Familial Properties: Gender, State, and Society in Early Modern Vietnam, 1463-1778 (i)

from historian Nhung Tuyet Tran and Vietnamese studies

See the little girl in a maillot getting out of the pool at the Cercle Sportif in 1962? She is on the dust cover of her little brother’s book.

To its right on the back cover of the book itself are 5 of 8 women on patrol with carbines and long hair. The 1 extending a hand to the spine is helping up from the front cover the 1 with a squad automatic weapon.

The 1 using binoculars wears the sidearm of an officer. The 2 contemplating water lilies recall this plant’s purity rising from the shit.

We already have discussed Marcelino Truong’s Une si jolie petite guerre a few times. This evening we start on the book to the right.

See the numbers at the top left corner? I drove to the Walter Royal Davis research library especially to fetch it from the shelf

where it sat with 1 dozen other titles classified by our Library of Congress as Vietnamese women. I know 10 of the authors personally.

The Davis library sticker with LC code HQ 1750.5 obscures the full title, Familial Properties: Gender, State, and Society in Early Modern Vietnam, 1463-1778.

Nhung Tuyet Tran explains inside, in a note on conventions, that she spells the name of the country as university presses of the United States do. Northern Realm and Southern Realm come up

more often because the shape of Viet Nam we all recognize on the table mats of any Vietnamese restaurant in the United States, with sketches of women in regional garb, came into being in 1802 after the end of her book.

1463 to 1778. Know any dates like those? 1492 to 1776, from contact in the New World to our declaration of independence. Early modern, for sure.

When we were making a new nation, so were they. Our women’s history is a new effort here, arising in my lifetime.

Their women, Nhung shows, have been driving events and commissioning their story all along. Of course I would say that.

Like Marcelino I think the world of Vietnamese women. Nhung tells a harder-nosed, more interesting story.

The cover illustration shows a detail of a rubbing held in Ha Noi from a stele raised in the 18th century of the common era to the memory of women who had served the community.

Next time I will open the book.

This was the first Viet Nam letter of 7 so far addressed to Familial Properties: Gender, State, and Society in Early Modern Vietnam, 1463-1778 by Nhung Tuyet Tran. The letter judges the book by its cover.

The second reads the title page, on March 30, 2022.

The third discusses Vietnamese women and Southeast Asia in light of the book’s introduction, on June 1, 2022.

The fourth is the first letter with the poem, “Like a female stork drudging by the banks of the river,” on July 18, 2022.

The fifth is the second letter to discuss epigraphy from steles women raised in the markets they built, on December 12, 2022.

The sixth is the third letter to show and the second to discuss “Like a female stork drudging by the banks of the river,” on December 15, 2022.

The seventh letter, on March 27, 2023, presents 2 more poems to make the point that the work of history is also an anthology.

Viet Nam letters respects the property of others under paragraph 107 of United States Code Title 17. If we asked for permission it wouldn’t be criticism. We explain our fair use at length in the letter of September 12, 2022.

The colophon of these Viet Nam letters, directly above, shows the janitor speaking with poet David A. Willson on a Veterans Day.