Tales of Mac Dinh Chi

In a dark house, a tiny patch of green light trembles on the page of a book. It comes from no lamp and no candle. It comes from an eggshell, with a few fireflies shut inside, freshly caught along the edge of the rice field. A boy leans his face close to that eggshell. He follows each faint letter, reading it over and over until he knows it by heart.

Legend has it that the poor boy who caught fireflies to study was Mạc Đĩnh Chi. He came from the village of Lũng Động, in the district of Chí Linh. It lay in the region of Hải Đông, in what is now the city of Hải Phòng. His family was so poor that there was no money to send him to class properly. The old tellers say that while the teacher gave lessons, the boy only dared to stand pressed against the outside wall, listening in. Then he went home, lit his firefly lamp and went over it all again. Yet that eager young mind remembered everything and understood everything.

What is certain is this. Mạc Đĩnh Chi came first in the whole country in the examination of 1304, earning the title Trạng nguyên. Trạng nguyên was the title of the top graduate of the royal examinations. It was the reign of Emperor Trần Anh Tông. Later he served as an official under three emperors of the Trần dynasty. That dynasty ruled Vietnam from 1225 to 1400. He was known as an honest and upright man. But around his name, people long ago told many more little tales. Every one of them is merry, and every one leaves a thought behind.

It goes like this. Mạc Đĩnh Chi was small in build and plain in looks. Standing in a crowd, he was someone nobody would notice. Anyone meeting him for the first time could easily judge him by his looks and think little of him. They never guessed that such an ordinary man held a mind far above others.

Legend tells that when the poor student came first and was brought before the emperor, the ruler saw his slight frame and hesitated for a moment. He wondered whether a man who looked so ordinary truly deserved to stand at the head of the list for the whole realm. Mạc Đĩnh Chi understood. He did not argue or plead his case. He simply asked to offer the emperor a poem he had composed himself. It was called Ngọc tỉnh liên, which means the lotus in the jade well.

In the poem, he wrote of a rare and precious lotus of legend. It grew inside a jade well, high on a mountain. That lotus did not race to bloom in stagnant ponds. It did not show off its colors in the mud. It rose quietly from a spring of clear water. It had a fragrance all its own, one that ordinary lotuses lack. He likened himself to that lotus. The outer shell might not be splendid, but the character within was pure and precious. When the emperor finished reading, he nodded for a long while. In his heart he admired the talent and the resolve of the small scholar standing before him. From then on, no one dared to measure the man by his outward look. As for the poem of the lotus in the jade well, it has been handed down to this day.

Not long after, his gift for writing was tested again, in a place much farther away. In 1308, the court sent him as an envoy to the Yuan in the north, to speak for his country in its dealings with them. The Yuan were the Mongol dynasty then ruling China. In those days the envoy's road was long and dangerous. And in a foreign land, people often wanted to see whether the envoy from the southern country was truly as able as they said.

The mission traveled on and on. The old tellers say that when it reached a frontier pass, the hour was late, and the gate had just been shut. The gatekeeper on that side was a learned man as well. He set out one line of a couplet for the travelers to match. It was a test of skill, and also a bit of teasing for the guests from afar. The line was very clever. In one short sentence, it used the word for gate four times. Its meaning was roughly this: you are late to pass the gate, the gate is now shut, so let the passing traveler go ahead and pass the gate. It sounded like a riddle. It was as if he were saying that the gate was closed, so the gentlemen could find their own way through.

Mạc Đĩnh Chi only smiled when he heard it. He answered at once, with one neat line of his own. His line, too, used one word four times. This time it was the word for matching a couplet, set against the four gates. Its meaning was roughly this: setting a line is easy, matching it well is hard, so, sir, please match it yourself first. The reply was both modest and sharp. It turned the tables, yet no one lost face. The gatekeeper stood dazed for a moment. Then he burst out laughing in admiration and ordered the gate opened for the southern envoys to pass.

Throughout that journey, each time he was handed a thorny question as a test, Mạc Đĩnh Chi gave an answer that made people nod in respect. People say that the northern court itself, after seeing his quick wit with its own eyes, honored him with a special title. It was Lưỡng quốc Trạng nguyên, meaning the Trạng nguyên of both countries. A student who once had only a firefly lamp to read by was now admired and praised by a great court in a foreign land.

In midsummer, fireflies still flicker over the rice fields at night, just as they did long ago. Each tiny light is not enough to show even one corner of a house. Yet, as the old tale goes, with enough of them gathered in an eggshell, the poor boy of Lũng Động read all the words of the sages. Then he went from his dark house all the way to the court of a great country, and he still held his head high.