To Dong Hai
1. Any community, during its formation, existence and development, must formulate common regulations for all its members to observe and carry out voluntarily. This is actually the fundamental basis for the coming into existence of the village codes. Village codes, as their name suggests, are conventions adopted among members of a village. Also as implied by its calling, these conventions must be unanimously approved by the whole community, i.e. the whole village. This spells out the democratic character of the village codes. Unlike the law of the State which is of a forcible and compulsory character, the village codes are charted out and executed by people of the whole community who also inspect and supervise their execution. The transgressor shall be punished but more importantly and redoubtably, his misdeed or misconduct is condemned by all members of the community. Here lies the high efficiency of the conventions. In fact, the force of public opinion exerts a direct and constant impact on the life of each member of the community, reaching even domains unattainable to the laws of the State. The Vietnamese proverb “the edict of the king cannot triumph over the rules of the village” shows how great was the role of the village conventions in the rural life of Vietnam in the past.
The village conventions also indicate the scope of their effectiveness. As its name implies, since it is worked out by the community in a village, it is effective within the territory of this village and with regard only to its residents. Its positive effect can be seen in the strengthening of the potentials of the village and the cohesion of the villagers as exemplified by the following extract from the village code of Dien Noi commune, Lai Trieu canton, Nong Cong district, Tinh Gia county, Thanh Hoa province:
“Order in the hamlets and villages is aimed at securing harmony in all sections of the population. That is why, the adoption of the conventions is not to be made light of. Everybody has to comply with the conventions and to make mutual concession in order to achieve harmony and concord. This will, first of all, help to preserve the traditions and secondly, to prove the cultured behavior of our village.”
(Vo Quang Trong and Vu Ngoc Khanh: Village codes in Thanh Hoa province, Folk Culture Institute, Social Sciences Publishing House, Hanoi, 2000, pages 84, 85).
It can be said that the strong cohesion within the village community is one of the important constituent factors of the durability of the Vietnamese society right at the dawn of the national history in face of the threat from big and powerful neighbors.
However, if this cohesion is allowed to develop to its extreme it can bring on negative consequences. The saying “the edict of the king cannot triumph over the village rules” also reflects one of the biggest weaknesses of the Vietnamese society in the past. That is scatteredness, lordism, parcelling and ultimately, localism. This defect, left to its natural growth without control, will obstruct the development of the country on a national scale and will involve all sections of the population.
2. The texts of the village codes collected so far show that they were compiled after the Vietnamese feudal state had promulgated its laws. For this reason, all the village codes always begin with determining the relations between the village codes and the laws of the State. Never have the village codes contradicted the constitution and laws of the country. Here is the preamble of the Code of Hiep Trung village, Cat Dam canton, Thai Ninh county, Thai Binh province:
... “A country must have villages, only many villages can make a country. Only when the country has rules and laws can there be good politics, just as only when the village observes conventions can there be good customs. Any land has its traditions, any village has its customs, such has been the normal course of life from the past till the present” (Village codes in Thai Binh, collected and compiled by Nguyen Thanh, National Culture Publishing House, Hanoi - 2000).
Unlike the luat tuc (customary laws) of the ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands which are conventions of an entire ethnic group established even before this group founded a state of its own, the village code is formulated to unify the members of a community after this community has been bound to others in a much larger community. And not village codes alone. In the old times there were also conventions among different family lines, different hamlets and even between two villages called doan uoc (mutual pledge).
One of the most important objectives of these conventions is to define the powers and obligations of the villages officials. In other words, the conventions are designed to contribute to strengthening the managerial apparatus in the countryside modeled after the feudal state so that it can develop its effect in the common national apparatus of the feudal State.
At the end of the 19th century momentous changes took place in the Vietnamese society. Together with the presence of the French expeditionary army, a semi-feudal and colonial mechanism of management was gradually put in place to replace the former feudal system.
The village codes written in the Han (Chinese) or Nom (transcription of the Viet language into Chinese characters) were one by one replaced by codes written in the national romanized language (quoc ngu). Many clauses on examinations and academic titles were altered to suit the new requirements. Many village codes were completely overhauled to meet the rural reforms initiated by the French colonizers, and as such are called reformed village codes.
3. The triumph of the August 1945 Revolution broke the old type rural administration with its ruling apparatus of a semi-feudal and colonial character. Due to infantilist views, the old village codes were at times regarded as a product of the feudal and colonial regime. Most of them were abolished and in some places were publicly burned out.
Today the renovation policy initiated by the Communist Party is applied throughout the country and in all domains of social life, including the village codes. The progressive and healthy elements of the village codes are reappraised and their important role in the building of the cultural life at the grassroots in the countryside is publicly affirmed.
On June 19, 1998 the Prime Minister issued Directive No. 24/1998/CT-TTg on the compilation and application of the codes and conventions of villages, hamlets and population clusters.
On March 30, 2000, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Culture and Information, the Standing Board of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front issued Joint Circular No. 03/2000/TTLT/BTP-BVHTT-BTTUBTWMTTQVN guiding the compilation and application of the village codes, and the conventions of villages, hamlets, and population clusters.
The present Cultured Village Conventions which inherit the positive aspects and limit the negative aspects of the traditional village codes will play an active role in the development of the rural society of Vietnam in the present stage to build a modern and developed countryside while preserving the identity of the national culture.-