NGUYỄN THIÊN THỤ * VIETNAMESE FOLK LITERATURE

VIETNAMESE FOLK LITERATURE
FROM 1945 to THE PRESENT DAY

Folk literature or oral literature is a long tradition in Vietnamese literature, Vietnamese folk literature is a continuous stream from the beginning to today. In Vietnam, folk is created by unknown authors, and passed down orally from generations to generations in whole part of country, and usually existed in many versions. It is a little difference between old folk literature and new folk literature.

The old folk literature was created before 1945 and has originated more than one thousand years ago in the Vietnamese literature. Its themes were love, morality, history, custom and daily experience, and its aims was education and entertainment. It was a popular kind of literature and art opened and spread widely for people every time and every where. It was presented with sincerity, love, happiness and humor.

Contemporary folk literature is a new stream which has broke out in 1945 till now and has the political purpose in order to criticize the communists, their ignorance and cruelty. . People around the world can call them the short humorous stories , or the black humor, or the political jokes. They were forbidden by the communist authorities.

Every nation is fond of the category of political jokes, but in the Soviet Union telling political jokes was in a sense an extreme sport: according to Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code), "anti-Soviet propaganda" was a potentially capital offense. The majority of folk songs, and folk stories are the new creative works of Vietnamese people. Moreover, Vietnamese folk literature also originated in many sources. On the one hand, it is influenced by old folk literature:
Con ơi mẹ dặn câu này,
Cướp đêm là giặc, cướp ngày là quan.
You must remember the words of your mother
There are two kinds of robber
Night robber is the bandit
Day robber high officer.

New folk song:
Con ơi mẹ dặn câu này,
Cướp đêm là giặc, cướp ngày công an.
You must remember the words of your mother
There are two kinds of robber
Night robber is the bandit
Day robber police officer.

Mấy đời bánh đúc có xương,
Mấy đời dì ghẻ mà thương con chồng.
The cake never has bone,
The step mother never loves her husband’s children.

Mấy đời bánh đúc có xương,
Mấy đời cộng sản mà thương dân nghèo!
The cake never has bone,
The communists never love the poor people

On the other hand, they draw their inspiration from the world black humor, especially Russian contemporary political jokes.

Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev are all travelling together in a railway carriage. Unexpectedly the train stops. Lenin suggests: "Perhaps, we should call a subbotnik, so that workers and peasants fix the problem." Stalin puts his head out of the window and shouts, "If the train does not start moving, the driver will be shot!" But the train doesn't start moving. Khrushchev then shouts, "Let's take the rails behind the train and use them to construct the tracks in the front".(A hint to Khrushchev's various reorganizations.) But it still doesn't move. Brezhnev then says, "Comrades, Comrades, let's draw the curtains, turn on the gramophone and pretend we're moving!" (A hint to Brezhnev stagnation.) "Comrade Stalin! This man is your exact double!" / "Shoot him!" / "Maybe we should shave off his moustache?" / "Good idea! Shave it off and then shoot him!". Stalin reads his report to the Party Congress. Suddenly someone sneezes. "Who sneezed?" (Silence.) "First row! On your feet! Shoot them!" (Applause.) "Who sneezed?" (Silence.) "Second row! On your feet! Shoot them!" (Long, loud applause.) "Who sneezed?" (Silence.) ...A dejected voice in the back: "It was me" (Sobs.) Stalin leans forward: "Bless you, comrade!"

The personages of New Folk literature are people around the world, especially Vietnamese, Chinese and Russians communists, and take place in everywhere, especially in Vietnam, USSR, China, Europe and in .America. Like the old folk literature, Vietnamese new folk literature consists of proverbs, idioms, folk songs and short stories. Like Russians, Vietnamese people use folk literature to attack communism.

1. Communism Vietnamese people protest against communism:
Lenin ông ở nước Nga,
Cớ sao ông đến vườn hoa nước này?
Bậm môi, trợn mắt chỉ tay
Mày theo cộng sản nước mày tan hoang!
Mr. Lenin, you are a Russian communist,
Why do you leave your country
And come to Vietnamese garden?
He is very angry
and shouts:
If you join the Communist party
Our country would be destroyed completely!

2. Exploitation
Communists accused capitalism’s exploitation but in fact, communists are more brutal than capitalists:
Làm ngày không đủ,
Tranh thủ làm đêm,
Làm thêm ngày nghỉ. We must work every day
We must work every night
That is not enough
We must work through Sunday
We have no time to stay!

3. Ignorant Leader
Một ông khách ăn bận sang trọng vào văn phòng tổng bí thư xin gặp mặt lãnh tụ.Ông nói rằng ông là bạn học của Tổng bí thư hồi còn nhỏ, nay qua đây xin gặp mặt cho thỏa lòng nhớ mong người bạn thân thiết thuở ấu thơ. Nghe người khách nói xong, viên trung úy phụ trách an ninh văn phòng Tổng Bí thư liền kêu lính bắt nhốt người khách vì tội làm gián điệp CIA mưu sát tổng bí thư! Mãy nhà báo Việt Nam và Anh, Pháp, Mỹ nghe tin liền đến xin phỏng vấn vị anh hùng và là thiên tài tình báo của Việt Nam: Vì đâu mà ông biết ngay người khách là gián điệp CIA?
Viên trung úy ngước mắt cao ngạo trả lời: -Tổng Bí thư có đi học đâu mà có bạn học! Rõ ràng tên kia là CIA Mỹ!
One day, a gentleman went to the Secretary General’s office, and he told the Police Officer that he was a school mate of Secretary General, so he wanted to visit him. The officer shouted: “ Seize him!”
Some Vietnamese and European journalists ask him: Why do you discover him a spy?
With pride, he said:
-He tells lie! Our Secretary General never went to school!

4. Police
People criticized policeman due to their cruelity and corruption:
Muốn xanh cỏ, đỏ ngực thì đi bộ đội,
Muốn làm ông cố nội thì vào công an!
Go for a soldier
If you love the medal and an early death
Go for a police officer
You will have money and power!

5. Economy
It is a weak economy with the permanent shortages in various shops:
Một người đàn ông bước vào một cửa hàng mậu dịch và hỏi :- Có cá không? Các cán bộ cửa hàng đáp: -Đồng chí đi không đúng tuyến. Chúng tôi bán thịt chứ không bán cá, mà chúng tôi cũng không có bất kỳ thứ thịt nào. Đồng chí sang cửa hàng bên kia đường mà mua cá, nhưng ở đó họ cũng chẳng có cá đâu!
A man walks into a shop and asks, "Don't you have any fish?", and the shop assistant replies, "You go to the wrong way – our shop is a butcher, but in fact we don't have any meat. Go to the fish shop across the street to buy fish, but they also have no fish.

Mỗi năm ba thước vải thô,
Lấy gì che kín cụ Hồ hỡi em?
Each year we have the right to buy three meter of clothing,
How can we cover Uncle Hồ Chí Minh?

Đi làm hợp tác hợp te,
Không được miếng vải mà che cái l…
We work for the collective farm all year
But we have nothing to wear.

6. Protesting against Chinese Invasion
Cha bồi tàu, con bồi tàu,[1]
Cha con nhà nó đua nhau làm bồi.
Bồi tây rồi lại bồi tàu,
Chúng nó bán nước làm giàu dân ôi!
The father was a servitor
The boy is a traitor
His family A family of slavery
They sell themselves
and sell their country
to the Chinese communist party.

Năm nay nhiều Việt kiều ở khắp nơi trên thế giới về Việt Nam tham dự cuộc thi "Gala đố 2005". Câu hỏi do ban giám khảo đưa ra cho năm nay là: “China Town ở nước nào lớn nhất thế giới?“
Thí sinh Việt kiều ở Anh quốc trả lời:
- China Town lớn nhất thế giới ở London.
Thí sinh Việt kiều ở Canada trả lời:
- China Town ở Toronto lớn nhất thế giới.
Thí sinh Việt kiều ở Mỹ trả lời:
- China Town ở San Francisco là lớn nhất thế giới.
Bây giờ đến lượt thí sinh Việt Nam ở Việt Nam trả lời:
- Tôi cam đoan là China Town ở Việt Nam là lớn nhất thế giới, vì người ta phải dùng xe lửa đi suốt cả ngày mới xuyên qua hết.
Tất cả những người tham dự buổi thi đố đều cười ầm lên, có người lên tiếng:
- Lại định mang Chợ Lớn ra gạt bà con ở đây chứ gì?
Người khác tiếp lời:
- China Town Chợ Lớn đi bộ một chút là hết chứ cần gì phải đi xe lửa cả ngày?
Thí sinh Việt Nam đợi cho hết tiếng cười rồi mới giải thích:
- China Town mới của Viêt Nam chúng ta bắt đầu từ Ải Nam Quan chạy dài đến tận mũi Cà Mâu nên mới lớn nhất thế giới.
This year, Vietnam organized “ Gaza Puzzle 2005”, many oversea Vietnamese attend this contest." The question is: "What China Town is biggest in the world?".
Vietnamese candidate in the UK replied.
- The world's largest China Town is in London.
Vietnamese Candidate in Canada replied.
- China Town in Toronto is the biggest one in the world.
Vietnamese candidate in America replied.
- China Town in San Francisco is largest one in the world.
Now Vietnamese student in Vietnam answers.
- China Town in the Vietnam is the world's largest town, because people have to use the train throughout the day to travel through the town..
Everybody is laughing because Chợ Lớn is so small..
Some one protests: Travelling Chợ Lớn, we do not need to take a train all day. The student explains: -New China Town in Vietnam is very big, it is the biggest China Town in the world because it stretches from Nam Quan to Camau!

Ben Lewis was right when he put it in his essay, and book "Communism was a humor-producing machine. Its economic theories and system of repression created inherently funny situations. There were jokes under fascism and the Nazis too, but those systems did not create an absurd, laugh-a-minute reality like communism [2] Indeed, Vietnamese folk literature expresses Vietnamese people spirit in the struggle against the communist dictatorship for freedom and democracy.

_____

[1] Bồi : waiter, slave; Tàu: boat, Chinese. Bồi tàu has double meanings.: a waiter on ship and a slave of Chinese. Hint to H ồ Ch í Minh worked as a waiter on a ship in 1912, and the Vietnamese communists gave up Vietnamese sea and land to Chinese. [2] Russian political jokes. Wikipedia