Trang Quynh

One winter, a man stood before the lord and heard him ask why the tùng tree stays green in the cold. The man answered without a flicker, "Because of you and me." That man was Trạng Quỳnh. His gift was not for governing a kingdom. It was a gift for using words to make the powerful go red in the face, with nothing in those words to pick at.

His real name was Nguyễn Quỳnh. He was born around 1677 in the village of Bột Thượng. It lies in the Hoằng Hóa area of Thanh Hóa province. He earned the title of Hương Cống under the Lê dynasty. That was the title given to those who fully passed the regional examinations. He served as an official in the household of the Trịnh lords, a noble family who dominated northern Vietnam.

The people call him Trạng Quỳnh. Trạng is a word of honor for the gifted, though he never rose to Trạng nguyên, the title of the top graduate of the royal examinations. His skill lay in words and wit, not in weapons.

His tales are folk stories, passed on by word of mouth and embroidered over many centuries. They are not events that historians recorded. Yet in each tale one can see the heart of a whole people, who honor the person who dares to tell the truth and dares to laugh in front of the strong.

The first tale is called Tùng and Bách.

One winter afternoon, the Trịnh lord was walking in his private garden. The air was cold, and the rows of trees had dropped their leaves and stood ragged. Only two trees, a tùng and a bách, still stood tall, their crowns deep green in the middle of winter.

The lord stopped and looked at the two trees for a while. Then he turned to Quỳnh and asked, "Why do these two trees stay green in winter?"

Quỳnh did not stop to think. He answered at once, "Because of you and me."

The lord started. "What do you mean?"

Quỳnh explained calmly. "Your Lordship, take that tùng tree. Tùng is you. Take that bách tree. Bách is me. Bách means a hundred, and a hundred out of a hundred is me. The two trees, you and me, are sheltered by heaven and earth, so they stay green in every season. Who else is there to protect them?"

The lord stood dumbfounded for a moment, then burst out laughing. Quỳnh had taken the plain meaning of two Chinese characters, tùng and bách. With them he spoke to the highest of rulers in the plain speech of ordinary people, and his reasoning still held. The lord could find no fault. He could only shake his head and laugh it off.

The second tale is called Snail Noodles for the Lord.

One day, the Trịnh lord summoned Quỳnh to his household. The kitchen set a bowl of thin porridge in front of Quỳnh. It was only pale rice water with a few mushy grains of rice, no meat and no fish. This was the lord's way of testing whether Quỳnh would dare to complain.

Quỳnh finished the bowl and said nothing. He bowed to thank the lord and went home.

The next day, Quỳnh sent a man to the lord's household. He said he wished to return the courtesy and invited the lord to come to his house for a meal.

The lord was curious. Quỳnh was poor, and the lord wondered what he could offer. Still, he came.

Quỳnh had set out a simple tray. In the middle sat a bowl of bún ốc, a dish of noodles and snails in a sour broth. The broth was fragrant with tamarind. On top lay a few fresh ốc nhồi snails, snow-white noodles and some sweet-smelling herbs picked from the back garden. The smell rose in thick steam.

The lord was surprised. "Is this all?"

Quỳnh bowed. "Your Lordship, yesterday you treated me to porridge. I thought porridge must be a precious dish in the lord's household, and that you kindly set it aside for me. Now I return the courtesy with the most precious thing my house has, bún ốc. This is the feast of the poor, their delicacies of mountain and sea. Working people sweat all day, and in the evening a bowl of bún ốc is enough to fill them and warm their hearts."

The lord had nothing to say. Quỳnh had repaid him exactly as courtesy asked, a bowl of porridge for a bowl of bún ốc, each the most precious thing in its own house. The lord took up his chopsticks. The bún ốc tasted new to him, sour and sweet and rich, and he ate the whole bowl.

The third tale is called Asking the Minister for His Writing.

In the capital lived a minister who wrote such beautiful characters that they seemed like dragons in flight and phoenixes dancing. He was famous everywhere, and also for his pride, and not everyone who asked received his writing. He tested those who came, and anyone who failed went home empty-handed.

Quỳnh heard of him. One day he knocked at the door and asked for a few characters to hang in his house.

The minister looked Quỳnh up and down. He knew this was the man who liked to tease officials, and he wanted to humble him from the start. He rapped the table and said, "Very well. I give you the first line of a couplet. Match it and I will write for you. If you cannot, get out."

Then he chanted, "Father of your life, you beg for writing from me."

It was a sly line. The minister spoke roughly and looked down on Quỳnh to his face. It was a challenge and an insult at once. Whoever left in shame lost.

Quỳnh stood straight and did not blink. He answered at once, "Child of my life, I beg for writing from Father."

The minister froze.

Quỳnh had matched the line word for word. His "child" answered the minister's "father". His "I" answered the minister's "you". His "Father" answered the minister's "me". He had lowered himself to a child and raised the minister to a father, as courtesy requires from someone below toward someone above. Not one word broke courtesy, and not one could be faulted. Yet everyone who heard understood that Quỳnh had just called the proud minister "father", following the minister's own line.

The minister stood silent for a while. Then he quietly took up his brush, ground the ink and wrote the characters.

Quỳnh bowed to thank him and carried the writing home.

The scholar Vũ Ngọc Phan collected these three tales and many more in a book called Trạng Quỳnh. The scholar Nguyễn Đổng Chi also placed the tales in his collection of Vietnamese folk tales, in the section on satirical stories. They are a folk inheritance, not history. Yet they have lived in the hearts of Vietnamese people for centuries.

Nguyễn Quỳnh died around 1748. But Trạng Quỳnh has never died.

For 300 years, every time people retell how he invited the lord to eat bún ốc, or how he stood straight and answered, "Child of my life, I beg for writing from Father," laughter has rung out again. No sword or spear was needed. Only one sentence, at the right moment, in the right place. That is the kind of wit that ordinary people have kept, even after a thousand years.