A Vietnamese Family Chronicle

by Nguyen Trieu Dan

  Four generations before Quang So, our ancestors were Zen Buddhists. Confucian teachers followed them. In this generation, the pendulum swung back to Buddhism. Quang So’s faith owed much to his mother and maternal grandparents, who were devout worshippers. They used to bring him along with them to temple service when he was a child. He grew up to become a believer. He chose to be known as Chan Nguyen, meaning The True Source, a pseudonym very much Buddhist in character. In doing so, he parted with family tradition for, as we know, most of our scholar-ancestors favored including in their pseudonyms the Confucian word Phuc, or Happiness. Chan Nguyen, in fact, was the name of a Zen master in the seventeenth century who led a revival of the Buddhist Truc Lam sect. Quang So attended temple assiduously, a rare occurrence among male members of our family. Temple worship had been an activity reserved mainly to our women. The men, even when they broke away from a strict Confucian tradition to become Buddhist followers, had shown a peculiar reluctance to it. Our fifth and sixth ancestors studied and practiced Zen, but did so “at home.” Of the three Refuges that Buddhism offered to its faithfuls-the Buddha, his Teachings and the Assembly of Monks-the last one had proved to be most difficult for our people to seek. When Buddhism was at its apogee and treated like a state religion, under the Ly and Tran dynasties, monks held a high position in society. Many were accomplished scholars. Their sermons were listened to by kings and mandarins. But since the fifteenth century, Confucianism had gained a complete ascendancy in the state and Buddhism had been reduced to being a religion of the common people. Monks ranked well below scholars and were in no position to preach to them. Mandarins did not go to temples; they called the monks to their residences to perform religious services whenever they needed them. Of course, at all epochs, there were monks whom the most erudite scholars and highest mandarins would readily recognize as their spiritual masters. These monks, however, did not go out among the faithfuls. They retired to the mountains to meditate and teach a few selected disciples. Few laymen could hope to meet with them. Perhaps it was for the above reasons that those of our ancestors who sought to find a path in Zen did not have a guide or teacher. Their only “refuges” were the faith they had in Lord Buddha and whatever they could understand from their own reading of his Teachings.

  Quang So was neither a Zen follower, nor did he spend much time meditating or studying Buddhism. He was a believer in the popular sense of the term, one who went to temples to make offerings, worship and listen to the priests’ sermons. Few scholars were seen there, but that did not matter to him. By becoming a trader, he had shown how little regard he had for conventions. Every year, he made a pilgrimage to the Huong Son Temple, one of the most famous in the north. Dedicated to Phat Ba Quan Am, the Lady of Mercy, the temple was built in a grotto some distance away from our village, south along the Hat River. According to legend, it was in that grotto that the Lady of Mercy attained enlightenment. Pilgrims flocked to Huong Son during the festive season which took place in the first two months of the lunar calendar. Actually, Huong Son was not one but a group of temples set in a formation of limestone hills. Some temples were built in grottoes, others on hilltops. A small river winding its way through apricot orchards linked the temples together. Boats punted by young village women carried the pilgrims amidst a fairy-like scenery, especially when the trees were blossoming. In the fifteenth century, the great king Le Thanh Ton visited the temple of the Lady of Mercy. Moved by its beauty and sacred character, he wrote a few words in large calligraphy to praise it as “the first grotto under southern skies.” Monks carved the characters on an overhanging rock at the entrance of the grotto. They can still be seen today. Our ancestor used to bring his family to the temple some weeks after Tet, just when the apricot blossoms were coming out. They stayed there for several days, making offerings and worshipping at every temple. Only once this religious duty was over, would Quang So get ready to leave his village and resume his business activities.

  While our family improved its lot, other branches of the Nguyen Dinh stayed in decline. Many relatives had left Kim Bai. Family ties loosened. Sometime around the turn of the nineteenth century, a grave event occurred. The cult land belonging to our Ancestral Shrine was taken over by others without our kinsmen doing anything about it. Did they not know, or were they powerless to stop it and had to keep silent? A generation later, the existence of our extensive cult land had been forgotten. Quang So certainly had no inkling of it. A man proud of his ancestry and with wealth at his disposal, he would have done something to recover the land, had he known. He did, however, know about the Cu Hau papers and had often expressed regret over the fact that our family had lost all written evidence of its ancestry. A strong belief of his was that the Cu Hau papers contained the full history of our family and that, when found, it would reveal a golden period of our past. He was told that the old Ancestral Shrine was built like a temple and adorned with magnificent cult instruments. “That shrine must have been built by wealthy and powerful men,” he said. “Wars and changes of dynasties have made us forget our most illustrious forebears.” In his time, only Nguyen Uyen was remembered among our ancestors, and it was not even known that he was sent by the king on a diplomatic mission to China. We know that Quang So spent time searching for the papers. In particular, he sought during his business travels to reestablish contact with those of Cu Hau’s descendants, who had gone away from Kim Bai. He never found the papers. But he might have left some clues which would help his son, later on, to trace them. That would explain the sentence in our chronicle which says that he “cleared a path for descendants to follow.”

  Quang So stayed on the Guangdong route for several years, then directed his activities elsewhere. The route was a very profitable one. Did he stop because of losses at the hand of pirates around the bay of Ha Long? Or was it because the danger was always there and he had an intimation that his luck with the pirates may be running out? Our ancestor was a superstitious man. Before taking up any business project or making an important trip, he always sought the advice of astrologers or fortune-tellers. At every place he visited, he looked out for good ones to consult. His superstition extended to even trivial things such as, for instance, the cry of a crow in the garden early in the morning. For him, that bird with its inauspicious color and ugly sound was a messenger of bad tidings. He would refrain from entering into any business commitment, at least during that day. Perhaps also, his natural bent was that of a pioneer drawn towards new challenges and he could not stay in the same activity for very long. Within the country, trade between the north and the south had been developing at a fast pace. The Chinese had been reaping their profits from it. It was bound to attract a man like Quang So. He made his first expedition to the Mekong delta in the fall of 1835. The timing was rather risky, for the south had just come out of a large rebellion, the first that had ever occurred there against the Nguyen monarchy. Le Van Duyet was a eunuch general in Gia Long’s victorious army. For his role in helping his emperor gain the throne of Vietnam, he was made Marshall of the Left, one of the three highest military titles along with those of Marshalls of the Center and the Right. A hero to the populace, he however antagonized many officials on account of his extensive powers and rough manners of a warrior. After he died, his enemies trumped up charges of usurpation against him and persecuted his family. His adopted son Le Van Khoi revolted, seized the six provinces of the Mekong delta and was only defeated after nearly three years of warfare. Le Van Duyet was condemned posthumously, but later on his memory was rehabilitated and the people of the south worshipped him as a protector spirit. All those who have been to Saigon know the Temple of the Marshall of the Left. On the last night of the year, it becomes a sea of pilgrims who come to invoke the Marshall’s blessings and to pray for a new year of happiness and prosperity.

  By the fall of 1835, the last remnants of the rebels had been crushed. Government control was reestablished and traders could resume their normal activities. Quang So’s expedition was a success. He returned h
ome full of optimism. He had seen for himself the great empty spaces of the south, its rich land, its young population constantly reinforced by migration. How different it was from the north, where masses of people were concentrated in a small delta, on a land exhausted by millenniums of cultivation. How complementary too were the new and old parts of the country. The south was a natural supplier of agricultural products to the north, while being on the receiving end for manufactured goods. Trade opportunities between the two were almost limitless. But it was not just a question of trade. Quang So felt strongly attracted to the new land. Having been there, he knew that he would not go anywhere else. “The south is my country,” he said. “Why should I go and trade in another country!”

  He continued to be associated with the Chinese and to operate within their network, but was now more on his own. His own junks sailed south to the Mekong delta. That was a long run of over one thousand kilometers, but quite an easy one during the dry months. Numerous ports, harbors and well-protected coves could be used by the junks to stay the nights or in case of emergencies. Pirates were here and there, but the route was usually safe. The Nguyen monarchy maintained a particularly strong navy to guard the capital Hue and many large towns built along the coast. The long and narrow region which formed the center of the country contained some of its most impressive sceneries. An uninterrupted chain of mountains-called Truong Son or the Long Cordillera-ran from north to south close to the sea. Its foothills came at intervals right down to the water. Between them were small valleys where rivers flowed out and townships were established. “Poets sang the beauty of our country, they described our rivers and mountains as clothed in brocade and the most precious silk; now I know what they meant,” Quang So told his family of the view from the mountain passes over the lowlands and the sea. On reaching the south, his junks went up the river to “the town of Dong Nai in Gia Dinh province,” as recorded in the chronicle, a place which is now Bien Hoa some thirty kilometers to the northeast of Saigon. Dong Nai had received Chinese settlers since the seventeenth century. Refugees from South China fleeing before the Manchu invasion came to Vietnam and were sent there by the Nguyen overlord to populate the land newly acquired from the kingdom of Champa. By the end of that century, Dong Nai had become a flourishing place, where traders from Japan, India and the West lived side by side with Vietnamese and Chinese.

  Quang So had his quarters in the Chinese settlement. The shipments he brought in contained textiles, which remained his preferred line of trade, paper, china, cooking utensils in copper as well as other products that Chinese associates ordered from him. Once these were sold, he set out for the heartland of the delta, where the Mekong, its tributaries and canals crisscrossed the rich and flat land. There he loaded his junks with rice, sugar, dried fish, fish sauce and other foodstuffs for the return trip. He was back in Kim Bai before the Tet of that year. Although travelling almost continually, he always celebrated the new year in his ancestral home. In the spring of 1836, he set sail again for the south. This time, it was a prolonged stay, not only because he wanted to find ways to expand his business but also, I believe, because he loved the life there. The south was a young and vital place. Soldiers and peasants had opened the way there together, the soldiers establishing their outposts and providing security while the peasants cleared and cultivated the land. Others followed them, poor people searching for a better life, adventurers, banished criminals, Chinese refugees. For everyone, it was a new start. Criminals were given a chance to make good and live as normal citizens. Chinese could buy land and take roots in the country, unlike in the north where they were forever “guests,” forbidden to own land and only allowed to earn a living in commerce. The old class system and its rigid conventions were left behind. A man with a pioneering spirit and an unconventional mind like Quang So must have found life in the south more congenial. In spite of his success as a businessman, our ancestor was still a failed scholar in the eyes of northern society. I think that he would have gone south to live, if he had not been the only descendant left in his branch and so much attached to his roots.

  Quang So’s fortune was quickly made from profitable ventures and he spent generously. He lived well, enjoyed good food, wine and the company of friends. In particular, he was fond of listening to the a dao, or songstresses. The custom then was for a host to entertain his guests by calling in a troupe of a dao to sing their repertoire of poems. Sometimes musicians were also called, sometimes only the singers. A guest would beat a cadence on a small drum and a songstress would then sing to the beat of the drum, in the same way as a singer would follow the baton of her conductor in Western music. The drum must correctly announce the mood of the poem which was going to be sung. Often, a poem expressed a succession of moods and therefore, the beat must quicken or slow down accordingly. During the evening, host and guests took turns to beat the drum. All engaged in a bit of competition to show who could bring out the best renditions from the beautiful songstresses. To be good at the drum was something of a hallmark of a man of the world. Quang So had such a reputation and it was said that many a renowned songstress in the capital had sung to the beat of his drum. He was generous with his family. The weddings of his two stepchildren were lavish affairs. Much of his money was put in the building of a new ancestral home and a guest house. In other words, our ancestor did not save much. When he died in the south and the capital he brought there with him was lost, the family fell into hard times again.

  His wife Che was a lady of strong will and independent mind. They were both proud and assertive people, perhaps a reason why their marriage had more than its fair share of stormy periods. Quang So was often away from home on account of his trading activities, but the family believed his absence was also for another purpose, to avoid having frequent clashes with his wife. While he kept himself occupied elsewhere with his business, she stayed in Kim Bai and ruled the household. He refrained from interfering in her domain. When the houses were built, he had the timber and other materials brought in, started construction and stayed on for some time. Then, he was on the move again, leaving it to his wife to see that the work was finished. Two daughters were born to their union and as she reached her mid-forties, it looked as if they would not have any more children. Would the absence of a male heir, dreaded by so many generations, become a reality? Quang So, however, did not seem to be concerned by such a possibility. His wife went to the Snake Temple to pray for a son. He did not. He doted on his daughters and appeared ready to accept whatever situation Fate had in store for him. Then in 1836, his wife gave birth to a son, when forty-four. That year, his activities expanded in the south. He came back home early to celebrate the Tet. Everything was going well, he should be a happy and contented man. Yet, a drama was soon going to unfold, even before the old year was over.

  My mother told me that when she came into our family, people still referred quite frequently to Quang So, who died almost a century before. His wife, who survived him for thirty years, was remembered as a matriarch with a fiery temper. “There was a sad love story in his life,” my mother said. “I learned it from my grandmother-in-law, who was a young girl in the village when that happened.” My mother has an excellent memory and quite a talent as raconteur. This, in her own words, was what made Quang So rush into his last trip to the south:

  He was linked with a woman in the village. She was extremely beautiful, as her name Nu Son, or Vermillion Bud, showed. She lived next to our central hamlet, in the hamlet near the dike. Our ancestor wanted to marry her as his secondary wife, following a custom which was quite common then. Nu Son’s family was poor but of a good lineage. Like many other girls in Kim Bai, she worked on the weaving looms, made paddy into rice and sold rice and cloth at markets for a living. To toil all day in the fields was not her lot, so she kept her figure slender and her complexion fair. Moreover, she was not shy and could hold a conversation with a lot of charm. Our ancestor in his forties was twenty years older than her, but he was a well-built and handsome man, looki
ng very young for his age and known for his good manners and generous character. In fact, he remained very much a scholar while conducting a successful business. Nu Son was agreeable to marrying him, be it as a secondary wife.

  Our ancestor was engaged, among other activities, in the timber trade. Timber purchased in the highlands and in Laos was tied together in large rafts, then floated down river to towns in the delta. The old ancestral home and guest house next to it were built with the timber he sent home on the Hat River. That year, in the tenth month, he returned from one of his business trips and decided to spend a few months at home. He would celebrate the Tet before leaving again. This was special because he led a busy life and was generally not home for long. He brought back with him six rafts of timber. He ordered that three rafts be tied securely to stakes planted in the river bed. They were to be kept in the water until work could start on a new Ancestral Shrine. He said nothing about the other three rafts. So rumour spread quickly in the village that he was going to marry Nu Son and the timber was intended as a present to her.

  That brought matters to a head within the family. Our foremother was deeply hurt. Her money helped launch her husband’s business. Having achieved wealth, he wanted to get a secondary wife, at a time when she just gave him a son and heir! By the way, most women in those times would accept that their husbands have secondary wives, and concubines as well. But our foremother was different. A proud and strong-willed lady, she could not control her anger when the Nu Son rumour broke out. Every morning, she took issue with her husband and clashed with him. Every morning, she went to the gate of our house to shout aloud her misfortune and called upon villagers to witness it. It became a scandal. Relatives and friends came to pacify her, to no avail. Her mother, who lived in a village not far away, rushed to Kim Bai. “You bore him only one son,” she tried to reason with her, “if he takes a secondary wife at one of those places he goes for his business, how are you to prevent it? Is it not better that he takes someone in the village? Nu Son is a girl of good character from a good family. The only thing against her, from your own point of view, is her beauty, but could you not accept it?” Our foremother refused to listen. She continued with her verbal attacks, day after day. So much so that her husband could not bear it any more. One day near the end of the year, he packed up and left for the south, accompanied by Chu Khau, his faithful companion. He did not stay to celebrate the New Year with the family, as he had planned to do. To start such an important trip when, as our people say, “the year was dying out” was a bad omen. Our ancestor would have never done so in normal circumstances. He would have consulted astrologers for an auspicious date, once the new year had begun. In that fateful year, he also missed his traditional pilgrimage to the temple of Our Lady of Mercy in the Huong mountains. He always went there to pray for her blessings on his business endeavours. He stayed away for a long time. Whether that was because of business commitments, or the wounds had not been healed yet, we do not know. Eventually, Chu Khau came back to bring the news of his death.