Hanoi, Vietnam: Temple of Literature

Tablets with names of Temple of Literature Scholar graduates with top grades.

Confucius

Traditional Vietnamese Music

December 31, 2010

Scholarly pursuits are also revered in Vietnam, in addition to their military leaders. The Temple of Literature schooled scholars for 5 to 7 years, with top graduates getting their names etched into a stone tablet rested on top of a turtle statue, see photo above. Turtles are one of four revered mythical creatures in Vietnam, representing longevity. And, if you look hard at the tablet you can see it was written in Chinese characters, since Chinese was the official language of Vietnam until 1910. We were shocked by that, that Vietnam just up and changed its language to Vietnamese, only 100 years ago.

The Temple of Literature also has a temple where you can pray to Confucius, in the same model as Buddhist temples where you pray to Buddha. A bit surprising to me to see a temple where you pray to a philosophy scholar, but it seems Confucius had a big influence on Vietnamese society, even impacting women's and men's roles: Men should be breadwinners and women taking care of children.

We also saw some traditional Vietnamese music. Click here.