In the early twentieth century, Vietnamese historical writing changed dramatically. After producing historical scholarship for centuries that highlighted the achievements and failures of monarchs, in the early twentieth centuries some Vietnamese scholars began to produce historical scholarship that focused on “the nation” (dân tộc).
This was a way of writing history that had originated in the West. As Vietnamese scholars became familiar with this way of viewing the past, they also learned about other popular concepts in the West at that time, such as the theories of evolution and Social Darwinism.
We saw evidence of this in Dương Bá Trác’s “An Examination of Việt History” (Việt sử khảo) that we discussed in the previous post. In that work, Dương Bá Trác argued that Việt Nam had not evolved much in the past because it had lacked competition from neighboring kingdoms.
Four years after Dương Bá Trác published that article in the journal Nam Phong, Lê Dư, writing under the pseudonym of Sở Cuồng, published in that same journal an article that was also influenced by these same new theories.
Entitled “Việt Nam’s Glorious History” (“Việt Nam quang vinh chi lịch sử” 越南光榮之歷史), Lê Dư’s article encourages people to follow the guidance of the French to modernize the nation. While perhaps Lê Dư intended for people to read between the lines and to envision a future without the guidance of the French some day. Whatever the case may have been, he tried to inspire his fellow Vietnamese by showing them the vitality and achievements of their ancestors.
What exactly were their achievements? According to Lê Dư there were two main achievements in the past. The first was that Việt Nam was never annexed by its powerful northern neighbor. And the second was that Việt Nam had instead annexed other kingdoms itself.
Lê Dư begins his essay by saying that the Middle Kingdom [and since he uses Trung Quốc 中國 rather than Chi Na 支那, as Dương Bá Trạc did, my translation here is different] had annexed numerous kingdoms in Asia in the past. Kingdoms like Qi, Chu, Yan, and Zhao were all destroyed.
“How ferocious and powerful the Middle Kingdom is!” Lê Dư says. And yet somehow Việt Nam was historically able to exist beside this ferocious and powerful land without being (permanently) annexed.
As remarkable as this was, what made Việt Nam’s history even more impressive to Lê Dư was that it had not only avoided being annexed by its “ferocious and powerful” northern neighbor, but that it had annexed other kingdoms itself.
Lê Dư notes that when Việt Nam was established at the time of the Hùng kings, its territory was no bigger than that of a province in the Middle Kingdom. Nonetheless, Việt Nam was able to expand from its tiny land and to encompass the area of several kingdoms. “Is that not the most glorious and remarkable of achievements?” Lê Dư rhetorically asks.
Lê Dư then goes on to discuss some of the kingdoms that Việt Nam came to annex. He starts with Champa [Chiêm Thành 占城] and notes that the area of this kingdom was not small, as it extended from the sea in the east to Ai Lao in the west, and from Hoàn Châu in the north to Water Zhenla [Thủy Chân Lạp 水真臘] in the south.
He then mentions a few key moments in the gradual conquest and annexation of Champa over a roughly 500-year period from 1044 to 1691. Lê Dư then concludes this passage by declaring that “The final day of the extermination of the kingdom of Champa is the day of commemoration for the completion of the martial achievements of Our Việt.”
[占國滅亡之最後日，即為我越武功告成之紀念日也。]
Lê Dư then goes on to recount how the area of Water Zhenla, which he says is the same as the eastern part of present-day Cambodia [Cao Man 高蠻], was similarly annexed to become the southern third of Việt Nam, or Nam Kỳ.
He then concludes by reiterating the point that “Our Việt Nam not only did not get annexed by the Northern Kingdom, but was able to annex several kingdoms to expand its territory to this great extent.”
And finally, he calls on his fellow Vietnamese to honor this heritage by moving towards an even brighter future that the guidance of the French in modernizing people’s knowledge affords.
This article is not unique. To the contrary, there were many writings by Vietnamese intellectuals in the early twentieth century that glorified the historical expansion of Vietnamese control and the conquest of the Cham and Khmer.
This perspective is of course very different from the one that we tend to hear today – the history of “Vietnamese resistance to foreign aggression” – but in the end these two perspectives are in many ways the same.
Both the glorification of conquest of others and the glorification of resistance against others are ultimately political statements, rather than historical ones. The complexity of the past can never be reduced to single perspectives or categorizations. However, that is precisely what Lê Dư attempted to do in this article, and what countless writers who have promoted the resistance to foreign aggression narrative have done in the past half century.
The drawn map above comes from Phạm Văn Sơn’s 1949 work, The History of the Struggle of Vietnam [Việt Nam tranh đấu sử].
The two other images above come from gallica.bnf.fr/Bibliothèque nationale de France.
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84590393.r=annam.langEN
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b530132384/f1.item
The citation for the essay discussed in this post is Sở Cuồng [Lê Dư], “Việt Nam quang vinh chi lịch sử” 越南光榮之歷史 [Việt Nam’s Glorious History], Nam Phong 58 (4/1922): 20-21.
Hello, sorry that my question below is not relevant to your most recent post here, but I hope it’s still remotely related to the history of conquest and being conquered.
I wonder if you have found any historical evidence in your research and reading as to since when Vietnamese started to use “nguoi Tau” and “nguoi Mien” to refer to Chinese and Cambodian people respectively. These terms have been controversial, as they can carry different connotations reflecting different attitudes. I just wonder the meanings associated with them might have changed from being ‘neutral’ to being ‘value-laden’ charged with attitudinal judgements. Hope you can help here. Many thanks.
“Nguoi Mien” is definitely 20th century. This essay here is from 1922, and it is still saying “Cao Man.” “Man” (meaning “savage”) was changed to Mien. My guess would be that this was something that was influenced by the French after Vietnam and Cambodia all became part of Indochine.
As for “nguoi Tau,” I’m not sure. My sense is that it is also recent, like 20th century or maybe 19th century. The only place you would find it before the 20th century would be in Nom sources, and I haven’t read enough to know if it appears before the 20th century. I do seem to recall seeing it somewhere recently in something in Nom from the early 20th century.
Many thanks for your reply. It is indeed very helpful. I have heard people outside of Vietnam (non-scholar and non-academic) saying that these two terms “nguoi Tau” and “nguoi Mien” have been used in Vietnam’s ‘official’ ancient historical sources in ‘neutral’ sense and that they did not mean to have any humiliating meanings, as they tend to be perceived by many “Mien” and “Tau” people. I have always doubted this explanation of ‘ancient historical sources’.
I’m not sure if others share this with me but I had not heard the term “nguoi Mien” at all until I travelled to another country where I visited Asian grocery shops owned by Vietnamese-Chinese-Cambodians. I heard people there refer to “Cambodians” as “nguoi Mien”, and so I wonder if this term is used among ‘Vietnamese overseas community’ rather than among Vietnamese inside Vietnam. Perhaps this must have had much to do with a certain historical period of Indochine.
I think the term “nguoi Mien” started to be used more widely among Vietnamese and Chinese-Vietnamese overseas after the War in 1975. I have asked many Vietnamese who lived in the South before 1975 and many others currently living there about this term, and they all said “nguoi Mien” refer to people from Cambodia, who can be Khmer or Chinese or others, and thus “nguoi Mien” doesn’t equal “Khmer” race or ethnicity, but rather a group of people living in the place called “Cambodia” or “Cam-pu-chia”.
However, some recent explanations in non-academic settings make it clear that ‘nguoi Mien’ mean “nguoi Khmer”. And so I would appreciate some more thoughts from you regarding this matter, when you have time. Thanks :).
Oh I see what you are talking about. The change I was referring to was from Cao Man to Cao Mien. In the 19th century, Vietnamese sources refer to Cambodia as Cao Man, and “man” here means “savage.” In the 20th century they changed at some point to Cao Mien, which took out “savage” and made the name less derogatory.
As for the things you are talking about, I’m not sure. One more element to add is that in the late 60s/early 70s there were terrible killings of Khmer by Viet and Viet by Khmer during the war as the war spread into Cambodia. That had a big impact on relations, and that might be when word usage changed.
So does “nguoi Mien” have a negative meaning? What would be neutral? Nguoi Khmer? It’s interesting if it does have a negative meaning, because “mien” was used I think initially to make Cao Man not sound negative.
That’s why I think the conflict in the late 60s/early 70s could have changed how the word was used.
The “negative” Khmer word for Vietnamese – Yuon, definitely appears to have taken on much more negative connotations at that time.
Before 1975, in SVN, nguoi Mien referred only to people in Cambodia while nguoi Khmer Krom identified ethnic Cambodians born/living in SVN. But nowadays in Saigon nguoi Mien is used to identify ethnic Cambodians born/raised in VN (my Daughter-in-law had three or four different nguoi mien working as maids at various times).
“Yuon” is also the Thai word for Vietnamese savage .
I always thought “nguoi Tau” was a South Vietnamese term (but not used nowadays) — as the economic opportunities were in SVN and not in the north or central VN. It took a bit to understand nguoi Hoa the first time I returned to Saigon — it sounded so strange.
_ Lê Dư seems to buy into the narrative of China – VN recurrent enmity , of China having nothing to do but centuries -long watching VN as a hawk waiting to pounce .Lê Dư was at first a resistance fighter then he turned collaborationist and promoted French – VN coexistence https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ph%C3%A1p-Vi%E1%BB%87t_%C4%90%E1%BB%81_hu%E1%BB%81
His pseudonym Sở Cuồng means ” mad man from Sở _ Ch’u 楚 ” ( a Warring State ) . That was also the surname of a literati ,Tiếp Dư, in the Spring-Autumn period who feigned madness to avoid being enlisted in the civil service
I’ve been unable to ascertain what “Dư ” really means , I didn’t find its Han character ;Dư has many different meanings , that’s one of the evils of the Latin transcription
_ that ‘s the same with ” bá ” and ” trạc ” . in the name of Dương Bá Trạc ( and not Trác )
The VN – Champa conflict lasted centuries it was like a Rome vs Carthage fight to death , the Cham were fiercer warriors , they inflicted many defeats onto the Vietnamese , taking and burning the VN capital Thăng Long 昇龍 ( later 昇隆) many times . It was said that the VN finally prevailed thanks to their superior demographics , they attrited the Chams ;
_ after some research , I found out ,Tiếp Dư was no name ; tiếp 接 = getting near , dư 輿 =
carriage .He was an unknown hermit who, during one of Confucius wanderings to promote his doctrine , approached his coach ; he scolded Confucius as a ” busybody ” and his undertakings as an exercice in futility , in view of the prevailing chaos .That was an anecdote from the Luận Ngữ 論語 .
_ the literati such as Lê Dư must have been well- versed in the classical Books , they
knew even tiny anecdotes , even in the 20th century