TRADITIONAL LITERATURE and MARTIAL ARTS of VIETNAM – Part 1

Hits: 756

HUNG NGUYEN MANH

    By the second half of the 19th century, when the French invasion began, primitive traditional weapons were combined with martial arts moves in guerrilla warfare tactics.

    During Viet Minh era (alliance against France), the most primitive and familiar weapons were sharp bamboo sticks. However, during this period, guns and explosives had been more or less put into use. Especially, the invaders used modern weapons such as aircrafts, ships, etc, in the Indochina battlefield. Soldiers still practiced martial arts like in the feudal period.

    Theoretical military classics such as military manual, military tactics still existed in the Nguyen dynasty until the French invaders used new tactics and strategies during modern and contemporary history.

    In terms of the education history, Vietnam is a country with early education system within the world of China (according to Vandermeersch)¹. The world was influenced by Chinese culture over thousands of years, not mentioning the Indian culture. Vietnam also had an advanced education in the world of Western Europe, under the influence of French culture in the late 19^th – early 20^th century.

    Both the above-mentioned education systems inherited from the domination of two major countries from the East and West. In order to find the founder for the ancient university, we highlighted the names of literature teacher Chu Van An² and martial arts teacher Tran Quoc Tuan³ (because he compiled the military manual and martial arts competitions).

    Now we try to study the ancient literature and martial arts. First of all, let us begin a history slice, like cutting wood into chopping-boards, starting from the history of the Nguyen dynasty according to the material Technique du peuple materials Annamite (Techniques of An Nam’s people) by Henri Oger⁴ implemented in 1908-1909 in Hanoi. Among 4,577 woodcut drawings with Han Nom (Chinese characters and classic Vietnamese characters) annotation, we could select multiple woodblocks describing students in the old time, when there was no French invasion yet.

    Whether learning literature or martial arts, the learners needed to learn Chinese first. This image is of two kids sitting on a plank. In front of them was the teacher holding a rod in his hand (Figure 1).

    We can see the hard-working kids bending over to“draw” letters, looking forward to the day they could become mandarins. As for children who learned less like buffalo boys (Figure 2), who were poor and keen on wrestling (Figure 3). Even among the low-lying wetland, they could wrestle on the mounds in their free time.

“Vật trâu, vật bò, vật gò, vật đống

    Wrestling with buffaloes; wrestling with cows; wrestling on the mounds; wrestling on the hills Vật đá thành vôi, vật đồi thành nước Wrestling with stones to turn them into lime; wrestling with hills to turn them into water.

Vật nổ trời đất, vật cho cột thành than…”

    Wrestling until heaven and earth explode; wrestling until poles turn into charcoals.

… CONTINUE …

BAN TU THU
12 /2019

SEE ALSO:
◊  TRADITIONAL LITERATURE and MARTIAL ARTS of VIETNAM – Part 2