1. Introduction
With the kind help of Dr. Tran Hong Lien, I have had several chances since 1999 to visit cities in the Mekong Delta region, “Mien Tay,” in Vietnam. In those cities, including My Tho, Can Tho, and Vinh Long, I visited religious buildings used by the Chinese population, the Hoa, and spoke to people inside these buildings in Chinese. Although some of them could not understand any form of Chinese, some spoke Mandarin fluently and/or understood Cantonese as the lingua franca of the Chinese community in Ho Chi Minh City. One reason why they knew Chinese was that they had lived in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. As temple keepers in Chinese temples require an elementary knowledge of the Chinese language and culture, many of them seek educational and/or work experience in Cholon, which is the center of the Chinese population in Ho Chi Minh City. While it is well known that products from the Mekong Delta region are brought to Ho Chi Minh City through Chinese commercial networks, human capital networks for economic activities between Ho Chi Minh City and the cities in the Mekong Delta have also been utilized to transmit the authentic Chinese culture and language to the remote peripheral cities and towns in the Mekong Delta.
According to the 2009 census by the Vietnamese government (Department of Population and Labour Statics, the General Statics Office 2010: 216), the population of the ethnic Chinese (Hoa) in Tra Vinh Province is 7,690 people. Of those, 6,254 (81.3 percent) live in urban areas. The Chinese presence in the commercial area of Tra Vinh City remains remarkable. Shops run by the ethnic Chinese around the Tra Vinh market have signboards written using Chinese characters. In contrast, the Khmer people are characterized as living in rice farming villages near the forests of the Tra Vinh Province. Of the Khmer population in the province, 91.2 percent (289,292 out of 317,203 persons) live in rural areas. This statistic is higher than the number of those who live in rural areas in Kinh (82.4 percent or 558,346 out of 677,649 persons).
I have often heard that many Chinese men, especially Trieu Chau (Chaozhou in Chinese), engage in agriculture in the rural area of the Mekong Delta and that many of them are married to Khmer women. The Vietnamese expression “Dau ga dit vit” refers to a mixed-race child with a Khmer mother and Trieu Chau father (Pham 1998: 155). As this idiom is included in Vietnamese/Chinese dictionaries, the phenomenon of intermarriage between Trieu Chau men and Khmer women is well known among both Vietnamese and Chinese people. Moreover, news articles often report that wealthy ethnic Chinese merchants donate large sums of money to the Hinayana Buddhist temples located in their homelands in the Mekong Delta region. The following episode, cited from an article written by an ethnic Chinese journalist, clearly shows the strong localization of Trieu Chau people in the rural area of the Tra Vinh Province and their devoted commitment to charitable activities for Buddhist temples:
The Chong Bat temple in Tan Hiep commune in Tra Cu County, Tra Vinh Province, was originally built in 1646. In 1857, Ly Ke—the leader of the Chinese merchants who was living in this area and successful in his business—purchased land and built a new temple. Three years ago [in 2007], the renovation of the temple was planned. The funds for renovation—three billion Vietnamese Dongs [US$150.000]—were donated by the Ly family. Furthermore, one family member donated five tons of rice to the Tra Cu government as charity toward the three communes including Chong Bat. (Tang 2014: 144)
I had never been to the Chinese temples in this rural area before. However, thanks to a joint research project with Tra Vinh University, which began in 2012, I was given the chance to visit the rural area of the Mekong Delta region in recent years. Our collaborative research on the Chinese religious facilities was conducted in several counties in Tra Vinh Province in 2012 and 2013. Of those counties, I focus on Chau Thanh County in this paper because I attended a festival at a temple in the county’s rural area and met mixed-race descendants of the Chinese and Khmer people.
As symbolized by the construction of a new Chinese temple for Thien Hau Thanh Mau (a Chinese goddess, “Tian Hou” in Chinese) in Tra Vinh City in 2012, the ethnic identity of the Hoa people in Vietnam is especially emphasized in urban settings. In contrast, the acculturation of Chinese people into Khmer culture may be accelerating in the rural settings of Tra Vinh Province. As the anthropological theory of ethnicity shows, after Frederik Barth’s famous study of “ethnic groups and boundaries,” ethnic contents change over time, and individuals take their identity both from the contents of their own ethnic group and from the differentiation between other ethnic groups (Royce 1982: 7). The Chinese culture and language are revived in some situations, while the Chinese deploy the contents of another ethnic culture in other situations. It can be assumed that ethnic Chinese in the rural settings of the Mekong Delta region go to the Hirayana Buddhist temples and the temples for the gods from Chinese folk beliefs, such as the temple of Thian Hau Thanh Mau. They speak the Khmer language in their neighborhood and eat Khmer food at home, which is served by their female family members who are of Khmer ancestry.
In this paper, I attempt to sketch the process of Chinese immigration into Chau Thanh by referring to the historical developments of four religious facilities from this area. I also attempt to present an image of the people in relation to the activities of these temples. The descriptions and analyses are preliminary because I mainly rely on my observations during short visits to several temples. Furthermore, due to my lack of skill in communicating with local people in Vietnamese and/or Khmer, I had to depend mainly on written documents and visual images, which we collected during our fieldwork. However, I hope that the information presented in this paper will elucidate the hidden history of ethnic Chinese residents in the Mekong Delta region.
2. Geographical and Historical Backgrounds of Chau Thanh County
Chau Thanh County is positioned to the south of Tra Vinh City. In 2012 and 2013, we had the chance to visit one Chinese temple, Co Tong Mieu, which is located near the market and the canal in the county’s central town, T. T. Chau Thanh. We also visited three temples in Truon Hamlet (Ap Truon) and its vicinity and in Hoa Loi Village (Xa Hoa Loi). These three temples are Quan Thanh Mieu, a temple for worshipping Quan Cong (“Guang Di” in Chinese), the Lien Quang Buddhist pagoda (Lien Quang Tu), and the communal hall and graveyard of the Trieu Chau, the Chaozhou people who came from the Fenghuang commune in Xiao Ping County in Guangdong Province, China. Its Vietnamese name is Hoi Dong Huong Phung Hoang, The Chinese name is “Yuenan Yongping Fenghuang Tungxianghui.” These four sites are each introduced in the section below.
According to one villager from Ap Truon, the hamlet belonged to the Ap Tri Phong Hamlet 20 years ago. Subsequently, the people’s committee divided the hamlet into Ap Tri Phong and Ap Truon. The name of Ap Truon is new, but the local people have also used it to designate their hamlet. Before the division, Professor Yoko Takada, a Japanese historian, researched Xa Hoa Loi, which belonged to Xa Hoa Thuan at that time (Takada 2014). First, I will sketch the immigration history of the Khmer, Kinh, and Chinese people into the Xa Hoa Thuan area by referring to Takada’s important study.
In 1995, Xa Hoa Thuan included 10 hamlets: (1) Vinh Bao, (2) Xuan Thanh, (3) Ky La, (4) Vinh Loi, (5) Bich Tri, (6) Da Can, (7) Tri Phong, (8) Chang Mat, (9) Qui Nong, and (10) Da Hoa. Takada discovered nine religious facilities in Xa Hoa Thuan: four Hinayana Buddhist temples; two Mahayana Buddhist temples; one Vietnamese community hall, Dinh; and two Chinese temples (Takada 2014: 278). The location and estimated year of establishment for these facilities are listed below:
(1) Khmer pagoda in Qui Nong: 10th century to 16th century
(2) Khmer pagoda in Tri Phong: 13th century or 14th century
(3) Khmer pagoda in Ky La: 1666
(4) Khmer pagoda in Da Can: 1872
(5) Giac Quang Tu in Ky La: 1916
(6) Lien Quang Tu in Chang Mat: 1945
(7) Dinh Vinh Thuan in Xuan Thanh: 19th century
(8) Mieu Ba Thien Hau in Vinh Bao: unknown
(9) Quan Thanh Mieu in Tri Phong: 1911
Based on the above information, Takada assumed that the oldest Khmer community was established around Qui Nong by the end of the sixteenth century at the latest and that the small villages of the Khmer people were constructed later around Tri Phong. In the latter half of the seventeenth century, the Khmer people in Ben Tre Province crossed the Song Co Chien River and established their communities around Ky La. During the colonization period in the nineteenth century, population growth resulted in the villages of Da Can and Bich Tri. In contrast, the Kinh community was established in the northern part of Xa Hoa Thuan, in places such as Ky La and Xuan Thanh, in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century (Takada 2014: 278).
This clear division between the Khmer villages and the Kinh villages is reflected in the composition of the present population. According to the statistics cited in Takada’s book, Vinh Bao Hamlet had 249 Kinh households and 15 Chinese households but no Khmer households in 1998. In the same year, Xuan Thanh Hamlet had 315 Kinh households, four Chinese households, and seven Khmer households. In contrast, Tri Phong had 33 Kinh household, 6 Chinese households, and 324 Khmer households in the same year (Takada 2014: 277).
Because we did not have a chance to visit the Xa Hoa Thuan area and therefore have not been to the Thien Hau temple in Vinh Bao and the Vietnamese Dinh in Xuan Thanh, I have not collected data regarding interactions between the Kinh and the Chinese in the rural area of Tra Vinh Province. However, as will be discussed in the fourth section of this paper, cases of intermarriage between Khmer and Chinese in one family could be a representative phenomenon of the cultural interaction between the two ethnic groups. We visited two religious facilities in Xa Hoa Thuan and Xa Hoa Loi from the nine listed in Prof. Takada’s book. I also visited one of the Chinese cemeteries in Xa Hoa Loi. Because Chau Thanh County is near Tra Vinh City, several Chinese and Vietnamese cemeteries have been constructed in recent decades along the highway in Xa Hoa Loi. This kind of new facility could be a crucial site to investigate relations between the urban Chinese community in Tra Vinh City and the rural area to which the Chinese immigrated.
3. Co Tong Mieu
Co Tong Mieu is situated in T. T. Chau Thanh, the central town in Chau Thanh County. The village near the town is Da Loc. The spatial position of the temple building of Co Tong Mieu is typical for Chinese markets in the Mekong Delta. These markets are connected to stations for canal vessels. Streets with shops run by the Chinese are found around the markets. We can assume that the temple was established near the market and has been maintained by the Chinese shopkeepers since the market in this area was established.
In the temple, two statues are positioned in the central part of the main altar: Huyen Thien Thuong De on the right and Hiep Thien Dai De, i.e., Quan Cong, on the left. Thien Hau Thanh Mau stands at the right side of the altar, and Phuc Duc Chinh Than stands at the left side of the altar. There are three stone plates with Chinese inscriptions. The oldest one was made when the temple was built. Unfortunately, many characters on the plate are unclear. The character showing the year of the temple’s establishment cannot be deciphered. Another plate was made for the renovation in 1940. The newest one dates from the renovation in 2002. One of the donors for the 2002 renovation was Mr. Cot (pseudonym), who lives in Australia. He invited Mr. Tong (pseudonym), the temple keeper, to Australia to raise funds for the renovation among the community of old residents from this area.
There are also two wooden plates. The oldest plate dates from the year Quang Tu 29, i.e., Quy Mao, 1903. This plate was donated by the Dam Nguyen Loi shop in Panyu County, Guangdong Province, China. A woman from the Truong family who had married into the Ho family donated another plate. There is one bell in the temple. According to the inscription on the bell, it was originally used at Chua Long An. It can be assumed that the temple named Long An is not in Tra Vinh Province but in Can Tho City in the Mekong Delta region because the bell was donated by three Vietnamese women from the village of Can Tho.
According to the schedule posted on the wall of the building, the temple hosts the following events each year:
• March 3: the birthday of Huyen Thien Thuong De, the Buddha of the Polar Star
• March 23: the birthday of Thien Hau Thanh Mau
• May 13: the birthday of Prince Quan Binh
• June 24: the birthday of Quan Cong
• June 26: the birthday of Phuc Duc Chinh Than
• August 18–19: Hungry Ghost Festival
• September 9: Trung Duong Festival
• October 30: the birthday of General Chau Thuong
• December 12: thanksgiving for all gods
When we visited the temple in 2012 and 2013, we observed that paper products were offered to the gods inside the temple. The objects were made especially for the ceremony of the Hungry Ghost Festival. After the ceremony is finished, they are burnt. Mr. Tong makes these paper objects by hand at his house near the temple. He is a skilled artisan who sometimes makes the same kind of paper offerings for other temples by order.
When I visited in 2013, several paper products were already positioned inside the building, and Mr. Tong was still working on others at his house. The biggest object placed near the entrance is Tieu Dien Dai Si, the strong male god incarnated by Quan Am to save the hungry ghosts. One pair of cranes, Sa Hat, and a man riding a horse, Sa Ma, are situated in front of Hiep Thien Dai De. According to Mr. Tong, one crane was to fly to the Western world, the Buddhist heaven, while the other was to fly to the celestial world, where the gods live. The horse was to bring a letter to the gods. One statue of Phan Quan Dia Phu, an official from Hell, was placed next to the cranes and horse. Two statues of officials, which were very similar to the statue of Phan Quan Dia Phu, stood on the left and right sides of the altar. Mr. Tong called the statue on the left side Ngan Son, the silver mountain, and the statue on the right side Kim Son, the golden mountain.
It is very interesting that the names of these objects, Ngan Son and Kim Son, include the word that means “mountains.” Just before coming to Tra Vinh in 2013, I stayed in Bangkok, Thailand for a few days and visited several Chinese temples, especially the temples of the Trieu Chau people. Many “mountains” composed of gold or silver nuggets made of paper were presented as offerings for the Hungry Ghost Festival in these Chinese temples in Thailand. It can be assumed that Ngan Son and Kim Son were originally neither gods nor men but paper mountains symbolizing the fortune of gold and silver.
The organizational committee for this temple includes 42 people. For the Hungry Ghost Festival, the committee asks rich families from the area to give rice and money for charity. On July 19 in the lunar calendar, the rice is handed out to poor people. I had a chance to ask Mr. Mac, an old resident of this area, about the Hungry Ghost Festivals of his childhood days. Mr. Mac was born in the 1930s, and he is a third-generation immigrant from Chinghai County in Chaozhou, China. When he was a child, the space in front of the temple was bigger than it is today. The organizational committee placed a stool there. One man sat on the stool and threw wooden pieces with the names of commodities, such as “meat,” towards the participants in the festival. The people who caught each piece could receive the commodity written on it as a gift for luck.
4. Quan Thanh Mieu
Quan Thanh Mieu is a small temple for the worship of Quan Cong in Ap Truon, Xa Hoa Loi. Inside the temple building, the altar of Quan Cong is placed in the center, the altar of Thien Hau Thanh Mau is on the right, and the altar of Phuc Duc Chinh Than is placed among the statues. In addition, the tablet of Ta Ban is placed on the right and that of Huu Ban is on the left. According to Mr. Quoc (pseudonym), the temple keeper, over 30 percent of the residents of Xa Hoa Loi are Chinese descendants. Most of the members of the management committee of his temple are also Chinese descendants who cannot speak Chinese. Mr. Quoc is also one of them. His grandparents were born in Chaozhou, China.
It is estimated that this temple was established in the early twentieth century. Mr. Trinh, who was wealthy, funded the establishment. After the establishment of this temple, he became known as “Ong Ca Khia.” “Ca” means “big man” and “Khia” means “temple.” Later, a Chinese man named Banh Hi renovated this temple. The Chinese characters on a wooden plate that hangs inside the temple show that Banh Hi Thanh donated the plate in 1911. Mr. Quoc remembers his name as being “Banh Hi,” so we can assume that “Banh Hi Thanh” was the name of his shop and company. According to Mr. Quoc, Mr. Trinh’s son married a daughter of Mr. Banh Hi; further, a son of Mr. Banh Hi studied in China and brought the statue of Quan Cong from China to Vietnam.
When Prof. Yoko Takada visited Chang Mat Hamlet, which lies next to Tri Phong Hamlet and includes Ap Truon, in the 1990s, a daughter of Banh Hi lived in Chang Mat Hamlet. According to her, her father was a Chinese from Chaozhou and was originally a sailor. Banh Hi bought lands in Chang Mat and Tri Phong, and he lived in Tri Phong. The total amount of his land was 14 hectares. When he died in 1946, the land was distributed among his seven children. Her mother was a Kinh from Chang Mat. Her mother’s father was Chinese, and he lived in Tri Phong. Her mother’s mother was a Kinh. In 1926, when she was 11 years old, her father built the Quan Thanh Mieu temple (Takada 2014: 377–378).
Each year, five special ceremony days are held in this temple. January 15 on the lunar calendar is the first day of the full moon in the first month of the year. The members prepare a banquet consisting of vegetarian food. March 23 on the lunar calendar is the birthday of Thien Hau Thanh Mau. A vegetarian banquet is also prepared for this occasion. May 13, per the lunar calendar, is the birthday of Quan Cong—the most prominent festival day. Meat, including pork, is prepared for offerings to Quan Cong. July 15 on the lunar calendar is the Hungry Ghost Festival. This festival will be explained further below. October 15 on the lunar calendar is the day of the full moon in October. A small vegetarian banquet is prepared.
When we visited this temple on August 20, 2013, many women were working there. They were cooking vegetarian dishes for the Hungry Ghost Festival to be held the next day. They were cooking banh tet, which are rice cakes, for the festival. At this time, the main ingredient in banh tet was banana. The sticky rice for the banh tet was cooked with black beans and coconut juice. Sugar and salt were also added to the sticky rice paste. In contrast to the banh tet prepared for the festival of Quan Cong on May 13, fatty pork meat was not used at this time. The sauce for the nuoc mam must also be vegetarian. For ordinary meals, mam se is made from fish sauce and shrimp. However, papaya and soy sauce are used for vegetarian mam se. The women were preparing one hundred pieces of banh tet for the next day. They needed 15 kg of sticky rice and over 2 kg of black bean to cook 100 pieces of banh tet. For the most prominent festival on May 13, 200–400 pieces of banh tet were to be prepared.
On the next day (August 21, which is July 15 on the lunar calendar), we visited the temple at 8:45 am. Several committee members were already sitting on chairs outside the temple building. They encouraged us to have a cup of tea and some banh tet, che dau, sweet bean soup, and xoi, a salty, sticky rice.
After donating a small amount of money at the desk in front of the building, we were given 11 pieces of incense each. Inside the building, we offered one piece of incense to the incense bowl for each deity going in a right-handed order: (1) Quan Cong near the entrance, which was a contribution from a Chinese person who runs a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City; (2) Huu Ban; (3) Phuc Duc Chinh Than; (4) Horse of Quan Cong; (5) Quan Cong; (6) Quan Binh; (7) Chau Thuong; (8) Tho Dia Cong, positioned below the statue of Quan Cong; (9) Thien Hau Thanh Mau; (10) Ta Ban; and (11) the bowl of incense in front of the altar of Quan Cong, who has the appearance of the supreme god, Ngoc Hoang Thuong De.
Around 10:00 am, the committee members started the worship ceremony. After their worship finished, the vegetarian lunch was served. After worship in the temple building, the group of visiting families took their seats on the chairs around the table to have lunch. When the lunch was finished, they left the temple independently. We were also given seats around one of the tables. In addition to the banh tet, we could enjoy Khmer dishes: xiem lo in the Khmer language, which is sweet soup with pumpkin, and bun nuoc leo, which is rice vermicelli with a bowl of soup. Bun nuoc leo was not originally vegetarian, but the vegetarian version of the dish was served at this time. According to Phan Thi Yen Tuyet’s study of a Khmer village in Cau Ngang County in Tra Vinh (Phan 2008: 76), xiem lo is a traditional dish in the daily diet of the Khmer people, and there are many types of xiam lo soups.
It should be noted that I could not detect any typical Trieu Chau cuisine, such as pink rice cakes shaped like raindrops or fried white wheat noodles, which I have often seen at festivals at the temples of the Trieu Chau people in Ho Chi Minh City. The offerings to the gods and the lunch for this festival looked like an ordinary meal that the local Vietnamese and Khmer people in this community would have. In terms of food, the festival of Quan Thanh Mieu had no Chinese cultural traits, especially not of the Trieu Chau.
Nir Avieli, an Israeli anthropologist who researched food in Hoi An, an old port town in central Vietnam where many Chinese residents have lived for centuries, writes about the festival at the temple of Phuoc Kien (“Fujian” in Chinese) in Hoi An. The festival day is February 16 in the lunar calendar. The festival is for “Luc Tanh Vuong Gia,” six prince ancestors. A Chinese restaurant in Danang City is responsible for catering the banquet at the temple. The male chefs from the restaurant cook the dishes in the backyard (Avieli 2012: 186). Avieli discusses the paradox that although cooking in Vietnam is considered a feminine activity, becoming a chef is considered a male profession. He explains this by relating the profession to the men’s role in sacrificing meat and animals during the festival (Avieli 2012: 190–191).
In the case of Quan Thanh Mieu, no sacrificial animals were involved in the vegetarian banquet, yet the offerings to the gods were the same cooked vegetarian dishes as the dishes prepared for our lunch. Women had prepared these dishes that day and the day before. Avieli notes that the chefs prepare the Chinese dish of “Pan-Chineseness” and not that of the Fukieniese (Fujianese) cuisine (Avieli 2012: 192). The women of Ap Truon, in contrast, cooked the vegetarian dishes by modifying the same dishes they cooked at home. Apparently, the offerings and ritual food of Quan Thanh Mieu are not dominated by masculinity and Chinese traditions. Rather, it seems that the family traditions of the Vietnamese and/or Khmer women are brought to this small festival at a small temple that is maintained by Chinese descendants.
After finishing lunch at the Hungry Ghost Festival at Quan Thanh Mieu, I had the chance to interview one of the Khmer villagers: Mr. Tat (pseudonym), who had the family name Tran. Mr. Tat was 48 years old. He identified himself as a Khmer, although his father was Chinese. His mother was also a Khmer, but his mother’s father was Chinese with the same family name of Tran. His parents did not live with him, but they lived in the same village. His father and mother communicated with each other in Vietnamese and Khmer.
Mr. Tat explained why he was Khmer: first, he lived with many Khmer families in this area; second, his grandfather began living with the Khmer here over 100 ago. According to his explanation, the village has approximately 260–270 families, and many of them are Khmer. The Khmer people can read and write the Khmer language. In contrast, his ethnic Chinese wife cannot speak Chinese. Their three children can speak both Khmer and Vietnamese.
A monograph on Tra Vinh Province published in 1903 reports that of the total population of 6,397 Chinese, over 800 were living in Tra Vinh City and the villages around it in the province at that time; this number included the mixed-race Chinese-Khmer and Chinese-Kinh populations (La societe des etudes Indo-Chinoises 1903: 38). Based on this population trend in 1903 and Mr. Tat’s family, in which Mr. Tat’s grandfather entered Chau Thanh County and married a Khmer woman, we can assume that trans-ethnic marriages between Chinese and Khmer were very popular. We can also assume that this kind of trans-ethnic marriage has prevailed throughout the twentieth century in this area.
According to Mr. Tat, many villagers plant rice and vegetables in his village. In addition, they plant coconuts and other fruit, such as bananas. He emphasized that his village was poor. Therefore, the amount of bun, i.e., rice vermicelli, used for the meal at the festival was only 10 kg. The committee did not prepare a charity event to distribute rice because no one had donated rice that year. However, another villager sitting next to Mr. Tat told him that the Khmer family was so rich that they could divide their land into small pieces for their children. Since his marriage, Mr. Tat himself had been living in this village but separated from his parents, who also lived in this village.
Some rich overseas donors have contributed to this temple. One white stone statue of Quan Am, Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, stands outside the temple; this statue was donated by a former villager who moved to the United States. When the village road was renovated in 2013, another former villager who lived in the United States and one who lived in Australia contributed funds. At the opposite side of the Quan Am statue, one sedan car is parked for funeral ceremonies. The car is provided for poor villagers who cannot afford to pay money for a funeral service.
5. Lien Quang Tu
We visited this temple in 2012 and 2013, but I did not have a chance to interview the present female master, who had studied in China. We collected a three-page Vietnamese document, titled “Tieu su Chua Lien Quang,” which offered a short history of the Lien Quang Buddhist temple. According to this document, the pagoda was established by a male master named Thien Tam in 1940. When we visited Lien Buu Tu in Ap Qui Nong A, I learned that the Lien Buu Buddhist temple was also established by Master Thien Tam in 1925. He moved to the Lien Quang temple in 1938. Because the original Lien Buu temple building was made from coconut leaves, we can assume that Master Thien Tam had found a similar kind of simple shelter in this village for his meditation, before constructing the temple in 1940.
According to the description in the short history of the Lien Quang temple, the temple building was used as a French army camp from 1946 to 1948. At that time, Master Thien Tam stayed at Chua Ong Bon, a temple for worshipping the earth god, far from the original Chua Lien Quang temple, which measures 600–700 meters. It is unclear whether this Ong Bon temple is the above-mentioned Quan Thanh Mieu. Because the Ong Bon temple is meant for praying to the god, the temple is not suitable for Buddhist meditation. Master Thien Tam’s parents donated land for the new temple. However, Master Thien Tam died suddenly in 1950. A female disciple, Master Tinh Hoa, succeeded his enterprise.
Based on the inscriptions on gravestones and ancestral tablets from this temple, Master Thien Tam was born in 1891, the year of Tan Mao, and he died at the age of 58 in 1948, the year of Mau Ty. The inscription on his gravestone shows that his year of birth is 1901, the year of Tan Suu. However, because his age of death is 58 on both inscriptions, the year written on the ancestral tablet, 1891, seems to be correct, while the year on the gravestone seems to be incorrect. Master Tinh Hoa was born in 1919, the year of Ky Vi, and he died in 2002, the year of Nham Ngo. However, her gravestone states that she spent 60 years working as a Buddhist master but her ancestral tablet states 58 years.
In July 2014, I had a chance to visit “Lien Quan Thien Vien” in Tra Vinh City. Master Tinh Hoa built this temple in 1970 after she accepted a donation of land in 1969 for the temple by Ms. Nguyen Thi Nhu, the mother of Master Nhu Ngoc, who was known as “Ba Co Tra Vinh.” Because the temple building was renovated in 2004, there are very few historical monuments. There was only one bronze bell with Chinese characters engraved with the year 1970. The picture of Master Tinh Hoa is placed in the center of the ancestors’ altar, but there is no ancestral tablet. Above this picture are three more portraits of female masters with their names: “Su Ba Toa Chu Chua Buu An” (on the left); “Su Ba Tra Vinh” (in the center); “Su Ba Toa Chu Chua Long Hoa” (on the right). It is unclear whether the person in the center, “Su Ba Tra Vinh,” is Master Nhu Ngoc. I did not interview the present master during my visit because she was not there at that time.
Master Thien Tam’s original name is Trinh Dac Sang. His family name, Trinh, is written in Chinese on a red ancestral tablet that is worshipped in a room in Lien Quang Tu. The tablets are for four persons: late uncle Trinh Dac Ky, late father Trinh Dac Thanh, late mother Tang Ngoc Tham, and late mother Nguyen Thi Vi. The two men’s names have the same character, Dac, similar to the original name of Master Thien Tam. We can assume that Trinh Dac Ky, Trinh Dac Thanh, and Trinh Dac Sang are brothers in the same Trinh family. We can also assume that of Trinh Dac Thanh’s two wives, one was Chinese, with the family name Tang, and one was Vietnamese, with the family name Nguyen. There are two tombs with Chinese gravestones in front of the gate of this temple. They are for a Chinese couple who came from Dongguan County, Guangdong Province, China. The husband has the family name Tang. We do not know whether this Tang family is related to Tang Ngoc Tham listed on the tablet.
The short history of the Lien Quang temple includes an interesting episode related to the Chinese tomb. The land donated by Master Thien Tam’s parents includes the special element of dragon in terms of geomancy. In 1930, the descendants of the Qing dynasty asked a Vietnamese noble to look for land for their graves that had good geomancy. For the purpose of prosperity, they brought the bones from China and buried them here. After they left, dogs and cocks would not cry anymore, and the village was completely silent. The villagers found out that the new tomb had caused this strange phenomenon. They dug up the tomb, sprinkled the blood of a black dog on the coffin, and then returned the coffin to the ground. Consequently, the dogs and cocks in the village started to cry again. The people at this temple call the tomb “Mo Ong E.” In 1992, a female master, Buu Y, who was responsible for the temple at that time, made a pond for water storage near the tomb. The pond also receives the influence from the tomb’s good geomancy.
Although we did not ask the people at this temple where the tomb of “Mo Ong E” was located, we visited a tomb behind the temple building. The inscription on the gravestone shows that the tomb is for Duong Thuy Y, the first ancestor from Qing China. The tomb was built in 1880. Mr. Duong came from Jie Yang County, Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, China.
6. Hoi Dong Huong Phung Hoang
Near Lien Quang Tu, several family cemeteries are located on the left side of the highway towards the south in the direction of Phuc Hao village, where many Catholics live. One of the cemeteries contains the communal hall and graveyard of a Trieu Chau (Chaozhou) association in Tra Vinh. A graveyard with many tombs is located on the opposite side of the road.
The association is named Hoi Dong Huong Phung Hoang. Its Chinese name is “Yongping Fenghuang Tungxianghui,” and it is for immigrants who come to Tra Vinh from the Fenghuang commune in Xiaoping County, Guangdong Province, China. Fenghuang is located in a mountainous area in the northern part of Chaozhou. The area is famous for its production of Chinese tea. “Yongping” is Vinh Binh in Vietnamese. Tra Vinh Province was called Vinh Binh Province in the Republic of Vietnam period.
According to a Chinese document posted in the communal hall, this association was established in 1968, when the bones of the late Tran Truyen Chat, the owner of the Cam Ky tea shop and the former chief of the Trieu Chau congregation, were moved from Cholon to Tra Vinh for burial. His countrymen, such as Tang Dat Sanh, Lam Tuan Hoa, Vi Sung Huy, and Kha Duong Hau, organized a native association for the Huong Phong commune to conduct a public funeral ceremony for the late Mr. Tran.
When the third management committee for this association was in charge in 1972 and 1973, it planned to build a communal ancestral hall and graveyard for its members. According to the person in charge of this hall and graveyard, a fortune-teller chose good land in the area, and the land was bought. Construction was conducted in 1973 and 1974.
During our visit, I could not observe all the graves in the cemetery, but I took pictures of several of them. Among my pictures, I recognized the gravestones of two founding directors. The first was for Mr. Kha Duong Hau. His native village was Fenghuang, Fushan, Qiaotou. He had two wives: one from the Van family and one from the Duong family. His grave was built in 1974. The second tomb is for Mr. Lam Tuan Hoa. His native village is Fenghuang, Qipanchu. He had three wives: one from the Van family, one from the Ngo family, and one from the Huynh family. His grave was built in 1974. The color red used for the name on the gravestone signifies the person’s presence in this world, while the color green means the person had already passed away. Of Mr. Lam’s three wives, his third wife is still living.
Because the several place names are mentioned on many gravestones, we can assume that the people from this association were not necessarily from one village or one hamlet in Fenghuang. Some were from the Nanpi commune in Pianchu County instead of the Fenghuang commune. The inscription on one of the tombs built in the 2000s does not include the deceased person’s native place in China. That gravestone contains photos of the couple buried there as well as Vietnamese and Chinese descriptions. Many of the tombs are for couples, although some men had two or three wives, as discussed above. However, one gravestone is for only one female. This woman was from the Nguyen family, and she died in 1999. No location in China is mentioned on her grave, but one Vietnamese place is written in Chinese: Tra Vinh Trinh, Chau Thanh Huynh, Hung My Xa.
7. Conclusion
The order of my introduction to the four Chinese religious facilities in this paper reflects the historical order of Chinese immigration to Chau Thanh County. Although the oldest inscription that we can read in Co Tong Mieu dates from 1901, we can assume that the market in T. T. Chau Thanh was developed in the nineteenth century and that the Chinese temple could have been there at that time. During the beginning of the twentieth century, Chinese immigration to the rural area where the Khmer had been living for many centuries began. A Chinese landlord, Banh Hi, who himself lived in the Xa Hoa Thuan area, constructed Quan Thanh Mieu in the present Ap Truon Hamlet in the early twentieth century. Then, a Buddhist master, Thien Tam, established the Buddhist Lien Quang Tu temple in the 1940s near that temple. The natal family of Master Thien Tam is unknown, but we can assume that his family was Chinese or Minh Huong because the family name Trinh is not popular among the Kinh people. It is also unclear whether there is any relation between this Trinh family and Mr. Trinh, “Ong Ca Khia,” who was another patron of Quan Thanh Mieu. Later, a group of Trieu Chau Chinese who lived in Tra Vinh City established their graveyard in the rural area of Xa Hoa Thuan in the 1970s. As the anecdote regarding “Mo Ong E” in Lien Quang Tu shows, the area has good geomancy, and at least one Chinese tomb was built in 1880 on the land where Lien Quang Tu sits today. However, the construction of a good highway from Tra Vinh City to Cau Ngang County gave urban dwellers in recent decades easier access to this area and urged urban Chinese to establish familial or communal graveyards in this area.
As I show in this paper, the localization of Chinese immigrants is found in rural areas. In just three generations, the Chinese people assimilated into Khmer society in Tra Vinh Province. The Chinese descendants who manage Quan Thanh Mieu in Ap Truon today cannot speak Chinese, even though their grandfathers or fathers were Chinese. They have adapted to the Khmer culture of their grandmothers or mothers. The women who prepared the vegetarian meal for the Hungry Ghost Festival at the temple cooked the Vietnamese-styled banh tet and the Khmer-styled xiam lo.
The appearance of the temple building and the composition of the gods and tablets of Quan Thanh Mieu still maintain traits of Chinese culture. However, the Vietnamese and Khmer cultures from the domestic sphere, of which women are in charge, are very important for the festival at the temple. In addition to pressure from majority groups in the rural area of Chau Thanh, the everyday practices in the private sphere of intermarried families in this area urge the ethnic Chinese to adopt the Vietnamese and Khmer cultures. Such interactions between the Chinese culture and other cultures can be observed in Chinese religious facilities in many places throughout Tra Vinh Province. These cases could be useful in tracing the dynamism of local cultures in the Mekong Delta region throughout history.
References
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Glossary
Banh Hi Thanh 彭喜盛
Cam Ky 錦記
Chau Thuong 周倉
Co Tong Mieu 古宗廟
Dam Nguyen Loi 譚源利
Duong Thuy Y 楊瑞意
Hiep Thien Dai De 協天大帝
Hoi Dong Huong Phung Hoang 會同鄕鳳凰
Huu Ban 右班
Hung My Xa 興美社
Huyen Thien Thuong De 玄天上帝
Kha Duong Hau 柯楊厚
Ky Vi 己未
Lam Tuan Hoa 林俊華
Lien Quang Tu 蓮光寺
Lien Quan Thien Vien 蓮光禅院
Ly Ke 李計
Mau Ty 戊子
Ngoc Hoang Thuong De 玉皇上帝
Nguyen Thi Vi 阮氏味
Nham Ngo 壬午
Phan Quan Dia Phu 判官地府
Phuc Duc Chinh Than 福徳正神
Phuoc Kien 福建
Quan Am 観音
Quan Binh 關平
Quan Cong 關公
Quan Thanh Mieu 關聖廟
Quang Tu 光緒
Quy Mao 癸卯
Ta Ban 左班
Tan Mao 辛卯
Tan Suu 辛丑
Tang Dat Sanh 曽逸生
Tang Ngoc Tham 曽玉深
Thien Hau Thanh Mau 天后聖母
Thien Tam 善心
Tieu Dien Dai Si 焦然大士
Tho Dia Cong 土地公
Tran Truyen Chat 陳傳質
Tinh Hoa 淨花
Trinh Dac Ky 鄭得棋
Trinh Dac Sang 鄭得生
Trinh Dac Thanh 鄭得勝
Trieu Chau 潮州
Trung Duong 重陽
Vi Sung Huy 韋崇輝
Vinh Binh 永平