Tang poems: meter, rhyme, parallellism, distinguishing quatrain vs octet. Cantonese poems to Chinese poems to South Vietnamese poems, Mandarin poems over 1000 yrs. 1200s poems, development of low and high tones. The Vietnamese word "ma" has 6 different uses each with its own accent.
Vietnamese scripts. HAN was used before the 900s. Nom was used from the 900s to 1918, when Quoc Ngu was introduced using the modern alphabet. In 1918 and again in 1945 and 1954 Viet Nam's literacy rate rose, but many Vietnamese can't read or write the old scripts.
111 BC - 964 AD Viet Nam was under Chinese control. In China the Tang Dynasty (618 - 1054) became modernized for its day. Viet Nam won its independence in the 800s. True Vietnamese literature and poems dates from the 900s onwards. Mandarin and Sino-Vietnamese poets - all 72,000 of them - wrote classical Tang poems in its rich, delicate format. A Vietnamese poet could go to jail for even one mistake on the poems exam because it would have the emperor's shame on it.
METER
Viet Nam's language consists of one-syllable words. To write formal Vietnamese-style poems, a style dating from the 1500s, count the syllables as you would for Haiku, Tanka, or Sonnets.
Start your Vietnamese poems with an octet of verses with 7 foots and one with 5 foots. This means 8 lines with 7 syllables followed by 8 lines with 5 syllables.
2 lines = 1 couplet in any poems form. In Vietnamese poems the 2nd and 3rd couplets must be opposite. Lines 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 must rhyme but with different tones (in Vietnamese) Lines 1 and 2 must rhyme. Lines 6 and 8 must also rhyme. Before the 1500s lines 4 and 6 or lines 5 and 7 must rhyme. In the 2nd and 3rd couplets, 2 lines must be opposite.
Viet Nam's Southern Kingdom
Viet Nam's Southern kingdom with its mountains and rivers belongs rightly to the Southern King. Its destiny is already decided in the Book of Heaven. The Book of Heaven has so willed. Then why did your lords invade our territory? Very soon you will see, your forces will be annihilated.
Gen Ly Truong Kiet 940 - 1004 Viet Nam's first hero to invade enemy country rather than just defend his own country against the enemy.
Buddhism originated in northern India 500 BC, reaching Viet Nam by sea, then on to China. Vietnamese Buddhism consists of 3 worlds - physical, nonphysical and the netherworld. A Buddha (teacher) is seen as free from worldly life and death. Tantrist Buddism is the branch of Buddhism making famous the Om mantras. Dharma is the teaching of Buddha, everything: action, reality, including what exists physically along with ideas of action.
The lotus, an important flower in Viet Nam, roots in the bottom of the lotus pool with its flower at the surface.