Nineteen eighty-eight. My first trip to Vietnam. I discover the country I studied for five years at Leningrad State University. The pages read, the lessons learned, the conversations conducted, all these come alive. Back then, Vietnam and the Soviet Union were still brotherly countries. I was an interpreter for a Soviet delegation on a visit of friendship. During the day I dutifully translated negotiations to develop programs of cooperation. But some evenings I had for myself. And on these evenings I tried to imbibe and absorb as much of Vietnamese culture as I could. I was mesmerized by the temples...

An awareness of supernatural beings is a widespread human experience. Naming these beings and establishing rituals for experiencing their presence arises from the application of human thought and authority. The supernatural cannot be named without provoking questions about the meaning of the name as well as who has the right to speak on behalf of it and to what purpose. Our earliest evidence of answers to these questions among the Vietnamese comes from texts that reveal how rulers and their followers endeavored to systematize and narrate approved knowledge of supernatural beings. Over a period of several centuries, these texts document...

In general, in Vietnam, female deities occupy a rather modest position compared to their male counterparts. For example, of the one thousand entries inDi Tích Lịch Sử Văn Hóa Việt Nam(Historical and Cultural Vestiges of Vietnam), a recently compiled catalogue of cultural sites, only 250 sites are dedicated to female deities.¹ Among these deities are historical figures, mainly war heroines or royalty, and they are usually referred to as Kingdom/National Mother (Quốc Mẫu) or Royal Mother (Vương Mãu). Others, usually legendary rather than historical, are famous for their supernatural powers and are simply called Mother (Mẫu) or Saint...

Once Liễu Hạnh’s cult was established as a visible aspect of popular culture, educated people found ways to make use of it. From being a dynamic aspect of village life, a focus of religious practices and community events, it was given literary form and philosophical significance, thereby becoming a figure of contention among intellectuals, who made it represent their preferred visions of social authority.

This chapter will discuss three works written about Liễu Hạnh in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. All of them were written in Hán (the classical Chinese language). Together they constitute a discussion of the role of...

In the previous chapter, we saw how in the eighteenth century Ðoàn Thị Ðiểm wrote her story about Liễu Hạnh in classical prose to harness the sublime for the emancipation of educated women. It was addressed to the restricted audience of educated people. This chapter discusses two works on Liễu Hạnh written in vernacular poetry, one from the mid-nineteenth century and one from the early twentieth century. Both of these works use Ðoàn Thị Ðiểm’sVân Cát Thần Nữ Truyện(Story of the Vân Cát Goddess) as a master text; however, each processes this master text into the vernacular in...

I saw this slogan in front of the building of the people’s committee of Vụ Bản district, Nam Ðịnh province, during the Phủ Dầy festival of Princess Liễu Hạnh:Phát huy thuần phong mỹ tục của lễ hội truyền thống, kiên quyết bài trừ mê tín dị đoạn và hủ tục(Bring into play good customs of traditional festivals, resolutely eradicate superstitions and outdated practices). Each year on the third day of the third lunar month, the anniversary of Liễu Hạnh’s death, tens of thousands of people visit Phủ Dầy. In 2001, so did I. It was not my first...