History of Vietnam

HISTORY OF VIETNAM                      

THE ORIGIN OF VIETNAMESE PEOPLE

VIETNAM FOUNDATION                                                         

FIRST EDITION BY AMAZON 2015 USA                                            

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY PHAMTRANANH                   

ISBN 41246272R00212

INTRODUCTION

     Mr Pham Tran Anh, prisoner of the Communists for 20 years has written a fascinating account of the history of Vietnam and the Vietnamese people from pre-historic and ancient times down to the present. In it he presents the thesis that the civilization of ancient India, China, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and even Meso and South America may have a Vietnamese orgin.

     Mr Pham Tran Anh posits the challenging and provocative theory backed up by considerable scientific evidence, that the cultivation of rice, the casting of bronze, silk weaving, contruction of long dug-out, ocean going canoe like ships, domestication of cattle, chickens, pigs and other domestic animals all began in ancient Vietnamese communities many thousands of years ago. According to him the ancient Vietnamese began cultivating rice 18 thousand years ago long before the cultivation of grain began in China or the Near East. He goes on to point out that the Yin and Yang concepts, So-often associated with China actually Sprang from an ancient Vietnamese myth: The story  of the Fairy (Yin) and the Dragon (Yang) and their marriage which resulted in the creation of 100 eggs that served as the beginning of the Vietnamese race.

     Mr Pham Tran Anh points out that Vietnamese settlements existed throughout Northern Central and Southern China long before the Han Chinese entered the region of the Yellow and Yantze rivers. In fact, according to him the Xia (pre-Shang) dynasty of the third millennium B.C. in China, which antedated the Shang dynasty was actually of Vietnamese origin. He also shows how Vietnamese migrants may very well have helped to establish the early  civilization of India.

     “History  of Vietnam” points out that Vietnamese Malaysians, Indonesians, Thais, Burmese, Japanese and Australian aboriginese as well as American Indians are all genetically and culturally related to one another. Customs ranging from living in long houses, tattooing, contruction of dug-out canoes and building houses on stilts  and curved line dwellings all have a Vietnamese origin either in Vietnamese-like cultures like Malaysia or Indonesia.  or  in Viet nam . With their knowledge of sea-manship, the author points out that the Vietnamese may have established the worlds first sea-faring oceanic civilization linking together Asia, Australia, Polynesia, India the Near East and even the Americas .

     Finally, this book concludes with a well documented recent history of Vietnam from the time of Chinese domination (111 B.C.-938 A.D.) up  to the present.

     History of Vietnam should be read by anyone with an interest in Asian or world history. It is well documented and provocatively written by a brilliant scholar. A solid addition to the history of human-kind.

South California May 29, 2015

Professor Jerry Livingston Voorhis Ph D

PREFACE

    Historically, each nation has a tradition and culture that was made into a legend for the purpose of promotion of the national pride with its epics. Indeed, the legend of Dragon and Fairy about the origin of the Vietnamese race seems to be mysterious, but in reality, it reflects the humanist characteristics of Vietnamese tradition. The legend of the Fairy and the Dragon is the pride of Vietnamese people. Vietnamese people from babies to ripe old-aged elders,  poor peasants to scholars, all have heard of the fairy tales about Hong Bang Family. Indeed, we all know about our source, with the great love of Father Dragon and Mother Fairy or “Luo (Lac) Father and Ou (Au) Mother”, ancestors of the Vietnamese race.

    Suffice to say that the Vietnamese original legend in its historical tradition is imaginary. However, it heightens our traditional humanism. The legend of Vietnamese origin represents a noble cultural philosophy, for it is full of humanity, of fellow countrymen’s love fictionized in the image of ‘a bag of one hundred eggs, producing one hundred babies’ commonly known as ‘people of the same womb’. From the fellow-citizen concept to patriotism, love for homeland, all these have become the moral and traditional values of Vietnamese ethic and civilization. Henri Bernard Maitre praised the significance of Vietnamese culture through the ‘Temple of Literature’: “This Temple is not a place to pray or to make amulets. It is a formal place to honor our national heroes, our cultural elites, our doctorates with high ethical standards, and their names were engraved on stone-slabs, so that the future generations of Vietnamese would learn about our proper behaviors, worthy of the aspirations of our ancestors.”

    For Vietnamese, the act of worshiping our ancestors is the moral standards in the spiritual life of the Vietnamese people. Since the ancient time, Vietnamese people have highly revered moral principles, so we often think about the commemoration of our relatives’ deaths rather than focusing on our birthdays. Today, although young people are more interested in their birthdays, they do not forget to commemorate their passed-away relatives. Worshiping our ancestors is a ‘Vietnamese religion’ showing moral standards of the Vietnamese. Cadière, a Catholic priest who came to Vietnam to evangelize Christianity, had once confessed that Vietnam was a nation of high religious spirit.

     P. Mus, a scholar, when observing the Vietnamese, also acknowledged that Vietnamese people had a high spiritual life: “Vietnamese people did not work, they worship. Indeed, foreigners were surprised to see that every Vietnamese family had an ancestor altar in the middle of their homes. In the Vietnamese spiritual life, every movement is full of a sacred nature, and they worshipped their ancestors with all their hearts. This is the unique characteristic that is imbued with the deep national identity, full of the democratic and humanistic cultural philosophy. As a matter of fact, the Vietnamese spiritual life does not only emblem through the ancestral altar, but also in the altar on the mind of each person. Vietnamese people do not participate in ceremonies to pray for themselves, but they pray as a priest with all the sacred characteristics of a religion.” This represents the good values that characterize the spiritual life of the ancient Vietnamese people. Ancestors worshiping is human morality; it is something noble and spiritual handed down from generation to generation.

    This spiritual life has contributed to the conservation of the Vietnamese heredity. Ancestor worshiping tradition is no longer a practice, a simple creed, but it has become a national standard of morality. Ancestor worshiping is considered the orthodox religion of Vietnamese people. Do Chieu, a patriot in the 19th century graciously reminded us, “It’s better to be blind to conserve our moral conformity than not worshiping our ancestors while our eyes are good.” Everyone of us Vietnamese knows that when we drink water, we need to know where it comes from, because “Our father’s kindness is as great like Great Mountain, and our mother’s love is as sourceful as the water flowing out from a stream. We must respect our parents and fulfill our filial duties…! Parents’ kindness to us is undeniably great and unforgettable, regardless of their being alive or in the great beyond. Past and present, we ought to be grateful to parents’ kindness forever.”

     This is the uniqueness of Vietnamese’s spiritual life that each Vietnamese observes today and forever after. Undeniably, besides the real life’s sufferings and hardships, we all enjoyed being embraced by our traditional deep and noble spiritual life. It enlivens within each Vietnamese an optimistic living concept, love for life and leisure, together with the will to readily sacrifice our lives for the true independence, the true freedom, prosperity and happiness for all Vietnamese people.

    Vietnamese history is the one full of rises and falls of a nation from the dawn of its foundation till today, in which it suffered for nearly one thousand years under Chinese domination, nearly one hundred years under French colonialism, and more than a half century of subjugation by foreign ideologies. During the course of our history, many a time, Chinese people, simmering in their expansionism by all means and with wicked and diabolic tricks, have attempted to invade our country.

     Every time they were able to occupy our land, they exerted any way possible to destroy all traces of our roots, our civilization, and our culture. Simultaneously they distort and flip our history and replace it with something vague and chaotic that hampers the later generations Vietnamese from their aboriginal race and pride of their people. Each Chinese dynasty kept renaming the names of places purposefully, the chorographical features of our lands and rivers. More or less the Vietnamese people for nearly one thousand years under Chinese domination had been severely influenced by their mischievous policy of the cultural slavery that made us accept all the “false”, without questioning. However, history must be the truth, whether it has been distorted or buried for thousands of years. We need to see the light of the objective truth now.

    At the threshold of the third millennium, the light of truth illuminates the true past that had been covered for thousands of years by our Chinese enemy. In the second millennium, mankind was shocked before the so-called ‘Greece-Roman paradox’ as the whole world previously discerned that all the Western civilization belonged to the Roman and Greece Empires, and then they had to confirm that it was from the civilization of old China too. At the end of the second millennium, mankind was shocked again to find that the so-called Chinese civilization was originally from Malyo-Viets.

    The key thing for us is to review the entire history of Vietnam to restore the historical truth in order to dispel the dark clouds that have palled over our history for thousands of years. In the human history, perhaps no people have experienced so many glorious ups and painful downs in the course of our history as did the Vietnamese people. Right from the national foundation, Vietnamese people were hit and chased by Chinese people with the power of nomads, and then Vietnamese people had to leave their homeland and moved southward to settle on the land where Vietnam is now. After nearly one thousand years under China’s domination, Ngo Quyen defeated the South Han in the battle on Bach Dang river in 938, officially opening an era of independence for Vietnam.

    Periodically, although we were invaded by China and forced to migrate to the south, the culture of Vietnamese people made its way into China, creating a so-called Chinese civilization. Sigma Qian, a noted historian of Chinese people, had to admit the fact that: “Although the Vietnamese were viewed as barbarians, at the beginning they had the great merit to all peoples …”.

     Confucius, a great Chinese scholar, praised the brilliant civilization and confirmed the superiority of Bai-Yue Civilization in the southern part of China: Vietnam. In the book ‘Doctrine of the Mean,’ Confucius wrote: “Tolerance, generosity and kindness, no sense of vengeance against the immoral man: these are the source of power of the South, and it is the quality of a gentleman .. ! Wearing armor, riding horse, going to the battle field without fear of death: these are the source of power of the North, and it’s the strength of a bellicose man”. 

    In Spring and Autumn Analects, Confucius typified many incidents where a father killed his son, a son murdered his father, a father disgraced his son’s wife, a son abused his father’s concubine, a brother and a sister engaged in incestuous relationship, a subject assassinated his king, and so on. This proved nomadic Han-Chinese were barbarous in the manner of survival, regardless of human love and morality. Ironically, the invaders viewed Vietnamese as barbarians. On the contrary, the Baiyue in the south already had the agricultural civilization for a long time prior to the “Han civilization” interference. Confucius,  the ever master of all times of Han Chinese, himself researched, collected, and learned from the civilization of Baiyue in the south, from which he brought the moral rules to the savage society in the north.

     All ‘Five Classics’, the quintessence of Han-Chinese, were authored by Confucius who admitted that he just repeated what his predecessors left without any inventions of his own. Nowadays, the truth of history is recovered when all researchers affirm that most inventions which used to be considered as of the Chinese civilization-the agricultural advancement to the metallurgy, bronze-casting techniques, paper-making, glass-melting, gunpowder-making, architecture of sweeping roofs and curved knives… all belonged to Baiyue’s civilization. The Emperor Xian of Han, the last emperor of the Han dynasty, also admitted that: “Jiaozhi is a civilized land with many rivers, mountains, jewels, cultural objects and talented people”.

     Coeval with the dawning of Vietnamese civilization, it is necessary to learn about the legend of The Fairy and The Dragon, foundation of Vietnamese nation and the beginning of the State by the National Ancestor ‘Hung King.’ Our filial generations will know clearly about the traditional cultural characteristics of the Vietnamese together with the spiritual cultural life, such as Tet holidays, and the meanings of other Vietnamese festivities. As such, our filial generations will thoroughly understand more clearly about the noble and beautiful values of the traditional culture characteristics of the Vietnamese.

     We are proud that we are the children of ‘The Fairy and The Dragon’, the ancestors of a nation which has a long-standing history. Nguyen Trai, a cultural celebrity, declared: “To this day, only our Great Yueh (Viet) had thousands of years’ civilization.”. We are proud to be the Vietnamese, one of the biggest races of mankind, and we can keep abreast with powerful countries in the third millennium. We have to make sure that we deserve all the things that our ancestors have founded, and we must do good things for our country and sing of the sacred souls of Vietnamese heroes’ and heroines’ praises.

     All Vietnamese at home and abroad, let’s hold our hands and let’s stay united as one. We will save our country, and turn it into a developed nation, which deserves the fame of Lac Hong-another name of the Vietnamese race.  It’s our pride as the Vietnamese which excites patriotism within all Vietnamese people, especially the young generations, at home and abroad, to carry out a democratic revolution, to modernize our nation. Objective conditions of history help our young generations to have modern knowledge to fulfill transcendent scientific and technical revolution and make our country prosperous and powerful, to keep abreast with powerful countries in the third millennium.

A time within memory of our nation’s first founders,

the history of thousands of years with a civilization,                          heroes and their victories,

a belief that all Vietnamese were born                                                    by the only mother initially,

the utmost familiar name “The Vietnamese Peoples”                   which is heartily felt and sounded very Vietnamese.

PHAM TRAN ANH

The South nation resides the Southern people

This fate is written in “the book of heaven”

By none reason you invade this soil

As said you will suffer a vanquishable destruction!

Translated by Pham Tran Anh

THE IMMORTAL WORDS!

“You shouldn’t forget it is a big country that would do bad and immoral things. It gives itself the right to say one thing and act differently. Therefore, the forever threats we must be aware of are from the Chinese. We shouldn’t belittle a tiny thing like a mole that occurs along our borderlands, for such a mole, without our timely intervention, will eventually become a mountain. The Chinese never abide to the agreed boundaries; they always put about excuses leading to dispute. They cannot take over our country, but they wear away our land; they gradually gnaw at our land. In the long run their attempt is to downsize our territory – from an eagle nest to that of a sparrow. So you must always keep in mind what I say:”Any inch of land that was passed to us by our ancestors must not fail or fall into other people’s hands. I want to say this as a testament for our future generations …”.

The past is the root of the future, the deeper roots go, the stronger and higher plants will grow. “

KING TRAN NHAN TON (1279-1293)

“ An inch of the mountain, or an inch of the river is our land that cannot be wasted. You must contend with them to prevent them from wearing away our land. If they don’t listen to us, you can have an envoy come to the North to settle the matter diplomatically. If you dare cede one inch of the mountain or an inch of the river to the enemy, you will be beheaded …”.

KING LE THANH TONG (1460-1497)

“We are descendents of our own ancestors. Regardless of gender, age, tribe, clan, We are all ‘Children of the Fairy and the Dragon’  from Mother Au Co who gave birth to us – our tribes and clans. It’s like a large tree with many limbs coming from the same trunk and the same root.

Water to thousands of rivers and streams comes from one source. That’s the Nature, let alone human beings like us. Generation after generation  are born, brought up and guided by our predecessors. To revere and remember our ancestors, we should work hard to take good care of the roots and the source.

We should exert our industry to cultivate virtue and morality in ourselves and in the young. We should thrive in compassion toward other peoples rather than disparaging and envying of others. As descendants of our ancestors, we have to preserve the traditions our ancestors have set. Shouldn’t we think about the above beautiful and profound meanings for the sake of our country?”.

EMPEROR QUANG TRUNG

BACH VIET WORSHIP HALL

A speech to the elderly at Văn Nội Village

Annotated by La Son Phu Tu

Ngoclu Bronze Drum

BIOGRAPHY OF HISTORIAN PHAM TRAN ANH

Mr PHAM, Tran ANH was born on 28-1-1945 in Nam Dinh, North Vietnam.

Graduated from the National Institute of Administration (Saigon,1969) and from the Infantry  Officer Training School in1970.

Director of Training centre, Quang Nam Province (1969).

Deputy Chief, Tam Binh District, Vinh Long Province (1970-1973).

Head of Province Administration Service and Director of Training Centre of Lam Dong Province (1973-1975).

Member of International PEN.

Vice Chairman of the International Studies Southeast Asia Sea, USA.

Chairman of the Overseas Executive Council of the Vietnamese Political and Religious Prisoners Fellowship Association 

History and Culture Research publications

– The Life -Sentence Prisoner.

– The Origin of Vietnamese.

– The Historical Miracle of Vietnam.

– The Hung Vuong King.

– Hoang Sa-Truong Sa sovereignty in Vietnam history.

– Son Ha sophistry.

– The Foundation of Vietnam.

– History of Vietnam.

– Vietnamese Ancient Civilizations

ACTIVITIES      

After April 1975, Mr Pham and comrades established the Vietnam Freedom Front. After more than two years hard working under oppressive circumstances , Mr Pham was arrested on 3 July1977 and charged with “attempting to overthrow the communist government” and  therefore life sentenced by the “People’s Court” of Lam Dong Province on 3 August1977.

With the intervention and support from Amnesty International and Human Rights organizations, the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam reduced his life sentence to 20 years imprisonment. Under strong international pressure, Mr Pham was released on 3 August 1997 after 20 years and one month confinement in prison.

During this extremely hard time, Mr Pham wrote the above-mentioned publications and established the Fellowship of Vietnam Political and Religious Prisoners, the President of which is Venerable Thich Thien Minh who is a former conscience prisoner in Vietnam with 26 years in prison. After nearly 9 years under strict control by the Vietnamese police and not having been allowed to depart Vietnam under the ODP program, Mr Pham arrived and settled in the USA on 29 February 2006 after the US government‘s effective intervention. 

In January 2008, Mr Pham was invited to Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Holland and the Czech Republic to provide testimonies as a live victim of the systematic and deliberate violation of human rights by the Vietnam Communist Party and its government. At an international press conference in Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, strong allegations were made against the Vietnam communist authorities for committing several counts of indictments when executing more than 300 political and religious prisoners in Vietnam including 2 religious priests and 2 women, one of whom was Mrs TranThi Lan who had been pregnant for 8 months.

In celebrating the International Human Rights Day on 10th December.2012, the California Congress has declared and honoured the Vietnam Prisoners of Conscience Day which Mr Pham was invited to attend. 

INHUMAN PRISON

According to the International Law, Article 7 of the United nations Convenant on civil and political right states: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.

Venerable Thich Thien Minh was 2 times life imprisonment. He was honoured by a condemnation and ambassadors of the United nations as prisoners of conscience. He was 26 years in prison tortured, so he adopted because of the torture regularly medically treated.

Mr Anh T Pham were arrested in July 1977 and were condemned a Life sentence in the prison by the so-called “People’s court” of the Lâm Đồng province.

Between July 3,1977 and August 3,1978, his hands and feed were shackled in detention in Dalat, he receive unsufficient food, was beaten, tortured, his eyes were irradiated by intense light and some and he was executed falsified several times to khủng bố tinh thần để khai thác và ép buộc nhận tội.

From August 3,1978 to October 1984, he was in the prison cell. His feet were shackled day and night with a wooden cancre. He receive only per month 7 kg of and one shower.

In prison camp Xuan Phuoc, he lost a few meters, as the proson quards had beaten him.

Almost 9 years, he was in solitary confinement with shackled hand and feet detained. Due to the efforts of Amnesty International, the Swedish Priminister and many menbers of parliament from several countries, he was release on 03 August 1997, after over 20 years from the jail.

After release from the prison, he sought to leave Vietnam to USA to his family. On September 2006, the Communist regime allowed him to leave the country. His retinas was changed by two artificial retinas, he also received also prostheses. He is currently vice Chaiman of the association of political and religious prisoners in Vietnam.