Vietnamese Identity Construction Juxtaposition:Research On Chinese Factors InThe Development Of Vietnamese History And Their Constructivist Isolation

This paper theorizes the process of Vietnamese identity construction within the context of "juxtaposition identity construction theory". This is to say that Vietnamese identity construction is inherently dependent on juxtaposition with Chinese identity, i.e. it is defined negatively as "we are not Chinese", which forms the nucleus of modern Vietnamese identity. After roughly 1100 years of direct Chinese control from the second century BCE to the tenth century, countless rebellions, and countless wars for control of the Red River Delta, it is needless to say that Vietnamese historical experience with China has left a significant mark on their identity. The main point of this paper is to theorize this process as juxtaposition. This is not to say that Vietnam owes its existence to China, but rather that the process of constructing Vietnamese identity cannot exist outside of a framework with China.From a theoretical standpoint, this paper makes use of Benedict Anderson’s"imagined communities" theory. This is to say that this paper accepts and expounds on the idea that a given nation is "imagined" to be so by its populace. In the case of Vietnam, the nation is "imagined" as "not Chinese", with efforts to reconstruct pre-historical, pre-Chinese and mythical Vietnamese history having the almost solitary goal of proving that the Vietnamese are not Chinese. In the case of China, this theory is relevant from an outward perspective. The way the Vietnamese were "imagined" by China plays an essential role in the collective Vietnamese imagination.The term "Viet" is defined in the third section. "Viet" or "Yue" is a Chinese term, spawned from the Han imagination, to define all non-Sinofied people beyond the ancient Chinese Central Plains region’s southern periphery. Initially, the Viet peoples formed an "imagined" monolithic group of southern "barbarians", which creates problems in determining the origin of Vietnamese identity. These various and scattered groups, that as a collective lacked a writing system, leave few hints as to the connections they may have had with one another. In essence, there is no definitive evidence that the various Viet peoples are in fact related outside of the Chinese imagination. That the Vietnamese use this term as the basis for their identity creates an inherent contradiction:they identify themselves in juxtaposition with the Chinese imagination. From this dichotomy, it becomes apparent how difficult it is to conceptualize Vietnamese identity without references to China. Whatever term was used in pre-history to refer to people of the Red River Delta has been lost, thus making it necessary to reconstruct.The fourth section constitutes the main body of this paper. It confronts the issue of determining the ancestral origins of Vietnam through a discussion of political entities and their leaders. In other words, the fourth section theorizes on which political entity can be considered as the starting point for the process of Vietnamese identity construction, and which individual can be considered as Vietnam’s "founding father". This process begins with the Bronze Age kingdom of Van Lang and the mythical Hung Kings, the last political entity to be free of Chinese influence, and ends with the founding of the Dinh dynasty, Vietnam’s first sustained independent political system. Independent Vietnam beyond the Dinh dynasty will be touched upon to provide a fuller picture of the Vietnamese identity construction process.The fifth section deals with geographical terms and their impact on Vietnam’s identity, specifically Ling Nan and the Red River Delta. It will be explained in the previous sections how Ling Nan and the Red River Delta existed in one political entity for over a millennium. The Tang dynasty’s administrative decision to separate Ling Nan and the Red River Delta ("An Nan") into two separate entities had irrevocable consequences for the process of identity construction in the region. This represents the separation of Guangdong and Guangxi’s Viet people from those of modern-day northern Vietnam. That the Cantonese local dialect is still referred to as "Yue"language leaves a hint as to the ancient and long lasting union between the two. The Cantonese "Yue" and the Vietnamese "Yue" are written with two distinct Chinese characters that lead the imagination to conceptualize them differently. However, ancient texts use the two characters interchangeably, betraying their common origin.Finally, this paper will conclude by emphasizing the role of "juxtaposition identity construction" theory within the framework of "imagined identity" theory. The concept of Vietnam as the exception to Chinese history will be explained. Vietnam is the only peripheral and formal Chinese province to break away with lasting success. From this, we can see that the juxtaposition of the two identities is crucial in pinpointing the origin and explaining the unfolding of the process of Vietnamese identity construction.