Off topic question?

[Hung Dao Dai Vuong]

is the dragon the symbol of the Vietnamese or Chinese?

[HKB]

It is generally considered to be the symbol of the Chinese. But since China's influence was so vast, even the Japanese and Koreans use the Dragon as royal symbol. It is a symbol for them too. I guess you can think of it this way, the dragon is intially a Chinese mythical being, who at the prime of the Chinese empire, became the symbol for that empire. Later, parts of the conquered lands of this empire broke off, but some of these people, however, retained some of the features of the empire-one of them being the dragon. I guess Vietnam would've went thru the same case.

[quangtrunghoangde]

I believe the dragon came about in the Vietnamese history in the year 2879 B.C

[HKB]

So you're saying that the Japanese and Koreans got the dragon from the Vietnamese? Know that the Vietnamese, Japenese, and Korean did not exist in 2879 B.C. Even the Han Chinese ethnicity was not formed yet at 2879 B.C., though there was a colosus of pseudo-kingdoms ruled by a king that beared a similar culture that would become the CHinese culture, all long before there was a Vietnam (there was no Vietnamese people at that area till I think long after the Han dynasty, hence, no "vietnamese history", only the Khmer culture existed there).

[quangtrunghoangde]

our vietnamese history started in the year 2879 B.C with our first king Lac Long Quan (Dragon King) and you said that there were no vietnamese at that time? Don't believe me; go ask 80 millions vietnamese on earth what happended in 2879 B.C. And what makes you think that the Han ethnicities was formed before the vietnamese; you don't know anything about the Phung Nguyen or Dong Son culture at all. Remember, if the Chinese didn't occupy and ravage Vietnam for 1000 years, do you think Vietnam would be that backward relative to its neighbours?

[HKB]

You can't rely on myths to determine the emergence of a people. As Chinese myths go, God created the universe and the first man (Andeng) and woman (Nuwo) more than 10,000 thousand years ago. They gave birth to Wong-dai (Huang-di in mandarin) who became the first king of the Chinese people "children of the dragon" five thousand years before Christ. So if you rely on myths, the Chinese people still existed before 2879 B.C. But, you can't rely on myths, only archaeological and historical evidence. Every historian on earth would agree the China is the 3rd civilization to arise on earth. 1st-sumerians, 2nd-egyptians, 3rd-chinese. The current Chinese calendar dates back around 5000 years (same one the vietnamese uses) go to MsN encarta and check on the history of CHina and vietnam and compare which one is historically older. there is still the Korean/Japanese question-how can they be influenced by the vietnamese who never set foot upon their soil? They have dragons as royal symbols too. you might argue that the vietnamese influenced china, then china influenced korea/japan. but remember, China conquered and ruled vietnam for 1000 years, not the other way around, it is not probable that land conquered by an empire with a central culture already in place for the conquered land to influence the central culture. as it is, the vietnamese is highly influenced by the chinese-almost identical clothing (you just call it aiya and we call it cheong-sam), Lunar new year, Autumn fest, identical musical sounds, huge chunk of your vocabulary is Chinese loan-words, etc. some examples of same words are: word on left are viet, right are chinese (cantonese)

hong ha(red river) hong ho(red river)
phuong huong(directions) fong heung(directions)
dia diem(place) dei dim(place)
thoi gian(time) si gan(time)
chao (morning) zao(mornin')
khong (speak) gong (speak)
nam(south) nam(south)
bac(north) bak(north)

et cetera and please excuse my vietnamese spelling.
anymore comments, please post.

[quangtrunghoangde]

ok, let's not talk about myth but talk about the Hoa Binh culture of the ancient Vietnamese people dated back to 12,000 B.C. Is that also a myth?

http://www.viettouch.com/pre-hist/dongson_periods.html


You only argue one way that everything vietnam have is from china but you never leave out the possibility that china had stolen something from vietnam during that 1000 years of occupation. If you look at the history of human civilization you'll see that the conquerers have took chunk of stuff from defeated nations and incorporate into their 'properties". The winners are the ones who write history and also the ones who destroy evidence as well!

The above vietnamese vocabs that you listed are considered loaned words from china. Why are you so sure that we loaned those words from china? Please don't use the fact that china influenced vietnam for 1000 years to back up your point because using that kind of logic to prove almost everything of vietnam is from china can only convince Western linguists or Western historians but you won't be able to convinve any vietnamese at all!

By the way HKB, I argue based on logics, not evidence since i've seen enough of what so-called "evidence" in my life

[Dylan Sung]

quangtrunghoangde,


The vocabulary given existed during the early Zhou era, so, it predates China's conquest of the area known as northern Vietnam today, and predates the conquest of southern China in the latter Zhou, Qin and Han dynasties. That's why those bits of vocabulary are not from Vietnamese.

Dyl.

[HKB]

if those words you say are orginated from Vietnam, do you have any ancient archaeological findings that indicate them as vietnamese writings? say, did they exist in a strictly vietnamese script (written form of your language) from 2879 B.C.? no. However, these words are represented with Chinese characters in the written form found in "jieguwen" the first evidence of Chinese writing dated back to 1400 B.C. the language writing found on jieguwen is apparently already highly developed in 14ooB.C. scholars believe that Chinese writing began as far back as 5000B.C. You don't have any written records on or before 1400 B.C. in fact, it was many centuries after Christ that the vietnamese attempted to develop a writing system of their own, and it style and form mimiced that of Chinese in that they looked lke squares. the words I gave are strictly Chinese in that the characters that represent them existed more than 3000 thousand years ago. the word "long" dragon have always been a chinese word. though the koreans and japanese and vietnamese all adopted it, the evidence will show that the character representing "long" existed thousands of years ago. Vietnamese language influence could have existed, but only as far-reaching as the cantonese probably, definitely not Mandarin and the more northern regions, which are the maintream regions of China.

12,000B.C are you nutz? So you're saying that the vietnamese existed before the Egyptians, even the Sumerians? No, the Hoa Binh was a tribal "culture" that existed around the area that would become present day Vietnam. it could have given rise to the Cham, the Khmer, etc. Your site never said that they are the Vietnamese. In Fact it said that the formation of the vietnamese people was at the time of the Dong Son culture. Which existed around 1000 B.C. keep posting if you have further comments and evidence. thanks for reading.

[HKB]

plus, the dragon existed in Chinese legends before China's 1000 occupation of vietnam.