The writer's words.
Like all Vietnamese readers, I am very interested in what foreign
scholars write about my country because I hope they provide new documents and
discoveries that help illuminate the nation's history. But then I was soon
disappointed when I saw people entering Vietnamese history with a condescending
and inhumane attitude, insulting an entire nation with their short-sighted
understanding. I cannot help but face the insults of my ancestors' sacred
souls. I, a person who does not have an academic degree or a salary from any
agency, am forced to speak up.
I don't think what I wrote is completely true, I respectfully hope that
wise authors and scholars point out the inadequacies so that I can learn more.
H.V.T
In the past, although not much was written about
Southeast Asian history and culture, American scholars made precious
contributions. In 1952, in his work was
Agricultural Origins and Dispersal, botanist Carl Sauer very early commented
that Southeast Asia is the cradle of world agriculture. In the 1970s, from
archaeological discoveries in Thailand, Wilhem Solheim II shined "New
light into the forgotten area," discovering a brilliant ancient culture.
Cornell University historian O.W. Wolters, through his truthful writing, tells
the world about Southeast Asia as a historical region... Thanks to America's
position, thanks to the popularity of English, the discoveries of above
scholars news spread widely, helping the Western world have a more accurate
view about a region suffering many disadvantages. Southeast Asian people and
scholars recognize those invaluable contributions.
After 1975, in response to American society's need to learn about
Vietnam, a class of American scholars appeared. Led by Keith W. Taylor. As a
Vietnam veteran with Vietnamese knowledge and experiences during the war, he
came to the university environment and quickly became a famous scholar. Only
eight years later, in 1983, he published the book The Birth of Vietnamese. I
enthusiastically received this book in the hope that, from the other side of
the world, with his own sources, the author would provide a new perspective on
Vietnamese history. But I was soon disappointed because it was a bland book, almost a
regurgitation of what was already in Vietnamese history, providing nothing new,
other than some documents from the Northern colonial period that exemplified
its secondary nature, Vietnamese historians have not used it. Not only that, I
was forced to criticize the articles How I started teaching about the Vietnam
War (talawas.org April 30, 2005), Regional conflicts between Vietnamese peoples
from the 13th century to the century 19th century (talawas 5.30.05) and New
perspective on Vietnam (BBCVietnamese.com 9.12.03)
Another person is Liam Kelley, associate professor at Manoa University,
whose Vietnamese name is Le Minh Khai. Not only does the author write a lot,
but he also created leminhkhaiviet.blog to post articles translated into
Vietnamese.
This article is intended exclusively for discussion with the author.
I. Review of
some articles by Liam Kelley.
1. About the
article: "Hong Bang Thi Truyen" as a tradition created by Vietnamese
people in the medieval period.
Refuting the
idea that “there is information about ancient periods of history in Vietnamese
works that does not exist in Chinese sources, scholars essentially concluded:
The Vietnamese must have had their own historical traditions that they passed
down orally and then eventually wrote down as soon as their land was freed from
Chinese rule,” writes Liam Kelley:
“I think the
discussion of Hong Bang Thi Truyen in this essay proves that the Hung Kings
were not real. Instead, they were constructed in the medieval period as part of
a process in which first the Sinicized intellectual elite in the Red River
Delta created, then articulate a particular identity into the concepts of the
Chinese cultural heritage.”
To confirm
his thesis, the author provides the following evidence:
a. There was
no stable population in the Red River Delta in the first millennium BC:
“Vietnamese
scholars believe that archaeological discoveries in the Red River Delta from
the first century BC, such as Dong Son bronze drums, and evidence of uprisings
in approximately a thousand years of China rulers, such as the Trung sisters'
uprising in the first century AD, all point to the existence of a stable
population group in this area over a long period of time. However, this type of
evidence does not necessarily support such a claim.
First, the
association of archaeological remains with the people who created the stories
in the "Liệt truyện" entails that one has projected the existence of
an ethnic group that is said to have existed in history (“Vietnamese people”)
were identified from medieval texts to prehistoric archaeological remains…” “As
a result, Vietnamese scholars do not question their creation of [the concept
of] “people/folk” and consider the extent to which the concept of “people/folk”
is different from the concept of Vu Quynh in the 15th century.”
b.
“And a more relevant issue is: The stories were recorded in ancient Chinese, a
language that was not widely used and was certainly not known to those who were
considered to belong to the Hung King category in most of its known history.
Furthermore, if those inhabitants possessed an archaic form of what would
eventually become the Vietnamese language, as some scholars in Vietnam believe,
then it must be recognized that the language spoken that changed quite
dramatically over the centuries, especially as Chinese vocabulary entered,
first to a limited extent beginning during the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD),
and then more widely during the medieval period. So, if the core information in
a story like the Hong Bang Thi Truyen originated in folk tales passed down
since ancient times, then scholars need to explain how this could have happened
that, and what transmissions conveyed the information as the Vietnamese
language developed over the centuries and when this oral information was
eventually translated into ancient Chinese.”
c.
"The Tale of Hong Bang" is close to other Chinese texts such as
Thuc Chi:
“As expected, the information in this passage
is very similar to the opening paragraph of Liet Truyen's Hong Bang Thi Truyen.
Notably, like Hong Bang Thi Truyen, this text makes a genealogical connection
to a legendary Chinese leader whose child was born from the marriage between a
local woman and a descendant of that chief, and then there were other members
of that individual's family who were made rulers of that locality. In other
words, both Liet Truyen and Hoa Duong Quoc Chi create a similar story that connects
the corresponding places with a character in ancient China.”
Lieu Nghi's story:
“Of course, there are countless stories about
dragons and fairies in Chinese literature related to the areas south of the
Yangtze River. Accordingly, to determine whether there is any unity in the
stories of Lac Long Quan and Au Co, it would be wise to first dig up the
catalog of Chinese stories about dragons and fairies. The best place to start
is probably the story of Lieu Nghi, and as is well known, there are clear
connections between that story and the story of Kinh Duong Vuong and Than Long.
And it turns out, there are also similarities between Lieu Nghi story and the
passage in Liet Truyện cited above. The connections here are not as direct as
those involving Kinh Duong Vuong and Than Long, but they strongly suggest that
this story at least gives some idea to the story of Lac Long Quan and Au Co.”
d. “Viet/Yue” as a self-proclaimed concept.
“The influence of Chinese history and
literature on the Tale of Hong Bang is extremely significant, in that it fully
supports the argument that this story is a medieval construction. With that
truth in mind, we need to review our entire understanding of Vietnamese history
to adjust to this reality. In what follows, I will attempt to sketch a rough
outline of an alternative interpretation of medieval and earlier Vietnamese
history that might help explain the writer of the Hong Bang Thi Truyen and
reason to write.
First, in contrast to the
belief that the “people” of the Red River Delta in the first millennium BC
possessed some identity that they maintained throughout thousands of years of
Chinese rule, I argue that we One can see a gradual tendency on the part of the
Sinicized elite, who lived in an area stretching from present-day North Vietnam
to Guangdong, to use the concept “Viet” (Yue) to refer to ostensible,"
It cannot be said that these are evidences that at first
glance seem solid. However, in reality, the historical knowledge about Vietnam
and the East that the author relied on to come up with the above ideas is
outdated and denied by the 21st century, making those arguments useless value!
If in the 20th century, Eastern humanities
were built on the foundation of Huaxinism, which said that humans appeared in
Tibet, then invaded China and then from China flooded into Vietnam and
Southeast Asia, bring civilization to "civilize" this land; Then on
the fateful day of September 29, 1998, when the work Genetic Relationship of
populations in China (1) was announced, the foundation of "science"
dominated a That time has collapsed!
Scientific
discoveries of the new century confirm:
- Modern humans Homo sapiens were born in Africa 180,000
years ago. 70,000 years ago, they followed the coast of South Asia to Vietnam.
50,000 years ago, people from Vietnam migrated to the islands of Southeast
Asia, to India.
- 40,000 years ago, due to the warming northern climate,
people from Vietnam went up to explore the land today called China.
With this
groundbreaking discovery, basic knowledge about the East changed. The trend of
history is not "China centric" but the opposite truth: Vietnam is the
center of development of Eastern population and culture!
In 2004, when I accessed the above information, I stopped
all literary work and focused all my energy on researching Eastern prehistory.
After ten years, and hundreds of articles, I have published five books: Finding
the roots of Vietnamese culture (Literature Publishing House, 2007); Journey to
find roots (Literature Publishing House, 2008); Finding roots through genetics
(Literature Publishing House, 2011), Rewriting Chinese history (Amazon-2014)
and The historical process of Vietnamese culture (Amazon-2014)
From my
research, I discovered that, around 5000 BC, in the central Yellow River, the
Australoid Vietnamese people came into contact with the Northern Mongoloid
people (who also came from Vietnam but migrated separately, kept having pure
genetic resources, later living concentrated in Mongolia) gave birth to the
Southern Mongoloid race. The Southern Mongoloid people increased in number,
gradually becoming the subject of Yangshao culture, then creating the famous
Longshan culture. At this time, the Vietnamese leaders Phuc Hy and Than Nong
appeared.
Around 2879
BC, Emperor Minh divided the land and crowned his son De Nghi and Kinh Duong
Vuong. Red Xich Quy Country was born. Being proficient fishermen and seafarers,
the people of the Yangtze River estuary traded by boat to Taiwan, Indonesia,
the Philippines, and Vietnam and understood these lands. Chinese history
records that around 2700 BC, there was an invasion of Northerners into Trac Loc
on the south bank of the Yellow River. In this battle, De Lai (Chinese
documents say Si Vuu) died in battle. Later, due to pressure from invaders,
Vietnamese people from the Trong Nguon region (now Trung Nguyen) and the
eastern coast migrated further to the South. Migrants brought down Southern
Mongoloid genes, converting the majority of the Southeast Asian population into
Southern Mongoloid. This phenomenon is called by anthropology the process of
Mongoloidization of the Southeast Asian population (2) which occurred in the
second half of the third millennium BC. In Vietnam, archeology and anthropology
confirm this migration: about 4,500 years ago, the Da But people switched from
Australoid genetic code to the Phung Nguyen people with gene Southern
Mongoloid. In particular, at the Man Bac site in Ninh Binh province, which is
over 2,000 years old BC, a burial site with 30 Australoid and Mongoloid human
remains were discovered buried together (3). This is solid evidence that the
Mongoloid people from the north came down to live with the Australoid
indigenous people and then genetically transformed the entire population into
the southern Mongoloid people, who are the ancestors of modern Vietnamese
people. Thus, archeology and anthropology confirm: the current population of
the Red River Delta is not a group of drifters but a community formed more than
4,000 years ago!
On the land
captured by the Viet people in the south of the Yellow River, the Mongols
established the Imperial dynasty. Because they lived together, they mixed blood
with the Vietnamese people, giving birth to the Huaxia people. Over time, the
Huaxia people were Vietnameseized and replaced their Mongol ancestors to lead
the society of the Imperial Kingdom, creating the Yao, Shun, and Wu
dynasties... As descendants of Vietnamese people, living on Vietnamese land,
Huaxia people was imbued with Vietnamese culture, worshiping Worship Shannung
and Huangdi as ancestors.
Vietnamese
people from Trong Nguon (the old name of the Central Plains) and the eastern coast
of China evacuated to Vietnam, settling in the highlands of the accreting Red
River Delta, bringing with them memories of Fuxi, Nu Wa, Shannung, Kinh Duong
Vuong... From memory, they built wind tombs and then built temples to worship
them to this day.
With such a
historical process and the formation of the Vietnamese population, the four
"proofs" that author L. Kelley cited above not only do not support
but on the contrary also refute his own argument:
- It is not
that "There was no stable population community in the Red River Delta in
the first millennium BC" but that it was a large population carrying the
Southern Mongoloid genetic code, formed from more than 2000 years ago,
following ancient Vietnamese traditions from Hoa Binh, Bac Son... to create
Dong Son culture.
- The
records in Thuc Chi, the story of Lieu Nghi or the story of Hong Bang thi...
are versions of the legend of the founding of the Xich Quy and Van Lang
countries circulating in the Vietnamese community in Bashu, Guangtong, Guãngxi
and North Vietnam regions.
-
"Viet/Yue" as a "self-proclaimed concept" is completely
real. Because, about 18,000 years ago, when creating a new stone ax, the Hoa
Binh people were proud to be the owners of humanity's advanced tools, so they
called themselves Vietnamese with the word Qua (戈). About
12,000 years ago, when wet rice was invented, the Vietnamese people called
themselves Viet with the word Viet Mi (粤). And about
4,000 years ago, when creating the bronze ax, the Vietnamese people called themselves
with a new title: the word Viet Zhou (越)!
-Regarding
the author's important question is language: "The story is recorded in
ancient Chinese, a language that is not widely used and probably not known to
people who are considered to belong to the Hung King category" throughout
most of its known history..." can be easily answered: Vietnamese is the
creator of the Chinese language.
People from
Vietnam who came to explore China brought their voices with them. Over tens of
thousands of years of living in China, the majority of the Chinese population
is Vietnamese. Chinese is Vietnamese spoken according to Mongolian grammar(4).
Not only that, Chinese hieroglyphs were also created by Vietnamese people to
represent Vietnamese sounds!(5)
The
above analysis shows that, even though "Hong Bang Thi Truyen" was
recorded in the Middle Ages and has inappropriate additions and deletions by
the scribes, it is still the soul of a real event that happened in the past, is
preserved in the deep memories of a large community of people, living in the
vast area of what is now China and Vietnam, for nearly 5,000 years. That is
absolutely not a "tradition created" in the Middle Ages!
In a
treatise nearly 20,000 words long: "Thai words (Tai) and the position of
the Thai people in the past of the Vietnamese people," L. Kelley said that
"quan lang", "mi nuong", "bo chinh",
"ancient" ... are words of Thai origin that entered Vietnamese in the
Middle Ages, and affirming: "Thai people and Vietnamese people are not
brothers who lived in harmony in ancient times and then went on different
paths. Instead, they were different peoples who became neighbors in the Middle
Ages and fought with each other until the Vietnamese eventually achieved
dominance over the Thai in the greater Red River Delta region in fifteenth
century.”
Let me say
that history and culture are human social activities in time and space.
Therefore, to understand the history and culture of a community of people, the
first thing is to understand them. Please ask professor: Who are Vietnamese
people? Who are Thai people? What is their genetic code? Where does the origin
come from? How to go through the historical process and then live together in
Vietnam? I'm sure, the professor can't answer! Therefore, discussing which
words are Vietnamese, which words are Thai, and how they lived together in the
past is just a matter of gossip! I sympathize with the professor because I know
that, until the end of the last century, there were no answers to the above
questions! But in my opinion, it's like this:
70,000 years
ago, two great races of people, Australoid and Mongoloid, came from Africa to
Vietnam. They met, mixed blood, giving rise to four ancient Vietnamese races:
Indonesian, Melanesian, Mongoloid and Negritoid, with the majority Indonesian
(Lac Viet) holding the leading role in society and language. After living
together for 60 - 70,000 years in Vietnam, they not only share the same
bloodline but also the same culture, in which Lac Viet is the base language.
This is why attempts to use comparative linguistics to trace the origin of each
ethnic group in Vietnam have not achieved the desired results! Since 40,000
years ago, different races of Vietnamese people broke up to explore China.
There is a basis to believe that, from Northwest Indochina, a group of people
later called Tay-Thai followed the Bashu corridor to Northwest China, occupying
the Shaanxi and Shanxi regions. It was they who named the places with the word
"ancient/gu" that still exist today in this region. That is also the
language and culture that created the Poetry scriptures according to Maspéro's
findings that Kelley cited in the article. Regarding the Thai people, history
books record that: the wife of Emperor Khoc, the fourth king of the Emperor
dynasty, was Mrs. Khuong Nguyen, a daughter of the Thai clan: "Chu Hau
Tac, named Khi. Her mother is from the Thai clan, her name is Khuong Nguyen.
Khuong Nguyen is Di Khu's former concubine." (周后稷，名弃。其母有邰氏女，曰姜原。姜原为帝喾元妃.) Another lineage in
Lac Viet went to China, exploring the Trong Source plain, in Son Tay, Henan,
which later became the land of the founding king of the Han Dynasty. China's
only female emperor Wu Zetian gave her title as Viet Co Kim Luan Thanh Than
Emperor (越古金轮圣神皇帝) and Tu Thi
Viet Co Kim Luan Thanh Than Emperor (慈氏越古 金轮圣神皇帝). This proves that she
is Vietnamese. Her Vietnamese identity is also in her milk name and her maiden
name is My Nuong! That is also the name of the princesses of King Hung. Thus,
"mi nuong" is not only the private property of the Thai people but is
common to all Viet ethnic groups. Likewise, co/gu is an ancient Vietnamese
word, transliterated from the word "ke" which is very popular in the
North! Therefore, My Nuong in the story Son Tinh, Thuy Tinh is not at all the
"Thai princess" as L. Kelley imagined! Maybe the history of a part of
the Tay-Thai people is like this: from Vietnam, they went to Northwest China,
creating Nguong Thieu and Long Son culture. When this region was invaded by the
Mongols, a part of the population lived with the Mongols, contributing to the
birth of the Huaxia people. One of the Thai beauties married Emperor Khoc and
gave birth to the Zhou dynasty ancesty. Later, due to the intrusion and
oppression of the Northern nomads, the Thai people made a large migration from
Shaanxi and Son Tay to Ha Nam and then crossed Yangtze to Guangxi. Next,
they migrated to Laos, Thailand, and Burma. In Vietnam, because the Vietnamese
population is too large, Thai people do not penetrate much and can only live in
the periphery. Thus, after a long time away, a part of the Thai people returned
to their ancestral land. People returning from China to Laos and Thailand call
the fourth branch of the Twelve Branches is Rabbit. However, there is still a
part of Thai people who do not migrate but live in Vietnam and other countries
such as Thailand, Laos... Thai people in Dien Bien are an ethnic group that has
lived since ancient times on Vietnamese land because in the book, their
"Chong Bang" (a type of divination book) records that the fourth
branch of the Twelve Branches is Mau, which is Mao (Cat). Statement by W.G.
Solheim II: "There are many similarities and no important differences
between the Neolithic people in Ban Kao and the Thai people today" (2)
testifies to this!
Thus, not at
all as L. Kelley thought, “they were different peoples who became neighbors in
the middle ages and fought with each other until the Vietnamese finally gained
dominance over the Thais. ” That is the process of integration of Thai people
into the Vietnamese community when the Vietnamese state was formed!
3. About the I Ching
and lost messages
To refute the article
The I Ching belongs to the Vietnamese people by scholar Nguyen Thieu Dung, L.
Kelley wrote:
“Recently someone forwarded me an article
that appeared in an electronic newspaper with the headline “The I Ching belongs
to the Vietnamese people”.
There has been an effort for many years
on the part of a handful of people to prove that the ancient text was created
by "Vietnamese" people. It was a very nationalistic attempt to try to
say that “Vietnamese” knowledge and culture preceded “Chinese” knowledge and
culture and that China therefore borrowed from “Viet”, and not the contrary, as
is commonly believed.
I need to read more of
Kim Dinh's work, but I believe that the attempt to show that "the
South" created the culture that "the North" now praises began
with him ( but perhaps there are earlier examples of this line of argument?)
I have long wondered what motivates
people to persist in making this point, when most people don't believe what
they say. Is it just nationalism? Is nationalist narcissism really that strong?
By an amazing
coincidence, a friend of mine who works for NASA sent me an audio file this
morning of a type of message that NASA's space recorders had picked up from
somewhere beyond our solar system. My friend thought it sounded like
Vietnamese, so he sent it to me.
It's a bit hard to
hear, but I think they're saying…I Ching is Vietnamese!”
Without providing any evidence or logic
to refute the opponent but strongly accusing them of being nationalist, how can
we avoid being hasty and arbitrary?! The fact that "most people don't
believe" is not a proof? So many things that many people don't believe are
true! Humanity once did not believe that the Earth was round, so is it strange
that many people do not believe that the I Ching belongs to the Vietnamese
people? What a pity, why should a university professor waste his energy pushing
an already open door?!
The eloquent words
above only prove that the professor said things that you did not know! The
truth that the professor did not expect was that Chinese scholars themselves
did not dare to claim the I Ching as theirs.
In an article published in "The
World of Unknown Things" (history, archeology section), Jiangsu Publishing
House, China, 2008. After quoting the ancient book "Bao Xi Hua Goai",
the author gave asked: "People immediately wondered if such a complicated
thing could have been created by a legendary character named Fuxi?"
Denying Fuxi, the author cited the opinion that the Eight Trigrams were likely
created by people of the Shang Dynasty using armor and bones to predict,
deduced from the burnt crack lines on the turtle shell, which is a creation
during the Shang Dynasty, rather than being created by Fu Xi in ancient times
according to legend."
Seeing that this theory was
unsatisfactory, another theory was proposed: "As for the "I
Ching", it was most likely a work of the Zhou Dynasty, very difficult to
understand, so Confucius in the Spring and Autumn period read "I Ching".
"Vi bien tam tuyệt" , meaning that at first even Confucius could not
understand it, he read it over and over again, causing the buffalo leather
strap tying the bamboo card to break three times. When he finally read it and
understood it, Confucius edited it further, and thus, "I Ching"
immediately became a Confucian classic."
But there are also
those who believe that the Bagua and "I Ching" represent the
evolution of ancient Chinese people's awareness of natural phenomena, social
phenomena... Each stage of development It cannot just be the creation and
invention of someone, but is a progressive process with inheritance and
development, continuously and continuously. Saying that the Fuxi family created
the Eight Trigrams is actually oversimplifying this issue.”
The article concludes:
"The last of the three theories above is quite reasonable, but it negates
the "Bao Xi hua goai" theory that has been passed down for thousands
of years in China, so it is very It's hard to be accepted by everyone.
In the end, who created Bagua? While we still haven't found a better answer, we still have to rely on the words in ancient books to attribute the credit to the Fu Xi family according to legend."(6)
Here, people
are afraid of "hard to please" the crowd, so they sacrifice the
truth! Obviously the last theory is reasonable but it is ignored and the cat is
still a cat, everything returns to the starting point! It is true that Fu Xi
could not create I Ching, but it was the work of thousands of people that took
place over thousands and thousands of years. But once it has been achieved,
according to ancient customs, people confer the initiative of the whole
community on the revered leader, just as they once attributed to Shan Nung
"teaching agriculture" or the Emperor created the Nei Jing... But who
was Fuxi? The book says he lived around 4800 BC. During this period, China was
completely a land of Vietnamese people. It was not until 2000 years later, with
the invasion of the Yellow Emperor, that the Huaxia people were born. That is
the hybrid class of descendants of Fu Xi, Shennong and the Emperor's Mongol
warriors. Realizing that origin, the Hua Xia people called themselves
descendants of Emperor Yan and Emperor
“At the
International Conference on Translation Studies in Shandong China in 2011,
Vietnamese scholar Tran Ngoc Them demonstrated that the philosophy of yin and
yang was formed from the practical life of wet rice agriculture in Southeast
Asia, the two words “yin and yang” originates from the two words
"mother" and "heaven" in Southeast Asian languages (ina -
yang). The pair of concepts "yin and yang" with the order of yin
before and yang after is formed on the basis of synthesizing the two most
important pairs of concepts in the life of wet rice growers: "mother,
father" and "earth and sky". It bears bold traces of a Southeast
Asian cultural tradition that favors women, different from the Chinese
tradition of favoring men, expressed through the two pairs of words
"parents" and "heaven and earth". MSc. Nguyen Ngoc Tho
presents a series of manifestations of the ideology of yin and yang and the
five elements in all areas of customs, traditions, legends, etc. of Vietnam
from past to present as evidence of primitiveness and autonomy, development of
yin and yang, dichotomy and duality ideology in Vietnamese and Southeast Asian
cultural traditions.”
“Commenting on
the reports of the Vietnamese delegation, Prof. Ngo Di (California Holistic
Research Institute, USA) commented that: "For a long time, translation
researchers have often relied only on ancient books and documents excavated
from tombs, ignoring the process of historical development" its history.
The Zhou Yi must have been the result of
contributions from residents of many regions, a product of development over
many eras. Therefore, understanding the origin of I Ching must be expanded to
look from many angles as Vietnamese scholars are doing, not just limited to one
place, with a familiar type of evidence.
“Summing up
this conference session, Prof. Vuong Jun Long (Institute for the Study of
Traditional Chinese Thought at Shanghai Normal University) concluded: In his
report, Professor. Tran Ngoc Them from Vietnam has shown that the origin of the
I Ching cannot be found in legends but must be found in the combination of
natural conditions with the socio-historical context of real life. Through
meticulous research, with clear evidence, based on the analysis of the unique
characteristics of wet rice agricultural life, the author has convincingly
demonstrated the Southeast Asian origin of yin and yang ideology. Two reports
by Vietnamese scientists are closely linked together into a unified whole,
showing that the yin and yang culture prioritizes mother over father, earth
over heaven, with a very interesting dichotomous thinking. It is very different
from the Chinese tradition of male preference and the concept of ambivalence
that is very familiar in Northeast Asia.”(7) That is a newly discovered truth,
not found in ancient books. Of course, L. Kelly doesn't know!
What's to blame is that at the end of the article, Professor L. Kelley
made a joke! This proves that the author did not know anything about the person
he was arguing with. At the age of 73 this year, Mr. Nguyen Thieu Dung used to
be a lecturer at Hue University. After 1975, he stayed at home as a healer,
studying Oriental medicine and translation theory. He discovered that the Yin
symbol was dots…. The Yang symbol is a solid line - on the bronze drum. In the
comments exchanged between Mr. Dung and Kelley, we see that his words are
sincere and sincere, he truly wants to discuss academics, but Kelley always
avoids! By playing a discourteous game with a respected scholar, will the
author avoid being known for being disrespectful?!
II.
Causes of L. Kelley's mistakes
We can see two reasons for the mistake of the Manoa University professor. One is methodological inadequacy. The author has applied the methodology of relying only on the text. Such an approach may be suitable for the West, where nations were formed late and historical events are quite well-documented and well-archived. The historian's job is to read the documents and then give their opinions. For Vietnam, such methods are not enough. Because Vietnam's history is too long, including 1,000 years of foreign domination and then when the country was conquered, there was constant war. Vietnam's historical documents are not only few but also looted and burned. What remains is often distorted. Westerners have a proverb: "Half a bread is bread but half the truth is no longer the truth!" Therefore, the existing documents, although very valuable, are not all history. Once we consider it as the entire history, how can we avoid being subjective and one-sided? Therefore, writing Vietnamese history is very difficult. It's not just pages, the writer must understand the soul of history! This is not easy for foreign scholars who are unfamiliar with Vietnamese culture.
The
second, more important reason is that, like other Western scholars, L. Kelley
suffers from what I call the knowledge trap. This trap was set up by Western
scholars in the last century. That is the imposition of the concept of
China-centric. Originating from the theory that humans appeared in Tibet,
entered China and then descended to Southeast Asia, scholars of the Far East
believed that China is the center of Asia. The Chinese created civilization:
language, writing, I Ching, Confucianism, Rites, Music... and then spread it to
the "barbarian" peoples of Southeast Asia. Such concepts became
shackles that bound world scholarship throughout the twentieth century!
But in the 21st century, another truth was revealed: It is not China-centric but Viet- centric that is the flow of Eastern history! Not from the North but from Vietnam, the Vietnamese people brought genes, language, new stone tools, rice, millet and agricultural culture to build China! This is a discovery that upsets notions about Eastern history and culture. But due to the inability to accept new information, many Western scholars, including L. Kelley, are still immersed in old thinking!
III.
Conclude
Vietnam's
history has been distorted in Chinese, Western and now American languages. That
is the bitter truth that no one can deny!
With
his articles, L. Kelley seems to want to destroy the temple of Vietnamese
history that was built long ago and painstakingly cultivated for half a century
in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. That is also a drastic denial of modern
Vietnamese historians, who are the authors or co-authors of today's Vietnamese
history book!
What
is unusual is why Vietnamese historians are completely silent?!
Perhaps the best answer is that they cannot answer! It can't be because they read the same books that exploit one aspect, while the other exploits another aspect, they have no argument to refute! As an example: when Tran Trong Duong said "eureka" "Kinh Duong Vuong is just a product of Chinese culture", academicians had to keep quiet, some even followed suit! This is the same as before, when seeing someone declare: "Words like Ke, Mo... are not purely Vietnamese at all but are all 100% Made in China", even though it was very frustrating, Tran Quoc Vuong only had could complain to Cao Xuan Hao: "I know Hue Thien is talking nonsense but I can't refute it!" (8) This is because historian Viet and L. Kelley both stand on the China-centric frame of reference, a frame of reference that only provides a historical view from the past 2000 years but is viewed upside down!
However,
once we escape this frame of reference and enter the Viet mind frame of
reference, everything becomes clear. When he realizes this, L. Kelley will
certainly see that if he wants to become a good Vietnamese scholar, he must
write differently first! Vietnamese scholars will be equipped with great
weapons to explore the nation's magnificent history and culture. That weapon
already exists and is sharpened every day.
Full moon in January 2014
HVT
Reference
1. J. Y. Chu et al. Genetic Relationship of Populations in
2. Nguyễn
Đình Khoa. Nhân chủng học Đông
3. TS. Marc Oxenham: Tôi thất vọng về thông tin lệch lạc!
http://vietbao.vn/Van-hoa/TS-Marc-Oxenham-Toi-that-vong-ve-thong-tin-lech-lac/20422593/181/
4. Hà Văn
Thùy. Hành trình tìm lại cội nguồn. NXB
Văn học 2008
5. Hà Văn Thùy. Chữ
Việt chủ thể tạo nên chữ viết Trung Hoa. vanhoanghean.com.vn/index.php?option=com_k2..
6. Nguyễn Trung Thuần: HỌC GIẢ TRUNG QUỐC CŨNG
CHƯA DÁM NHẬN KINH DỊCH CỦA MÌNH.
7. Hội thảo Quốc tế Dịch học tại Sơn Đông năm 2011.
http://www.vanhoahoc.edu.vn/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2110&Itemid=94
8. Lời Cuối Cùng Thưa Với Ông An Chi !
http://www.vanchuongviet.org/index.php?comp=tacpham&action=detail&id=17094
