Medieval Vietnamese Invented Traditions
The Ming-Occupation-Period Origins of the Lĩnh Nam Chích Quái?
One of the earliest texts that contains information about Vietnamese history is a fifteenth-century work known as the Arrayed Tales of Selected Oddities from South
The Logic of Historians and the 28 Yin Dynasty Female Generals
I recently wrote about a spirit in Phù Đổng village known as Saint Gióng (Thánh Gióng) or the Soaring-to-Heaven King (冲天神王) or Heavenly King of
Where Vietnamese Antiquity Came From
Keith Taylor began his 1983 work on early Vietnamese history, The Birth of Vietnam, with the following sentence: “The earliest traditions of the Vietnamese people,
How the Hùng Kings Obtained a Citadel
The Hùng Kings are an invention. They were not invented out of nothing, but instead were fashioned out of extant written sources. This process of
The Real Ông Trọng
Over a year ago I posted a blog entry on The Invention of Lý Ông Trọng in which I argued that there was no evidence
The 18 Generations of Hùng Kings
Everyone knows that the Hùng Kings supposedly ruled for 18 generations. However, where does that information come from? The earliest sources on the Hùng Kings
Mang Savages in the Red River Delta
I have long wondered about place names like Phù Đổng. This is the name of a village in the Red River delta. Many of the
Deconstructing the Myth of the Antiquity of the Vietnamese Nation
The online journal, Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, has recently published two articles which deal with the period when “Vietnam” was under “Chinese” rule. Michael Churchman’s
The Lao Story of the Betel Leaf and the Areca Nut
The “Story of the Betel Leaf and the Areca Nut” is a famous “Vietnamese” story. I have Vietnamese in scare quotes here because the Vietnamese
Lê Lợi and the Black-Robed Emperor
There are many fields of history where “the facts” have long been figured out. That is definitely not the case with premodern Vietnamese history. To
A White Pheasant and the Sino-Vietnamese Tributary Relationship
This is another story from the Arrayed Tales of Selected Oddities from South of the Passes (Lĩnh Nam chích quái liệt truyện). This story is
A Fox Corpse, West Lake, and the Divided Population of Medieval Vietnam
The Arrayed Tales of Selected Oddities from South of the Passes (Lĩnh Nam chích quái liệt truyện) is a collection of short tales which was
The Savages of Mount Tản Viên
Mount Tản Viên is considered by many today to have been a sacred site for Vietnamese since antiquity. Stories about the spirit of Mount Tản
Xian Daughters and Trưng Sisters
One thing which is clear to me is that when Vietnamese started to write histories after their kingdom had become autonomous from Chinese rule, they
Was Phùng Hưng Tai? What About Ngô Quyền?
Phùng Hưng is a famous figure in Vietnamese history. In 791 he led a rebellion and attacked the main center of Tang Dynasty control in
Talking Turtles in Ancient Vietnam
Have you ever heard a turtle talk? Probably not. In the fifteenth century, the Vietnamese historian, Ngô Sĩ Liên, had never heard a turtle talk
The Invention of Lý Ông Trọng
In the previous entry I suggested that the Tang Dynasty administrator, Gao Pian, may have been responsible for transforming a local spirit into the spirit
The Huayang guozhi and Early Vietnamese History
In talking about the earliest information about Vietnamese history, one element which I passed over is the connection which is drawn to the mythical (Chinese)
Believable Births to Ngô Sĩ Liên
One of the difficulties in attempting to understand early Vietnamese texts is that I think we tend to believe that the people who wrote them
Lord Lạc Long, Âu Cơ, and the “Biography of Liu Yi”
In the entry, “Kinh Dương Vương as a Medieval Invented Tradition,” we saw that the story of Kinh Dương Vương, which first appeared in the
