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FOREWORD

This collection of Vietnamese legends was begun during my tour in Saigon as Director of the Vietnamese-American Association, a bi-national center sponsored by the United States Information Agency. A subsequent world tour and other assignments have delayed publication until the present time.

My position as Executive director of the Association brought me into intimate contact with the Vietnamese people at all levels. It was my first experience in Southeast Asia, and I had much to learn. I found the Vietnamese to be a friendly and hospitable people of a modest and retiring disposition. They prize erudition and I found that I could best gain their respect by learning something of their language, literature, and civilization. This was not a simple task for at that time little had appeared in English about the cultural aspects of Vietnam; Viet-My, the journal of the Vietnamese-American Association, served and continues to serve a good cause in this respect.

The Vietnamese are a very old race, and legend takes them back to the year 2,879 B.c., when they were supposedly living in the valley of the upper Yangtse River. Over the centuries they moved from that region to the south of China. Their historical period begins in the third century B.c., when they are found in the Red River delta, in what is now North Vietnam. After several centuries of independence, they were subjugated by the powerful Chinese and only in A.D. 939 were they able to gain independence again. After that they moved south by land and by sea, reaching the southern extremity of what is now Vietnam in 1774.

Vietnamese language, literature, and civilization owe a great deal to the Chinese. It would be wrong, however, to say that the Vietnamese have slavishly imitated their northern neighbors; on the Chinese base, there has developed a language, literature, and civilization of distinct Vietnamese flavor.

A great many Chinese myths, fables, and legends have been passed on to the Vietnamese; others are of purely Vietnamese origin. "The Story of Tam and Cam" will be recognized as the Vietnamese version of the Chinese Cinderella story. (It may surprise Western readers to learn that the first Cinderella was Chinese). This Chinese aspect of their culture does not bother the Vietnamese in the least, although there is presently very little rapport between the two peoples.

Among my Vietnamese friends who have aided in the preparation of this collection, I should like to mention the names of Mrs. Nguyen Ngoc Lang, Mrs. L. T. Bach Lan, Mr. Pham Duy Khiem, Mr. Do Vang Ly, Mr. Nguyen Phu Doc, and Mr. Le Huy Hap.

Columbia City,

Indiana, U.S.A.

GEORGE P. SCHULTZ