Prince Tran Nhat Duat

In the royal palace of Thăng Long long ago, a boy listened hard whenever a visitor came from far away. Thăng Long is the city now called Hanoi. He held his breath and learned every greeting he heard. Nothing in the world delighted him more than listening to languages he did not yet know. That boy was Trần Nhật Duật.

He lived from about 1255 to 1330, and he was the sixth son of Emperor Trần Thái Tông. He grew up in the heart of the capital, in the time of the Trần dynasty. The Trần dynasty ruled Vietnam from 1225 to 1400.

His gift showed very early. At only 12 years old he was given the princely title Chiêu Văn Vương. But people remember him less for the title than for one special talent. He spoke a great many languages.

The old histories tell a light anecdote about him. He spoke Chinese so well that once, when an envoy came from the north, the envoy listened to him talk and took him for a man of the north, from the Chân Định region. What a gift for a prince of Đại Việt, to speak a foreign tongue so smoothly. Đại Việt is an old name for Vietnam.

But he did not learn languages to show off. He learned them because he truly wanted to understand other people. He held no prejudice against any ethnic group. He took the trouble to learn the customs, the daily ways and the culture of each region. Wherever he went, he treated the people there as friends.

That spirit made a lovely story. In 1280 he was sent up to the Đà Giang region, where a chief named Trịnh Giác Mật had not yet come over to the royal court. Many people worried. Many thought that force was the only way left.

But the prince chose another path. He went to meet the chief himself. He spoke their language, ate in their way, and respected their customs like a well-mannered guest of honor. He sat with them and talked in the familiar speech of that land.

Trịnh Giác Mật was moved by such sincerity. In the end he brought his whole household over to the royal court, without a single drop of blood spilled. A wide stretch of land was kept in peace through understanding and a good heart alone.

A few years later, in 1285, the country faced a great storm in the second resistance against the Yuan armies. The Yuan were the Mongol dynasty then ruling China. The boy who once listened so hard to strangers' voices now stood in that storm with his whole country. Records of the National Museum of History say he made a great contribution at the battle of Hàm Tử, helping keep the land south of the capital safe. The boy who loved speech had become a trusted commander.

However busy he was with great affairs, he kept a heart that loved beauty. He was very fond of music. He even composed pieces of music in Nôm. Nôm was an old character script for writing Vietnamese, the script of the Vietnamese themselves. In him, the skill of leading troops and the love of strings lived together in harmony.

Later the court held him in great honor and gave him high and noble ranks. He was a man who believed that a stranger becomes a friend once you sit down and speak in the other's own words.

He had crossed many mountains and rivers, learned many tongues, and made friends in every region. And he kept his country in peace through the warmth of an open heart.