Imaginary interview with Hùng Vương
by Charactorium · Hùng Vương · Politics · Mythology · 6 min read
On the heights of Phong Châu, where the Red River splinters into glistening branches, an old sovereign receives visitors in the shade of a stilt house. He bears the title that eighteen generations will pass down after him. He speaks of the bag of a hundred eggs as a family memory, and of the giao long as neighbors one must get to know.
—Tell us about the origin of your lineage: how is a king born who descends from both a dragon and an immortal?
My father Lạc Long Quân comes from the waters, my mother Âu Cơ from the mountains, and from their union was born a bag of a hundred eggs, from which emerged a hundred vigorous sons. No one among us is surprised that a man is born this way: water and heights cannot live together for long, and my parents separated. Fifty of my brothers followed our father to the sea, fifty followed our mother to the peaks. I remained the eldest, here, at Phong Châu, and my brothers raised me above them. They gave me the title of Hùng Vương. I did not take it; it was placed upon my shoulders as one places the burden of a kingdom: because one of the hundred must hold the land while the others hold the horizon.
One of the hundred must hold the land while the others hold the horizon.
—Once enthroned, how did you transform these river lands into a governable kingdom?
A kingdom is not an expanse; it is an order. I gave my land a name, Văn Lang, and divided it into fifteen bộ — Giao Chỉ, Chu Diên, Cửu Chân, and the others — so that no village would think itself alone in the world. Beside me I placed the Lạc Hầu, my counselors in robes, and the Lạc Tướng, my war chiefs, each girded with a bronze seal on a blue ribbon. This small cold object weighs more than a spear: when a man shows it, it is no longer he who speaks, but the king. That is what governing is: making a piece of metal carry my voice into a bộ my feet have never trod.
This small bronze seal weighs more than a spear: when a man shows it, it is no longer he who speaks, but the king.
—You pass power from father to son. Why this principle rather than another?
We call this phụ đạo: the son receives from the father as the rice field receives the flood. My sons bear the name Quan Lang, my daughters that of Mị Nương, and the eldest inherits the title without bloodshed to designate him. You will say that a worthier man might arise elsewhere — that is true, and I have heard that such a man, one day, will come from the bộ of Gia Ninh to subdue the tribes with his cunning. But a new kingdom needs continuity more than merit: when everyone knows who will follow, no one sharpens his knife. Better a peaceful order than a just order that kills itself. The land of the Lạc dân requires steady arms, not revolutions.
Better a peaceful order than a just order that kills itself.
—It is said that you ordered your fishermen to cover their bodies with designs. What were you trying to do?
My people went down into the rivers to catch fish, and the giao long caught them instead. These water monsters, half crocodile half dragon, did not recognize their own kind. So I did what a father does to deceive a beast: I ordered that the very patterns of those creatures be engraved on the fishermen's skin, with ink of aquatic monsters. Thus the giao long, seeing its own image swimming toward it, thinks it sees a brother and moves aside. You call this superstition; I call it understanding the enemy enough to borrow his face. Since then, the tattoo has remained on the bodies of my people long after the rivers calmed — an ancient fear turned into an ornament.
Understanding the enemy enough to borrow his face.
—Have these tattoos become something more than mere protection?
Everything you wear long enough ends up telling who you are. At first, the patterns on the skin were only a ruse against the giao long, a drawn lie to deceive the jaws of the waters. But a child born tattooed no longer knows it was a fear: he sees the mark of his people, that which distinguishes him from men from elsewhere. We live barefoot in the mud of the Ruộng Lạc, hair cut short to run in the forest, clothed in bark before learning to weave — and upon this poverty, the tattoo is our first ornament, our first pride. What fear traced, pride has kept. That is often how customs are born: from a useful gesture that one forgets to forget.
What fear traced, pride has kept.
—There is talk of a sacred tortoise sent all the way to the Emperor of the North. What did it carry that was so precious?
In our waters lived a thousand-year-old tortoise, as wide as three men, and on its shell time had engraved a tadpole script, the khoa đẩu, which told the world from its beginning. When Emperor Yao ruled in the North, I sent an ambassador to offer it to him, for such a gift is not to be kept: knowledge locked away at home rots like forgotten rice. They say the emperor had the signs copied and derived from them his Quy lịch, the calendar of the tortoise. Is it true? The northern annals do not mention it, and I would swear to nothing. But I like this idea: that the knowledge of the world traveled on the slow back of a beast that had seen all centuries pass.
Knowledge locked away at home rots like forgotten rice.
—Offering such a treasure to the most powerful of neighboring emperors: was that not abasing yourself before him?
You think that giving is submitting; we believe that giving is raising oneself. A kingdom that has nothing to give does not exist in the eyes of the great. By sending the sacred tortoise to Yao, I was not prostrating myself: I was saying that the land of the Red River possessed knowledge that even the Northern empire did not disdain to copy. Later, from the kingdom of Việt Thường, an envoy brought a white pheasant to the king of Zhou, and even in the northern annals this gift was recorded. That is our way of being in the world: we do not cross the mountains with armies, but with wonders. A rare beast is worth more than a battle — it opens doors without breaking them.
We do not cross the mountains with armies, but with wonders.
—Let us leave the court for a moment: what does a day look like for a common man of the Lạc people, on these flooded lands?
He rises when the flood decides, not when he wants to. Our fields, the Ruộng Lạc, drink to the rhythm of the tides, and man follows water as the shadow follows the sun. He climbs into his house built on stilts — we sleep perched in the trees so that the tiger passes beneath us without seeing us. By day, he goes down to fish despite the giao long, he cultivates sticky rice, he cooks his grains in a bamboo tube placed on the embers. Having no writing, he counts his debts and harvests on knotted cords, a knot for each thing not to forget. It is a low and rough life, but it has its order, and that order, I am the one who must keep it straight.
He rises when the flood decides, not when he wants to.
—And at your table, what does one eat and drink in the time of the Hùng Vương?
We are not rich in gold, but the land and water nourish us well. We draw from fish and seafood a thick brine, nước mắm, which gives flavor to the poorest rice; we perfume salt with ginger; we cook cakes from the plants quang lang and soa đồng. And we drink rượu, the rice alcohol, which my people have learned to ferment — for a people that knows how to turn its grain into intoxication is no longer a people of beasts. This is what I believe: it will not be my fifteen bộ nor my bronze seals that make us remembered, but these small inventions of the belly. A kingdom is forgotten; a way of salting fish lasts a thousand years.
A kingdom is forgotten; a way of salting fish lasts a thousand years.
—You are the eldest of a hundred brothers scattered between sea and mountain. What remains of that bond when each lives so far away?
One thinks that separation undoes families; ours, it enlarged. My fifty brothers of the sea and my fifty brothers of the peaks no longer eat from the same bowl, but all know they came from the same bag of a hundred eggs, born of Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ. When I govern at Phong Châu, I govern not only the men of my bộ: I hold the thread that connects those above to those below. That is why the title was given to me, the eldest — not to command, but to remember. As long as a Hùng Vương stands here, none of the hundred will truly be orphaned. A people, at bottom, is nothing but a siblinghood that refuses to forget its first morning.
A people, at bottom, is nothing but a siblinghood that refuses to forget its first morning.
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This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Hùng Vương's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.