Quang Village is the informal name of Quang Liet Village (now Thanh Liet, Thanh Tri) – a Vietnamese village which has a charming landscape and is famous for litchi and longan, as per a popular saying: “Quang’s litchi, Lang’s basil, Dam’s coriander, Set reservoir’s anabas, West Lake’s black coot”. Quang Liet village was located along the To Lich River’s bank, a key water transportation route of old Thang Long imperial City. This place is also the hometown of a famous teacher in Vietnamese history: Teacher Chu Van An.
Chu Van An was born in 1292 and died in 1370. From his childhood, he was famous for his intelligence. He did not have the dream of taking part in exams to become mandarins like other students. Chu Van An stayed at home and taught himself by reading books, and opened schools on the unoccupied land in nearby Lanh Huynh village. His school quickly became famous in the village and many students from other places went to request for attending. Many of his students became successful and held high positions such as Pham Su Manh and Le Quat… Especially, there is a legend about a special student which has been passed from one generation to another: the student of the naiad.
It is said that the student was the son of Dragon King and he was very intelligent and hard-working. One day when he went through Quang village, he attended a Confucian deity lesson given by teacher Chu Van An. He was very interested in that lesson and then requested teacher Chu Van An to allow him to be his student. That year, there was a drought which made people hungry and poor. Feeling sorry for that difficult situation, the student made it rain by his magic in order to help people. He used the feather pencil splashing ink everywhere; wherever ink was splashed, there was rain. Then, the feather pencil and ink box were thrown into the sky and the feather pencil fell into To village (Ta Thanh Oai-Hanoi), which made this land become prosperous and famous in terms of literature. The ink box fell into Vinh Ninh (Vinh Quynh, Hanoi) and made it Ink Reservoir. Because the student didn’t follow rules set by Heaven, he was killed by thunder and thunderbolt. His body was floated on the To river which was 2 halves of “Lot” Old man (serpent like monster). People in surrounding areas buried “Lot” Old Man beside the river and built a temple named Gan Temple. People in villages of Bang Liet, Linh Dam and Tu Ky (Hoang Liet ward), Dai Tu (Dai Kim ward) and Tuu Liet (Thanh Tri district) also set up temples to commemorate the merits of the student.
The increasing fame of the school in Huynh Cung as well as teacher Chu Van An reached the court. Tran Minh Tong King invited Chu Van An to be the deputy headmaster of the Royal College to teach his crown prince and other students to become talented people for the country. The event that such a morally and knowledgably famous teacher like Chu Van An agreed to give up the hermit life to teach at the Royal College – the National University of Dai Viet at that time had very important meaning and influence on culture and education at the time. The feudal intellectuals at that time expected Chu Van An to use “knowledge to change directions, and turn custom to tenderness”.
In 1359, Tran Minh Tong King conferred his crown to his son, Tran Hien Tong who was also a student of Chu Van An. Under the regime of Tran Hien Tong King, the court and the country were peaceful. However, this period lasted only for 12 years. Then Tran Hien Tong King died, and Tran Du Tong inherited the crown. The social situation became complicated, the people were very poor and hard and many loyal and righteous men were killed.
Feeling resentful and hatred against perfidious and incompetent mandarins who were doing harm to the country, Chu Van An bravely submitted a petition which requested the King to behead 7 perfidious mandarins; therefore it was called “Seven beheaded petition”. “Seven beheaded petition” was an earth-shaking for deities and people and became the resplendent symbol of courageous attitude of the real intellectuals, and of Chu Van An’s spirit.
The petition was of clear justice so the King had no reason to reject but he wasn’t confident enough to execute it. Therefore, Chu Van An sent his resignation and came back to his hometown, continuing his teaching. During this time, he went to the East to go sightseeing and found landscapes in Kiet Dac village (Chi Linh, Hai Duong) so beautiful and peaceful that he set up thatched tents and made friends with mountains and rivers here. He lived in solitude in a peaceful manner, read books and wrote poems. During this time, Chu Van An wrote many poems to express his hidden sentiments:
Fish is in old ponds, dragons do not appear,
Cloud covers the sky, cranes do not return;
Praising cranes and clouds was seemingly a way to console him, while paying attention to nature was to ease off sadness in his life. Sometimes, he could not hide his sorrows:
Success is an unreal thing
Wandering is to relieve sadness
Sometimes there is endless torment in his poems:
Proper or thatched house is due to the fate;
Muddy Kinh River and pure Vi River cannot go together.
Although he chose to live in seclusion, Chu Van An didn’t subside his attention to the country’s work. For some times, he hesitated to return to the capital to help the country and the society. When Tran Nghe Tong inherited the crown, every people in the country was happy. At that time, Chu Van An was old (70) but he still managed to use a stick and walked from Chi Linh to the capital to visit the new King. He was still interested in the national situation and bothered with the society. However, because of his age and his incapability in assuming the responsibility, Chu Van An determined to refuse titles of the court, came back to his hometown and stayed there until he was sick and passed away.
Chu Van An is an immortal famous man in the country’s history, and of Thang Long – Hanoi. His work covered a long period of history through the end of Tran regime in the 14th century. He was famous as a Confucian scholar who had moral integrity and uprightness, and struggled for right things, fought against treacherous men and dissatisfied with corrupted people. He was a noble hermit and a good example of Confucian scholar. He was also a poet with many unique poems about nature. Especially, Chu Van An set a good example of teacher who had prestige from virtue.
Until now, there are many historic monuments in the country honoring him, a great teacher such as Thanh Liet, Huynh Cung and Van Dien temples. It can be affirmed that Chu Van An has passed the threshold of being a good teach of one generation to become the teacher of all generations, who was praised by Phan Huy Chu, a famous encyclopedist in the 19th century “in terms of pure Confucius scholar career and noble moral integrity in Vietnam, no one can be compared with Chu Van An”.
Right after his death, Chu Van An was awarded by Tran King with a great honor that he was worshipped in the Literature temple with 2 ancestors of Confucianism (Chu Cong and Khong Tu) and 70 excellent students of Khong Tu. Thus, Chu Van An was honored to be “the ancestor of Vietnam education, the teacher of every generation”.
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