A Vietnamese Family Chronicle Page 2
About forty kilometers as the crow flies from my village stands Mount Tan Vien. At 1300 meters, it dominates the region and on clear days can be seen behind the rampart of green foothills. Legend has it that King Hung Vuong XVIII had a very beautiful daughter, Princess Mi Nuong. When she reached marriageable age, proposals were numerous, but the king said, “My daughter is descended from the immortals, so mere human beings will not be considered.” One day, two parties came to ask for the princess’ hand, the Spirit of the Mountain and the Spirit of the River. Being supernatural, they both held great power. They were handsome too. The king was at a loss to know which of them to choose. Finally, he came to a decision. He said that whoever arrived first the next morning with the requisite betrothal gifts would be accepted. At dawn next day the Spirit of the Mountain arrived, bringing gold, silver, precious stones, as well as the rarest birds and animals of the forest. True to his word, the king gave him Mi Nuong in marriage and the Spirit of the Mountain took his wife home to Mount Tan Vien. Later in the day, the Spirit of the River arrived, but by then it was too late. Furious, he at once pursued the newlywed couple. He called up driving rain and a frightening storm and raised the waters to attack Tan Vien. But, as the waters rose, the Spirit of the Mountain raised the dikes around the mountain. Firstly, a frontal attack was launched from the Red River, the largest in the north; it was repulsed. Then, the angry suitor mobilized the waves of the Hat River, which flowed through our home region. Further up north, he joined their forces with those of the Da River and came up against Tan Vien from the rear; that second attack also failed. The Spirit of the River lost those battles, but he did not accept defeat. According to the legend, he came back every year for revenge. And that is the reason why, every year, our people have to build up the dikes to prevent swollen rivers from bursting their banks and flooding the rice fields.
The Hung Vuong kings were legendary rulers. The two stories above are legends, not history. But their settings were villages, mountains and rivers of our home region, which show that from the earliest times, the Viet people have settled there. They grew crops, built dikes, had an established social structure and even had an apparatus of state.
My village lies on the banks of the Hat River which, two thousand years ago, became inscribed in the hearts of all Vietnamese with the epic revolt of the Trung Sisters. Since the legendary Hung Vuong, our people had been masters in their country. In 111 B.C. however, China invaded Vietnam and imposed a domination which lasted over ten centuries. The Trung Sisters belonged to a noble Viet family living in Phong Chau, the ancient capital of the first dynasty. Trung Trac, the elder sister, was married to Thi Sach who was also from a family of feudal lords whose territory covered both sides of the Hat River and therefore included our own village. The Chinese governor of Giao Chi, as Vietnam was then called, was a man named Su Ding. His rule was tyrannical and deeply resented by the people. Thi Sach and the Trung sisters led the resistance against Chinese rule. In A.D. 40, they launched the war for independence. At the start of the campaign, Thi Sach was captured by Su Ding and executed. The two sisters vowed to avenge his death and save the country from tyranny. Refusing to wear the white color of mourning so as not to affect the morale of their troops, they went into battle on elephant back, wearing armor painted in gold, the color of royalty, and being shaded by parasols of the same color. The Vietnamese defeated the Han army of occupation and Su Ding was forced to flee. Other provinces rose up in support of the Trung Sisters. Among Vietnamese commanders of that time were found men as well as women, the most famous of the latter was a princess named Thanh Thien, who won many battles against the Han. Near our own village, people still recall the legend of a man called Ong Cai (The Commander) who had his troops dressed up as women; this piece of psychological warfare had the Chinese running, so scared were they of our women warriors. In a short time, the Trung Sisters captured sixty-five fortified towns and liberated the country. Trung Trac ascended the throne, assuming the title of Queen Trung. To reconquer Giao Chi, the Han Court in Northern China assembled a large expeditionary force. As commander, it appointed its most famous and experienced general, Ma Yuan, who was then an old man of over seventy. The war was violent and short. The young Viet army met the invaders head on and was defeated. The sisters retreated until they reached our Hat River. There, they leapt into the water to their death.
In a dark millennium of our national history, the Trung revolt was a shining light. For the first time, the mighty Han Empire was beaten. We were independent and sovereign again, not for long it is true, for the Chinese yoke was reimposed after only three years. But the way had been shown and the flame of revolt would never be extinguished. For this reason, the Trung will always be remembered with reverence and gratitude by our people. That they were women and that several of their military commanders were women is remarkable, indicating that in those early times there was some fundamental equality between the sexes in our society. Although victorious, old Ma Yuan sullied his reputation by a spiteful act: before returning to China, he put a curse on the Viet people. He erected a bronze post at the border and said: “When this bronze post breaks, the Giao Chi people will cease to exist.” The answer of our people took the form of a custom by which each person passing by the post threw a stone at it; it was not long before no post remained to be seen, only a mound of stones. But the waters of the Hat River have kept on flowing and will for ever flow in our nation’s memory.
Kim Bai
The name of my village is Kim Bai. I spent a great deal of time there during my youth and knew its folklore and traditions well. I cannot recall exactly how I learned them and from whom: my grandparents, parents or village elders. I just knew them and after I left Kim Bai in 1948, they remained tucked away in one corner of my memory. When I started writing this book, I asked my parents, who are now in their eighties and living in France, for information and guidance. They wrote to me, and each of their letters drew from that corner of my memory the legends and stories which for so long had lain there, seemingly forgotten. Of recent generations, the person best acquainted with our village’s history was my grandfather. He was born and grew up there. Having passed the civil service examinations, he went away to serve as mandarin in various parts of the country, but his life and activities remained closely tied to his birthplace. He was the last Tien Chi or Head Dignitary of Kim Bai, holding that position until 1945, when the age-old system of village administration was dismantled by the communists. Much to my regret now, I never asked him about Kim Bai’s history and the origins of sayings and prophecies which form part of its folklore. He died when I was seventeen. I had plenty of occasions to ask questions, for he was my teacher of Chinese script and the classics, but I was then too young to look back to the past. As for him, he was a man of few words, except when teaching or commenting on a text. He rarely told us stories of olden times. He kept in his library a large number of papers which could give precious information about our native place. Unfortunately, they were all lost in the war which broke out in 1946. Old village documents were kept in the Communal Hall. I do not know what happened to them after the communists took over in 1945, but it is unlikely that many could have survived the combined effects of war and revolution.
Being close to the very birthplace of the Viet people, Kim Bai must have been established in the most distant past. Its origins are lost in time. In the turbulent history of our country, it was not unusual for villages to be destroyed or abandoned because of natural disasters like flood and drought, or because of man-made tragedies such as war and banditry. Villages belonging to the losing side in a civil war could be leveled to the ground, or punished by having their names changed. Kim Bai was spared such traumatic events. It had its share of ups and downs. At the end of the sixteenth century, it suffered persecution following a change of dynasty, but escaped widespread destruction. Often, it was subjected to attacks by rebels and bandits. In the eighteenth century, insecurity became so bad that it was virtually abandoned for many year
s, but then the people came back and the village survived. In the chronicle of our family, which traces our line back to the fifteenth century, Kim Bai is mentioned several times. These references give a clear impression that, by that date, it was a stable and well-established place. Old records of the last century showed that Kim Bai was not just one village, but an agglomeration of three thon, or small villages bearing the names of Vuc, Nhuyen and Thuong-Lam-Tram. The nearest village to us, Kim Lam, was formerly part of Kim Bai itself but had become separate, because Kim Bai had grown too large.
The name Kim Bai means Golden Plaque. Plaque was the insignia of mandarins in ancient Vietnam. Made of ivory and worn on the chest, it indicated the rank and function of the mandarin. Kim Bai are words of our scholarly language, which differs from the colloquial language used in everyday life. Many villages in the Red River delta have two names, an original colloquial name and a scholarly name adopted at a later date. Ours has only a scholarly name. I believe that, in the past, it must have had also a colloquial name. But Kim Bai developed a strong tradition of scholarship and learning and, as a result, the scholarly name gained preference over the colloquial one, which dropped out of use. This must have happened very long ago, for today no one at all remembers the colloquial name.
Why the name Kim Bai? Elders said that, since early times, many of our people had been successful at the civil service examinations and became plaque-wearing mandarins. Some reached very high positions; that was the reason why our village carries the imposing name of Golden Plaque. It is not remembered when our village acquired its name. I think it rather unlikely that the villagers themselves would have chosen such a high-sounding name, modesty being a quality highly valued in our culture. The name Kim Bai was, more probably, conferred by the Court on our village as a mark of appreciation for the accomplishments of its citizens.
A general map of Indochina showing the regions, towns, rivers, mountains and places in Vietnam referenced in the narrative.
Did the name perhaps originate with two famous sons of our village, the Nguyen brothers, who were born at the end of the fifteenth century? Nguyen Tue and Nguyen Huyen both graduated as doctors and reached the high ranks of the mandarinate. Their successful careers might indeed have been the reason for the present name. However, ancient examination records mentioned that they were “natives of the village of Kim Bai” and, thus, the name had been in existence before them. I had thought that the name might go back to the Ly dynasty (1010-1225) or the Tran dynasty (1225-1400). These dynasties were periods of great national development, in which native sons of our village may have played a part. But, as I would find later, the origins of the name Kim Bai are more ancient.
Among the earliest writings to have been preserved in Vietnam was a poem by a Buddhist monk who lived between 1020 and 1088. Dam Khi was, according to an anthology of Zen poetry compiled in the fourteenth century, “a native of the village of Kim Bai and a scholar of the Chinese classics, although he was also well versed in the Pali script.” At nineteen, Dam Khi entered priesthood, taking the religious name of Ngo An. He became a Zen master of great fame. Disciples in his mountain temple included Vietnamese and Cham priests, the latter coming from the far south to receive his teachings. Ngo An belonged to the ninth generation of the Face-to-the-Wall school established by Vo Ngon Thong in Phu Dong two centuries before. Only one of his poems appeared in the anthology, the one he composed just before he died. Buddhist priests usually summed up in one last poem what they considered to be the essence of their life and their faith, to pass on to their disciples. Ngo An’s was a four-line poem, written in the old scholarly script. The first two lines touch on the concepts of emptiness and enlightenment, and I cannot adequately translate them. But here are the last two, in which the Zen master used well-known Buddhist images to express the strength of his faith:
Under the burning mountain sun, the precious stone does not lose its shine,
In a fiery furnace, the lotus blooms, still damp with the morning dew.
Although the anthology of Zen poetry dated from the fourteenth century, one can assume that our village was already called Kim Bai in Dam Khi’s time. The name, therefore, existed prior to the eleventh century and the Ly dynasty. Only three Vietnamese dynasties preceded that of the Ly, and each only ruled for a short period: the Ngo (939-965), the Dinh (968980) and the Earlier Le (980-1009). If our village did not acquire its name under one of the those dynasties, we would have to look back further, into the millennium of Chinese domination.
Whatever the case, I still believe that there was a time when sons of our village gained outstanding honors and brought fame to their birthplace, earning it a new name. Although the names of those sons, and their achievements, are lost to memory, the name Kim Bai remains to bear testimony that such a time did exist.
The Mountain of the Twins
Generations of villagers of Kim Bai have handed down this saying:
In Kim Bai stands the Mountain of the Twins,
One gate opens the way to its peaks.
When I was younger, I looked for the mountain in this old saying. I could not find it. Like all other villages in our region, ours was built on an elevation of no more than a few meters. All around were flat rice fields with a few grassy knolls here and there. Higher than these was the dike which overlooked the countryside, but this was only about ten meters high. The village certainly had no mountain. So what does the saying mean?
I learned that the Mountain of the Twins was no ordinary mountain but a geomantic feature, and the saying was a prophecy made about Kim Bai, a long time ago. In ancient Vietnam, as in other countries influenced by Chinese civilization, people believed in the art of foretelling the future by means of signs hidden in the contours of the earth. Each country had distinct geomantic features which were believed to condition the fate of its people. The story was told that near the end of the Chinese domination, which lasted from 111 B.C. to A.D. 939, Gao Pin was sent to our country as a governor. Well versed in geomancy, he was taken aback at observing so many auspicious signs. He foresaw that great leaders would emerge and that the country would certainly not remain a part of China. Gao Pin spent a good deal of time travelling all over the country, perched on a giant kite-a precursor of today’s glider?-from where he could better observe the land from an elevated position. He tried his best to destroy those auspicious features with his geomantic powers. However, he did not succeed in preventing the inevitable.
Regions and villages also had their own geomantic characteristics, which served to explain why some had had more than their share of great men, warriors and scholars, while others never rated a mention in history books. Before building a house, Vietnamese usually consulted a geomancer to see whether the land was suitable for such a purpose and, if so, exactly where the house should be built and what orientation it should have. When a person died, the position of his or her grave would also depend on the advice of a geomancer.
The geomancer who discovered the Mountain of the Twins and made the prophecy about Kim Bai was probably Chinese. Since the art of geomancy came from China, the most sought after practitioners in Vietnam were Chinese, although there were also famous Vietnamese masters, such as Ta Ao who lived in the fifteenth century under the Le dynasty. Our own family tradition recalls that over the centuries, though our ancestral home has remained in the same plot, it has been rebuilt many times on the advice of Chinese geomancers to obtain the most auspicious orientation.
Prophecies are usually veiled in mystery and their meaning is never quite clear. Much depends on interpretation. The distinctive feature of a piece of land is given in geomancy a name, for instance Dragon, Tortoise or Mountain. The presence of a mountain is considered a good sign, although not for everyone concerned. It is good for those who can reach the summit and, from there, dominate the surrounding countryside. But the mountain becomes a barrier to those unable to climb it. “One gate opens the way to its peaks,” here the prophecy means that the land of Kim Bai offers great prom
ise of success and fulfillment, but only to a select few. Although there might be several gates, only one would lead to the top. Thus, not everyone with the ability to climb the mountain would succeed. To do so, a person also needs luck. To our people, luck means not just what may happen to someone by chance, but rather a combination of favorable circumstances which help a deserving person reach his goal. As we used to say, when a man acts according to the natural law of Heaven and with due regard to the feelings of his fellow men, the wind blows his way and rain comes when he needs it.
The prophecy was expressed in scholarly language. Translated into colloquial language, it can acquire another meaning and the second line would read: “One family succeeds at the highest examination,” which means the doctorate examination. Over the centuries, many scholars in our village had met with success at the examinations. Most of them, however, were lower graduates holding bachelor or licentiate degrees. In the sixteenth century, one family produced a succession of Tien Si graduates, or doctors. That family was our own. Indeed, one cannot fail to link the twin peaks of the Mountain with the two Nguyen brothers, ancestors of ours. The brothers managed the rare feat of graduating at the same doctorate session, in 1511. This, I believe, is how the story of the prophecy may be told. Before the sixteenth century, a geomancer gave an opinion favorable to the land of Kim Bai. He must have enjoyed a good reputation for the opinion he expressed left a mark on the minds of the villagers. In due course, the Nguyen brothers both obtained the doctorate, the highest degree in the land, and had eminently successful public careers. Their twin success vindicated the prophecy, which then became a part of Kim Bai’s folklore. The brothers’ lives and careers constituted the high watermark in the history of our village and we shall come to another saying about them later.