Nguyễn Dynasty
The Quốc Tử Giám and the Transformation of Traditional Learning in 1910s Vietnam
In 1909, reformist Nguyễn Dynasty scholar Phạm Quang Sán offered an example of a theoretical civil service exam question and answer that sought to demonstrate
The Untold Story of the Self-Modernization of Vietnam’s Traditional Elite
In the previous post I introduced a book that Nguyễn Dynasty official and reformist scholar Phạm Quang Sán published in 1909 that sought to introduce
Phạm Quang Sán’s Attempt to Revolutionize the Civil Service Exams (Khoa Cử)
In 1909, a year after he had published a textbook that was aimed at modernizing elementary education, Nguyễn Dynasty official and reformist scholar Phạm Quang
The True Vietnamese Revolutionaries
I’ve long had a problem with the general narrative about the history of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Vietnam. Over and over you read in books
Wealth and Power, Mencius and 1910 Vietnam
In the nineteenth century there were Chinese scholars who realized that China needed to catch up with the technological advances of Western nations. This was
A 1910 Vietnamese Defense of the Yijing
The arrival in East Asia in the nineteenth century of people in steamships from the industrializing West was a shock to the educated elite there,
The Idea for a Mandarin Language in Early-20th-Century Vietnam
The civil service examination was of course an extremely important institution in Vietnamese history, but it is a topic that has yet to be researched
Mattie Calogreedy, Anna Leonowens and Marie Vannier – Hapa Women at Mainland Southeast Asian Courts in the Nineteenth Century
The story of the overthrow of the Konbaung Dynasty by the British in the late nineteenth century is a complex one, but a simplified explanation
How Việt Nam Became Việt Nam
I keep coming across writings in English in which people talk about how Việt Nam came to be called Việt Nam, and nobody has the
Gia Long the Ming Descendant
Yesterday a bright young scholar offered me one idea he has as for why the Nguyễn Dynasty referred to themselves and some other people in
Chen Jinghe’s Notes on the Gia Định thành thông chí
Not long after the French obtained control over the area around Saigon, Louis Gabriel Galderic Aubaret published a French “translation” of an early-nineteenth-century gazetteer of
Vietnamese Métis in 1863 Paris
In 1862, the Nguyễn Dynasty granted the French some land in the Mekong Delta, after it had been occupied by French and Spanish forces. A
The Differing Customs of the Qing People
I was reading the Khâm Định Việt Sử Thông Giám Cương Mục and found some interesting entries in the year 1663. In the seventh lunar
Tự Đức’s Dismissal of Sĩ Nhiếp
One of the stereotypes which the Nguyễn Dynasty has suffered from is that it was “overly Sinitic/Confucian,” and that this made them impractical to the
Losing Land and Misquoting Tự Đức
At the turn of the twentieth century, Vietnamese intellectual learned a great deal about the West and began to transform the way they thought about
Imperial Imaginings in Nineteenth Century Vietnam
Oh if only I had the time and the ability. . . I was just looking at a text called the Ngự đề Danh thắng
Tự Đức and the Translation of the Past
In the nineteenth century, the Nguyễn Dynasty commissioned the compilation of a new official history of the kingdom. Emperor Tự Đức read this history and
The Siamese Sore in Late Imperial Vietnam
I was reading a manuscript today called Random Accounts from a Mountain Residence (Sơn cư tạp thuật). It is supposed to date from the late
The Nguyễn Dynasty’s Miếu Lịch Đại Đế Vương
In 1823 a temple was completed at the Nguyễn Dynasty capital to honor “emperors of succeeding generations.” It was referred to in classical Chinese as
Thiên Thư in the Early Nineteenth Century
The poem “Nam quốc sơn hà” is extremely famous, especially it’s first two lines: “The Southern Kingdom’s mountains and rivers are occupied by the Southern
