Ethnic Categories in 19th Century Vietnam
From: Shawn McHale
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 12:51 PM
Dear list,
In line with my burgeoning interest in Vietnamese-Khmer relations, I have been reading the Vietnamese translation of the Quốc triều sử toát yếu, written by imperial historians of the Nguyen dynasty. I have been perplexed by some of the ethnic categories used, and wonder if they have shifted meaning since the 19th century.
Discussing a rebellion in the Mekong delta near Hà Tiên, the text discusses "Cao Man" as well as "Thổ." I also came across reference to "Tàu" and "Hán". Two questions. First, why the distinction between "Cao Man" and "Thổ"? In 1945, "Thổ" referred to ethnic Khmer. Did it have a slighttly different meaning earlier?
Second, assuming that "Tàu" covers all ethnic Chinese, who are the "Hán"?
Any enlightenment appreciated.
Shawn
Shawn McHale
Director
Sigur Center for Asian Studies
Associate Professor of History and International Affairs
George Washington University
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From: Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 1:07 PM
Dear Shawn:
It's a long time since I looked at that work.
Were the terms used interchangeably? Or were they used in such a way as making it clear they referred to different groups? Off-hand, Tau need not correspond perfectly with Han. For example, it could be (erroneously) considered that Hakkas who formed one of the bangs, are not "Han" (though they actually are). Did you also come across terms such as "Thanh nhan" along with Tau and Han?Cao Man is a far more respectful term than Tho. I've also heard Tho used to refer to not only Khmers but also mountain minorities.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
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From: Tana Li
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 6:12 PM
Hi Shawn,
The "Han" of the 19th century was used to refer to Vietnamese, not Chinese.
It was used when the text had to differentiate the Viet from the Cham, Khmer
and uplanders. The term "Cao Man" appeared towards 1840, if I am not wrong.
Before this period it was a neutral "Chan Lap", or Cao Mien.
When the Thuc Luc says "Thanh nhan", "Duong nhan", they were indeed talking
about Chinese. "Tau" was never used in the text to refer to the Chinese.
Thinking about this, indeed "Han" was not even used to refer to the Chinese
in the texts of earlier period. It was always specific, "Bac", "Tong" "Minh"
or "Thanh".
Best,
Tana
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From: Liam C Kelley
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 7:22 PM
Dear Tana and list,
Have you seen Han used to refer to Vietnamese in texts other than those from the south? I've only seen it in texts like (I think) the Gia Dinh Thanh Thong Chi, where if my memory serves me well I think the Han were being differentiated from Thanh Nhan. That made me wonder why this term was used there. Where else does this usage appear, and do you (or does anyone) have any idea why it was used?
Regards,
Liam Kelley
U. of Hawaii
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From: Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 7:47 PM
I was under the impression that Thanh Nhan referred to more recent immigrants--those who could rightly be considered Qing subjects. Minh huong would not be considered Thanh Nhan, would they? Until the mid-19th century, if I am not mistaken, ethnic Vietnamese were in the minority in the South. So would Han refer exclusively to Vietnamese?
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
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From: Liam C Kelley
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 8:23 PM
To offer an answer to my own question (as memories of this topic slowly gurgle up from the shallow depths of my brain), I remember coming across this in researching about the Mac of Ha Tien, and seeing it in Trinh Hoai Duc's Gia Dinh Thanh Thong Chi. What I remember wondering at the time was if Han nhan referred to the "Sino-Vietamese elite" (for lack of a better term) in the area. That would include people like Mac Thien Tu and Trinh Hoai Duc who were either the sons or grandsons of Chinese immigrants who had "gone local," as well as ethnic Vietnamese of the educated class who were versed in classical Chinese. What united these people was that they were all locally born and perhaps spoke Vietnamese in their daily lives, but were literate in classical Chinese.
Why did I end up thinking this way? I can't remember, but I think it was that I saw it in some contexts where it didn't seem to be inclusive of all Vietnamese-speakers. There was some kind of elitist sense about it (as I recall).
There are undoubtedly people on this list who have read more of these materials than I have, so I will not defend this theory if it is overturned with good evidence. I simply do remember being fascinated in seeing this term, and struggling to understand who it referred to.
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From: Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 8:56 PM
Trinh Hoai Duc is another work I have not read in a long time. But it makes sense to distinguish between the descendants of Minh Huong who would be called Han nhan and more recent immigrants (i.e from the early 18th century onward) who would be called Thanh nhan. Would educated ethnic Vietnamese be included in the category Han nhan? I find it hard to believe even if educated Vietnamese called Chinese characters "chu ta."
As for Tau, that is a purely colloquial Vietnamese term and would not be found in a 19th-century Chinese language text. But it could be found in a 20th century translation into quoc ngu.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
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From: Bradley Davis
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 10:02 PM
Dear Liam and List,
The Đồng Khánh Địa Dư Chí refers to the majority population (Kinh, Việt) of northern Đại Nam as 'Hán.' 'Thanh Nhân,' like Mán, Thổ, and Nùng, was a taxation category ̣(from the Hội Điển) as well as a term of differentiation. Thanh Nhân and Minh Hương, in a demographic and economic sense, related very differently to the Nguyễn State.
Bradley Davis
Eastern Washington University
--
Bradley C Davis
Department of History
Eastern Washington University
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From: Tana Li
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 10:35 PM
>"There was some kind of elitist sense about it."
See the most recently published "Dong Khanh Dia Du Chi" by EFEO (Hanoi: 2002) for "Han", and see whether there is any sense of elitist, or any reference of it to the "Sino-Viet":
vol.2. o.1537: English translation: "The Han [Kinh] people including scholars..."
vol.2, p.1564: English translation: "Custom of Quang Tri: Some of the Han [Kinh] inhabitants in the county...".
Heap of such references spread in the Dai Nam Thuc Luc. Or, one may like to check how Trinh Hoai Duc said in his Gia Dinh Thong Chi.
From: vsg-bounces@mailman2.u.washington.edu [mailto:vsg-bounces@mailman2.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Liam C Kelley
Sent: Wednesday, 15 April 2009 1:24 PM
Why did I end up thinking this way? I can't remember, but I think it was that I saw it in some contexts where it didn't seem to be inclusive of all Vietnamese-speakers. (as I recall).
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From: Liam C Kelley
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 10:36 PM
Dear Bradley,
Thanks for the tip. So much for my grand theory (and so much for the primordialism of the Vietnamese identity?. . .). Although I do still wonder if it came from the south. Trinh Hoai Duc of course worked for the Nguyen. The Đồng Khánh Địa Dư Chí was an official publication. Did this usage start in the south and enter officialdom? So to now expand my initial question, it would be interesting to know if it appears in any non-southern or non-Nguyen Dynasty materials.
Liam Kelley
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From: Tana Li
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 10:59 PM
Sorry Liam, I missed this message and only saw the later one. The term "Han" for Vietnamese was indeed started being used in the south, and only in the 19th century.
By the way, "Han" was not the only term being used to refer to Viet. "Hoa" was also used to refer to Vietnamese when the text had to list different peoples (taxpayers, as Bradley points out). I am sending one translation of a 19th century source "Tran Tay Phong Tho Ky" (Custom of Tran Tay), publsihed in the e-journal Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies that Nola Cooke and I ed:
http://csds.anu.edu.au/volume_1_2007/Tran_Tay.pdf
It is a rich document, full of information on the Cambodia under Vietnamese rule in the 1830s-1840s.
Best, Tana
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From: Liam C Kelley
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 11:05 PM
Thank you Tana. Yes, I think the elitism idea was probably more the product of my attempt to figure out why "Vietnamese" would call themselves "Han." The way I look at it is that it would be as if the French at some point started to call themselves the Romans, or the Athenians. Why would one chose a name like that other than because of some identification with the (high/elite) culture of those places? There may very well be another reason, but I haven't been able to think of one.
Again, it was in Trinh Hoai Duc's work that I saw this. He was incredibly erudite and of Chinese descent, and I could understand that he would identify with the (high/elite) culture of the Sinitic world. But if the south was this area where, as you and others have argued, those elements were weaker than in the north (although there were of course many Chinese and Sino-Viet mestizos like Mac Thien Tu), then why would he use that term to refer to all Vietnamese in the region, i.e. including those who were supposedly not so influenced by Sinitic ways? I think this is what led me to guess that he was using the term in a way that did not include all Vietnamese. However, the information which you and Bradley point to demonstrates that it was used for all Vietnamese. So does this mean that in even the south, where Sinitic influence was supposedly lighter, that it was still the defining characteristic when it came to differentiating Vietnamese from other ethnic groups? Or was Han chosen for some other reason? Because again, I haven't seen it used in any source prior to those which deal with the south or the Nguyen.
This is a great topic. Thank you Shawn for opening a can of worms, as this sheds light on a lot of the complexity of the pre-20th century past in Vietnam which has been largely erased by quoc ngu, where its often either Tau or Viet.
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From: Shawn McHale
Date: Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 4:41 AM
Dear list,
Thanks, thanks, for all this discussion. It is most enlightening. (And I can now avoid basic errors!) It is serendipidty that Tana points us to a translation of the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia in the 1830s and 1840s. One of the things that looms large in the Quoc trieu su toat yeu is this occupation. Not surprisingly, it plays little or no place in modern Vietnamese histories of either Cambodia or Vietnam.
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From: Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Date: Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 6:53 AM
Let me take a stab as to why Vietnamese in the 19th century would call themselves Han. Context is important. As some may know, back in the 1970s, the Ford Foundation contributed to two chairs in Vietnamese studies. One was to consider Vietnam as part of the East Asian cultural sphere and would be located at Harvard; the other was to study Vietnam as part of the Southeast Asian geographical area and would be located in Cornell (the irony, of course, is that Keith Taylor, much better than I in reading Chinese and more interested than I in the premodern period, ended up at Cornell while I have been at Harvard).
We know that Vietnamese rulers and their scribes referred to Vietnam differently for domestic consumption and when dealing with China. By the same token, when thinking about peoples from other cultural backgrounds, these same writers might distinguish themselves not through their ethnicity (Viet, Khmer, etc...) but their cultures (Han vs. non-Han). So, just as they considered the Chinese script "chu ta," they saw themselves as Han as distinct from Cao Man, Tho, etc... Ethno-nationalism was not yet an issue. Does this make sense?
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
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From: Bradley Davis <bcampdavis@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 7:10 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Liam,
I guess I read this Hán as less a reference to the 'central efflorescence' and more a reference to the lowland, sedentary, literate people that made up the majority of Đại Nam officials. As Hue-Tam points out, these terms in official texts don't necessarily convey the sense of an ethnos (dân tộc in that sense being a relative neologism). Also, Hán itself, speaking in terms of Chinese history, often was used by ruling elites and even some rebellious groups as a broad general term of contradistinction, i.e. non-Xianbei, non-Xiongnu, non-Manchu etc.
Bradley Davis
Eastern Wash Univ
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From: Liam C. Kelley
Date: Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 5:15 PM
Dear Hue-Tam and list,
I think you expressed the point well here. They were distinguishing themselves through culture. However, where I get confused is that there was no single culture. Hoa, another term which Li Tana says was used, for instance, was a concept which members of the Vietnamese elite had a clear understanding of. I translated a passage by Ly Van Phuc in the first issue of the JVS which clearly delineates what he felt "Hoa" was all about--it was about wearing the proper caps and gowns, reading the Five Classics and the Four Books, writing in a certain calligraphic style, reading the poetry of Li Bo and Du Fu etc. (and there are plenty of other places where we can find similar statements) It was thus a category which only the elite in "Vietnam" and "China" fit into. And yet, the elite in both of these lands used the term at times to refer to non-elite peoples as well. What I wonder about then is what was the lowest common denominator which made someone Hoa in the eyes of the elite? Put differently, how far did they allow people to differ in culture from themselves and still be considered Hoa (or perhaps Han, if that term was used in the same way).
In terms of context, it's also important to remember that in the early 19th century, when the Nguyen were referring to "Vietnamese" as Han and Ly Van Phuc made the above comments, that "Chinese" were ruled over by the Di/Yi (barbarian - the opposite of Hoa) Manchus and were cutting their hair and wearing different caps and gowns (very un-Hoa practices) than they had under the Ming Dynasty. Maybe an awareness of this fact played a role in the adoption of this term in the early 19th century (if in fact it was adopted then). I think people have found statements to the effect that Vietnamese felt proud that they still wore the robes of the Ming (actually, that might be in that statement by Ly Van Phuc - or it's in that conference volume from UCLA on Confucianism), so perhaps there was a hightened sense of being Hoa among some members of the Vietnamese elite at this time.
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From: Hue-Tam Ho Tai <hhtai@fas.harvard.edu>
Date: Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 7:03 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Liam:
Without reading the texts, I can only speculate.
It all depends on the context and intention. Sometimes Vietnamese writers might want to claim equivalence with the Chinese or East Asian elite through common membership in the world of scholarship using the Chinese script. (One of my memories is of my father furiously scribbling on cocktail napkins some exchanges with a Korean diplomat at a reception. The diplomat could speak English but no Vietnamese; my father spoke French and had never learned English. The only language they had in common was wenyan Chinese.)
But there are cases where Vietnamese might want to underline their differences from Chinese--and Chinese might want to stress that Vietnamese were barbarians, as when deciding against attacking Dai Viet under the Ly ("They are barbarians, they don't know any better"). But when dealing with Khmers or others, Vietnamese might see their membership in the Sinitic cultural world as a key difference from Khmers. This would be particularly true of educated Vietnamese in the 19th century.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai