The Tale of Kieu and Vietnamese Society

My mom has just returned to America after visiting me here in Vietnam. It was really good to see her and I’m glad I was able to show her how I’m living here. We went to Ha Long Bay which was very beautiful. I introduced her to most of my friends here, both Western and Vietnamese. We definitely ate well. My mom being here reminded me that I am only in Vietnam for another 2 weeks or so. Recently I have been meditating and reading about Vietnamese culture and history. I have been devoting a significant amount of time at reading the Tale of Kieu (the most famous piece of Vietnamese literature).

The Tale of Kieu is a long epic poem (~3,000 lines). I have finished reading an English translation and I have worked with some of my Vietnamese friends to decipher some of the Vietnamese. I plan on continuing to work on this until I leave. As important pieces of literature go, the Tale of Kieu is not so old. It was written in the early 19^th century by a man named Nguyen Du. It is actually based on an older Chinese story but he rewrote and revamped the poetry. He also adjusted it to fit a Vietnamese context even if the story is actually set in China.

The Tale of Kieu has a very sad story. It’s about a young woman (Kieu) who is exceptionally beautiful and talented but has a terrible life. In the very beginning she meets her true love but while he is away she is forced to sell herself into prostitution because of a large debt her father supposedly owes to this unscrupulous man. The debt did not actually exist but she still had to sacrifice herself out of filial piety. After that she has numerous trials. She is coerced to marry a few other guys and basically oscillates between relative happiness to prostitution to economic depravity. She accurately describes herself as a flower aimlessly floating down a river. The story has a pretty improbable and I would say rather unconvincing happy ending.

I extracted two main themes of the story. 1. Beauty and talent can be a curse. In the prologue there’s this passage: Trời xanh quen thói má hồng đánh ghen. In English this passage’s meaning goes something like: Even Heaven is jealous of those with beauty. Kieu has such a hard life precisely because of her extraordinary beauty and artistic talent. I see this as a critique on the common desire among people to be beautiful, attractive, special in some way, etc. and also critical of those who live their lives envying those other beautiful or famous people. I see this as a very wise point to make and relevant to today’s society. 2. Nguyen Du also offers a subtle critique of the rigid Confucian society and culture. When Kieu is forced to sacrifice her youth for the sake of her father, her father is devastated and insists that she save herself. He even threatens to kill himself if she leaves. She however cannot do that because of filial piety (hieu) and her moral debt (on) to her parents. Vietnam like other Confucian societies has a strong culture surrounding the family. I believe the Vietnamese put a bit more emphasis on worshipping their ancestors than say the Japanese. Every Vietnamese house will have a small shrine to their family ancestors and people will regularly pray and give offerings. Children are taught that they owe absolutely everything to their parents and so families rarely split up if they don’t have to. There are of course more “modern” or Western ideas of family entering the psyche of some urban Vietnamese but I would say a vast majority of Vietnamese people still hold this part of the culture dear to their heart. In the context of Kieu her father realizes that it is crazy to sell her daughter to dangerous men while she is so young and has so much to live for. If he let himself be taken instead of Kieu then it would bring an immense amount of shame onto them and could have even completely destroyed the family altogether. Kieu is the martyr because the rigidity of the Confucian system’s focus on maintaining harmony within the hierarchy of the family. In the Confucian perspective a family cannot function without a father at the head.

The Tale of Kieu is known by all Vietnamese people and every student has to study at least a bit of it. I get the feeling that some Vietnamese people like to look at as a metaphorical narrative for their own history. Vietnam’s history has basically been a struggle for independence from foreign aggressors. The Chinese dominated them for nearly a thousand years. They were followed by the French, Japanese, French again and finally the United States. Vietnam being a small country surrounded by more powerful neighbors and thrown into the geopolitics of the Cold War era probably did seem like a flower floating aimlessly downstream; lacking the agency to control their own destiny. I also believe that the protagonist being a woman is important. Since Vietnam is a Confucian country like China, Korea, and Japan, it is a patriarchal society. Women generally have less access to higher level jobs and are taken less seriously but I feel like this is a reoccurring phenomenon around the globe. Women have only won somewhat equal rights recently around the world. In Asia, Southeast Asia seems to me to be one of the few areas of the world where the societies were somewhat matriarchal and women enjoyed more rights. I feel like this trend has rubbed off a bit in Vietnam and I think women in Vietnam are in a better position in terms of social mobility and respect than their contemporaries in Japan or Korea. But that is just my vague and generalized opinion based on observations.

I recommend that people read the Tale of Kieu and learn about Vietnamese culture. Vietnam is a small country but has a distinct culture and voice which should be taken seriously.