To Dong Hai
Huong uoc (village code) is a form of village community management of the Viet people, believed to orginate from the village customs, i.e. conventions on social etiquette among the ancient Viet. One of the most important characteristics of huong uoc is that they were shaped after the formation of the State and even extant after the appearance of the legal codes of the State.
Even the huong uoc believed to be the most ancient found so far regards huong uoc only as regulations worked out by and effective only within the boundary of a village. These have mostly the character of “rituals”, never above or beyond the regulations of State penal laws. The popular saying “the king’s edicts are not so effective as the village’s customs” therefore seems to date from the declining period of monarchy when state discipline and law went loose and “the king’s edicts” (which are also the “State law”) were not so effective as the “village’s customs” worked out and enacted by the “managerial apparatus” of the village. During the periods of prosperous rule, “the village customs” had to submit to the “State laws”, and huong uoc had to help consolidate the State apparatus, stabilize the people’s life, conserve nature and develop economy and culture among the population. These are actually major questions raised in the ancient huong uoc which can be regarded as the earliest community conventions in the rural communes of the Viet. Though the name of the ancient huong uoc varied from one place to another (huong bien, huong le, khoan le, khoan, dieu le, tuc le, khoan uoc...) and the forms and materials for their recording were not the same everywhere, written on giay ban (home-made paper specially prepared for writing with Chinese ink and brush), on a wooden plank, a stone stelae, copper leaves..., these huong uoc deal with almost the same questions which can be grouped into the following main categories:
1. Regulations on the managerial apparatus and the social relations in a village:
First, these were regulations on the dignitaries in the Council of elder village notables and other village officials, their duties, their promotion or demotion. These regulations were very concrete and explicit. For instance, in the huong uoc of Nhu Ang commune, Tuan La county, Ngoc Son district, Tinh Gia prefecture, Thanh Hoa province, recorded in 1824, the following is provided for the election of the commune chief:
“The commune shall select a commune chief for a short term of office of 10 years and a long term of 20 years. Should anyone who completes a short term without being accused of graft or embezzlement by the public (misappropriation of 4-5 strings of coins upward and less than 8, 9, 10 strings of coins) shall be exempted from statutory labor by the commune. He shall be arranged a place at the communal meal on a par with the hamlet chief. If he completes a long term of office without incurring bad repute among the population or if he retires after a long service, he can sit at the same table as the hamlet chief or an official. Moreover, one of his sons shall be exempted from statutory labor for life as a reward to people with meritorious deeds.”
The village meetings are also clearly prescribed in huong uoc together with modalities of reward and punishment:
“A commune has eight persons including the village dean at the rank of hamlet chief who are either students preparing for the literary contests, teacher of martial arts or ex-commune chief having completed his term of office. Should an official duty is ordered by the mandarin, the commune chief shall strike at the tocsin three times, each time three strokes, as a signal of summons for the meeting of the village dignitaries at the communal house. Should anyone of the said eight dignitaries be absent for whatever reason, he must send his son together with a tray of betels and areca nuts as excuse for his absence. If he stays home due to laziness and causes delay to communal work, he shall have to redeem his fault with 30 betel leaves. If the fault is repeated three or four times, the fine is 3 dozens coins. If a dignitary in the rank of hamlet chief cannot come to the meetings as regularly as required by his position due to the pressure of livelihood, he may be excused and exempted. If he asks to be relieved of his duty, his demand may be accepted.”
To solve minor affairs of the village, huong uoc assigns responsibility to the khoan hoi (group of responsible men including the commune chief, hamlet chief and public servants). If it is a major affair, the commune chief shall “order the village orderly to summon all the dignitaries for a meeting until a solution is reached. If a dignitary comes late or does not come to the meeting, the commune chief shall fine him a bottle of alcohol or 30 betel leaves or both, depending on his rank. If the offender is a young person, he shall be given at most 20 floggings as punishment to laziness...”
These strict regulations have helped in no small measure to keep the feudal managerial apparatus operating quite effectively even at the village and commune level. That is why, during war time when the country resisted foreign aggression and the central administration could no longer extend its power to the small villages and even in case of failure of the fight when the central administration disintegrated, the managerial apparatus at the villages and communes continued to function, including directing the fight in the villages and communes. That is actually what we call today the “vitality” of the organizational structure of villages and communes in Vietnam which enabled the nation to survive though Vietnam was once subjected to a thousand years of foreign domination.
2. Regulations on preservation of order and security in the village.
This is an important tenet (function) of huong uoc.
In feudal times, the assurance of local order and security was assumed by the managerial apparatus in the communes and villages. Probably for this reason order and security of society was well maintained.
Theft and burglary were subject to severe penalties:
“Cupid persons who steal such things as poles, bamboo shoots and fruits shall have to pay a pig as fine. If the theft is committed at night, the burglar shall be fined three strings of ancient coins in order to prevent burglary and seriously enforce the rules.”
Besides preventing and punishing theft and burglary, huong uoc also provided for sanctions against other social evils, such as “alcoholism, gambling and prostitution” in the villages and communes. Here is a provision of the huong uoc in Loc Du hamlet (Hoang Phuc commune, Thuong Phuc district, Thuong Tin prefecture) dated the second day of the sixth month of Canh Hung year 31 (1770):
“Because the hamlet has many people engaged in trading, evils like alcoholism, gambling and prostitution are more and more rampant. Accordingly, these evils must be strictly banned. From now on, whoever violates this forbiddance shall be fined money, alcohol and a pig valued at two strings of ancient coins. He, who denounces the violation, shall be rewarded six dozens ancient coins.”
The huong uoc of Dieu Noi commune, Nong Cong district, Tinh Gia prefecture (Thanh Hoa province) adopted in the 18th year of Tu Duc reign (1865) provides the following punishment of gambling:
“Elderly people who sell their land or occupy public land to have money for gambling shall be fined 6 strings of coins... A dignitary who gambles shall be fined a string of coins; if he is assuming a public function, he shall be fined a string of coins and dismissed from his post and relegated to the rank of denizens... Persons employed by the village, who gamble or sell their land for gambling shall be fined 3 strings of coins, subjected to 30 floggings and demoted to the rank of denizens. Denouncers shall be rewarded a string of coins. Those who know but fail to denounce shall be subjected to the same penalty as the culprit.”
To eliminate social evils, restore the customs and morals and preserve order and discipline are given special importance and considered one of the essential objectives of huong uoc: “Such acts as incest, adultery, theft and robbery together with harmful habits, alcoholism and gambling must receive due punishments in order, first of all, to restore the fine traditions, and secondly, to prove that the village is a place of good manners.”
Huong uoc penalizes not only the culprit but also his/her clan and family line for not paying attention to educating their descendant. “The clan of a dishonest person guilty of theft or burglary must be the first to take responsibility to educate and reprimand him. If he stubbornly refuses to obey, his case must be reported to the village dignitaries to cure him of this arrogance. If this clan deliberately condones his acts and allows him to become a professional thief or robber and the case induces blame from the mandarin, the clan shall have to bear all the cost of handling. If the culprit is brought to the communal house, the clan is fined another string of coins and two dozens coins. Guilty dignitaries must also be punished to make example for the clan.”
In case of drunkenness, brawl and fight, the commune shall consider each case. In mild instances, the culprits shall be subjected to at most 30 floggings, fined a cock and a bottle of wine and three dozen coins. In serious cases, they shall be given 50 floggings and fined a pig, a bottle of wine, a string of coins and five dozen coins for disturbing peace and concord in communal life.”
Brawls, disputes and fights are also punished according to their seriousness.
“Tranquility in day and night time is a great concern of the commune. When people dispute loudly and riotously (like swearing at each other) and cause uproarious brawls, the village chief shall strike three spells of tocsin, and go to the place together with the commune chief to investigate and question the concerned persons. They shall decide who are wrong and who are right. If the brawl results in injuries (such as scratches on the skin, blackened eyes, bleeding, broken arms or legs...), the wrong party shall have to pay compensations and receive 30 floggings, shall be fined a cock, a bottle of wine and six dozen coins. In lighter cases (swearing), the culprit shall be given at most 30 floggings and fined a cock, alcohol and three dozen coins. Even the right party also has to pay a bottle of wine, 30 betel leaves in order to make it quit its overbearing attitude.”
In general, disputes in the village are solved in the spirit of equality, conciliation and mutual forgiveness without referring to litigation, especially litigation directly to the higher level without first applying to the immediate level.
“Villagers who dispute over certain matters such as marriage and land ownership shall have to take the affair together with betels and areca nuts to the village council. The council shall question each party separately, offer a solution orally and persuade the concerned parties to accept. If one of the party refuses to comply and wants to bring the case to the higher level (the mandarin’s office) and the latter agrees to the solution proposed by the village council, the council shall apply the provision on “skipping the prescribed level in litigation” to determine the penalty. The offender shall have “to pay for a pig costing three strings of coins and receive three floggings in order to make him quit the litigation.”
Huong uoc further provides:
“ Villagers who have contentious questions must invite the village dignitaries to come and solve the dispute in order. If they refuse to heed the counsel and file their complaints to various places, the village council shall fine them three dozen ancient coins, in order to prevent disputes and promote harmony in the village.”
Not only punishing the culprits, huong uoc also penalizes the dignitaries who fail to perform their responsibilities, leading to disorder and loss of order and security in the village.
“Those who, under the effect of alcohol, beat the tomtom groundlessly to give false alert shall be fined three dozen ancient coins in accordance with the desire of the villagers and the old rules.”
The law enforcers that are unjust or that connive at the culprits, shall also be penalized:
“He who has been compelled to acknowledge an offense, shall be fined a pig. If he refuses to comply, the penalty shall be heavier. He who has arrested a malefactor but secretly agrees with the latter to alleviate his offense, shall be fined a pig and a jar of rice wine if the village authorities confirm the offense after investigation.”
The culprit shall be punished even more severely if he is a mandarin or a village dignitary.
“If the culprit is a village dignitary, a meeting shall be convened at the communal house to judge. It is forbidden to condone or cover up the offense with roundabout argument or to organize group meetings at a private house to falsify the facts. Such bad practice must be abolished. Those who ignore this rule shall be fined.”
From the above instances, it can be said that huong uoc pays particular importance to preserving order and security in the village, considering it the basis to preserve order and security in the whole country.
Huong uoc (village codes), as said earlier, are the regulations agreed upon by a stable village community of long standing history with an “administrative apparatus” running all affairs in the village according to the rules provided by them. Nowadays, the village has ceased to be exactly what it was in the past. It may be a new village, a new hamlet or a population area newly founded by a community of people coming from different places. It still has a village or hamlet chief who, because he is no longer an administrative post as in the past, has a greatly restricted power. In the spiritual domain, the village is no longer a single community worshiping the same tutelary genie because the population composition has seen many changes. Accordingly, it can be hardly expected that a huong uoc could be unanimously set out, adopted and voluntarily acted upon by the entire village.
For these reasons, a new form of village management, quy uoc, or new codes village, has seen the light. Quy uoc has a much more flexible scope for application than huong uoc. It is the regulations worked out by a population community of any size, that may be a condominium or a street quarter, who unanimously vow to carry it out. Quy uoc may involve many aspects of life: culture, social affairs, order and security, environmental sanitation, weddings, funerals, festivals, rituals, production and protection of production (especially agricultural production), the building of cultured families and a cultured village... That is why, a set of quy uoc is also referred to as regulations on a cultured village, a cultured condominium, a cultured street quarter... depending on the size of the community and its character. Thus, quy uoc is actually a system of newly established customary laws “to lengthen” the arm of State laws, to support them and to make them closer to each member of the community.
The compilation of quy uoc is assigned to the Cadre Committee of the hamlet, the street quarter or the condominium and placed under the leadership of the local Party cell. Depending on the situation in the locality, the compilation can also be assigned to the Managerial Committee and the Executive Committee of the Party cell, or to the Front Committee of the village or hamlet, or the street quarter Cadre Committee. After compilation, the quy uoc are subjected to discussion at the Cultural Committee of the village, the Front Committee, the Association of War Veterans, the Association of Aged People, the Women Union, the Youth Union... and in particular, it has to go through democratically organized discussion of the entire village or street quarter.
The contents of the new village codes are relatively unified.
Structurally speaking, they are divided into two parts.
Part I comprises:
- The general situation summarizing the process of formation and development of the village and the characteristics of the village, especially in the present period.
- The necessity to compile the codes of the new cultured village.
Part II sets down the general regulations and specific speculations:
- The general provisions are stipulations concerning the members of the village, the community activities, the social organizations, family clans and lines. This part also makes clear that the Code aims to safeguard the solidarity and mutual love of the villagers and their self- consciousness in building a new-type village marked by the new culture.
- The specific regulations concern the organization of the Steering Committee in building the new cultured village, the implementation of the regulations on a cultured lifestyle, including the safeguard and embellishment of the cultural relics and welfare establishments, the development of the fine traditions of the village, the consolidation of the solidarity and mutual aid, the strengthening of public order and security... This usually comprises ten specific regulations, such as prohibition of gambling, opium smoking, drug addiction and alcoholism, especially drunkenness, prohibition of theft and burglary, promotion of environmental sanitation and observance of the regulations on residence registration. This also includes recommendations on building new harmonious families based on concord and mutual respect, mutual aid and solidarity, good observance of the policies of the Party and the State laws, as well as regulations on the organization of weddings, funerals, celebration of festivities in a healthy and joyful but economical manner, free from wastefulness and ostentation as well as superstition. There are regulations on building the infrastructure for cultural activities, creation of information, culture and arts teams, on organizing recreations and entertainments. The regulations also provide for the organization and protection of agricultural production.
In addition to providing guidance for the implementation of the above regulations, the new code also makes concrete stipulations on the various forms and degrees of punishment of the offenders such as keeping the villagers informed of the violations over the loudspeaker or imposing cash fines on serious offenses.
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The codes on cultured villages, also called new village codes, have been welcomed by the entire population which can be seen as a response to the Resolution of the 5th plenum of the Vietnam Communist Party Central Committee, VIIIth Congress, to the Instruction on building and implementing the village codes and regulations of the villages, hamlets, population agglomerations and Circular No. 04/1998/TT-BVHTT of the Ministry of Culture and Information guiding the observance of civilized practices in weddings, funerals, festivities...
The new codes of the villages, street quarters and other population centers have contributed to heightening and deepening the awareness and understanding of the people about their villages, street quarters and other population centers in the political, economic, educational fields and security, their origins and history of development, together with the customs and habits, lifestyle, social relations and behavior with a view to improving management.
In spite of the dissimilarities and diversity of formulation of the codes of the villages and in some cases their inadequacies, the new huong uoc have in essence made an active contribution to the building of cultured villages and other residential units. Where the new huong uoc are properly formulated and correctly carried out, social security has been better ensured and the people have better fulfilled their obligations toward the State, the locality and the community, a more cultured way of life has been established and strengthened. Since they originate from the concrete realities of each village or community, the new huong uoc have better answered the needs of life in their most minutious details which the State laws cannot cover.
However, the new huong uoc cannot replace the laws of the State. In fact, the competence of their executive board is very restricted since it is not an administrative agency vested with the legal power of the grassroots unit of State authority.
On the other hand, the wording of some huong uoc is almost identical, consisting of oft-repeated slogans and generally speaking, lacking conciseness, which make them not convincing and hardly applicable. Some regulations in some huong uoc even blatantly go against the State laws.
Such are some of the shortcomings of the present village codes. On the other hand, through the implementation of the new huong uoc in the recent past, it is evident that the presence and application of the huong uoc is an urgent necessity in the Vietnamese society at the present stage. The on-going movement to compile new cultured village codes has proved its great vitality and compability with the law of development of the Vietnamese society.-