Read any history of modern Vietnam and you will undoubtedly come across the idea that in the early twentieth century the “traditional” elite failed to adapt to the changing society under French colonial rule.
As this story is often told, these scholars ignored the threat of the Western world and just continued to study the Confucian classics. They were thus unable to resist the French who colonized their land, and with the termination in 1919 of the civil service exams (khoa cử 科舉) that these traditional scholars spent their lives studying to pass, they ultimately “faded” into obscurity as the “important” people in Vietnamese history, revolutionaries, emerged.
This view of Vietnamese history is one that I have been debunking here on this blog in writings about educational reforms in the early twentieth century. Recently I have been doing some more research on that topic and have been discovering ever more fascinating aspects of the history of this period.
In 1906, the French came up with a plan to start reforming education in Indochina, and Nguyễn Dynasty officials carried out this plan.
At that time there were already “Franco-Annamite” schools that taught students the Romanized script for writing spoken Vietnamese (quốc ngữ) as well as French. The 1906 reforms were not directed at these schools. Instead, these reforms targeted the world of the “traditional” scholars.
In particular, each village or community with at least 60 children between the ages of 6 and 12 was ordered to set up a “children’s studies public school” (ấu học công trường 幼學公場). Part of the instruction in these schools was in Vietnamese, and part was in Chinese.
Textbooks were developed for both parts. In this blog post here, we will look at the textbook that was created for the Chinese section.
The textbook was entitled the New Book of Hán Characters for Children’s Studies (Ấu học Hán tự tân thư 幼學漢字新書) and it was created by three Nguyễn Dynasty officials, the most high-ranking of which was Junior Guardian of the Heir Apparent (太子少保) and Acting Assistant Grand Secretary (署協辦大學士) Dương Lâm 陽琳.
Dương Lâm’s great-granddaughter, Duong Van Mai Elliot, wrote about this in her family memoir The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family as follows:
“He resigned in 1902 when his mother died. He would return briefly to public life in 1907 to write manuals for the teaching of Chinese classics. Although this was a position far below those he had held, he assumed it with enthusiasm because it gave him a chance to help preserve the old learning that he revered. But in 1910, the French decreed that only one more round of imperial exams would be allowed, after which they would be abolished, and eliminated my great-grandfather’s position. He retired in that year at age sixty.” (25)
This description of Dương Lâm’s work writing “manuals for the teaching of Chinese classics” fits perfectly with the standard view of this time period. Not only was Dương Lâm entering his twilight years in the early twentieth century, but so was his entire cultural world as well.
It’s a melancholy image: the aging traditional scholar writing textbooks “to help preserve the old learning that he revered” at the very moment that the French were eliminating that learning. . .
It’s also an inaccurate image. Indeed, the contents of the New Book of Hán Characters for Children’s Studies tell a very different story.
Far from being one of the last traditional scholars who sought to preserve the old learning, Dương Lâm was one of the first traditional scholars to actively seek to destroy it.
Indeed, the New Book of Hán Characters for Children’s Studies is in many ways like a “death to traditional learning” manifesto.
The New Book of Hán Characters for Children’s Studies begins by teaching children a certain number of characters, and then it turns to teach sentences. The sentences that are taught are definitely not ones that can be found in the “Chinese classics.” Nor can they be found in earlier Vietnamese texts.
Instead, they were brand new ideas that were circulating in the world of reformist intellectuals in East Asia at that time, ideas like nationalism and Social Darwinism.
What follows are some of the earliest passages in the book, passages in which Dương Lâm and his co-authors (Đoàn Triển 段展 and Bùi Hướng Thành 裴向誠) teach children about patriotism and race.
As will be evident, the terms and ways that these topics came to be used were still in their infancy here, nonetheless, we can clearly see the beginnings of key aspects of Vietnamese nationalism.
To quote:
河有源，源遠支流繁。
人有祖，祖肇山河固。
Rivers have sources; the further from the source the more profuse the branches.
People have progenitors [tổ 祖], with the founding of the progenitor, the mountains and rivers solidify.
我為南國人，生長南國土。飲河當思源，愛國莫忘祖。
吾祖鴻龎氏，肇始經陽王。丁皇一統後，南族帝南方。
昔經北屬辰，舊恥已難忘。況念締造功，子孫宜自强。
I’m a Southern Kingdom person; I was born on the Southern Kingdom’s soil.
When you drink from a river, think of its source; in loving the kingdom, one can never forget the progenitor.
Our progenitor [Ngô tổ 吾祖] is the Hồng Bàng clan, and the imperial founder is King Kinh Dương.
After the Đinh Emperor unified the realm, the Southern lineage [Nam tộc 南族] empired over the South.
Having formerly passed through a period of Northern rule, this old humiliation is difficult to forget.
Indeed! In thinking of [the ancestors’] merit in establishing [a realm, we] descendants must strengthen it ourselves.
木有種，一種枝條分，
人有類，氣血親同類。
Trees come in different types [chủng 種]; the branches of one type divide.
People come in different kinds [loại 類]; qi and blood are attracted to the same kind.
我為南國種，我愛南國民。吾種同一胞，出自貉龍君。
歡言合保種，莫傷同類人。世代有更換，同類原相親。
南北有疆界，肥瘠非越秦。疴癢同分痛，榮辱聯一群。
吾族本非夷，吾種亦非卑。文風軋中國，武略開邊陲。
支稜走宋兵，白藤破元師。黎祖陳興道，赫赫聲名垂。
末造尚文辭，文盛武乃衰。
I am of the Southern Kingdom type [Nam quốc chủng 南國種]. I love the Southern Kingdom’s people.
Our type [Ngô chủng 吾種] comes from the same single womb, appearing first with Lạc Long Quân.
South and North have their boundaries, but Việt [Yue] and Tần [Qin] are not fertile and barren.**
In illness, we share the pain; be it for honor or disgrace, we unite as one.
Our lineage [Ngô tộc 吾族] has never been barbarian; our type is not inferior.
The literary style oppressed the Middle Kingdom, while military ability opened the frontiers.
Chi Lăng drove off the Tống [Song] army, and Bạch Đằng crushed the Nguyên [Yuan] troops
The Lê Progenitor [Lê tổ, i.e., Lê Lợi] and Trần Hưng Đạo; their illustrious names have been left to posterity.
In latter days there has been a reverence of literary writings; when the literary thrives, the martial declines.
[**This line is playing with an old saying (Qin and Yue, fertile and barren 秦越肥瘠) that is used to denote two places that are very different from each other. What the authors are saying here, however, is that Vietnam and China are not that different from each other.]
The early nationalist ideas that we see here are the types of ideas that historians have argued only “revolutionaries,” like Phan Bội Châu, started to develop at this time. While Phan Bội Châu did express ideas like the ones here, he was outside of Vietnam for much of the early twentieth century.
While he was off in Japan and China, however, there were scholars like Dương Lâm back in Vietnam who were working hard to revolutionize the way that young people think. Those people were not “revolutionaries” in that they were not interested in overthrowing the government. However, their effort to overthrow the educational system was definitely revolutionary.
As such, the “old learning” of “traditional scholars” did not fade into the twilight in early-twentieth-century Vietnam. Instead, that learning was destroyed, and it was destroyed by Nguyễn Dynasty officials who were steeped in that learning.
Dương Lâm was one such official. His New Book of Hán Characters for Children’s Studies did not try to preserve something old. It actively sought to create something very new.
In that respect, the New Book of Hán Characters for Children’s Studies was truly revolutionary.
A final note: As far as I know, Duong Van Mai Elliot does not read classical Chinese. If she could, and if she had read Dương Lâm’s textbook, I’m certain that she would have written about her great-grandfather differently. I am therefore not critiquing Duong Van Mai Elliot or her book. I am just using it as a helpful tool to examine this issue, as it 1) mentions Dương Lâm and it 2) faithfully reproduces the standard interpretation of the role of “traditional” scholars in this time period that many historians have produced.
This Post Has 2 Comments
In two separated articles, you showed two meanings of a same book (its title, rather).
Quote 1 The textbook was entitled the New Book of Hán Characters for Children’s Studies [Ấu học Hán tự tân thư 幼學漢字新書]
Quote 2: in 1909, a few other Nguyễn Dynasty officials compiled another work in classical Chinese called the New Writings in Classical Chinese on Elementary Learning (Ấu học hán tự tân thư 幼學漢字新書). The Trues Vietnamese Revolutionaries Nov 3, 2016 https://leminhkhai.blog/the-true-vietnamese-revolutionaries/
Even if the book were available, I cannot read, I’m Chinese illiterate.
In the first interpretation, Children book, “ấu 幼”stands for child, pretty young kid. It is suitable to the ad hoc content (regarding “children’s studies public school” (ấu học công trường 幼學公場).
In the 2nd interpretation, “ấu 幼 stands for basic, elementary. It is suitable too; the essay deals with the propagation of new thoughts, new ideas from the West for beginners
Could you tell the exact content of the book. Grateful that I am.
Dear Sir, me again, I found void of sense my asking you to tell the content of the book. The present article has elaborated it. The work by Dương Lâm, Đoàn Triển and Bùi Hướng Hoành was in no way “for children”, ấu. I dealt with brand new concepts, as of the time, for exemple “chủng tộc” as you have mentioned at https://leminhkhai.blog/modern-vietnamese-historians-and-the-dan-toc-question/. To use your word, it was a manifesto for a new way of thinking under the old lingua franca. Dương Lâm wanted to take advantage of the situation (education reform) to propagate modern ideas, more than making a living through a very humble position. I would like to say – forced it may be – there is no contradiction in the two interpretations of the title Ấu học Hán tự tân thư 幼學漢字新書. By essence,it was brewing nationalism, patriotism, in a new progressist perspective and with elementary knowledge from all corners of the world, not only from the Yellow River.