Vietnamese Orthographies and Ritual Inscriptions
From: Merav Shohet
Date: Sun, May 10, 2009 at 10:41 PM
Dear list,
I am writing about entextualization practices within funerary and other ritual contexts in contemporary Central Vietnam, and wonder if anyone has any thoughts or has written about the usage (present or past) of inscriptions that use Quoc ngu but that yet are designed to look like the traditional Chinese (chu Han) inscriptions (which incidentally also continue to be used on altars and similar ritual accoutrements)?
Please see, for example, the attached image, a translation of or thoughts about which would be most appreciated.
As a start, I want to argue that use of this calligraphic script, in indexing a prestige code of the past, helps encode, together with the message contents of the Chinese and calligraphic Vietnamese texts, the feelings of intense eternal sorrow and a notion of timeless tradition -- linking the dead to the ancestors in part through usage of these texts that most people today are barely literate in. Is this off the mark? Any other thoughts?
many thanks,
Merav
--
Merav Shohet
Ph.D. Candidate
UCLA Department of Anthropology
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From: DiGregorio, Michael
Date: Sun, May 10, 2009 at 10:48 PM
Merav,
The answer to your question might lay in the use of highly modified
sinetic scripts in the creation of bua, talismans that hang over
people's doors, are carried in their pocket during dangerous life cycle
rituals (like funerals) and burned in rituals to wipe out or protect
against misfortune.
Mike
Michael DiGregorio
Program Officer for Media, Arts, Culture & Education
The Ford Foundation
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From: Shawn McHale
Date: Mon, May 11, 2009 at 6:25 AM
Merav,
I'm not sure what the correct interpretation of this phenomenon is, but it reminds me of the work of two Muslim calligraphers who "Sinif" Arabic script. The first time I saw this was in an article on Haji Youssaf Chen Jinhui. Here is one example by Haji Noor Deen:
http://www.hajinoordeen.com/gallery-nonscroll.html
You can see in the example to the far right, the farthestmost line reads, from top to bottom, bismallah al-rahman al-raheem (In the name of God the Compassionate the Merciful), from the Qur'an -- the calligrapher has simply taken Arabic script, which reads left to right, and upended it!
My favorite, though, was an example I saw from Haji Yousaf Chen Hui. He used what I think is called Kufic script in Arabic -- blocky, sharply angled lines -- and "transformed" them into Chinese-looking characters. I cannot find an example on the web right now.
But what does one call these attempt to take writing and make it remind one of a different script/ orthography/ character system? It takes something that may be completely unfamiliar in terms of decoding and makes decoding of sound possible, yet retains an aura of otherness. A fascinating phenomenon.
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: Mon, May 11, 2009 at 6:37 AM
Dear Merav:
A very anecdotal take on the issue.
As Woodside and others have pointed out, Vietnamese literati considered Chinese "our language (chu ta). Many Vietnamese, including illiterate ones, considered it the language of saints and sages (chu cua thanh than). This, rather than the foreign origins of quoc ngu, was often the cause of resistance against the introduction of quoc ngu.
My father's parents were both illiterate. My father recalls, however, that like other villages, his village in the Mekong Delta, was expected to buy copies of Nam Phong in order to subsidize it (along with other Vietnamese and French-language publications that were similarly subsidized by the Indochinese government). Nobody in the village could read, so the newspapers were used to wrap things or as toilet paper. My grandmother, however, rescued the Chinese section of Nam Phong because she thought it would be sacrilegious to use paper covered with Chinese characters as toilet paper. This is how my father, bored in his village, learned some Chinese on his own.In the 1960s, I saw him engaged in a spirited discussion with a Korean diplomat, both of them writing on cocktail napkins in wenyan.
I think the idea that Chinese is the appropriate script to communicate with the saints, sages, and the dead is behind the phenomenon that you observed.
If you look at your Harvard diploma, not only is it in Latin, but chances are it is in a script that attempts to replicate a medieval script.
Good luck with the research!
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
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From: Merav Shohet
Date: Mon, May 11, 2009 at 7:21 AM
Dear Professors Hue-Tam, McHale, and DiGregorio,
Thank you - these are all wonderful examples!
May I cite them/you?
Also, if you have other citations, I'd certainly welcome them (off-list). So far, I haven't found anything about this orthography in Vietnam, though it seems to so often also appear at temples and similar place or interaction genres (e.g. Hue, commissioned poetry around Tet-time, etc.).
The story does remind me (by way of analogy only) of the treatment of 'sacred' text/writings of Jews - in that case, that the 'word of God' may not be destroyed, and so must be disposed of in a dignified manner, such as proper burial (... hence the Qumran scrolls discovered in southern Israel some years ago).
Thank you again!
- Merav
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From: Frank
Date: Mon, May 11, 2009 at 7:29 AM
At the VN Anthropology Conference organized by Hy Van Luong and his University of HCMC co-sponsors, there was an interesting paper on exactly this phenomenon, by Phan Phuong Anh of the Institute once again known as Vietnam Institute of Culture and Arts Studies (after a brief term known as Institute of Culture and Information Studies).
«Quốc ngữ looking for the brush »: Some remarks upon the impact of the changing of the writing system in Vietnam through quốc ngữ calligraphy, an approach of anthropology of writing
Phan Phương Anh
Institute of Culture and Information Studies, Vietnam
Frank Proschan
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From: Lisa Drummond
Date: Mon, May 11, 2009 at 7:33 AM
Those interested in this might be interested in the work of a contemporary Vietnamese artist, Nguyen Xuan Long, who often uses his own style of "characters" made up of quoc ngu words either as the focus or as the background of his paintings. He had an exhibition on this theme, "Viet chat", a couple of years ago.
Some of his work is on display on his homepage : http://xlongart.multiply.com/
Cheers,
Lisa
_______________________________
Lisa Drummond
Associate Professor, Urban Studies
Division of Social Science, Arts
York University