Confucianism From The Perspective Of Chinese Novel In Vietnam

Vietnam has been deeply influenced by Chinese culture with a long history of using Chinese language and character for communication and writing. Though Vietnam was reduced to a colony of France at1885and been passively altered to use French and a kind of reformed Vietnamese, which is written in Roman alphabet, Chinese has still been prevalent in every corner of Vietnam society. And as a consequence, Vietnam has preserved a lot of literature works written in Chinese character and grammar. Such works has almost been ignored by Vietnam scholars and Chinese scholars as well for some certain reasons. It’s an uncultivated area in the research of Han culture.Among the Chinese-written Vietnamese works, the novel has the most value of the research for its large volumes and contentious information, which could be a good reflection of the politics, economy and culture of ancient Vietnam. On the other hand, the Vietnam Chinese-written Novel, which has been preserved very well both on quantity and quality though a long history, could server as a good theme for academic study. As for the perspective of our research, the Confucianism can provide a solemn background for its dominant position in Chinese social life and its deep impact in south-east Asian countries, such as ancient Vietnam, ancient Korea and ancient Japan, with the spread of Chinese written characters. As an important branch of overseas Chinese Novels, Vietnam Chinese-written Novel mirrors the influence of Confucianism in abroad.Chapter one discusses the rise and fall of the Buddhism and Confucianism in Vietnam. We focus on the prosperous process of Confucianism, which took place of the leading position of Buddhism in Vietnam society. And such change has also been reflected in the Novels.Chapter two to chapter five, the paper gives an overall study on the politic situation, family relationship and individual life style in Vietnam Chinese-written Novel under the background of Confucianism. We put attention on the nuclear concepts of Confucianism, such as Loyalty, Filial piety, Righteousness and Credit, in the behavior of the daily life of all classes of Vietnam people, including the emperor and the officials, generals and soldiers, husband and wife, father and sons,etc. Chapter six focuses on the female image in Vietnam Chinese-written Novel. We classify the female roles, which were created under the influence of Confucianism, in three types. The flower of virtue with the tag of obedience, the flower of diligence with the tag of hard-working and the flower of staunch with the tag of braveness and abstinence. Meanwhile, we also noticed the flower of evil with the tag of demoralization and grating personality.Chapter seven discusses "the Hua-yi distinctions and the national concept of Chinese-written Vietnamese novels". Deeply affected by Huayi distinction of Confucianism, the novels not only regarded itself as Hua (regarded Vietnam as "China"), but considered neighboring nations as Yis (considered neighbors as Yi or Man straightway). The novels reveal a subtle interplay with China:on one hand, when invaded by China, it sometimes condemned Chinese regime, or even called it robber directly; when internal struggle happened, however, it called China the Celestial. On the other, culturally, Vietnam had a kind of sense of belonging and identity with China all the time.Chapter eight focuses on "the excursion and deviation from Confucianism in Chinese-written Vietnamese novels". Chinese-written Vietnamese novels truly reflected the "small distinctions" or even deviation during the time when Confucianism spread and blended with native cultures, i.e. the excursion and deviation of acceptance; as well as the fitness and absorption of blend. For example, pledged loyal to the country instead of to the throne;"the greatly filial piety" instead of "the minor filial piety"; the ranges of women’s activities were not strictly restricted into internal but could participate in external business, even could ascend to governmental activities; compared by China, the chastity was more tolerant.