Princess Ngoc Van

On the bank of a great river, a light boat slips away from its landing. It carries a young woman toward a far country in the south. The water glitters. Dark green trees line both banks. The young woman looks back at the landing of her home. The wind is still, and the boat grows small. She is Princess Ngọc Vạn, and her journey will be remembered with thanks by many Vietnamese families for hundreds of years.

Her full name was Nguyễn Phúc Ngọc Vạn. She was a daughter of Lord Sãi, whose own name was Nguyễn Phúc Nguyên. He was one of the Nguyễn lords of Đàng Trong. Đàng Trong was the southern realm that the Nguyễn lords ruled in the 17th and 18th centuries. A lord's daughter might have stayed at home, gathered with her parents morning and evening. But she willingly took a great task upon her shoulders, for the sake of friendship between two neighboring countries. Her story comes down from many sources, and some points are still unclear, so only what the sources agree on is kept here.

In those days the kingdom of Chân Lạp lay to the south, a neighbor of Đàng Trong. Chân Lạp is the old Vietnamese name for the Khmer kingdom of Cambodia. In 1620, Princess Ngọc Vạn set out for a distant land. She married the king of Chân Lạp, Chey Chetta the Second, and became the queen of that country. Her boat passed wide river mouths and rustling groves of nipa palms, and followed the heavy red silt of the waters of the south.

It was a marriage made for peace and goodwill. Two neighboring countries wanted to keep their friendship and live side by side in calm. A gentle young woman became the link between them. In a foreign land she learned an unfamiliar language and grew used to new customs. Quietly, she became a support for the Vietnamese who followed her to make a living in that faraway place.

And this kind heart opened something truly lovely. Because of her goodwill and gentle persuasion, the king of Chân Lạp allowed Vietnamese people to come, live, and clear land at a place called Mô Xoài. It lies in the old Bà Rịa Vũng Tàu province, now part of Ho Chi Minh City. Families from the Thuận Quảng region followed one another south. They built houses, broke the soil, and sowed rice. Hoes rang. Kitchen smoke rose. A new hamlet took shape. As the old saying goes, where the land is good, the birds settle. And the fields of the south began to turn green under Vietnamese hands.

She did more than open the way. She also saw to it that people could live well. Princess Ngọc Vạn brought many Vietnamese across, taught them the trade of buying and selling, and set up workshops of craftsmen near the capital. Those with a craft found work, and those who traded found a way to earn a living. Little by little, the families far from home settled down and lived in peace and cheer in their new land, as if sheltered by an elder sister.

Then came a milestone worth remembering. In 1623, the Nguyễn lord sent a request to the king of Chân Lạp, asking to set up a tax post at Prey Nokor, the area now called Saigon. The request was gladly granted. It marked the beginning of Vietnamese coming to work and settle in the lands of the south. From one small tax post beside the river, a prosperous region slowly grew. Markets and streets. Boat landings. Villages.

From the journey of one young woman, a whole wide land slowly became a new home for countless Vietnamese. One generation followed another, building houses, breaking soil, and making a living.

However the tale is told, people remember her as someone who made harmony into a bridge, so that ordinary families on both sides could live in peace.

The small tax post beside the river at Prey Nokor is now Saigon, with its busy market landings and its boats going up and down. The first plots of earth at Mô Xoài have become fields and villages, with kitchen smoke rising in the evening. A lively market in the south, or a canal where a motorboat parts the glittering water, may lie on the very ground where a spirit of goodwill quietly planted its seed long ago.