Vietnam Folk Literature

Since coming into existence, Vietnamese literature has been rich in folklore and proverbs; tales that have been handed down from generation to generation, gradually becoming valuable treasures.

The Muong ethnic group in northern Trung Bo has an epic poem called “de dat, de nuoc” (giving birth to the earth and water), whie the Thai ethnic group in the north-west has “xong chu xon xao” (seeing off and instructing the loving heart). This list could go on for quite some time.

Folk literature grows during the processes of activity, labour, construction and struggle of the people. It is the soul and vital power of the nation. At the present time, all kinds of artistic and folk literature from each ethnic group are being collected and maintained.

Vietnam Modern Literature

Vietnamese literary tradition has evolved through the multiple events that have marked the country’s history. New literary movements can usually be observed every ten years but in the last century, Vietnamese literature underwent several literary transitions.

A revolutionary campaign occurred at the beginning of Romanized Vietnamese literature, in an attempt to standardize its styles such as prose, poetry, and criticism. All the writings produced had one thing in common: the authors were using a powerful and flexible style to update events and trends and therefore predict social events.

For more than a half century the Vietnamese people fought two wars of resistance, and at the present time, are in a period of construction, industrialization and modernization. In this situation, in Vietnamese literature, movement and vital force currently exist.

Vietnam Language and Scripts

Among the 54 Vietnamese ethnic groups some have had their own scripts for a long time and some have not preserved their ancient scripts. As a matter of fact, some ethnic groups consisting of some hundreds of individuals living in remote areas have their own languages.

Throughout the years, these languages have been enriched in terms of vocabulary, precision, and expression. However, the Viet language is most commonly used.

In terms of script, for a long time under northern domination, han (Chinese) was widely used in trade, education and state documents. This lasted until the beginning of 20th century. During the eighth century, parallel to the use of han, the Vietnamese created the nom script, which used the pictography of han to note the sounds of the Viet language. The appearance of the nom script marked a point of maturity in the national conscious of the Viet, and led to the development of literature in Vietnam.

In the 16th century, quoc ngu (a Romanized script produced by French missionaries) appeared and was substituted for both the han and nom scripts.

Silent Hanoi

The above lines were penned by the Hanoi poet Xuan Dieu, written for one person, whose name is included in the poem. For the first time, this poem has become public. So who is Nguyen Dieu?

The elegantly-named man named Nguyet Dieu is now 84 years old. Climbing the stairs at number 62 Luong Van Can Street - a small street in central Hanoi lined with shops selling eyeglasses - I find myself in a space that evokes Hanoi of decades past. Mr. Dieu's home is long and narrow. Stepping onto the balcony, Hoan Kien Lake appears. I'm reminded of the line: "A gap of sky blooms above the lake".

The walls are filled with photo portraits. They were all taken by Mr. Dieu. There's the poet Xuan Dieu deep in thought and the musician Van Cao with a beard. Master Nam Son, one of the founders of the Indochina Fine Arts College, looks mischievous with his glasses on his head. This photo has appeared many times in different newspapers. The scholar Dao Duy Anh looks hale and hearty, while photographer Do Huan looks like a statesman. Painter Thang Tran Phenh appears serious with a long beard. Musician Ta Tan smiles merrily. The art critic Le Thanh Duc looks anxious. Photographer Vo An Ninh is lying beneath a pumpkin vine, as if waiting for sunlight. Artist Luu Cong Nhan stands in his house. Although poor, his smile is radiant. Most of those pictured, I realize, have passed away long ago.

The man who took these photos has a long face and a large forehead. When I entered his house he was lying on his bed in a dark corner. He seemed glad to see me and asked me to take a seat near his bed. The room held a precious camera cabinet and a high-tech stereo system. I guessed that the stereo might have been a gift from his kids, to help him to relax. A year ago Mr. Dieu contracted palsy. Sometimes, he can barely move around his house with the aid of a wooden frame.

After some conversation, Mr. Dieu revealed his photo shop's brand name: Nang Vang (Golden Sunlight). “In the ‘70s, every professional photographer and photojournalist knew this brand name”, recalls Hanoi photographer Nguyen Dinh Toan. "Mr. Nguyet Dieu was regarded the master in reshooting developed photos. Film was quite rare at that time. And Mr. Nguyet Dieu cut the French large- sized film (for shooting from airplanes) to get 3Smm film to use in a normal camera. That was a huge discovery. Photojournalists also knew Mr. Nguyet Dieu tor his talent in repairing damaged him. He could fix every mistake, even if the film got opaque or over-bright”.

For five years Mr. Dieu had worked for the Newspapers of Literature and Arts. He was one of the first photojournalists working in Hanoi following the city's liberation. He took portraits of artists like Xuan Dieu, Van Cao, Nam Son, Do Huan, Dao Duy Anh, Thang Tran Phenh and Thai Ba Van around this time. The poet Xuan Dieu composed her verse about him as a gift, offering her appreciation to a fellow talented artist.

People assume that the shop's brand name Nang Vang (Golden Sunlight) relates to the perfect lighting of his photos. "It wasn't that simple," said Mr. Dieu. "I played with the words, because the letters in Nang Vang can be rearranged into Vang Nang, which means ‘with - out you’. When I asked who 'You' was, he just smiled.

If somebody calls me a photographer, I'll refuse that title. I regard myself as a photo-craftsman," said Mr. Dieu. "I've pursued this career for half a century, first to earn my living and bring up my four children. It was quite hard." Mr. Dieu was born in Hung Yen and moved to Hanoi in 1950. In 1957, already working as a photographer, he bought his house on Luong Van Can Street. He moved his photo shop there and worked for many more decades.

When I mentioned portrait photography, Mr. Dieu's eyes lit up. He explained his philosophy of the "tooth-tongue style'; a lesson taught by Confucius. “When Confucius was about to die, he asked his followers if he still had some teeth left but he didn't. He then asked if he still had his tongue, and of course he did;' said Mr. Dieu. "Confucius commented that the flexible object had evidently outlasted the firm ones. That philosophy can be regarded as a social doctrine that has endured for more than 2,000 years and works up to now. The object for a portrait photographer is to capture the character's face, which contains both still and living, and flexible and firm features. The photographer must recognize and emphasize those features to reveal the person's character”.

To feed his family, Mr. Dieu worked from home at night. For years he barely slept. Being up all night leads to worry, reports Mr. Dieu. Sometimes he lays awake thinking about photography today, and worrying about the effect of digital equipment. “It's key that a photo reveal substance,” he said. “Nowadays, it's no big deal to photo-shop pictures. We end up with fake boobs, fake butts, fake faces... It's the era of fake stuff”.

Listening to him, I laughed but it was a troubled laughter. Hanoi is now totally different from the city in which Mr. Dieu spent most of his life. And admirable citizens like Mr. Dieu are rare too. They are dignified, humble, quiet and profound.

Sometimes Mr. Dieu ducked his head and smiled mischievously. I wanted to take a photo of him while he was raising his head a little. But he would not agree, said it would be a waste. Then he joked: “I'm now just 84, not so handsome now”. Nguyet Dieu is a silent Hanoian. He has never cultivated fame. He represents old-style Hanoi taste and style. I was told that the poet Vu Dinh Lien (the author of the famous poem Ong do - The Scholar) had once composed some verses to Nguyet Dieu. Meeting Mr. Dieu, I was suddenly reminded of two verses by Vu Dinh Lien: Them the ancient people / Where has their spirit gone?

We can say that people like Nguyet Dieu now belong to the past. They are old and rarely met. But while life is rough and harsh, it is good to remember that some loving ties remain to connect us to the past.

Vietnamese Proverbs AZ

Vietnamese proverbs are concise statements expressing deep thoughts, practical knowledge, and experience-based judgments, covering all aspects of Vietnamese life, and bearing some flavour of a particular culture.

- A -
Ác giả ác báo	As the call, so the echo
Ai làm nấy chịu	Who breaks, pays
Ăn chắc mặc bền	Comfort is better than pride
Ăn có nhai, nói có nghĩ	Think today and speak tomorrow
Ăn mày đòi xôi gấc	Beggars can't be choosers
Ăn miếng trả miếng	Tit for tat
Ân đền oán trả	An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth
- B -
Bạn bè hiểu nhau khi hoạn nạn	A friend in need is a friend indeed
Banh it di, banh qui lai	One good turn deserves another
Bắt cá hai tay	Between two stools, you fall to the ground
Bần cùng sinh đạo tặc	Necessity knows no laws
Bat di nhan phe ngon	A fool may sometimes give a wise man counsel
Bụng đói tai điếc	Hungry bellies have no ears
Bụt chùa nhà không thiêng	No man is a hero to his valet
- C -
Cái nết đánh chết cái đẹp	Beauty is but skin-deep
Cây ngay không sợ chết đứng	A clean hand wants no washing
Cha chung không ai khóc	Everybody's business is nobody's business
Cha mẹ sinh con, trời sinh tính	Many a good father has but a bad son
Chin nguoi, muoi y	So many men, so many minds
Cho cay gan nha, ga cay gan chuong	Every dog is a lion at home
Chở củi về rừng	To carry coals to Newcastle
Chơi chó, chó niếm mặt	Familiarity breeds contempt
Chưa đỗ ông nghè đã đe hàng tổng	Catch the bear before you sell his skin
Chua khoi vong da cong duoi	Do not halloo till you are out of the wood
Chứng nào tật nấy	The leopard cannot change its spots
Có chí làm quan có gan làm giàu	Fortune favours the brave
Có công mài sắt có ngày nên kim	A mouse in time may bite in two a cable
Cái khó nó cái khôn	Adversity brings wisdom
Co kho moi co mieng an	No sweet without sweat
Có qua có lại mới toại lòng nhau	Scratch my back; I'll scratch yours
Có thực mới vực được đạo	Fine words butter no parsnips
Có tiền mua tiên cũng được	Money makes the mare go
Con sâu làm rầu nồi canh	One scabby sheep is enough to spoil the whole flock
Cười người hôm trước hôm sau người cười	He laughs best who laughs last
- D -
Dĩ độc trĩ độc	Like cures like
Dĩ hòa vi quý	A bad compromise is better than a good lawsuit
Dục tốc bất đạt	Haste makes waste
Đầu xuôi đuôi lọt	A good beginning is half the battle
Đẹp đẽ phô ra, xấu xa đậy lại	It's best to wash one's soiled linen at home
Đi với bụt mặc áo cà sa, đi với ma mặc áo giấy	Who keeps company with the wolf will learn to howl
Đói đầu gối phải bò	Hunger brings the wolf to the fold
Đói ăn muới cũng ngon	Hunger finds no fault with cookery
Dong tay vo nen keu	Many hands make light work
Đồng thanh tương ứng, đồng khí tương cầu	Likes draws to like
Đục nước béo cò	To fish in troubled waters
Được đằng chân, lân đằng đầu	Give him an inch and he will take a yard
Đường đi ở miệng	He that has a tongue in his head may find his way anywhere
Đừng bới rác lên mà ngửi	Don't trouble trouble until trouble troubles you
Đừng đùa với lửa	Fire is a good servant but a bad master
- T -
Tiền nào của ấy	You get what you pay for

Modern Vietnamese Character

Modern Vietnamese literature finds its roots during the French colonial period, when popularization of the romanised script quốc ngữ finally allowed it to break free from the restrictions of classical Chinese literature.

Originally devised by French Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes (1591-1660) as a means of propagating Roman Catholicism, quốc ngữ became a cornerstone of the French colonial educational system in the late 19th century and was initially rejected by Confucian scholars such as Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, who referred to quốc ngữ as 'the script of heretics'. However, following the Duy Tân ('Renovation') movement of 1907Vietnamese intellectuals began to realise the potential value of quốc ngữ as a medium for disseminating patriotic and anti-colonial ideas.

As literacy gradually spread throughout the country, the development of modern printing methods facilitated the production of books, newspapers and magazines in quốc ngữ and both journalism and literature written in the romanised script began to flourish.

Modern Literature 1945-1975

Prior to 1945 comparatively few southern writers had achieved recognition or success, but against a background of relative stability, prosperity and artistic freedom in the late 1950s and early 1960s a small but active literary scene began to emerge in South Việt Nam, initially under the influence of a circle of writers, linguists and educators who had relocated from the north.

Numerous important literary magazines were established in the south after 1954, including Văn hóa Ngày nay (Literature Today), Tin văn (Literary News), Trình bày (Expound), Sáng tạo (Create) and Quan điểm (Opinion), which introduced new currents of thought from the west such as existentialism and humanism. Together with the newly-established Sài Gòn branch of PEN International and the Front for the Protection of Cultural Freedom, these publications did much to facilitate the development of new writing.Southern literary development was further encouraged by the establishment of various state literary prizes.

Emigré prose writers from the north regrouping in the south after 1954 included not only established figures such as Nhất Linh, Tam Lang (Vũ Đình Chí, 1901-1986), Trọng Lang (Trần Tán Cửu, 1906-1986), Lãng Nhân (Phùng Tất Đắc, b 1907), Đái Đức Tuấn (Tchya, 1908-1969), Y Uyên (Nguyễn Văn Uy, 1911-1969) and Vũ Bằng (1913-1984) but also younger novelists and short storywriters such as Nguyễn Thị Vinh (b 1924), Dương Nghiễm Mậu (Phí Ích Nghiễm, b 1936), Duyên Anh (Vũ Mộng Long, b 1936), Nhật Tiến (Bùi Nhật Tiến, b 1936), Thảo Trường (Trần Duy Hinh, b 1939), Lê Tất Điều (b 1942) and Trùng Dương (Nguyễn Thị Thái, b 1944).

It was largely under their influence that southern prose writing came of age during the period 1954-1975 with the works of Bình Nguyên Lộc (Tô Văn Tuấn, b 1914), Võ Phiến (b 1925), Sơn Nam (Phạm Minh Tày, b 1926), Ngọc Linh (Dương Đại Tâm, b 1935) and Nguyễn Thị Thụy Vũ (Nguyễn Băng Lĩnh, b 1939) from the south and Linh Bảo (Võ Thị Diệu Viên, b 1926), Minh Đức Hoài Trinh (Võ Thị Hoài Trinh, b 1930), Nguyễn Xuân Hoàng (b 1937), Túy Hồng (Nguyễn Thị Túy Hồng, b 1938), Nhã Ca (Trần Thị Thu Vân, b 1939), Nguyễn Thị Hoàng (b 1939) and Nguyễn Mộng Giác (b 1940) from the central provinces.

Leading poets of the 1950s and 1960s included northern emigrés Tương Phố (Đỗ Thị Đàm, 1900-199?), Bàng Bá Lân (1912-1988), Vũ Hoàng Chương (1916-1976), Đinh Hùng (1920-1967), Nguyên Sa (Trần Bích Lan, b 1932) and Cung Trầm Tưởng (Cung Thúc Cần, b 1936); Quách Tấn (b 1910), Nguyễn Vỹ (Cô Diệu Huyền, 1910-197?), Bùi Giáng (b 1926), Quách Thoại (Đoàn Thoại, 1929-1957), Thanh Tâm Tuyền (Dzư Văn Tâm, b 1936) and Nguyễn Đức Sơn (Sao Trên Rừng, b 1937) from central Việt Nam; and Đông Hồ (Lâm Tấn Phác, 1906-1969), Kiên Giang (b 1929) and Tô Thùy Yên (Đình Thành Tiên, b 1938) from the south.

However, the southern literary flowering proved short-lived; whilst the overthrow of the Diệm government in 1963 brought greater artistic freedom, growing political instability, the escalation of war withthe north and the steady slide into official corruption and decadence which attended the influx of large numbers of American troops in the period after 1963 engendered what one scholar has called a 'culture of entertainment'. In a radical departure from the past, a people brought up to associateliterature with education and moral improvement turned increasingly for escapism to cheap imported martial arts novels and sentimental romances. In order to survive in this new climate many members of the literary community began writing daily feuilletons (serialised stories) for the newspapers, whilst others turned out novels featuring unusually racy subject matter. Nonetheless the last years of the Sài Gòn regime did see some literary works of note, notably the novels of Nhật Tiến, Lê Tất Diều and Nhã Ca with their vivid descriptions of the horrors of war.

In the north the immediate aftermath of the August Revolution saw the establishment of the Nhân văn Giai phẩm writers movement, the name of which was drawn from its two journals Nhân văn (Humanism) and Giai phẩm (Works of Beauty). Established by a group of northern intellectuals which included writers Trần Dần, Hoàng Cầm (b 1922), Phan Khôi (1887-1959), Nguyễn Hữu Đang, Trương Tửu, Trần Đức Thảo and Thụy An, this movement aimed to secure a greater measure of intellectual independence for the Vietnamese literary community. However the trial which followed firmlyestablished the principle that Vietnamese literature existed to advance socialism and must be guided by the Communist Party vanguard. With the establishment of the Việt Nam Writers’ Association in 1957 northern literature became firmly subordinated to the task of building the socialist future.

During the 1960s and early 1970s the northern literary œvre continued to identify closely with the national and ideological cause. Amongst the best-known patriotic poems of this period were Chặng đường hành quân ('On the Campaign Trail', 1960) by Xuân Miễn, Cuộc chia ly màu đỏ ('The Red Farewell', 1964) by Nguyễn Mỹ (1935-1971), Ra trận ('To the Front', 1972) by Tố Hữu and Những bài thơ đánh giặc ('Poems Against the Enemy', 1972) by Chế Lan Viên. Important revolutionary poems were also written during this period by Minh Huệ (Nguyễn Đức Thái, 1927-2003), winner of numerous awards for his works on the Xô Viết Nghệ Tĩnh uprising of 1930-1931 and the life of Hồ Chí Minh; Giang Nam (Nguyễn Sung, b 1929) and Thu Bồn (Hà Đức Trọng, 1935-2003), both recipients of theSouthern Revolutionary National Fatherland Front's Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Award for Literature ; and a group of younger poets which included Hoàng Minh Châu (b 1930), Phạm Ngọc Cảnh (Vũ Ngàn Chi, b 1934), Nguyễn Xuân Thâm (b 1936), Võ Văn Trực (b 1936), Văn nghệ (Literary Arts) Newspaper Awards winners Dương Hương Ly (Bùi Minh Quốc, b 1940), Phạm Tiến Duật (b 1941), Bằng Việt (b 1941), Hữu Thỉnh (b 1942), Nguyễn Khoa Điềm (b 1943), Anh Ngọc (Ly Sơn, b 1943), Nguyễn Duy (b 1948), Nguyễn Đức Mậu (Hương Hài Hưng, b 1948) and Hoàng Nhuận Cầm (b 1952), playwright Lưu Quang Vũ (1948-1988) and war martyrs Nguyễn Trọng Định (1939-1968), Trần Quang Long (1941-1968) and Lê Anh Xuân (1940-1968).

Throughout the American War leading prose writers of the 1940s and 1950s such as Nguyễn Công Hoan, Nguyên Hồng, Bùi Hiển, Tô Hoài, Nguyễn Văn Bổng, Chu Văn, Thanh Châu and Nguyễn Đình Thi continued to devote their work to the revolutionary cause. Other important novelists and short storywriters emerging during this period included Thép Mới (Ánh Hồng, 1925-1991), Võ Huy Tâm (1926-1996), Nguyễn Trọng Oánh (1929-1993), Ngô Ngọc Bội (b 1929), Nguyễn Minh Châu (1930-1989), Nguyễn Khải (b 1930), Vũ Thị Thường (b 1930), Phan Tứ (Lê Khâm, 1930-1995), Vũ Bão (b 1931), Ma Văn Kháng (b 1936), Đỗ Chu (b 1944) and war martyrs Lê Vĩnh Hòa (1932-1967), Nguyễn Thi (Nguyễn Ngọc Tấn, 1928-1968) and Chu Cẩm Phong (1941-1971). Of particular importance was a small group ofsouthern writers who had regrouped in the north after 1954 and now returned south into enemy territory to gather material for their compositions; these included novelists Nguyễn Quang Sáng (b 1932), Anh Đức (Bùi Đức Aùi, b 1935) and Nguyên Ngọc (1932).

Classical Han Chinese

During the 1,000 years of Chinese rule over what is now northern Việt Nam, chữ Hán (classical Han Chinese, also known as chữ nho) became firmly established as the language of the Vietnamese royal court and would remain so until as late as 1918 when the ancient system of mandarin examinations was finally abolished.

The oldest extant literature written in chữ Hán comprises a corpus of 11th century poems written by Buddhist monks. By the 13th and 14th centuries poems in chữ Hán were written for the court by Confucian scholars such as Lê Quát (b?), Mạc Đỉnh Chi (d 1346), Trương Hán Siêu (d 1354), Chu Văn An (d 1370) and Nguyễn Trung Ngạn (1289-1370), along with important historical works such as Lê Văn Hưu's Đại Việt Sử Ký ('Brief History of Đại Việt') and a range of geographical and encyclopaedic volumes.

Modern Literature before 1945

The first real flowering of modern Vietnamese literature took place in the north under the influence of the romantic styles, themes and techniques of French literature.

Amongst the earliest attempts at Vietnamese creative writing in quốc ngữ was a collection of folk tales entitled Chuyện đời xưa published in 1876 by Trương Vĩnh Ký (1837-1898), editor of Việt Nam's first French-sponsored quốc ngữ newspaper, the Sài Gòn-based Gia Định Báo. This work was followed in 1887 by the publication, also in Sài Gòn, of a rather rudimentary short story by Nguyễn Trọng Quản entitled Truyện thầy Lazaro phiền ('The Story of Sad Teacher Lazaro').

Between 1907 and 1909 pioneering Hà Nội journalist Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh (1882-1936) translated and published numerous foreign short stories and drama scripts in his newspaper Đăng cổ tùng báo, but perhaps the most important catalyst in the propagation of western cultural ideas was the northern cultural magazine Đông Dương tạp chí (Indochina Review), launched by Vĩnh in 1913, which not only showcased western literature in translation but also provided an important platform for the work of aspiring quốc ngữ writers, thereby laying the essential groundwork for the acceptance of quốc ngữ as a bone fide literary medium.

In the years which followed, the novels of leading French writers such as Balzac, Hugo, Flaubert, Rolland, Gide, Pascal, Malot, Molière and Corneille became increasingly available in translation, contributing to a growing popular interest in prose literature. In 1917 a rival Sài Gòn-based cultural magazine known as Nam phong tạp chí ('South Wind Journal') was launched by Phạm Quỳnh (1890-1945), though much ofthe work featured in this publication remained heavily influenced by Chinese literature. Perhaps more significant in terms of the development of newVietnamese writing was the role of Phụ nữ tân văn (Women's News), Việt Nam's first influential women's periodical, which was established during the early 1920s and devoted much of its column space tocreative writing in quốc ngữ, serving as a significant forum for the development of modern literature in both content and form.

Việt Nam's first home-grown novel was Hoàng Tố Anh hàm oan ('The Unjust Suffering of Hoàng Tố Anh'), written by Trần Chanh Chiểu and published in Sài Gòn in 1910. Other works quickly followed, including Ai làm được? ('Who Can Do It?', 1919) and Ngọn cỏ gió đùa ('The Playing of the Wind', 1926) by Hồ Biểu Chánh, Tố tâm ('Pure Heart', 1925) by Hoàng Ngọc Phách (1896-1973), Dưa đỏ ('Watermelon') by Nguyễn Trọng Thuật and severalshort stories by Nguyễn Bá Học and Phạm Duy Tôn.

However, not until the 1930s did there develop a truly satisfactory language for modern prose writing, in particular the capacity to handle vocabulary and syntactic structures. Literary historians and critics alike have emphasised the great contribution made to this process by the Hà Nội-based Tự Lực Văn Đoàn (Self Reliance Literary Group), established in 1932 by Nhất Linh (Nguyễn Tường Tam, 1906-1963) and Khái Hưng (Trần Khánh Giư, 1896-1947), which published many important literary works in its popular weekly journals Phong hóa ('Customs and Mores', 1932-1935) and Ngày nay ('Today', 1935-1940).

The beginnings of modern Vietnamese poetry may be traced back to the early years of the twentieth century when poet Tản Đà (1888-1939) began to experiment with irregular verse lengths, signalling the first serious attempt to break away from the classical model. During the 1930s, under the direct influence of works by early 20th century French poets such as Mallarmé, Musset, Baudelaire, Valéry and Chateaubriand, Tản Đà's pioneering work was taken a step further by the New Poetry Movement (Phong trào Thơ mới), which was established in Hà Nội in 1932 by Thế Lữ (Nguyễn Thứ Lễ, 1907-1989) to forge a new literary direction free from the strict rules of Chinese poetry. Thế Lữ himself later devoted his life entirely to drama, but his work laid the groundwork for a whole new generation of poets who demanded freedom both in form and content. Thereafterthe work of leading lights in the New Poetry Movement such as Xuân Diệu (1917-1985), Lưu Trọng Lư (1912-1991), Huy Cận (b 1919), Phạm Huy Thông (1916-1988), Chế Lan Viên (1920-1988), Tế Hanh (Trần Tế Hanh, b 1921) and pioneering female poet Anh Thơ (Tuyết Anh, b 1921) gave free expression to their inner emotions and feelings, rejecting the symbolism and strict rules of Chinese-style classical verse.

By this time a powerful current of realism was also developing under the growing ideological influence of the Communist Party. By the late 1930s revolutionary literature was flourishing, as evidenced by the novels of Ngô Tất Tố (1894-1954) and Nguyễn Công Hoan (1903-1977) and theshort stories of Nam Cao (1917-1951) and Nguyễn Hồng (1918-1982), which vividly described the trials and tribulations of the peasantry at the hands of oppressive government officials. A new and militant style of poetry also emerged at this time, its chief exponent being Tố Hữu (1920-2002), whose famous work Việt Bắc was later awarded First Prize by the Việt Nam Literature and Arts Association.

Thereafter many writers joined the struggle for independence. In the field of poetry established names from the pre-war period such as Xuân Diệu, Huy Cận, Chế Lan Viên, Tế Hanh and Anh Thơ repudiated their earlier work and turned their pens in support of the revolution. They were joined by many others, most noteworthy being Đoàn Văn Cừ (b 1913), Hữu Loan (b 1916), Nguyễn Bính (1918-1966), Quang Dũng (1921-1988), Xuân Miễn (Hải Phong, 1922-1990), Trần Dần (1926-1997), Hồ Khải Đại (Hồ Nam, b 1926) and Tạ Hữu Yên (Le Hữu, b 1927). Meanwhile revolutionary prose literature continued to flourish withthe work of Nguyễn Huy Tưởng (b 1912-1960), Bùi Hiển (b 1919), Tô Hoài (b 1920), Nguyễn Văn Bổng (b 1921), Kim Lân (b 1921), Chu Văn (1922-1994), Thanh Châu (b 1922), Nguyễn Đình Thi (1924-2003), Nguyễn Siêu Hải (b 1926), Vũ Tú Nam (b 1929) and Phùng Quán (b 1932-1995), who wrote of the patriotism and self-sacrifice required to overthrow a brutal colonial regime.

Several leading writers lost their life at the front during the final struggle with the French, including poets Hoàng Lộc (1920-1949) and Thâm Tâm (1917-1950) and novelists Trần Đăng (1921-1949) and Nam Cao (1917-1951).

Nom Character

From an early period a special ideographic script known as chữ nôm was also devised for transcribing spoken Vietnamese. According to annals dating from the late 13th century, the poets Nguyễn Thuyên and Nguyễn Sĩ Cố were the first to write in chữ nôm. At the turn of the century King Hồ Quý Ly (1400-1407) himself translated the Confucian classic Kinh Thi into nôm. Thereafter an increasingly large number of other works were composed in the new script.

The era of the Lê kings (14th and early 15th centuries) was a significant period of development for chữ nôm literature. Of particular note were the works of Nguyễn Trãi, scholar and strategist to Lê Lợi (later King Lê Thái Tổ, 1428-1433) during the resistance war against the invading Ming Chinese. Trãi, whose Bình Ngô Đại cáo ('Proclamation of Victory over the Ngô') remains one of the finestworks of Vietnamese national literature , left an important collection of 254 poems written in chữ nôm known as Quốc Âm Thi Tập. Though chữ Hán was the official the language of theVietnamese royal court, two Lê monarchs - Lê Thái Tông (1434-1442) and Lê Thánh Tông (1460-1497) - are remembered for their poems written in nôm; some 300works of great historical and literary significance written by Lê Thánh Tông may be found in the anthology Hồng Đức Quốc Âm Thi Tập ('Collected Poems of the Hồng Đức Period'). However, nôm poetry did not really begin to break free from Chinese influence until the 16th century, a process signalled by the appearance of 100 remarkable works in nôm by Confucian scholar Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm (1491-1585), brought together as the Bạch Vân Thi Tập ('Compilation of Bạch Vân's Poems').

The slow demise of the Lê dynasty and the corresponding rise of the powerful Trịnh and Nguyễn families during the 16th and 17th centuries seriously undermined respect for the concept of absolute monarchy, leading to the collapse of the Confucian system. This in turn had important consequences for the development ofVietnamese chữ nôm literature , which now entered a new and exciting phase of development - fresh themes appeared, and the language itself became richer, more concise and more flexible. A particular feature of the period was the appearance of stories and fables which contained thinly-veiled criticisms of official corruption and the shortcomings of feudal society.

However, the golden age for chữ nôm was the 18th century, which witnessed a truly remarkable literary flowering. Particularly popular at this time were long narrative poems known as truyện, which borrowed elements of popular oral tradition, fusing them with classical language to create new and vibrantworks of literature. These works , with their complex plot, characterisation and structure, were the first to express in writing the personal feelings and desires of the protagonists. Amongst the greatest narrative poems of this period are Chinh phụ ngâm ('Lament of a Warrior's Wife') by Đặng Trần Côn, translated into nôm from the original chữ Hán by Đoàn Thị Điểm (1705-1748), and Cung oán ngâm khúc ('Lament of a Royal Concubine'), written in nôm by Nguyễn Gia Thiều (1741-1798). During the brief reign of King Quang Trung (Nguyễn Huệ, 1788-1792) chữ nôm was adopted as the national script for official texts and in education, to replace the classical Chinese which had been used for centuries.

The 18th century is known too for its satirical poems and stories, many of which vehemently attacked the ruling Confucian elite. Perhaps best known are the feminist poems of Hồ Xuân Hương (late 18th-early 19thcentury) and the anonymous popular stories Trạng Lợn ('Doctor Pig') and Trạng Quỳnh ('Doctor Quỳnh').

Also of significance during this period were historical works written by scholars such as L ê Quý Đôn (1726-1783), whose Đại Việt Sử Toàn Thư ('Complete History of Đại Việt') and Lê Triều Thông Sư ('History of the Lê Dynasty') marked a major advance in the development of historical studies.

Notwithstanding the revival of a strong monarchy after 1802 under the Nguyễn dynasty, Vietnamese literature continued for some time thereafter to convey the humanistic aspirations and sentiments which had featured so strongly in the literature of the previous century. The best-known work of the early 19th century and today perhaps the most famous work in the history of Vietnamese literature is the narrative poem Truyện Kiều ('The Story of Kiều'), written by poet, scholar, mandarin and diplomat Nguyễn Du (1765-1820). Highly regarded for its elegant language and style, this masterpiece relates the story of a beautiful and talented young woman condemned by the actions of a wicked mandarin to 15 years of tribulation and suffering.

During the second half of the 19th century some notable works of nôm literature were created by leading figures in the various patriotic movements set up to fight against French colonialism. These included proclamations, appeals to struggle, funeral orations, stories of combat and patriotic poems by the likes of Phan Đình Phùng, Nguyễn Quang Bích, Phan Văn Trị, Nguyễn Thông and Nguyễn Xuân Dư, together with lengthy but eloquent appeals to the monarch by Nguyễn Trường Tộ and Nguyễn Bộ Trạch. Perhaps the best-known writer of this period was blind poet Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, who composed several volumes of patrioticliterature before his death in 1888.

Vietnamese Language and Scripts

Among the 54 Vietnamese ethnic groups some have had their own scripts for a long time and some have not preserved their ancient scripts. As a matter of fact, some ethnic groups consisting of some hundreds of individuals living in remote areas have their own languages.

More than 80% of the population speaks Vietnamese or Kinh/Viet Nam, the natinal language. Many ethnic minority people speak Kinh and their own native language.

Three scripts have influenced Viet Nam’s history:

• Chinese Han ideograms were used until the beginning of the 20th century.
• The Nom script, created between the 11th and 14th centuries, was derived from Han script to transcrible the popupar national language.
• European missionaries in the 17th century first developed quoc ngu, the Romanised transcription of the Vietnamese language used to this day.

The Vietnamese Girl in Popular Poems

The Vietnamese girl never complaints about the condition and the role a Confucian society has assigned to her since the dawn of time. From her young age, being used to hearing popular poems incessantly sung by her mother or sister and continuing to grow up with the rhythm and the sound of the swinging hammock, she began to absorb unconsciously the recommendations found in these poems.

In spite of their simplicity, these poems began to give her not only an education worthy of Vietnamese tradition but also an incomparable resignation and the four virtues that anyVietnamese girl is deemed of possessing at her adolescence: Công, Dung, Ngôn, Hạnh (Homemaking Skills, Appearance, Speech Manners, Good Behavior). This will help her to be able to become in turn, sister, wife, mother, grand-mother during her existence. Therefore, it is not surprising to see that she has thus become one of the themes most talked about in Vietnamesepopular poems.

Despite her young age, her mother's labor and wisdom have been repeated to her time and again through nursery rhymes the most known of which remains the following:

Cái ngủ mầy ngủ cho lâu,
Mẹ mầy đi cấy đồng sâu chưa về.
Bắt được con cá rô trê
Tròng cổ lôi về cho cái ngủ ăn.

Little sleeper, you have to sleep as long as possible,
Your mother has not come back from the deep rice paddy replanting seedlings.
She caught a carp and a cat fish
That she will take home for you to eat.

Then at 7-8 years of age, she began to replace her mother and imitate her in singing again the same popular nursery rhymes to lull her younger brother or sister to sleep. She also provided much service to her family: knowing how to cook rice, keeping her younger siblings, feeding the pigs and the ducks, taking water to the family animals, weeding the garden, collecting eggs, participating in family chores.

She also saw the change in the nature of her work when she reached adolescence. The nursery rhymes were replaced by folk songs or popular poems she used to hear singing often in the rice field. It is here that she would know the boys of her age. It is here that we would hear the first revelations of love, the first teasing of theVietnamese girl through poems or folk songs. Among them, this one reveals and hides the blossoming heart of the Vietnamese girl who is shy, tender, and constrained by traditionally Confucian conditions.

Vào vườn hái quả cau xanh,
Bổ ra làm sáu mời anh xơi trầu
Trầu nầy têm những vôi tàu
Giữa đêm cắt cánh đôi đầu quế cay
Mời anh xơi miếng trầu nầy,
Dù mặn dù nhạt dù cay dù nồng
Dù chẳng nên vợ nên chồng,
Xơi dăm ba miếng cho lòng nhớ thương,

I enter the garden to pick a green betel-nut,
I cut it in six and invite you to taste this betel.
This one is spread with lime from China,
And flavored with the spice of the spice of cinnamon ends.
Please have this betel prepared by me,
Even if it is strong or light, hot or mild,
Or even if we do not become man and wife,
Just taste its flavor for you to remember.

That teasing is quick to find sympathy from the boys. To praise her beauty, these boys would not hesitate to offer not only one but ten loves at the same time, which ended up in the composition of this famous poem entitled "Mười Thương" (Ten Loves) that any young men in the old days would be deemed to know by heart:

Một thương tóc bỏ đuôi gà,
Hai thương ăn nói mặn mà có duyên,
Ba thương má lúm đồng tiền,
Bốn thương răng nhánh hạt huyền kém thua,
Năm thương dải yếm đeo bùa,
Sáu thương nón thượng quai tua dịu dàng,
Bảy thương ăn nói khôn ngoan,
Tám thương má phấn ngó càng thêm xinh,
Chín thương em ở một mình,
Muời thương con mắt đưa tình với ai!

First I love your plaited hair,
Second I love your suave and charming voice.
My next love is your dimpled cheeks,
Then your lacquered teeth more lustrous than jet is my fourth love.
Fifth, I love your bra and your necklace.
And your grand hat with velvet ribbon invites my sixth love.
My seventh love is your manner in speech,
Comes my eighth love of the makeup on your attractive cheeks.
Ninth, I love you because you are still single.
And finally tenth, because you reciprocate my loving glance.

The seductiveness of the girl only lasted for a short time because generally for the sake of socio-economic interests, she would be married very early. Many times in the past, there were financially pre-arranged marriages, which provoked criticisms and jokes through the followingpopular poem:

Mẹ em tham thúng xôi rền,
Tham con lợn béo, tham tiền Cảnh Hưng,
Em đã bảo mẹ rặng: đừng !
Mẹ hấm, mẹ hứ, mẹ bưng ngay vào,
Bây giờ chồng thấp vợ cao,
Như đôi đũa lệch so sao cho vừa.

Even when I had said: No
But my mother, fond of the sweet rice bucket,
Fond of the fat pig and fond of money.
With uhms and ahhs, she brought this guy in.
Now husband little, and wife tall,
We look like an unmatched pair of chopsticks after all.

Despite this remark, she accepted to become a member of the new family and be willingly submissive to all the Confucian constraints commonly seen in the Vietnamese society. She tried to meet the norms expected of her in the new family by following steadfastly therecommendations found in popular songs that she used to hear time and time again when she was still in cradle. In one of these songs, the following is found:

Con ơi! Mẹ bảo con nầy:
Học buôn học bán cho tày ngưòi ta,
Con đừng học thói chua ngoa,
Họ hàng ghét bỏ người ta chê cười.

My daughter! Listen to me,
Learn to wheel and deal as well as other people.
But try to avoid being sharp-tongued,
As this invites hate and sneer from friends and relatives.

Those are the last recommendations of her mother transmitted from one generation to the next through folk songs. The Vietnamese girl tends to keep them and apply them without failure until the end of her life. The Vietnamese woman accepts this resignation, this sacrifice, this injustice without reserve, which makes her an exemplary model worthy of admiration of her relatives, in particular her children. This is also one of the reasons that explains the profound and unshakable attachment of all Vietnamese to their mothers. The situation is illustrated by the following two verses found in one of thepopular poems:

Em bán đi trả nợ chồng con,
Còn ăn hết nhịn cho hả lòng chồng con!

I do business to pay the debts incurred by my husband and my children.
It doesn't matter if I have nothing to eat, as long as they are satisfied.

Or in another, the following four verses depict not only humor but also tenderness, outstanding patience, even intangible proof of the sacrifice and love the Vietnamese woman always carries for her husband and her children:

Chồng giận thì vợ làm lành,
Miệng cười hớn hở rằng anh giận gì.
Thưa anh, anh giận em chi,
Muốn lấy vợ lẽ em thì lấy cho.

My husband is upset; I would try to calm myself.
Smile on my lips, I would ask what the reason is.
Come on, don't be frustrated any more.
Should you want a concubine, I'll get one for you.

Vietnamese Proverb and Folk Songs

Nobody knows for sure the origin of Vietnamese proverbs and folk songs in terms of their inception and authors. Vietnamese proverbs and folk songs, however, are orally transmitted and incessantly edited throughout generations.

By this virtue, the proverbs and folk songs become so natural and clear that they are able to describe our customs and traditions simply and truthfully. For that reason, theseproverbs and folk songs are also dubbed as Vietnamese popular literature, which proliferates by thousands of phrasings on all topics of various aspects of human life in society.

PROVERBS:

Like in other countries, Vietnamese proverbs state basic principles of folk wisdom and conduct, which have become an essential and enduring part of daily speech. They are short, succinct sayings with an intended meaning, which is to instruct or advise about something worthy of our attention. Most ofVietnamese parents use proverbs to educate their children about basic moral tenets of conduct and behavior. These proverbs are usually formed with or without rhym (E.G. An cay nao, rao cay ay : one shall cultivate the tree from which one eats fruits . An qua nho ke trong cay : when eating the fruit, one should remember those who planted the tree). The common topics ofproverbs are as follows, addressing routine issues of our society’s customs and traditions such as interpersonal psychology, common experiences, moral precepts, and conduct and etiquette of politeness:

Customs and traditions: “One bite of honor earned in public is better than a banquet given in one’s own kitchen”

Real life psychology: “With love, everything becomes beautiful, with hatred, everything turns ugly”

Common experiences: “When lightning flashes relentlessly in the east, it is absolutely going to rain in the early morning (when rooster crows)”

Human maturity moral: “Good reputation is preferable to beautiful clothes”

Conduct and etiquette of politeness: “When sending a personal message, speak out; when asking people to deliver a wrapped gift to someone, leave it unsealed”.

FOLK SONGS:

These are short ballads, written in rhythm or iambic pentameter in stanzas. Folk songs are spread among common people from one generation to the next, and nobody knows their authentic authors. It is certain that folk songs are formed by multitude of composers who get inspired and let their strong feelings flow out in the form of poetry; then other people try to memorize the poems and pass them on to the public. Therefore, there is a countless number offolk songs, probably hundreds of thousand ones. There are so many generations of Vietnamese children whose mothers sing them to sleep with these types of folk songs and help them grow maturely by the profound influence of the folk songs. Also, there are so many generations of Vietnamese young adults who get married by borrowing folk songs in flirtation. Folk songs indeed manifest every fiber of the human touch deep in one’s heart and various situations of society as well. The following are some examples:

Mother’s admonition:

The fatherly immense toil is as big as ThaiSon mountain
The constant motherly devotion is similar to the stream of water flowing out from spring,
You ought to honor your parents with all your heart
In order to decently fulfill the solemn precept of filial piety

Geographical advices:

Going on road, be cautious of Ai Van mountain pass
Going by boat, be cautious of the path of billow at Hang Doi Bay

National history:

Missing you, I wanted to come to see you,
But I was afraid of The Ho’s groves, and the Tam Giang cross river
The Tam Giang cross river is dried up nowadays
And the grove is on watchful guard.

Romantic love:

You are leaving, I won’t let you go
I hold your dress flap to write a verse on it
The verse clearly exhibits the three words
Loyalty, piety, and love
The word loyalty to honor the father
The word piety to adore the mother, the word love for both of us.

Why do you, young lady, cut grass alone,
Let me join you as a couple,
Do you still continue cutting more grass?
Let me help you cutting it to become a married couple.

Due to the limit of this short writing, we can not afford to cite more examples. We are certain, however, that the proverbs and folk songs are indeed the common literature treasures of Vietnamese people: It is a common way of composing them and transmitting them from one generation to the next, and common as well in sharing the didactic values of these common treasures. Theproverbs and folk songs play a significant role in providing the very first teachings on the ethical way of human conduct or individual behavior, and even knowledge on how to deal with the life situation, large and small. Particularly folk songs bring pleasure as well as entertainment to daily life with their dignified verses of courtship and romantic love. Proverbs and folk songs are truly a priceless thesaurus of Vietnamese people. It is certain to say that none of the Vietnamese can remember all of the proverbs and folk songs, but it’s also true that none can say they do not remember some.

Vietnamese Language - a Long History

Some 3,000 years ago, communities of Mon-Khmer and Tay people merged in the northern Red River and Ma River Deltas. These two groups developed a shared language, known as Viet-Muong, which was composed of two main dialects. Lowlanders spoke what was known as the "City" dialect, while people in midland and mountain regions spoke the "Highlanders" dialect.

About 60 percent of modern Vietnamese words are of Chinese origin. Many basic words, like geographical terms, were adopted from monotonal Mon-Khmer languages, while tonality came from Tai. In Vietnamese, each syllable has one of six tones, which completely alters the meaning of the word, and one, two or three of 11 distinct vowel sounds. This is a complicatedlanguage, which, not surprisingly, has a complicated past.

THE CHINESE

The Chinese annexed Giao Chi (the Tonkin Delta) in 111 A.D. In a bid to assimilate the lowland Viets, they introduced a Chinese-style administrative system headed by Chinese governors, and opened schools to teach Chinese characters. During the 1,000 years of Chinese rule, while Han (classical Chinese) was the official written language, the spoken language continued to develop. The City dialect became the common Viet language, while the Highlanders dialect developed into the present Muong language. By the l0th century, when the Viets recovered their independence and established the nation of Dai Viet, the linguistic spilt between Viet and Muong was complete.

Through the following ten centuries of national independence, the Vietnamese imperial court and ruling classes continued to emulate Chinese cultural practices. Civil service exams and academic literature were written inChinese characters. The spoken language, however, was Vietnamese, and here arose a paradox: the script approved by the imperial court was not used to transcribe the national language. Instead, the Viets adapted Chinese characters into their own script, chữ nôm, a half-phonetic and half-ideographic writing system.

According to the annals, Han Thuyen became the first poet to write in chữ nôm at the end of the 13th century. Chinese characters were still used for Chinese-style Tang dynasty poetry and for literary prose, such as Hoang Le Nhat Thong Chi (A Tale of the Later Le Dynasty), Truyen Ky Man Luc (A Random Collection of Fantastic Stories and Linh Nam Trich Quai, (A Collection of the Supernatural Beings of Linh Nam).

In the 17th and 18th centuries, poets used chữ nôm to write some of Vietnam's most famous literary classics, including narrative poems like Nguyen Du's Kim Van Kieu (The Tale of Kieu), and Chinh Phu Ngam (Laments of a Warrior's Wife), a long lyrical poem translated from the original Chinese by Doan Thi Diem, a woman poet.

However, while many poems were written in chữ nôm, most other texts were written in Han characters. In fact, the mandarin class held national and popular culture in such contempt that, at one point, chữ nôm was officially banned. Since there was no official, uniform system for transcribing the Vietnamese language with chữ nôm, authors developed their own rules. This has led to many interpretations of literature written in chữ nôm.

LOAN WORDS

Due to frequent contacts between Vietnam and China, the Vietnamese language absorbed many Han words. Today, many of these "loan-words" have been Vietnamized to such an extent that few people are aware of their Chinese origins. Examples include Tiền (money), Hàng (goods/merchandise), chợ (market), and Mùa (season). A second group of literary terms, known as "Sino-Vietnamese" words, was assimilated into Vietnamese during the Tang era (5th to 7th century). These terms are incompletely Vietnamized. When speaking, one may not mix these two types of words.

For example, since a one-syllable "pure" Vietnamese word for mountain (núi) already exists, one should not use the Chinese counterpart (sơn-which also means mountain) to build a sentence like "Tôi lên sơn" (I climb the mountain). The word nói must be used instead. But, one may use the Chinese synonym sơn to replace nói in two-syllable words, such as in the sentence: "Có cô sơn nữ ở vùng sơn cước hát bài sơn ca trong một sơn trại". (There was a highland girl in a mountain area who was singing a mountain song at a mountain farm).

EUROPEAN INFLUENCE

Alexandre De Rhodes

The Roman-based script used in Vietnam today dates back to the 17th century. French, Portuguese and Spanish Catholic missionaries, aided byVietnamese preachers, developed a new writing system as a means of spreading the gospel to a wider audience. The man credited with developing the current Roman based Chữ quốc ngữ (script of the nationallanguage ) is Alexandre De Rhodes, a Frecnh Jesuit missionary who came to Vietnam in 1627. Within six months of his arrival, De Rhodes was reportedly preaching in fluent Vietnamsese.

When developing quốc ngữ, De Rhodes and his fellow missionaries faced two challenges. First, since Vietnamese has six tones, they had to add diacritical marks. Second, they had to transcribe each monosyllabic word separately, which differed from the ideographic and thus polysyllabic transcription of nôm script.

At first, Confucian scholars resisted the adoption of quốc ngữ. The spread of this easy to learn script undermined their power, which was based in traditional scholarship written in Han characters or chữ nôm. Later, budding nationalists also had reservations about quốc ngữ, calling it a 'worm-or-cricket-like script created by imperialists". But while few common people could read or write chữ nôm, the masses readily adopted quốc ngữ. Thus, those same intellectuals who had first denounced quốc ngữ, later saw it a convenient weapon in the fight against colonialism.

The leaders of a movement called Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục (the Free School of Dong Kinh), which arose in the first decade of the 20th century, launched a campaign to teach the massed about European civilization and quốc ngữ. Nguyen Quyen, one of the group's members described their goals as follows:

A popularizing class

To open a new era, we turn to the new learning

To welcome this new movement and build a new life for the people with new books, new media, new writing...

In the first half of the 20th century, quoc ngu greatly facilitated contact between Vietnamese and Western cultures. Following Vietnam's independence from the French, Vietnamse Government officially recognized quoc ngu as the nation's officialwriting system. Uncle Ho also advocated movement to Vietnamize words, and founded the Bình Dân Học Vụ (Department for Popularizing Culture) to launch a campaign to eliminate illiteracy.

Like every living language, Vietnamese will continue to evolve, absorbing and Vietnamizing words from other cultures.

An evening class of Vietnamese farmers