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Teacher Mark
Just out of curiosity, what you would think if a Vietnamese writes an ode praising Lincoln, Washington and Bush (your choice which of the Bushes)?

I take the chance of being branded a traitor, but I could care less.  If you like it, I say "Thanks".  If you don't like it, I say "I don't care!"

Teacher Mark
I wrote this rhetoric question not to question your patriotism, nor your admiration for the Vietnamese history and people. I find those traits admirable. Your effort trying to learn about Vietnam is praiseworthy.

I certainly have no time nor energy participating in contentious issues.
I couldn't care less about the Vietnam versus US story. Past is past.

When you wrote about Bush, I am sure a lot of Republicans and Southerners would strongly disagree with what you wrote. Look what he did in reaction to 9/11, in leading the US in a difficult situation. I think a lot of people still see him as a hero, while a lot others would not be happy to have him compared to the likes of Lincoln or Washington.

I think that sums what I would like to say. Sorry, for not wanting to be more direct about what I wrote above.

Gore Vidal has just passed away.

A good read!

Anatta, you need to read. It would also help you with your English, which is quite good as it stands.

Dear Teacher Mark,
I wish that I could click the "+1" button many times.
Thank you so much for your odes! I myself even didn't remember the Vietnamese version of the poem which Hai Ba Trung wrote: “Foremost, I will avenge my country, ...”. After asked some people who just graduated high school (and studied Vietnamese history), and googled, I found that poem.
I hope that you could record those odes and let us know how do you sing it.

MeoMun wrote:

Dear Teacher Mark,
I wish that I could click the "+1" button many times.
Thank you so much for your odes! I myself even didn't remember the Vietnamese version of the poem which Hai Ba Trung wrote: “Foremost, I will avenge my country, ...”. After asked some people who just graduated high school (and studied Vietnamese history), and googled, I found that poem.
I hope that you could record those odes and let us know how do you sing it.

Come to the English club that is held every Sunday from 1-3 and I'll sing it for you.

To get an idea of the style listen to these cadences:

Hai Ba Trung is writen tothis tune, but it's very loose.  It is the army cadence that I was thinking of when the words to HBT started to come to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PadqrFXu7E

Le Loi/Le Lai....Hail Oh Infantry.  I know a few former infantrymen that wouldn't like me using this tune, but Le Loi/Ly Thai was a certified, bonafide and dignified tough guy who embodied the military way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVHrDL16oaM

Ho Chi Minh is sang the same way, so some infantrymen would definitely have a problem with that! 

There's a lot of different cadences that we would sing.  In ESL they would be called a chant, or a drill.  I'm the only one that I know of that sings these with students, but I've found that the 7-13 group likes them the best  The songs I sing with them have been rewritten for school, and to eliminate bad language or violence.

My favorite was always "Down by the River"

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q … pCEp76CIyQ

Very interesting topic.

T.Mark. 
i applaud you for knowing some vietnamese history. i been here for a year now, and haven't met any one that knows a fraction of vietnamese history and yet they been living here for longer then i have. 

the funny thing about vietnam for US citizen is that they can only remember one thing about it, and 1 guess is all you need to know what i'm talking about. i was actually raised in a white american family, irish to be exact.  for the past 18+ years that i've been living with them they had not once asked me nor would be interested in anything vietnamese.  as a matter of fact the only thing they said that was remotely related to vietnam is "do you eat dogs". that comes from a family that i was raised by and chose to foster me.  so, yea i do applaud anyone that is not vietnamese willing to take some time to know it's history.

as for political i always end up in arguments with viet kieu and US citizen about HCM.  the sad truth of it all was that a lot of VK in the states don't know the actual truth of the past history, they only know how and why they and their family ended up in the states. the spitefulness that utter out of their mouth is outright ignorant.

with all that said, i wish that people are more open minded to the history that Vietnamese people and country have endured, from china to the usa.  it's very complex. it's not something that 2 hours in an american history class can teach.

"nothing is black and white, there are thousands shades that many are color blind to".

as a matter of fact the only thing they said that was remotely related to vietnam is "do you eat dogs".

I find that very hard to believe.

halfway-

what is so hard to believe?

Teacher Mark wrote:

I just noticed that you're in Hanoi.  I'll record them and put them on YouTube.  Give me about a week.

I'm going to eventually add Phung Thi Chinh to the story, because she deserves some of the glory. 

With a sword in one hand, a baby the other. She went into battle to slaughter the others.

Thank you!
It could be more interesting if you record them in your classroom with the presence of you and your students.
I've read that Phung Thi Chinh carried her newborn by a piece of cloth like Ms. Ronzulli in this link: http://dantri.com.vn/c36/s36-424399/hie … oc-hoi.htm
Anyway, your knowledge about Vietname history is amazing.

ktnguyen wrote:

Very interesting topic.

ktnguyen, I've read your profile and want to ask you: were you adopted? Do you feel familiar when you came to Vietnam?

I wasn't adopted.  I was taken into foster care. I left when I was 5 yrs old.  That's all i would say on the blog. It wasn't a happy experience living with the American family.  I am familiar but not very familiar like many VK. I've been westernized and can't say that I agree with a lot of things in VN.  I love living here, at the current time. And, my longing to experience how it is to live in VN, was a long awaited journey.

Teacher Mark
The words in your posting were all screwed up so it is hard to read them, let alone understand what they are.

The poem you are quoting follows a special poem construction known as Thơ lục bát (peom with 6+8 construction).

Whether Hai Ba Trung really uttered those exact words is really doubtful since they lived in the first century. The Vietnamese language used at that time was different from what we know now. Besides, the oldest official lục bát poem originated only around late seventeenth century.

Ignoring those facts, the question still is which of the two alternatives the word “kẻo” (first alternative) or “kêu” (second alternative) is most appropriate from a linguistic point of view.

To answer your question, I must get rather technical and lengthy. Anyway, here it goes:

First, look at the 6+8 construction.

It has six words in the first sentence then eight words in the second sentence.
There are complicated rules for writing them. One of basic rules is the so-called bằng (B) trắc (T) rule.
bằng: means the words can only have “ “, “\” tones (ngang and huyền.)
trắc: means the words can only have “.” “?” ”'” and ” ~” tones (sắc, hỏi, ngã, nặng)

Basically, it says the words must follow the following tones

1 sentence    B    B    T    T    B    B       
2 sentence    B    B    T    T    B    B    T    B
Word        1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8

At least, it must follow the following rules.

1 sentence        B        T        B       
2 sentence        B        T        B        B
Word        1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8

Therefore, the word “kêu” being a bằng word is much better than the word “kẻo” since kẻo is a trắc word which will violate this basic rule.

Another rule is parallelism. The meaning of the sentences should closely parallel each other. In sentence 1, 2 and 4, the word ‘xin' (beg) is used. Therefore, the corresponding word in sentence 2 needs to have similar meaning. In this context, “kêu” is a much better choice since it means in this context “kêu oan =lamenting one's innocence/untimely death”. Kẻo, on the other hand, mean “otherwise, lest” which violates the parallelism rule.

I can quote other reasons, but they would be too technical for this forum.

Conclusion: Kêu is a much appropriate word.
Let me know if I have answered your question.


PS:  ....công lênh này
should be
... công lệnh này (this official proclamation/order)

Agree.

The Trung sisters are remarkable in several aspects. They were exceptional and inspiring leaders. They were able to rally people to fight against the Chinese, even though the fights seemed futile. However, they managed to win independence for 3 years. Vietnam became a Chinese colony and would not gain independence for more than 500 years after them.

They and Bà Triệu (another female rebel leader against the Chinese around 250 AD) are the female leaders the Vietnamese should be very proud of.

Teacher_Mark,

Mt xin ra sch nc th
Hai xin em li nghim xa h Hng
Ba ko oan c lng chng
Bn xin vn vn s cng lnh ny

The bulk of these words aren't even Vietnamese, let a lone a ballad.

And then there is this English translation:

Foremost, I will avenge my country,
Second, I will restore the Hung lineage,
Third, I will avenge the death of my husband,
Lastly, I vow that these goals will be accomplished.

Man, this is one of the worst Vietnamese to English translations that I have seen.  It is very close to the work of those who translate the phrase, "Khong sao dau," to "No star where" in English.

I personally believe that those 4 lines should read something like;

First, allow me to clean the bile of hatre.
Second, help me resurrect the Hung Rule.
Third, let me justify the death of my husband.
And finally, see that I will follow through on this response to public service.

Hey men, this is the best that I can do.  I am no Shakespeare, and neither am I Quynh Giao.  I just hate to see words get taken out of context.

Wild_1 wrote:

Teacher_Mark,

Mt xin ra sch nc th
Hai xin em li nghim xa h Hng
Ba ko oan c lng chng
Bn xin vn vn s cng lnh ny

The bulk of these words aren't even Vietnamese, let a lone a ballad.

And then there is this English translation:

Foremost, I will avenge my country,
Second, I will restore the Hung lineage,
Third, I will avenge the death of my husband,
Lastly, I vow that these goals will be accomplished.

Man, this is one of the worst Vietnamese to English translations that I have seen.  It is very close to the work of those who translate the phrase, "Khong sao dau," to "No star where" in English.

I personally believe that those 4 lines should read something like;

First, allow me to clean the bile of hatre.
Second, help me resurrect the Hung Rule.
Third, let me justify the death of my husband.
And finally, see that I will follow through on this response to public service.

Hey men, this is the best that I can do.  I am no Shakespeare, and neither am I Quynh Giao.  I just hate to see words get taken out of context.

Has the Vientamese language not changed dramatically over the past 2000 years?
The History of the Vietnamese Language.

The version I posted is 17th century Vietnamese writing, therefore it may or may not be a bad translation.

You're fighting a losing battle, according to my old friend Google:

13,120,000 hits for "Foremost, I will avenge my country."

Iphones "Unclocked" is my favorite translation gone wrong, personally.

Teacher_Mark,

Over the years, the Vietnamese language has gone through many changes.  However, not to the tone of this: 

Mt xin ra sch nc th
Hai xin em li nghim xa h Hng
Ba ko oan c lng chng
Bn xin vn vn s cng lnh ny

This looks a lot more like YOUR handy work! 

You didn't get any help from Anatta on this, did you? 

Wild_1 wrote:

Teacher_Mark,

Over the years, the Vietnamese language has gone through many changes.  However, not to the tone of this: 

Mt xin ra sch nc th
Hai xin em li nghim xa h Hng
Ba ko oan c lng chng
Bn xin vn vn s cng lnh ny

This looks a lot more like YOUR handy work! 

You didn't get any help from Anatta on this, did you? 

Hai Ba Trung, Hai Ba Trung! 

Teacher_Mark,

I think I know what happened here:

Mt xin ra sch nc th
Hai xin em li nghim xa h Hng
Ba ko oan c lng chng
Bn xin vn vn s cng lnh ny

When you compare it to this, the good version:

Một xin rửa sạch nước thù
Hai xin dựng lại nghiệp xưa họ Hùng
Ba kêu oan ức lòng chồng
Bốn xin vẻn vẹn sở công lênh này

You can see that the previous has all the words with diacritical marks missing. 

When you read Vietnamese with an uncompatible software, such words will appear real weird.  So, someone deleted them, NOT THAT VIETNAMESE HAS CHANGED, man. 

Now, can you please go tell the Snake Oil Salesman to give me a Nobel PriCe for this discovery?

Teacher Mark,

Just today I have read this topic again and I still appreciate it so much!
How are you doing? Do you still write and sing about Vietnam history?

Thank you for your sharing!

Do I still love Vietnam?  Yes.   

Well, Teacher Mark, the nice thing about coming back to the United States is that you can actually read some Vietnamese history from un-edited (shall we say) sources. I'd recommend Sophie Quinn-Judge's "Ho Chi Minh The Missing Years:" As your ode to Uncle Ho shows, you know very little about him. You might also find Dixee Bartholomew-Feis's "The OSS and Ho Chi Minh" to be of interest. I presume you've at least looked at Duiker's "Ho Chi Minh A Life". Unlike Duiker, Quinn-Judge went into the Kremlin's archives when they were still open to journalists and scholars. Also, your aside on fans and French colonialists suggests that you could use a little reading up on that experience. I'd recommend "Indochina An Ambiguous Colonization" by Pierre Brocheux and Daniel Hemery. It is not a white-wash and might help you understand why the names of Yersin, Calmette, and Pasteur are still around.

Oh, also, I've been told by a distinguished Vietnam scholar that it is unlikely there were two Trung sisters as Vietnamese legend portrays them. According to this source, the Chinese records of the period (when there was no written Vietnamese language, and indeed the Vietnamese language as we know it today had yet to develop) mention only Trung Trac. No husband. No sister. Though she likely had both. So feel free to invent. Le Van Huu and Ngo Si Lien did. One thing I do know is that they would not have been dressed and armed as the artwork shows.