Princess Ngoc Khoa

In the south, under a golden sun, deep red brick towers have stood quietly for hundreds of years. They belong to a kingdom called Champa. Champa was an ancient kingdom on the central and southern coast of what is now Vietnam. And tied to those towers is the story of a Vietnamese girl who went there to live as a bride.

In those days, in the household of the Nguyễn lord in Đàng Trong, two sisters were always side by side. Đàng Trong was the southern realm ruled by the Nguyễn lords in the 17th and 18th centuries. The elder sister was named Ngọc Vạn, and the younger was named Ngọc Khoa. They had the same parents and grew up under the same roof. Together they listened to the wind blowing up from the south. This is the story of the younger sister, Princess Ngọc Khoa, and of the bond between the two.

The Vietnam Writers' Association and the Dân Việt newspaper give her full name as Nguyễn Phúc Ngọc Khoa. Her father was Lord Sãi, whose full name was Nguyễn Phúc Nguyên. He was one of the Nguyễn lords of the south. She was the younger sister of Princess Ngọc Vạn. Her story is told from many sources, and the official histories record very little. So only what the books agree on is kept here, and the dates that follow rest on those two sources.

Before this, the elder sister had already set out for a faraway place. In 1620, Ngọc Vạn was married into the neighboring kingdom of Chân Lạp, to build friendship and harmony between the two lands. Chân Lạp was the old Vietnamese name for the Khmer kingdom of Cambodia. The elder sister went first. The house lost one voice of laughter. And the younger sister, Ngọc Khoa, who stayed behind, must have understood that one day she too might be given such a duty.

Then that day came. To the south of Đàng Trong lay another land, the kingdom of Champa. It was a land of sun and wind, of blue sea, and of dances and melodies that stay in the memory after a single hearing. To keep the two neighboring lands in harmony, a new bridge was laid between them.

In 1631, Princess Ngọc Khoa was married to Po Rome, the king of Champa. She left the lord's household and her parents' arms and went to the sunlit, windswept land of the south. Like her sister before her, she gladly placed the needs of the realm above her own heart.

It was a marriage of peace. Two neighboring lands wanted to live side by side in calm and to keep a good friendship. A gentle young woman took that bridge upon herself. In the new land she grew used to an unfamiliar language and unfamiliar customs, a little more each day. Quietly, she learned to love a land that was not her birthplace.

Because of this marriage, friendship between Đàng Trong and Champa was well kept. The south stayed calm. And once the south was calm, the Nguyễn lord could put his strength into larger tasks. One small marriage helped countless households on both sides live in peace.

Two sisters, each going a different way. Ngọc Vạn went to Chân Lạp, in one direction. Ngọc Khoa went to Champa, in another. Two princesses, two bridges of peace, each joining her own country to its neighbors in the south.

Later generations, looking back, have said that the two daughters of Lord Sãi made a great difference. Their contribution did not lie in swords and spears. It lay in their hearts. In gentleness. In putting the calm of many people above their own ease.

The old books record very little about Ngọc Khoa, and many tales of her come from accounts handed down by the Cham, from poems, and from later writing. Even so, she is remembered as a young woman who gave harmony to the world as a gift.

And the ancient Cham towers in that sunlit, windswept country still stand today, casting quiet shadows on a land she came to love. The sea wind passes the foot of a tower, and somewhere the two sisters can still be heard, softly calling to each other from two far corners of the sky.