Mythology and History

Happy new moon. Today is the first day of the 6th lunar month. I thought I'd look more into the meaning behind the 6th month, and share what I found, but I found diddly. Wikipedia states that this is the month of the lotus in the Chinese lunar calendar. Incidentally, the mix of Chinese and Vietnamese language is screwing with my head. I've just thought to myself "sen yue," which is fail. Half of the phrase is Vietnamese, and half is Chinese. At least our favorite open source reference gives us the Chinese characters for the sixth month. So I copied those characters and plugged them into a Google search, just to see if I could get more information. But our omniscient modern day oracle came back with hits from Japanese social networking websites. I'm not sure what to make of it all.

Yesterday, I posted a piece about the legend of Vietnamese origin. It was a fun piece for me to write. I built a narrative based on details I found around the internet. I had to make a few decisions about what to include and what to cut, not just for brevity, but also due to conflicting accounts. Mythologies tend to vary from source to source. This one on the heroes that founded Vietnam was no exception. The most notable variation between stories was Âu Cơ's relationship to the character Đế Lai, the cruel emperor of the north. In some versions, Đế Lai was the father of Âu Cơ. In others, Âu Cơ was Đế Lai's wife. To make the situation more like a soap-opera, there are versions in which Đế Lai was Lạc Long Quân's uncle, making the dragon lord's wife either his cousin, or his auntie, respectively.

What is the basis of these discrepancies? Well, history keeps its lips tight. The best I can do is cite the sources. Two significant Vietnamese historical texts record the mythology. The Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư was written in about 1479. In it, Âu Cơ was Đế Lai's daughter, but that's not the most interesting aspect. This text states that the Hồng Bàng dynasty began in 2879 BC. This date is significant because it puts the beginning of Vietnamese history about 8 centuries earlier than the first Chinese dynasty. This is huge, because the portrayal of Vietnam as the older country is basically a political bite of the thumb toward China. This text was put together during the Lê dynasty, roughly fifty years after the end of the fourth period of Chinese dominion over Vietnam. Đế Lai, the cruel northern emperor, was probably from China. His daughter Âu Cơ was Chinese as well, and subsequently, the Hồng Bàng rulers would have been descended from the Chinese. And so, this version of the fable might be an homage to the cultural influence that China had on Vietnam. It's like saying to China, we realize you've influenced us culturally, but we're still older.

In the other text, called the Lĩnh Nam chích quái, Âu Cơ was Đế Lai's wife. This text is a collection of Vietnamese stories. They were collected late in the Trần dynasty, sometime around the late 14th century, in an era when Vietnam must have felt elevated security and autonomy from China. Vietnam had been free from China for about 350 years. It had even fended off repeated Yuán/Mongol invasions during the 13th century. Vietnamese rulers of the Trần dynasty must have felt confidently autonomous from China. It seems their mythology reflects this autonomy. In this fable, it's not clear where Âu Cơ came from. There's no claim that the children of the dragon and faery were descended from the Chinese. Of course, the absence of evidence is no evidence for the opposing argument. It would help my research if I could get a good English source on the Lĩnh Nam chích quái, but there's no Wiki page and even the Encyclopædia Britannica doesn't mention it. Oh well.

At any rate, the difference between the date of Vietnam's origin and the point in time in which it was recorded is roughly 4,000 years. It's no wonder that there are competing mythologies. The myth was recorded twice, in two different political climates. There's two points here to realize. History is--and I realize I might make some of my historian friends roll their eyes at my folly--history is prone to subjective interpretation of the elite powers of a given period. And, Chinese and Vietnamese histories are linked. There's no separating one from the other. Kind of like "sen yue." And, in the search for information about the origins of the Vietnamese people, I still haven't found diddly.

So, for the next few posts I'll be looking at what the historians have to say about Vietnamese origins. I understand that the subject is contentious. I don't mean to incite or inflame. I'll just be reporting the academic account of who the Vietnamese are, where they came from, and how they got to Vietnam. And, if I'm lucky, I hope to draw parallels between the history and the mythology. Happy sixth month! Happy sen yue!

Con Rồng, Cháu Tiên

Con Rồng, Cháu Tiên -
Children of the Dragon, Grandchildren of the Faeries

When the world was new, the people lived in fear, for demons roamed the land. But so too did immortals and fairies, and even dragons.

One sunrise at Hồ Động Đình*, the water was unnaturally calm and as clear as glass. An immortal named Kinh Dương took a morning walk across the clear, flat lake. When he reached the lake's center, he looked down into the water, and saw a beautiful dragon that coiled and swirled in the depths. Her body was slender and long. Her eyes were full of intelligence and fire. When she laughed, it was the tinkle-ring of crystal bells. Her name was Long-nữ, and she was the daughter of Động Đình Quân, the dragon king.

Kinh Dương and Long-nữ married, and lived together in an underwater palace. She bore a handsome, strong son. His parents named him Sùng Lãm. He was a dragon, same as his mother. He could take human form, and had the strength of a hundred men. Sùng Lãm also had a noble heart--more than anything, he wanted peace in the troubled land. The demons that had long wrought destruction had caused the people great hunger and suffering. Their pain filled Sùng Lãm with rage. He set out into the world, to bring an end to the misery caused by the demons.

In the shape of a human, Sùng Lãm left his parents' underwater palace and emerged from the sea. As he stepped onto the shore, he saw a fishing village. But there were no fish to eat, and the villagers all were starving. There were no fish because many of the village fishermen had been killed. Those who were still alive were afraid to go into the water because of a monstrous fish named Ngư Tinh. Ngư Tinh was an ancient gargantuan beast that lived in a cave at the bottom of the sea. It had smashed the long boats to pieces and ate crews of fishermen in a single gulp. The tail of the fish was so enormous, that when it splashed, it sent walls of water that flooded the seaside villages and washed the people away.

Sùng Lãm built a titanic sea-vessel and sailed it out into the sea in the hunt for Ngư Tinh. On this ship, a stone hearth burned with a raging fire. Sùng Lãm melted iron in the fire, and molded the hot iron into the figure of a man. With the burning hot iron man by his side, Sùng Lãm stood at the front of the ship and searched far and long for the monstrous fish. He found Ngư Tinh by the massive fin coming out of the water like a tower. Sùng Lãm sailed toward the demon, and threw the man-shaped piece of burning hot iron into the water. The beast saw the man-like shape, and thought the iron was a human that he would eat. Ngư Tinh swallowed the iron lure, and the hot metal scalded the beast's throat. As Ngư Tinh thrashed and raged in pain, Sùng Lãm leapt from the boat, and with his sword, cut Ngư Tinh in three pieces. He threw the head onto the shore. It fell upon on a mountain, which was forever after known as Cẩu Đầu Sơn. The body of Ngư Tinh was carried by the tide, until it came to rest and became Mạn Cầu. Sùng Lãm skinned the tail, and it turned into the island known as Bạch Long Vĩ.

Sùng Lãm destroyed many demons. The people sang his praises and called him Lạc Long Quân, the Dragon Lord of Lac. With the demons vanquished, their existence faded into memory. Lạc Long Quân returned to his parents' kingdom under the sea. He had brought peace to the land.

The Faerie's Daughter

The details that start the next chapter in Lạc Long Quân's story are varied from source to source. It's the story of Lạc Long Quân's wife. Her name was Âu Cơ, and she was the daughter of a mountain fairie. In one story, Long Quân found her as she was being hunted by a hungry monster. Lạc Long Quân fought the monster and slew it. When Âu Cơ saw the beautiful dragon who had saved her from being torn to pieces by the monster, she fell in love with him and became his wife.

In other stories, Âu Cơ's father was a cruel emperor king named Đế Lai, from the northern lands. He invaded the verdant, productive southern lands and established a fortress there. Lạc Long Quân emerged from the sea again, and journeyed to the fortress to expel Đế Lai. But when Lạc Long Quân entered the gates, the emperor king was gone. Instead, Lạc Long Quân found Âu Cơ, the emperor's beautiful daughter. Smitten by the Dragon Lord's poise, she implored him to take her away. Lạc Long Quân returned to his palace in the mountains with Âu Cơ, and they were married.

Before long, the daughter of the faerie became pregnant with the dragon's children. When she gave birth, she delivered a sac filled with embryos. In a week, it hatched into a hundred eggs, and from each sprang forth a baby boy. Âu Cơ raised their hundred sons with tenderness, wisdom, and encouragement. The children grew up stronger and smarter than normal children their age, and brought immense joy to both their parents. Lạc Long Quân, Âu Cơ, and the hundred children lived in peace and harmony in the mountain palace.

But the heart of a sea dragon longs for the water. Over the years, whenever Lạc Long Quân walked through the palace, he would stop to gaze through the eastern windows, where the sea lay beyond the mountain. His ache to return to the sea grew to be unbearable. Âu Cơ saw her husband's sadness grow over time. But she was strong. She continued to promote harmony in their household, and bore his pain as well as her own.

One day, in the shape of a dragon, Lạc Long Quân rose into the air, flew out through the gates of the palace, and disappeared into the horizon. In her anguish, Âu Cơ ran to the window and cried out for him to return, to not abandon her and his hundred perfect sons, and the harmonious life they shared. His response came on the wind.

"I am descended from the dragons of the sea. You are of the faeries from the mountains. As fire is with water, so too are you and I.

Our children are Con Rồng, Cháu Tiên; they will become the kings of these lands. I will take fifty of our sons to live with me by the sea. You will take the remaining fifty with you to the forest mountains."

The fifty sons who went with Âu Cơ settled in the mountains, married the women of those lands, and became known as the Âu Việt. Those who went to the coast with Lạc Long Quân became known as Lạc Việt. They established the state of Văn Lang, the earliest Vietnamese civilization. When the eldest of these sons came of age, he became the ruler of Văn Lang--the first emperor of the Hồng Bàng dynasty.

Thus, the veil of mythology fell away and revealed the beginning of Vietnamese history.

*This Vietnamese legend begins in China, in what is now known as Hunan Province. In China, Hồ Động Đình is named 洞庭湖, or Dòngtíng Hú.

Quicker Coconut Cracking

The last post on coconut cracking offered a how-to method to prepare a nicely presented, table ready coconut. In this method, I'm gonna show you something that doesn't give a nice looking final product, but gets the job done in a fraction of the time. I saw a small little lady with a big ol' meat cleaver give three coconuts four whacks each, and we were drinking in seconds. With four mighty chops, you'll get to the real juice faster than someone can open canned juice with a can opener.

Same as before, the first step is to cut the bottom off.

The flat-bottomed coconut will be stable for chopping.

The object is to make two parallel pairs of cuts deep enough to break the inner shell.

Give the coconut a good hard whack at about 70-80 degrees from the perpendicular.

Make the three other cuts, and then pry out the wedge and remove the pieces of the broken inner shell.

If the inner shell didn't shatter, dig the knife into a crack and pry it open. Cut a hole in the meat. Pour into a pitcher.

 
Now that's the stuff right there.