In almost every city in Vietnam exists a street named “Hai Ba Trung”, in honor of the two legendary sisters who led a revolt against the Chinese rule around 39 C.E. The date of their deaths marks Vietnam’s Women’s Day, and their legend has been told in Vietnamese children’s books for generations. Today, Trung Trac and Trung Nhi are considered two of the most important heroines in Vietnamese history. The pair, who had already come from a militarily strong family, led an army against the Chinese officials who controlled Vietnam at the time. They eventually took back Vietnam, and ruled for three years before an army was sent to destroy them. The Trung sisters used their social status and the general discontent the Vietnamese people felt towards the ruling Chinese to start a rebellion.
Traditionally, Vietnamese women have always had more freedom than their Chinese counterparts in the first century A.D. Although still not equal to men, they did have more rights and gained closer to equal inheritance. They could play a part in public life, and could be political leaders, judges, traders, and warriors. Meanwhile, women in Han China did not have any of these rights, as they were considered subservient to their husbands. The Trung Sisters were clearly not subservient to their husbands. Trung Trac, the elder sister, was married to Thi Sach, and he was most likely alive during the rebellion. However, it is probable that he did not play a large part in it, other than supporting his wife. When the Trung Sisters was established, Mi-ling, the birthplace of sisters, was made capital instead of his own birthplace. If he were the main leader of the rebellion, it would definitely be his own birthplace made capital.
The Trung Sisters had a...
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Yan Zhitui states that, "women take charge of family affairs, entering into lawsuits, straightening out disagreements, and paying calls to seek favor...the government offices are filled with their fancy silks." (Differences between north and south, 111). Yet, even in the Qing dynasty women were still restricted by and expected to uphold more traditional ideals, especially in the public eye. So, in the end, through her virtue, Hsi-Liu’s two children we able to become upright. Here, there is a split between what a woman is supposed to be according to old Chinese tradition, and the realities facing women in Tancheng. The loss of her husband, and economic hardship had forced His-Liu to behave in a different way, as if she were usurping the power from the eldest son so she could teach the two boys a lesson about being good family members. While she still maintains the ideals of bearing children, and being loyal to her husband, even after he dies, out of necessity she is forced to break from Confucian ideals of being only concerned with the domestic issues. This too put her at odds with the more traditional society around her, as the villagers pitied her sons, but vilified the Hsi-Liu for being so strict with them (Woman Wang, 65). Had she remarried, she would have been looked down upon even more because she would had broken her duty to remain faithful to her deceased
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The aim of this book by Bui Diem with David Chanoff is to present the Vietnam War told from a South Vietnamese perspective. The large-scale scope of the work concerns the fighting between North and South Vietnam over which party would run the country and wanting to become an independent state free from the Western powers. Diem's memoir contains in-depth details about his life and politics in Vietnam in 1940-1975. The book serves as a primary source in documenting the events in Vietnam during the war and as an autobiography of Diem's life. The purpose of this book is to give insight of the war through Diem's eyes and how it affected his life.
In the novel Paradise of the Blind, Doung Thu Huong explores the effect the Communist regime has had upon Vietnamese cultural gender roles. During the rule of the Communist Viet Minh, a paradigm shift occurred within which many of the old Vietnamese traditions were dismantled or altered. Dounh Thu Huong uses the three prominent female characters – Hang, Que and Aunt Tam – to represent the changing responsibilities of women in Vietnamese culture. Que, Hang’s mother, represents a conservative, orthodox Vietnamese woman, who has a proverb-driven commitment to sustaining her manipulative brother, Chinh. Aunt Tam embodies a capitalistic
Hayslip, Le Ly, and Jay Wurts. When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace. New York: Plume, 1990. Print.
Chapter one, The Observers, in the Death of Woman Wang demonstrates the accuracy of the local historian; Feng K'o-ts'an, who compiled The Local History of T'an-ch'eng in 1673. The descriptive context of the Local History helps the reader to understand and literally penetrate into people's lives. The use of records of the earthquake of 1668, the White Lotus rising of 1622 and rebels rising vividly described by Feng the extent of suffering the people of T'an-ch'eng went through. Jonathan Spence stresses on how miserable the two-quarter of the seventeen-century were to the diminishing population of the county. The earthquake claimed the lives of nine thousand people, many others died in the White lotus rising, hunger, sickness and banditry. P'u Sung-ling's stories convey that after the loss of the wheat crops there were cases of cannibalism. On top of all of this came the slaughtering of the entire family lines by the bandits. The incredible records of women like Yao and Sun in the Local History present the reader the magnitude of savagery the bandits possessed. All of these factors led to the rise of suicides. The clarity of events Spence given to the reader is overwhelming.
(1800)Topic 2: A Literary Analysis of the Historical Differentiation of Patriarchal Culture and Female Gender Identity in the Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong and the Tale of Genji
“First They Killed My Father” bears upon a happy families world turning upside down when they had to evacuate from their beautiful home in Phnom Penh. The Ung family lived in an apartment building in the uppertown of Phnom Penh were the more wealthy people lived.Father, Sem Im Ung worked for the government so he earned enough money to support 7 of his children and his wife considering she doesn't work. The main character and also the author of this book tells the readers about her tough journey to survive the war.
As a young teen, she huddled in a bomb shelter during intense artillery shelling of her hamlet, escaping out a rear exit just as US Marines shouted for the “mama-sans” and “baby-sans” (women and children) to come out the front. She got as far as the nearby river before she heard gunfire. Returning the next day, she encountered a scene that was seared into her brain. “I saw dead people piled up in the hamlet. I saw my mom’s body and my younger siblings,” told Ho Thi Van. She lost eight family members in that 1968 massacre. In all, according to the local survivors, thirty-seven people, including twenty-one children were killed by the Marines. She then joins the guerrillas and fought the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies until she was grievously wounded, losing an eye in battle in
In the book The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien gender stereotypes of women who fought in the Vietnam War are represented through some of the short stories. One short story in particular is "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" which describes a woman who participated in the Vietnam War and went beyond some of her gender roles that were placed on her. In this war women had certain roles they had to fulfill with many of them being non-traditional ones. This paper will discuss the concept of Cultural Studies in literature about the Vietnam War.
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The first Memoir of 1795 was addressed to the heir of her natal family and took the form of a public appeal in her effort to reestablish her family’s moral legitimacy and honorable family tradition. Before we explore her memoir, it is important to note that she felt responsible for her family’s downfall – believing that her marriage into the royal house had led to directly their suffering and decline. Beyond the scholarly merit of her stories, they are important in the view Lady Hyegyong provides of the court life and the strict Confucian beliefs that stress filial piety, loyalty and virtue. To being with, the move from
After the fall of the Saigon in 1975, Heidi’s mother- Mrs. Mai Thi Kim decided to send her to America as fearing for her uncertain future in Vietnam. Twenty two years later years, Heidi eventually found her Vietnamese mother. However, as she was raised in the States, Heidi is now "101%" American and has little knowledge of her Vietnamese heritage. Undoubtedly, this reality reveals potentials for cultural collision.
Stewart Gordon is an expert historian who specializes in Asian history. He is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan and has authored three different books on Asia. Gordon’s When Asia Was The World uses the narratives of several different men to explore The Golden Age of medieval Asia. The fact that this book is based on the travels and experiences of the everyday lives of real people gives the reader a feeling of actually experiencing the history. Gordon’s work reveals to the reader that while the Europeans were trapped in the dark ages, Asia was prosperous, bursting with culture, and widely connected by trade. This book serves to teach readers about the varieties of cultures, social practices, and religions that sprang from and spread out from ancient Asia itself and shows just how far Asia was ahead of the rest of the world
Toer’s portrayal of Annelies Mellema as innocent and childish is symbolic of a naïve pre-colonial Java before the corruption of Dutch influence. Her birth being the result of a unique relationship between a Dutch colonizer and Javan concubine known as Nyai Ontosoroh, Annelies exhibits physical features of both cultures. Annelies is characterized as being a girl that is “white-skinned and refined with a European face and the hair and eyes of a Native” representing the crossing of two cultures within Java (Toer 25). Despite her capability of helping her mother Nyai Ontosoroh run their family business, Annelies remains submissive and allows various authority figures in her life like her mother, doctor, and husband Minke to make life decisions on her behalf. This, coupled with her physical fragility that is especially apparent in the form of illness whenever Minke is absent from her life for extended periods of time is Toer’s method of illustrating the weakness of pre-colonial Indonesia that is eventually conquered and forever changed by the Dutch. Despite h...