The Story: Au Co Descendants

The situation here happened with a mother who wanted to accompany her daughter to get through her puberty's identity crisis. One day, the daughter asked her mom for her original nationality. The mother wanted to take advantage of this to help her daughter forming her identity.

Hoai An: Mom, I wonder about my homeland. My classmates keep asking me but I do not know how to answer them.

Mom: Oh, you remind of a sweet memory of my childhood in Vietnam. I will share with you a great story that your grandma had told me many years ago.

“Once upon a time,....There is a great man named De Minh, who was the third descendant of King Than Nong, traveled to conquer the southern part of his kingdom. When he came to Ngu Linh, he met and married Vu Tien Nu. They had a genius son named Loc Tuc who his father wanted to inherit the throne. Loc Tuc had an older half brother named De Nghi. When Loc Tuc knew his father wanted him to become a king of the northland, he refused that offer and wanted to pass it on to De Nghi. As a result, De Nghi inherited his father's throne. De Minh also gave to Loc Tuc a land in the south where he was the leader. He called his country, Xích Quỷ [Xích in this case means a tribe, Quỷ means red skin. Xích Quỷ was a country of the native Vietnamese who had red skin ]. Loc Tuc married Long Nu, a daughter of Dong Dinh Vuong, the king of the ocean. Both had generous hearts to help all those who are in need. They had a child named Sung Lam who became a great warrior with the title Lac Long Quan meaning “The Dragon Lord”. The Vietnamese original myth started with Lac Long Quan. Lac Long Quan’s mother was a water dragon. Therefore, Lac Long Quan inherited both power and strength from his parents. He had the body of a dragon and magical power. One day, when Lac Long Quan traveled through the country to keep the peace for the land, he met Au Co [Au Co means a royal mother or a mother goddess in Vietnamese myth). She was an immortal mountain Thần [Thần means a divine figure]. Au Co and Lac Long Quan fell in love and got married. This magical union laid a sac of one hundred egg from which hatched one hundred sons. With Au Co, Lac Long Quan created a human language and used it to name all things on earth. When their children matured, they taught them how to gather fruits, make tools for hunting and fishing, and how to build huts. Later on, Au Co showed them how to plant sweet rice as a main food for the Vietnamese. In all ways, they had a wondrous life. After some time living with Au Co, Lac Long Quan told his wife one day: “I am by nature like a dragon in the water, while you are like a goddess “Thần” in the mountain. Our habits and customs are different. We must live apart from each other. Now of all our children, half will go with me to the underwater palace, and the other half will stay on land with you. If either group encounters misfortune, then the other group must help them”. The hundred children of Lac Long Quan and Au Co understood their father’s wish and divided themselves into two groups. Fifty followed their mother to the mountains, and fifty followed their father into the ocean. They became the ancestors of the Vietnamese people. Because of this legend, the Vietnamese people referred to themselves as the Dragon and Au Co descendants who came from the same family a long time ago. Au Co and her fifty sons went to the highlands. She crowned the eldest son, Hung Vuong. Hung Vuong named the country Van Lang [It means the land of learned people] and made Phong Chau its capital. So, began the dynasty of Hong Bang, and with it the foundation of the Vietnamese nation. (Nghia M. Vo, Legends of Viet Nam, pp 57-61). The myth ended by introducing the appearance of the first king and the first name of Viet Nam in ancient times.

My dear daughter, that is your original country. I would like to tell it to show that you are a descent from Au Co and Lac Long Quan. The story I tell you is the creation myth. Out of all myths and legends, the creation myth is the most important and powerful story that all Vietnamese have to know as a great bond to bring them together despite their other differences.

Hoai An: Mom, thanks for your great story.

Mom: Well, I think we need to know that to build our own lives and identities when we live overseas.

Hoai An: Mom, my friends still look at my appearance and comment about that badly….I feel isolated in my school….The girls in my class look beautiful….I want to look like them, Mom.

Mom: My daughter, I love you...as you are. You are precious because of your own values, not your appearance.

Hoai An: Not everyone sees that. Mom. I am not pretty...I am ashamed of my nose, and my skin.

Mom: My daughter, look at me!!! Our identities can build our lives better. We can not fix our appearance but the way we see it. No race is more dominant to others. The race is a cultural product. Your American friends look beautiful but you are so pretty as well. Do not try to do and react similarly to them. I know it is not easy….

Hoai An: How could you adapt to a difficult life when you just came to the U.S.?

Mom: Oh, that is a long story. Do you want to know what happens to us when we tried to escape Vietnam by a small boat?

Hoai An: By a small boat?

Mom: Yes. Let me tell you about that…...Not easy to look back that nightmare, my daughter....

Vietnamese history was marked by a mass immigration after the fall of Sai Gon in 1975. There were about two million Vietnamese refugees during 1975 to 1995. The US-organized evacuation was followed by a smaller exodus of Vietnamese who found their own way by boat to neighboring Southeast Asian countries. By the end of 1975, some 5,000 Vietnamese had arrived in Thailand, along with 4,000 in Hong Kong, 1,800 in Singapore, and 1,250 in the Philippines… By the end of 1978, there were nearly 62,000 Vietnamese ‘boat people’ in camps throughout Southeast Asia (Hammerstadt, 2001). This term is used to describe Vietnamese refugees who fled the country for the oppression of the communist government after they controlled the Southern area. It took them many months or years to get to the host countries such as America, Canada, and Australia. Many terrible experiences were reminiscent by Vietnamese refugees such as being hungry, robbing, killing, raping, and drowning. One writer had estimated that around 10 percent of the boat people were lost at sea, fell victims to pirate attacks, drowned, or died of dehydration (Wain, 1982).

Mom: Now you know why my life is so precious to me!!! I appreciate any moment that I am still alive today. I thank God for his protection during my journey as a refugee. After four months traveling on a small boat, God had supported us a place to start our new lives. It was so miraculous that how I could persevere that hard time. All of that makes me grow up and strengthen my identity.

An! I would like to share that with you so that you know how to move on your life. Do not react following what people say about you. Do not try to please the others without caring your emotion. You should live your life as you are and the way you want. Keep this in mind: You are unique. And you are precious as a Vietnamese descent from the Au Co goddess. Be proud of and thankful for that.

References:

B, Wain. (1982) THE REFUSED: THE AGONY OF THE INDOCHINA REFUGEES. (1982). Foreign Affairs, 60(4), 973.

Kim, N. C. (2015). The Origins of Ancient Vietnam. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.

Taylor, K. W. (1983). The birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kim, N. C. (2015). The Origins of Ancient Vietnam. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.

Taylor, K. W. (1983). The birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Vo, N. M. (2012). Legends of Vietnam: An analysis and retelling of 88 tales. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.

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