White feathers and salty scales, though seemingly mismatched, are nestled together in this beloved Vietnamese folktale about a mountain crane, Âu Cơ, who falls in love with an ocean dragon, Lạc Long Quân, a love story indigenous to Vietnam. The story takes place on the coast, between the ocean and the land, that mystical folklore-rich landscape that has captivated storytellers since ancient times. In this folktale, Lạc Long Quân, the ocean Dragon, falls in love with Âu Cơ, the mountain crane and fairy and together they mate and build a nest which cradles one hundred eggs out of which hatch the Vietnamese people!
As the story goes, for some time Âu Cơ and Lạc Long Quân are able to live together despite their differences. However, Âu Cơ misses her home in the mountains, and Lạc Long Quân misses the ocean, so in the end, she takes fifty children up into the mountains and he takes fifty children down to the coast and this is why you find highlanders and coastal Vietnamese who are distinctly different from each other culturally and linguistically, yet are united by their shared ancestral parentage. In other versions of the same folktale, Âu Cơ raises fifty children in the north and Lạc Long Quân raises the other fifty in the south and this explains why you have distinctive northern and southern Vietnamese cultural and linguistic differences, yet both are united as Vietnamese.
There is a famous Northern Vietnamese coastal city and bay area named Ha Long Bay, with distinctive giant limestone islands which translates to mean “descending dragon”. Using your imagination it is easy to see how the islands resemble the curved back of a dragon as it swims! Photo Credit: Kyle Petzer on Unsplash.
I believe the true value of this folktale is often overlooked, though it holds so much wisdom relevant to everyone today: contending with difference. Although seemingly similar to the archetypal Romeo and Juliet romances of opposites that you find in myth and literature, what sets this one apart is that it includes the offspring of this union, and I would even go as far as to say it is narrated from the point of view of these descendants. After all, the story does not end with a marriage despite the lovers’ differences, nor does it end with the tragedy of the lovers’ separation, but it ends with the celebration of what their coming together resulted in: one hundred eggs that are the Vietnamese people who have a shared ancestry.
What I find most valuable is we can appreciate the “eggs” not just literally, but as the metaphorical fruits and gifts that come from the unexpected union of opposites. There is so much potential when differing multiple vantage points and truths are considered and acknowledged. This ancient folktale encourages us to recognize the potential for a third option, that dissolves the presumption we must choose only between two sides. It encourages us to cultivate the capacity for nuance and duality and master the art of living with opposing truths.
With 2000 miles of coastline, Vietnam has a rich collection of oceanic and coastal folklore. In folktales and fairytales from around the world creatures and places and events that occupy intermediary, liminal places and times are often imbued with power, enchantment, mystery and transformation. In-between places like edges of water, or particular in-between times like twilight or equinoxes are thresholds between worlds, or doorways into the spirit world, and/or places of renewal, or revolution. The liminal space is where the mythological hero or heroine is tested, and eventually undergoes a rite-of-passage.
Scientists have a word for this in-between place: the ecotone, a transition area where two distinctive biological communities or ecosystems meet, intermingle, and integrate often characterized by rich biodiversity. Examples might include the transition zone between river and marsh, or between grassland and forest, or between land and ocean. The unexpected and unusual relationship forged in this folktale resembles, in synchronistic ways, the in-between, both/and qualities of the ecotone.
In many ways, the folktale of the dragon and the crane resembles the Christian archetype of the serpent and the dove. However, unlike the Christian tradition where one creature is evil and other is good, and the focus is all about choosing one over the other, in this Vietnamese folktale there is no sense that Dragon or Crane are better or worse than the other, they are simply different, and the focus is on their connection the fruits of their relationship: the eggs. In the Christian paradigm, it is about power of one side over the other, and identifying and separating what is good from what is evil, whereas in the Vietnamese folktale it is about connecting with the otherside, or even marrying and mating with the other side. In the former, we identify ourselves by what we are not, whereas in this indigenous Vietnamese folktale, it is about identifying with both.
Historians and archeologists have found evidence that the landscape that we now think of as Vietnam that remains relatively narrow east to west, has not always been shaped like this. Before the last glaciers melted 20,000 years ago and sea levels rose significantly, the landscape we know today to be Vietnam extended out into the Pacific Ocean almost three times farther east tripling the amount of rich coastal wetlands that were used to plant rice. Archeological evidence shows people moved from the highlands to coast to settle, and perhaps it is during this time that this Vietnamese folktale emerged. In fact, the etymology of the word “đất nước” (referring to homeland or country in Vietnamese) includes the word for earth “đất”, and water “nước”, combined together into one word. I find it telling that even uttering the word “country” in Vietnamese, evokes this magical wetland landscape in between land and sea, that is the heart and soul of this enduring folktale.
Yet history also shows that when the ocean rose and buried this mythological landscape, it also buried many accompanying conceptual ideas that had arisen out of that wetland area. What happened after that was ten thousand years of Chinese colonization and domination, followed by French colonization and American military occupation. In today’s world that magical in between place along with the wisdom of this folktale, has been submerged under an ocean of extremism and the pressure to choose sides. Today it is all about identifying who is evil, who is other, rather than finding ways we are connected. This is why telling this folktale is quite vital at this moment in time, while at the same time, it unearths something precious from the past that brings us into greater intimacy with the wild.
This year of the Wood Dragon is characterized by powerful regeneration, expansive growth and transformation! Just like the heart of this love story which is about celebrating the fruits and new life that comes from this unexpected and seemingly impossible union between a creature with feathers and a creature with scales. The ecotone is a vast landscape that exists on the outside, but also inside all of us. The question this folktale raises for me is: Can we discover and identify both the feathers and scales inside us that make us who we are? Do we have the courage to recognize an ecotone inside of us? Can we enlarge ourselves to encompass and identify the multiple intelligences, multiple perspectives that we have inherited? How might this bothness empower us and bring us together?
Wishing you a Year of the Dragon 2024 filled with unexpected connections. . .and a nest of eggs that hatch that vital bothness into being. . .
References:
Lien, Vu Hong., and Sharrock Peter D. (2014). Descending Dragon, Rising Tiger: A History of Vietnam. Reaction Books Ltd.
Lien, Vu Hong. (2016) Rice and Baguette: A History of Food in Vietnam. Reaction Books Ltd.
Photo Credits: Blog post cover photo Kyle Petzer on Unsplash
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