. If you find them, they will be returned to you and we shall deal with the culprits fittingly. But if you cannot, then, before leaving this gate you will have to deal with this knife.
The risk was too great for anyone to take up the offer. At any rate, a violent clash was avoided.
The year when my grandfather sat for his examinations, Mayor Chu had already retired. In his fifties, he had settled down to a quieter life with his three or four wives. The day the results were announced, the Kim Bai group led by him joined the crowd assembling on the Examination Grounds. Everything was ready, the ceremonial platform erected for members of the panel, the elevated seats, the parasols, the multicolored flags and banners, the soldiers and attendants. The high mandarins of the panel arrived, dressed in ceremonial robes of blue, purple or green brocade. Preceding them was a board held high by soldiers for everyone to see, which bore four big characters phung chi cau hien, meaning: “On orders of the king, in search of good and wise men.” The mandarins took up position in their seats high above the heads of the crowd. The names of successful candidates were called out. On hearing these words: “Province of Ha Dong, prefecture of Thanh Oai, canton of Phuong Trung, village of Kim Bai . . .,” Mayor Chu knew that it was his nephew. Without waiting for his name, he jumped up high and clapped his hands with joy. Unfortunately, at that time our menfolk did not wear a belt with their trousers; these were only held in place by twisting the material around the waist, sarong-like, so that when the mayor jumped up, his trousers came down in full view of the thousands of people attending the ceremony. That episode of “the mayor’s trousers coming down” was still told by villagers years later.
The Three Teachings
The Vietnamese people traditionally follow the teachings of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Their conception of life and the universe, their religious beliefs and code of conduct in society, all rest on the three teachings. These have been likened to the three feet of an urn, a representation showing that our system draws its stability from the support of all three of its components. If one is taken out, the system collapses. The three may compete with each other, but it is also by leaning on each other that they derive their strength. All three came to us from China, including Buddhism which originated in India. Although the earliest Buddhist priests in Vietnam were Indians who arrived by sea, our main Buddhist schools traced their sources to temples in China. After thousands of years in our country, the three teachings, which could also be called ways or paths, have acquired a Vietnamese character of their own and become a fundamental part of our culture.
In our family, the dominant influence has been Confucian teaching. Our ancestors were scholars brought up in the study of the Four Books and Five Canons of Confucianism. It has often been said by Western scholars that Confucianism is a way of life, not a religion. True, Confucianism is predominantly a set of rules of conduct in life and society. It does not worship any deity. But it places great importance on the cult of ancestors. Many Vietnamese, when asked about their religion, would reply that theirs is the cult of ancestors and in their minds, the cult is inseparable from Confucianism. At the center of our cult is the family, understood in the sense of an entity which encompasses all generations, those having existed in the past, the present ones as well as those yet to come. The concept of the family as an entity over time is commonly expressed in our behavior and language. Thus, the mention of a happy event or an achievement is usually preceded by this ritual formula: “Thanks to the merit inherited from our ancestors.” The following sentence appears at the beginning of our family chronicle:
He who inherits the merit acquired by his ancestors for many generations, has children and grandchildren in abundance.
We believe that whatever a person can achieve in his lifetime does not depend solely on his actions; it is also determined by the heritage of virtue and merit that he has received from his forebears. Under the ancient monarchy, this causal link between the generations was recognized by the court which awarded posthumous ranks and honors to ancestors of high mandarins. Just as we are dependent on past generations for good or bad fortune, so will the consequences of our own actions be transmitted to our descendants. To many Vietnamese parents, the material wealth such as house, land or jewelry that they may pass on to their children is considered secondary to the spiritual heritage which all parents, whether rich or poor, will leave behind.
Each generation is a stage in the life of a family. Stages come and go, but the family stays on with the transmission from one generation to the next. One can see how important it is, in our system of belief, for the lineage to be carried forward. Without a male heir, the name would be lost and the family would disappear. Such was the prevailing conception in former times. Nowadays, people may not attach the same importance to the principle of male heredity, but until recently, it was a real tragedy for a Vietnamese family not to have a son. Many generations of our own family had gone through anxious periods just because a son was late in coming, so pilgrimages were made to pray for an heir at temples and geomancers called in to change the orientation of the family home. Family to us has a sacred character and the ancestor’s cult is, properly speaking, a religion. Ancestors are spirits which our people invoke in prayers. With the Lord in Heaven and Lord Buddha, they form our traditional trinity, as expressed in the following prayer commonly used by Vietnamese:
I beg the Lord in
Heaven, Lord Buddha and our Ancestors to witness my action, to protect our family and give it their blessings.
In every Vietnamese home there is an altar to the ancestors set up at a place considered to be the most dignified in the house, usually close to its center. Since 1975, Vietnamese refugees have kept up their cult, despite their being away from the motherland. Ancestor worship is carried out where the descendants happen to be living, according to the rule: “Wherever descendants are, so too are their ancestors.” Since my parents went to reside in France, they have continued to hold the ceremonies of worship, just as they would have done if they had stayed in Vietnam. There, anniversaries were accompanied by copious meals bringing together family members and guests; in Paris, they are simple ceremonies with of offerings only rice and a few dishes, sometimes just some flowers and fruit. But the spirit in which they are celebrated remains the same. My mother often reminded us that food offerings are not essential, they are more of a social requirement. With reverence and sincerity, she said, our prayers will reach the spiritual world of our ancestors, no matter what we offer on the altar. Ancestors are remembered not only at anniversaries, but at all festivals of the four seasons, such as the Mid-Autumn Festival in the eighth lunar month to watch the bright full moon, the Double Five Festival in the fifth month where children are given fermented glutinous rice and a great many kinds of cakes to eat and, most important of all, the Tet festival. The special food for each festival is presented as an offering to ancestors before the family partakes of them. The new rice brought home after the harvest is cooked and served on the altar. A beautiful flower from the garden, home-grown fruits from the orchard, some choice food obtained at the market, they are all placed first on the altar as a mark of remembrance towards our forebears, whose spirits, we believe, would always stay near to protect the family and support its endeavors.
The cult of ancestors existed well before Confucius. The Master upheld that ancient tradition. He extolled its virtues and built upon it the concept of hieu-filial piety-which together with that of trung-loyalty to the king-became the cornerstones of the Confucian code of moral conduct. His teachings on ancestor worship brought Confucianism into the realm of the mystic and supernatural, and made it a true system of religious beliefs. “Serve the dead as you would have served them had they been still alive, serve the departed as you would have served them had they been still present,” he said. In the Book of Rites, he noted that a descendant worshipping his ancestors should endeavor to “hear what has no sound and see what has no form.”
Confucianism being the official doctrine of government, scholars must be well-versed in it if they were to stand any chance at the civil service examinations. As he grew older, however, a scholar would find himself drawn more and more to the writings of Lao Tse and Chuang Tse. These provided him with a deeper insight into the meaning of existence than Confucian teachings. They helped him accept more readily the disappointments and vicissitudes of life.
Whereas Confucianism spoke constantly of duty and strivings regarding oneself, one’s family and one’s country, Taoism advocated a simple and peaceful life in harmony with nature. Man should avoid conventional social obligations and refrain from doing anything that would upset the natural order of things. Lao Tse’s doctrine was one of detachment and of “no action.” It had a particular appeal to those of our ancestors who met with failure at the examinations and saw their dream of serving king and country vanish, or those who could not even compete at the examinations because they were on the wrong side of the political fence. Among them, the one most attracted to Taoism was the head of our eleventh generation, my great-grandfather. He started with high hopes for a mandarinal career, but those hopes were not realized. Moreover, an adverse fate continually dogged him throughout his life. He never knew his father, who left home when he was a newly-born baby. As a young man, he set out for the Mekong delta to bring his father’s remains home but had to turn back before reaching there. When he was nearing forty, first his wife, then his only son, died. For a pseudonym, he chose a name which broke with family tradition. Most of our ancestors had pseudonyms starting with the word Phuc, such as Phuc Ninh for our third ancestor and Phuc Thien for our fourth ancestor. Phuc is a basic term in our culture. It means happiness which derives from benevolent action. For a Confucian family, to have Phuc as a name component was very much in character. My great-grandfather, however, took the purely Taoist pseudonym of Song Son Dat Dan, or Hermit of the Mountain of the Twins, the mountain here being that of our village’s prophecy. Old Taoist scholars retired among the clouds and pine trees to live, close to nature and away from society. In his old age, my great-grandfather also became a recluse, but the Hermit of the Mountain of the Twins never left his village. The Mountain was a creation of legend and it remained for him a dream.
Every scholar was an aspiring poet with at least a few poems or essays to his credit. The best loved poems in our language were Taoist or Zen in inspiration. They had that element of mystery and mystique which stood them apart from the down-to-earth poems of the Confucian school. When my grandfather retired from the mandarinate in 1940, his friends and colleagues organized a farewell function. Many were mandarins like him, others became teachers, writers or businessmen after they graduated. Together, they were the cream of scholars in the north of Vietnam. When the cups of wine had been filled up many times, a beautifully bound book, its-as yet blank-pages made of best quality rice paper, was brought out and placed on a low desk which was itself installed on top of a carved platform in blackwood. An attendant ground the black ink. A row of brushes were kept ready. As the music went on and songstresses entertained the party, the scholars took turns to sit on the platform in front of the low desk. Leaning forward, they dipped a brush in the black ink and, in a slow and purposeful motion, wrote in the book complimentary pieces addressed to grandfather on the occasion of his retirement. From time to time, grandfather was asked to respond, which he did by writing in the book poems of his own. In the life of a scholar-mandarin, Confucianism was the dominant “way” when he was shouldering social responsibilities and serving his fellow countrymen. After he retired, and in leisure pondered on the philosophical meaning of existence, Taoism took over. The day he “hung up the seals of office” marked the start of the change. As I can recall, many pieces in that book took up traditional Taoist themes. Written in the mode of ancient poems of the Tang period in China, they alluded to the peace and quiet that a man had earned after having fulfilled his duties in public service; now he could enjoy “his fields and gardens” with a heart “cold as ice,” meaning completely detached from the pursuit of fame and wealth.
The strength of Buddhist faith in our family has fluctuated with the generations. Buddhism has been like a deeply embedded seed which remained dormant in some periods, but developed and blossomed in others. It is interesting to note that development, when it took place, was brought about by the maternal side. Thus, our foremother of the fourth generation was a devout Buddhist whose influence on the family’s religious attitude extended to the next generations. The same could be said of our foremother of the ninth generation. In my grandparents’ time, Buddhism was to us more of a tradition than a religion. That was during the first half of this century, when Buddhism registered a general decline in Vietnam. My grandmother came from a village with an ancient Buddhist tradition; however, she married into a strict Confucian family and came to live in Kim Bai where most people went to temples only at important festivals. My grandfather was not interested in the religion. I do not recall having seen him in a temple, or reading a Buddhist text. Kim Bai’s pagoda was old and small, with a sole residing bonze and some young novices. They lived on some small plots of rice fields allocated to them by the village, and on financial offerings by the faithful. Our family made its contributions. I remember one important occasion when a large brocade hanger to decorate the main altar was presented to the pagoda. The hanger was still there when I last visited the pagoda before leaving Kim Bai
. But an indication of the low priority accorded to the religion was that, while our village developed greatly in the 1930s-a new market and a new school were built, new roads were laid-renovation of the old pagoda was not contemplated.
At the age of three or four, I was “given” by my parents to a temple, in a religious ceremony. To give children away was a quite common custom, which had its origin in both Buddhism and popular superstition. As a Buddhist gesture, it was meant to show nonattachment to even the things dearest to, one’s heart. Popular superstition had it that demons and malevolent spirits would not look kindly on families with an abundant pro-geniture; they would come and take the children away. These had, therefore, to be made “children of a temple” in order to receive the protection of its spirit. Times have changed, but until a few decades ago, people in the country often told visitors that the children who could be seen in their house were not really theirs, but belonged to such or such temple and were only “adopted” by them. A devout Buddhist family would give their children to a Buddhist temple. My elder brother and I were given, not to our village’s Buddhist pagoda, but to a temple situated next to Kim Bai where a Snake Spirit was worshipped. Of course, we were not physically given away, or separated from our family for any length of time. It was only a religious ceremony, after which we went home, as “children of the Snake Temple.”