Template talk:History of Vietnam

Prehistory

An anonymous user keeps making unnecessary additions this template. The period before history was written down, by definition, is "prehistory" and does not belong in "history". The Hong Bang section barely fits the description of "history" because there is no evidence of it. DHN 02:15, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

• To the anonymous user who wants this page unprotected. Please discuss here and state your reasons for making the changes that you made. DHN 01:59, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
• Agreed, anything prior to Hong Bang Dynasty should be included in a Prehistoric Southeast Asia article. Yellowtailshark 08:11, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Trần Dynasty

I need someone to change "Later Trần Dynasty" to "Posterior Trần Dynasty". I just finish the page "Talk:Vietnam during the Great War", unfortunately it's a talk page, can you make it become an official article, because I can't log in. 66.53.218.105

Done. DHN 05:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you but: what's about my second request? 66.53.218.105

Already done. DHN 06:06, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Chinese Domination / Northern Dependency

Thank again! And I want change something may be not important, I want to use the name "Union of Indochina" instead of "French Indochina", even though they're the same. Also, the Vietnamese word "Bắc thuộc" in the dictionary, it really means "Northern dependency" or "Northern domination", and sometime it is also translated as "Period of domination by Northern invaders". So, may you change all 4 period of "Chinese domination" become "Northern dependency" or "Northern domination", ex. "First Northern domination". I tell you my idea, I don't want to use any name from foreign countries in this Vietnamese template. 66.53.218.105

"Northern domination" might be understandable in Vietnamese context, but in English the reader might not know who the "northerners" are. Saying "Northern domination" is also not neutral, since it's clearly in the POV of the Vietnamese. Saying "Chinese domination" makes it perfectly clear who the invaders are and does not use anyone's POV. DHN 04:11, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Union of Indochina; World War I

I would like to change the name "French Indochina" to "Union of Indochina" and add Great War (1914 - 1918) into the template. 66.53.218.105 05:25, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

You have to rename that page first. Standard Wikipedia practice links directly, not to redirects. As discussed ad naseum in the Vietnamese Wikipedia, the two world wars have limited effect in Vietnam and are not considered periods in Vietnamese history by mainstream historians. DHN 06:58, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Wrong! Then "Lady Triệu's Rebellion and Mai Hắc Đế are also not periods but events. But I can tell you real reason why I want to add 2 world wars. 66.53.218.105

"Trung Queen"

It is a name that is unsupported by literature (in particular, nothing in the Trung Sisters article itself suggested the use of "Trung Queen" is accepted). --Nlu (talk) 06:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

About the Trieu dynasty

Can we all please stop pretending that everyone believes that the Trieu dynsaty was a period of Chinese domination? The template as it stands does not reflect reality. There are still history books out there that list the Trieu dynasty as a Vietnamese dynasty. So would be all right to fix the template to reflect this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.105.145.175 (talk) 10:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Dates of Governments

Do we recognize the dates when the government was in power, or when it existed? Yellowtailshark (talk) 04:52, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd go for when it was in power. But then it gets muddy in some instances, like the Later Le Dynasty and the Mac Dynasty, who competed for power in different regions. I'm sure the PRG also held power in areas in the South during various stages of the war. DHN (talk) 03:02, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Correct dates

According to vi:Bắc thuộc, the first Chinese domination started in 111 BC, the Later Le Dynasty ended in 1527 and continued in 1533, the DRVN last continuously until 1976 and there is no interruption. Although in 1949 the State of Vietnam was formed, but the DRVN still existed, both declared themselves the governments of VN, there's no boundary between 2 gov. until 1954. Kinh Duong Vuong (talk) 17:23, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The Vietanmese vi:Bắc thuộc article's history template shows Bắc thuộc lần I (207 TCN - 40) and Nhà Triệu (207 - 111 TCN), which is similar to the template's dating before you started to change it.--TheLeopard (talk) 18:49, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Ha ha ha. Don't you realized that template is nonsense and wrong. Also there are several discussions about it in the talk page in Vietnamese wiki, but no one answers, those administrators in Vietnamese wiki had lock the temple for themselves so nominal users can't edit. So it's wrong, why should we copy it. Many Vietnamese historical books also said that Bắc thuộc lần I (first Chinese domination) started in 111 BC, which means Trieu Dynasty is an independence dynasty ruling Vietnam, (ex: Việt Nam lược sử by Trần Trọng Kim 1919, the template in Dutch also said started in 111 BC). Kinh Duong Vuong (talk) 23:35, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Kinh Duong Vuong probably should be ignored for the time being. This user has been suspected of sockpuppetry and a case will be brought against him soon. David873 (talk) 13:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Republic?

Does any RS refer to the post-1945 period as "Republic"? It strikes me as an unusual terminology. There should separate entries for 1945-1975 and post-1975. Kauffner (talk) 15:45, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• I don't understand the problem with pipelinks. But I can take them out if there is no objection to the other changes. Kauffner (talk) 10:52, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Change 1 - the reason Hồng Bàng is divided is because it links to Timeline of Vietnamese history#Early Hồng Bàng etc.

Change 2 - the stripping of Vietnamese names - should have been mentioned in edit summary as per DHN's comment on revert.

Change 3 - splitting S and N Vietnam, may be useful. But the rest links to Timeline of Vietnamese history where 45-76 is missing needs making. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:26, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh my. This is a surprise. Don't tell me. I want to guess. You worked on Vietnamese archaeology in the late 1950s? Kauffner (talk) 14:41, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Kauffner, User:P.T. Aufrette described your tone of speaking with other editors as "snark". Do you realise how the way you talk to other users sounds? Yes, I have created and worked on WP Vietnam's history and prehistory articles, but the reason I reverted you was because you were edit warring, and because the changes you were making were detrimental to the template. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:15, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps he doesn't have to deal with the level of harassment that I get. Kauffner (talk) 18:59, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

You're not being "harassed" you've been reverted for edit warring and because changes 1 and 2 were detrimental to the template. The 3rd set of changes would contribute to the template, even though the timeline article the template links to is missing the 1945-1976 sections. You're more than welcome to add back in this 3rd set of changes:

• Don't delete French Indochina
• You added Partition of Vietnam
• History of Vietnam since 1945
• North Vietnam
• South Vietnam
• Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Cheers.In ictu oculi (talk) 01:58, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

No Partition of Vietnam. Vietnam had been divided several times in its history: during the 12-Warlord period, the Le-Mac division, Trinh-Nguyen division, Tay Son-Trinh-Nguyen division. The 20th century division is NOT the most precious one of its kind to be in the template. No need N-S Vietnam and Socialist Republic either because we already have the super article History of Vietnam since 1945.

I took this idea from {{History of Egypt}}. Since 1953 proclamation of the republic, Egypt has had been know as Republic of Egypt (1953–1958), United Arab Republic 1958–1971, and afterwards Arab Republic of Egypt. But there no need to fill out all different governments/country names. The most useful idea to simplify the template is only to put History of the Republic of Egypt. Same for {{History of Syria}}. The article Modern history of Syria also mentions most of the whole thing.

I want to keep all period balanced. The Hong Bang period, right away, go all the way for more than 2000 years. But all the other periods last no more than 550 years. So I divided up the Hong Bang period to maintain the almost same lengths.

Furthermore, keep the diacritics and capitalizing "dynasty". Waorca (talk) 02:28, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Waorca, thank you for your work on this template/these articles. I fully agree with all the above: No Partition of Vietnam. I didn't know who made the Hong Bang division, but I could see immediately that dividing 2000 years made good sense. Common sense, and the comparison with the Egypt template is reasonable. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:11, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

• Periods that are of greater interest should be covered in greater detail. Doesn't everyone realize that a huge percentage of the interest in Vietnam relates to the war? In Vietnamese usage, the republic is South Vietnam. It doesn't matter how the Syrians or Egyptians do it. The Hong Bang dynasty lasted 2000 years? Trời ơi! The Hung kings are a story for children, all about kings who ruled for 150 years each, dragon lords, immoral fairies, and babies who were hatched from eggs. As far as capitalizing "dynasty" goes, I wrote about that here. Kauffner (talk) 03:13, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

And I don't see the 20th century and the war are greater periods here. The only reason people treat it great and importance is ONLY because....................it recently happened in the previous century. 500 or 1000 years later, I bet nobody gonna treats the 20th century greater anymore. They say "Việt Nam Cộng hòa" to prefer to South Vietnam, yes. And "Cộng hòa" alone doesn't simply refer to that state.

Check out Sumerian King List. A king ruled for 28,800 years? Holy god. A king ruled for 36,000 years? You'd gotta be kidding me. And also Egyptian mythology. See, even well-know civilizations like Sumer and Egypt has some child-style stuffs. So it's no exception when the history of Hong Bang is mixed with some legends.

According to your past comments about the word "dynasty". You did mention Chinese dynasties. I challenge you to decapitalize the word "dynasty" in {{History of China}}. Then I'm pretty sure some extremist guardians of that template will revert immediately. The same occurs here. Waorca (talk) 09:48, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

• Golly, who could this be? I know you’ve heard it all before, but since you’re pretending to be someone new, I’ll play along: Using Viet-lish doesn’t make a patriotic statement. It just makes people think you can’t write English correctly. Viet Nam News knows that “dynasty” is supposed be lower cased, and that the names of Vietnamese dynasties should be given without diacritics. The chart should look the way it might if it appeared in a reference work edited by professional copy editors who follow style guides, without idiosyncratic spellings and capitalizations. Kauffner (talk) 05:41, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

"Who could I be" doesn't matter. The only matter is that I don't abuse multiple accounts in a same article/page/template. Did you read my words carefully? I told you to go ahead with your desire and decapitalize the word "dynasty" in {{History of China}} and then you will meet with opposition from some extremist protectors of that template. Here is no exception. There are still countless articles out there with capitalizing "dynasty". Waorca (talk) 06:15, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Accessibility issues

this sidebar is currently using colouring to distinguish between BC and AD, which is problematic for screen readers and the colour blind. I plan to fix this in a moment. Frietjes (talk) 22:08, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, your version is better. Thanks for fixing it! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:52, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

The background colouring is a bit much, we should consider removing that as well. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:08, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

What makes it better when it makes the template wider? Oh wait, all u discuss is about the color, nothing about the style. ༆ (talk) 09:09, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

nice edit warring, a block may come shortly if you continue. Frietjes (talk) 17:33, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Frietjes, the one who suddenly appeared and changed new skin is the one who started the war. B4 u came here, everything was fine, isn't it?????? ༆ (talk) 03:24, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Viet Cong (VICTOR CHARLIE(R.).).

The Viet Cong government is a relevant period as they occupied Southern Vietnam for a year before the official unification and had a separate government, bureaucracy, and currency (the Liberation Dong) before merging with the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam. --58.187.165.232 (talk) 05:16, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Image

A French-language map made in 1653, it doesn't show the evolution of Vietnam throughout the centuries and is a clear example of a "Vietnam" defined by foreigners. Plus the map isn't even an accurate representation of the area's geography, as it has many errors typical in old maps, this wouldn't be an issue but it could theoretically be a map of any place.

@Laksa666:, regarding this edit, the image was created specifically to illustrate various periods of Vietnamese history. It replaced the blue dragon that I deliberately added to the background and the text "History of Vietnam" written in three (3) scripts that were used to write the Vietnamese language throughout its history. The map is a lot less neutral as it only shows the Eastern Indochinese peninsula during a single year and was created by Europeans, while this image shows the changing Vietnamese language over the centuries with a Vietnamese dragon, the symbol of the Vietnamese realm for over millennia.

I think that for conveying the concept of "the history of Vietnam" in a single image that only shows Vietnam in a single year and isn't even in Vietnamese that the map fails in many places where the Vietnamese-language changing over the many centuries doesn't. --Donald Trung (talk) 16:06, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

I am also curious how the replaced image needed "Neutralization" (SIC) as I can't see anything that's not neutral about it, the Vietnamese dragon that is still included in the "new" image was the "old" image hence I incorporated it into it rather than fully replacing it. At most I can see that someone would say that Traditional Chinese characters (which were used in North Vietnam until the 1950's) and Seal script can be seen as some sort of "foreign domination" by many Vietnamese ultranationalists, but the same argument can be used for Latin script which was literally pushed upon French Cochinchina as a display of colonial power by the French and was adopted by Nguyễn Dynasty reformers and Republican revolutionaries to emulate the French. As the history and the culture of Vietnam is shaped by its relationships with historical "Chinese" and French domination then it wouldn't be unreasonable to try and convey this through the scripts used to write the Vietnamese language in. If someone replaces an image with one that is allegedly "more neutral" they should articulate what possible "neutrality issues" the replaced image has.

Another thing is that many country history sidebar templates often use coats of arms or symbols that represented the country for a long time, the Vietnamese dragon and seal were state symbols of Vietnam for the majority of its history and Vietnamese dragons were used as state symbols well until the mid-1970's and traditional Chinese-style seals until the 1950's. I am really curious for the argument that makes an old French map of "Annam" more neutral than this image. --Donald Trung (talk) 19:45, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Version by user "Adungtran"

History of Vietnam
Ancient
Prehistory Đông Sơn culture • Bách Việt states
Xích Quỷ 2879 BC–2524 BC? Văn Lang 2524 BC–258 BC?	Hồng Bàng dynasty 2879 BC-258 BC?
Âu Lạc 257 BC–208 BC?	An Dương Vương 257 BC-208 BC?
Nam Việt 204 BC–111 BC	Triệu dynasty 207 BC-111 BC
1st Chinese domination 111 BC-40
Lĩnh Nam 40–43	Trưng Sisters 40-43
2nd Chinese domination 43-541	Lady Triệu's Rebellion 248
Vạn Xuân 544–602	Early Lý dynasty 541-602 Triệu Việt Vương 548-571
3rd Chinese domination 602-905	Mai Hắc Đế's Rebellion 713-722 Phùng Hưng's Rebellion 779?-791
Imperial
Tĩnh Hải quân 866–967	Restored autonomy Khúc clan 905-923 Dương Đình Nghệ 923-937 Kiều Công Tiễn 937-938
	Ngô dynasty 938-967 Anarchy of the 12 Warlords 944-968
Đại Cồ Việt 968–1054	Đinh dynasty 968-980
	Early Lê dynasty 980-1009
Đại Việt 1054–1400	Lý dynasty 1009-1225	South- ward expan- sion ↓
	Trần dynasty 1225-1400
Đại Ngu 1400–1407	Hồ dynasty 1400-1407
4th Chinese domination 1407-1427	Later Trần dynasty 1407-1414 Lam Sơn uprising 1418-1427
Đại Việt 1428–1804	Later Lê dynasty 1428-1527
	Mạc dynasty 1527-1592 Southern and Northern dynasties 1533-1593
	Later Lê restoration 1533-1789 Trịnh-Nguyễn Civil War       Trịnh lords 1545-1787       Nguyễn lords 1558-1777
	Tây Sơn dynasty 1778-1802
Việt Nam 1804–1839 Đại Nam 1839–1945	Nguyễn dynasty 1802-1945
	French Indochina 1887-1945 Empire of Vietnam 1945
Republic
Democratic Republic       of Vietnam 1945-1976	League for the Independence       of Vietnam 1941-1951
	State of Vietnam 1949-1955 Republic of Vietnam 1955-1975
	Republic of South Vietnam       1969-1976
Socialist Republic of Vietnam 1976-present
By Topic Dynasties • Economy • Historical capitals • Military Monarchs • Names • Naval
Timeline
Vietnam portal

<noinclude> {{History of Asia templates}} [[Category:History of Vietnam templates| ]] </noinclude>

In this revision user "Adungtran" changed this template to a version of the above (or to the right for desktop users), later this was reverted because "good changes, but fucks up every page the template is used on.... Some change needs to be done so this is not the case before it can be used! (ps. dont change the link to the navbar to "History of Viet Nam"), it doesnt link correctly then!)". But then the original user never came back to make some corrections.

I honestly really like some of these changes and brought a different version of this template here for scrutiny, but I think that it would work better if it collapsible like the current template. I think perhaps we could make a version based on "Template:History of China" where the chronology is visualised like this while still being collapsible. --Donald Trung (talk) 14:15, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Image

• 
  The original concept by user "Lệ Xuân" (麗春).
• 
  The original right-to-left concept by user "Lệ Xuân" (麗春), which the rest of these all emulate.
• 
  Later version for comparison.
• 
  Earlier version for comparison.
• 
  Version by user "Heliitonn" for comparison.
• 
  Later version for comparison.
• 
  Earlier version for comparison.
• 
  Later version for comparison.
• 
  Earlier version for comparison.

Hello @Lachy70:, and thank you for trying to improve these images, I would like to discuss some aspects of them and enquire about a number of choices made in your versions. First (1st) of all thank you for the improvements that you did make, as these are highly visible images which appear on a lot of frequently visited pages concerning the histories of Vietnam, Huế, and Hanoi.

One Pillar Pagoda.

A side-by-side comparison of how these images look, as you can see the text is far less recognisable on the images on the right side.

Both the images "File:Lichsuhanoimoi.png" and "File:Lichsuvietnammoi.png" use the One Pillar Pagoda, but not just the One Pillar Pagoda, it's located right behind the text making the last parts difficult to read if the image is only a small part of the article, something which a template header literally is. Furthermore, the reason why the "History of Hanoi" image uses the One Pillar Pagoda is because it's an ancient structure that has seen almost a millennium of Hanoi's history, basing this on the "File:"History of China" for template heading (right-to-left).svg" the "History of Vietnam" image had a dragon in the background because the previous version of this infobox and I didn't want to remove it. Throughout most of Vietnamese history the dragon has been the symbol of the state, meanwhile the image of the One Pillar Pagoda comes from a French Indo-Chinese commemorative postage stamp issued in honour of the Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) held in San Francisco, United States of America, at the time the city of Hanoi was a French concession city separated from the Nguyễn Dynasty in 1888 and it commonly used the One Pillar Pagoda on city symbols, it wasn't until the Socialist Republic of Vietnam period that the One Pillar Pagoda would appear on the 1985 20 Đồng banknote (also notice that the One Pillar Pagoda here is used as the symbol of the Art-Hanoi website). In fact, I specifically created the "History of Hanoi" image because I thought that it would "look cool" to emulate the "History of Vietnam" image for Hanoi (as I'm planning on writing almost a dozen articles about Hanoian history) "but with a good local symbol" and used the San Francisco commemorative stamp as a basis for this separate image, but by giving both the Vietnamese national and Hanoian local history templates the same background image it actually takes away from the "uniqueness" of Hanoi's local and distinct history.

In fact, because I liked the result of the "History of Hanoi" image I made separate ones for Haiphong, Hồ Chí Minh City, and Huế. The idea behind them is that they should showcase something local to the area but emulate the style of the national image (which itself is a localised version of the "History of China" image).

Does it work as a symbol for Vietnam? Yeah, but I'm sure that people from Southern Vietnam might say that the Bến Thành Market is more representative and someone from Central Vietnam might think the same of Huế. What I'm trying to say is that the Chinese dragon works as an abstract representation of Vietnamese history because it's a symbol shared both throughout Vietnam and throughout Vietnamese history.

Chinese calligraphy and Latin script.

Modern Vietnamese calligraphy is essentially just Chinese calligraphy but adapted to Latin script, no matter what some Chinese nationalists / East Asian Vietnam-Exclusionists who claim that Vietnam's inclusion in the Sinosphere is "Not reflective of East Asian context of article" think, it is primarily a decorative tradition that (like Chinese calligraphy in Mainland China and Taiwan) has lost most of its relevance in people's daily lives beyond ceremonial and decorative purposes. In fact, Chinese seal script hasn't been used in any official purposes for over half a century anywhere in the world other than Taiwan and even in Taiwan the ability to read Chinese seal script is a rarity, I have several Taiwanese friends with Master's degrees and PhD's and literally none of them can read Chinese seal script, beyond Taiwanese (Republic of China) government institutions and Japanese national government ceremonies nobody actually uses Chinese seal script in any official capacity anywhere in the world, so who in modern Vietnam, mainland China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Etc. can read Chinese seal script today? Calligraphers, beyond those with an interest in calligraphy the ability to read and write Chinese seal script is rare. Calligraphers have a place in society, but I wouldn't say that beyond those who have a fondness of tradition that they enjoy much success or influence.

Both the Tuyên ngôn độc lập của nước Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa and the Tuyên ngôn độc lập của nước Việt Nam Đế quốc are written in standardised Latin script. Even on documents where handwritten Traditional Chinese characters were still found, the Latin script writing was always standardised. I'd argue that to some extend the continued existence of Vietnamese calligraphy is an anachronism where a Chinese literary cultural tradition has persisted long after the abolition of Chinese scripts in the country (exactly like how modern Korean calligraphy works).

Yes, both the heads of the State of Vietnam and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam used classical Chinese-style seals, as can be seen here and here, but even in this case the Latinised Vietnamese is written on the "Grand sceau de l'Etat du Vietnam" are used using modern standard Latin letters and not Vietnamese calligraphy.

So the question remains, "how relevant has Latin Vietnamese calligraphic writing ever been in Vietnamese history?" Based on what I have been able to find I would say "Not very (relevant), beyond its continued usage in traditional holidays and festivals".

The seal is too big.

Another point of comparison is the size of the seals, using "File:"History of China" for template heading (right-to-left).svg" (the original base on which all other Sinitic history template headers are based) as a point of comparison, the original design by user "Lệ Xuân" includes a seal which is only slightly bigger as each of the traditional Chinese characters next to it, I tried emulating this style but I had to make the seal significantly bigger in comparison because I was now working with 3 (three) scripts instead of only 2 (two). The end result showed Chinese seal script characters that were around the same size as the Traditional Chinese characters, but the overal size still matched that of the "History of China" image.

In the current version the seal is waaaayyyy too big, it looks like the main text is the seal and the Latin and Traditional Chinese texts are only secondary to the seal, as noted before based on the design by user "Lệ Xuân", the seal is also somewhat decorative and shouldn't be the main focus, rather (I think) it should be on a largely equal footing with the other scripts as Chinese seal script was the script of Ancient Vietnam while Traditional Chinese characters represent Imperial Vietnam, and Latin script the Vietnamese government from 1933~1934 onwards.

The text is on top of the illustrative image.

I'd argue that the text being on top of a transparent Chinese dragon works for the "History of Vietnam" image because the Chinese dragon is both very recognisable and visible, but for the "History of Hanoi" and "History of Huế" images the images of the One Pillar Pagoda and the City Walls of Huế are deliberately kept separate from the text to keep the images readable for all screen sizes. The newer versions of these images all fail at this (see the side-by-side comparison).

I don't think that my designs are perfect.

I admit that I don't think that my designs are perfect either, for example the "History of Huế" image was created using an old French Indo-Chinese banknote and the robot I employed to remove the background didn't properly do it at the flagpole, so I can see why the entire flagpole area was removed, likewise the Latin word "Huế" and the Traditional Chinese character "歷" (Lịch) both look a bit too small, though this is mostly because I couldn't resize those elements in Inkscape. I'm very open to others improving the images I've uploaded, in fact I have even invited others to do so, but I am not sure if these other versions are an overall improvement.

Version by user "Heliitonn" (21 December 2021).

Originally this image was replaced in December 2021 by user "Heliitonn" with their version, my guess is also that they preferred to see Vietnamese calligraphy and they might have seen the Traditional Chinese characters as "redundant" because it already included Chinese seal script characters, though the seal they made seems to read either Việt Nam Lịch sử (越南歷史) in Classical Chinese or Lịch sử Việt Nam (歷史越南) using the up-to-down-left-to-right writing style (though as far as I can tell even modern Vietnamese Chinese seal script seals are up-to-down-right-to-left). Alternatively, the image could have also been made to remove the prominence of Traditional Chinese characters from the image, we can't know until the author themselves clarify their motivations.

--Donald Trung (talk) 17:09, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Why does the template image contain writing characters from colonizers?

Everyone knows that either Chinese and French languages are forced upon Vietnam throughout its history as they were colonizers, brutal evil colonialists, inspirations for fascist regimes like Adolf Hitler's Lebensraum and Israeli colonisation of Palestine. Using colonialists' language as the headline to define the country's history is at best the racist colonizer's mentality of imposing, subjugating his worldview into the "Other". Sinocentrism and Eurocentrism, oppose each other, but sharing the same fashion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:647:6510:DCF5:CA02:5F2E:9415:FC2A (talk) 18:37, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

2601:647:6510:DCF5:CA02:5F2E:9415:FC2A, none of this makes any sense. "Everyone knows that either Chinese and French languages are forced upon Vietnam throughout its history as they were colonizers, brutal evil colonialists" the language of the image was Vietnamese written in 3 (three) different scripts, the usage of Latin script doesn't mean that it's "French" nor does the usage of Traditional Chinese characters indicate that it's "Chinese". "brutal evil colonialists, inspirations for fascist regimes like Adolf Hitler's Lebensraum and Israeli colonisation of Palestine." None of these are even remotely comparable to the types of colonialism Vietnam experienced, the German concept of Lebensraum included the idea that the Slavic populations of Eastern Europe needed to be exterminated and completely replaced by German colonists, after World War II the Communists completely removed the indigenous German populations of Silesia, Further Pomerania, and East Prussia and replaced them with Polish, Russian, and Lithuanian colonists, yet people rarely see Polish and Soviet colonial policies in regions regions displacing the indigenous Germans as "brutal and evil". Comparatively, in Israel and the Palestine the "colonisation" is mostly just immigration (no different from the immigration we see in the West today). Meanwhile in Vietnam the colonisation of Vietnam by Chinese settlers was mostly military in nature as the Chinese sought to patrol the military frontiers, several periods of mass Chinese migration affected the demographics of Vietnam to the point where modern Kinh people are a mixture of the Chinese colonisers and the Pre-Chinese people, it would be very disingenuous to exclusive associate Việt Nam with the Au-Lac peoples and not with the Chinese settlers. Under Chinese rule Việt Nam was administered as an integral Chinese territory and not a colonial regime until the establishment of the Annan Jiedushi. Meanwhile French colonialism was completely different as barely any French settlers lived in the region and the French treated French Indo-China as politically separate from the French "mother city" exploiting it for economic gains.
"Using colonialists' language as the headline to define the country's history is at best the racist colonizer's mentality of imposing, subjugating his worldview into the "Other". Sinocentrism and Eurocentrism, oppose each other, but sharing the same fashion." None of this makes sense, using Traditional Chinese characters is not "sinocentrism" and using Latin script is not "Eurocentrism", what other script should the Vietnamese use then? Arabic? Devanagari? Throughout Vietnamese history the Vietnamese themselves used Traditional Chinese characters until they slowly switched to Latin script, the indigenous Vietnamese administration elected to use Classical Chinese and it was the Nguyễn Dynasty itself that implemented Latin script which became the exclusive script during the Democratic Republic of Việt-Nam period.
Where does any of this depict the Vietnamese as "the other"? Or are you implying that using the Vietnamese language to depict Vietnamese history is "at best racist"? -- — Donald Trung (talk) 21:23, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I see you are pushing Chinese style in Template:History of Ryukyu,Template:History of Korea, making Asian history looks like Chinese. It is "sinocentrism". These countries had abandoned Chinese characters. People in these countries don't know Chinese characters, besides it is English Wiki. EditQ (talk) 03:58, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

EditQ, the idea that Traditional Chinese characters are exclusively Chinese would be like claiming that using Latin script outside of Italy would be "italocentrism". I wasn't the person who originally added it to the Ryūkyūan template (Special:MobileDiff/1118846980), but you reveal your ignorance in these statements. South Koreans still study and use Hanja today, Japanese people (including Okinawans) still use Kanji today, and for thousands of years the Vietnamese used Hán tự (until as recently as the 1950's). These are templates about the histories of these places, Japanese people still use Kanji today, Koreans and Vietnamese people have used Traditional Chinese characters for most of their history.
China doesn't have an exclusive claim to Traditional Chinese characters. — Donald Trung (talk) 18:45, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Also, just because this is the English-language Wikipedia doesn't mean that we can exclusively use illustrative images that contain English, I've seen plenty of old maps completely in Latin or other languages used for these template headers. — Donald Trung (talk) 18:48, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Also, this wasn't even "my image" as you claim in your edit summary, it was added by "@Lachy70:" in this edit. -- — Donald Trung (talk) 18:51, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Chinese characters had been completed abandoned in Vietnam. There is nothing wrong not to have Chinese characters here and other Asian country history template. Please stop pushing sinocentrism and causing edit disputes. EditQ (talk) 02:56, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Was Vietnam's history sinocentric for using Chinese characters for the vast majority of its history? History is not just about the modern day, that is why it is called history. Qiushufang (talk) 07:03, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Chinese only ruled the northern part of the Vietnam during sometime in hisotry. That doen't make Vietnam history Chinese. Throughout Vietnam history, the indigenous Vietnam pepeople clashed with Chinese intruders and gained fully independence. It is very biased to present Vietnam history with Chinese characters, promoted by Chinese editors. It is also not a good way to show Chinse pride. In the opposite, it instead promtes anti-China sentiment.EditQ (talk) 11:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

When did I talk about China ruling Vietnam? You are just grasping at straws here and viewing history through a modern nationalistic lens. Vietnam itself used Chinese characters for the vast majority of its history while independent. There is no rule on the race or ethnicity of editors on certain topics, certainly not when the history itself supports the representation of the script they used themselves. Qiushufang (talk) 12:11, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Vietnam people spoke Vietnamese language throughout their history. You are making too big deal that they once used Chinese characters as a writing tool. Europeans used Latin in history. Writing characters is only small aspect of history. EditQ (talk) 12:23, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

No, writing is not a small aspect of history, it is one of the primary ways history is recorded and told. Yes people know Vietnamese people speak Vietnamese, therefore the official language and scripts they used is represented. Qiushufang (talk) 12:30, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Chinese characters used in Vietnan history are not purely Chinese. They were imported and coined, like Chữ Nôm. French and Vietnam pepople also ruled Vitenam, and Latin was also used. Anyway, this template is more neutal without highlighting Chinese characters. Neutrality is the foundation of Wiki. EditQ (talk) 13:07, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

A report by the National History Office of the Nguyễn Dynasty dated Duy Tân 3 (1909) regarding official government history books. Note that it's completely written in Classical Chinese.

Up until the 1930's Vietnamese history books issued by the Vietnamese government were completely in Classical Chinese using Traditional Chinese characters. When Ho Chi Minh wrote about Vietnamese independence he wrote both in Traditional Chinese characters and in Latin script and he's the most well-known Vietnamese independence advocate and nationalist. You seem to ascribe modern motions of "Chinese characters = Chinese" which makes even less sense when you claim that Kanji isn't Chinese Japanese like you did with this Ryūkyūan template meaning that you seem to think that Chinese characters are the exclusive cultural and historical property of China, this is Sinocentrism. Furthermore, all the characters used in the template are used to transcribe Vietnamese words, that is literally the definition of Hán-Nôm. In fact, historically the Vietnamese didn't differentiate between the characters (Traditional Chinese Vs. Nôm) but rather language (Classical Chinese Vs. Vernacular Vietnamese). -- Donald Trung (talk) 14:11, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────┘
Additionally, claiming that the Meridiem Gate Meridian Gate in Huế is "more neutral" or "less Sinocentric" is disingenuous. The Meridiem Gate Meridian Gate is the main gate to the Purple Forbidden City, a city designed to be exactly like the Chinese Purple Forbidden Cities in Nanjing and Beijing, the main gates there also being the Meridiem Gate(s) Meridian Gate(s). Additionally, the Nguyễn Dynasty governed Vietnam from 1802 until 1945, almost all previous and later ruling states ruled from Hanoi, not Huế. Lachy70's image represents Hanoi, Vietnam's capital city for literally thousands of years. Hanoi is also Vietnam's current capital city, so using your arguments which often evoke some form of presentism using Huế to represent a country ruled from Hanoi would be some form of "Huếcentrism". — Donald Trung (talk) 22:31, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Despite some similarities in structure, the Meridian Gate (Huế) is very different from that in Beijing. This historic building has itw own Vietnam characters and can serve as a symbol of Vietnam history. Chinese characters have never been a symbol of Vietnam history. People don't need to understand Chinese characters first before studying Vietname history. Your opinnions are distorted and sinocentric. EditQ (talk) 13:53, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

EditQ, "People don't need to understand Chinese characters first before studying Vietname history." this is like claiming "People don't need to understand Latin first before studying European history". No serious historian would take someone serious attempting to study the history of the place without being familiar with the language. It doesn't matter if the Meridian Gate in Huế is different from the one in Beijing, it still only represents a single dynasty in Vietnamese history, namely the Nguyễn Dynasty. As a symbol of enduring Vietnamese history the One-Pillar Pagoda is a much better symbol as it was in the capital of numerous Vietnamese dynasties.
You have not presented a single refutation to any argument anyone has presented other than "Chinese characters shouldn't be used outside of China to represent anything because that is Sinocentric" (which is essentially "WP:IDONTLIKEIT" masquerading as "WP:NEUTRAL" while being the opposite of neutral as you make the positive claim that Chinese characters are the exclusive cultural domain of China).
Sure, for Vietnamese history from 1945 Traditional Chinese characters have become less important to largely irrelevant, but for literally all of the recorded history of Vietnam until 1933~1945 Traditional Chinese characters have been paramount in understanding Vietnamese history. — Donald Trung (talk) 14:09, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Like you said, Chinese characters are only meaningful to serious historian. For common people studying Vietnam history in Wiki, Chinese characters are puzzles. Chinese characters are strongly characteristic of China and have nothing Vietnamese. That's why it is not appropriate to use Chinese characters to symbolize Vietname history. EditQ (talk) 14:36, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

By the way, here is a description of the Meridian Gate:
"Trước kia tại vị trí này là Nam Khuyết Đài, xây dựng đầu thời Gia Long. Trên đài này có điện Càn Nguyên (乾元殿), hai bên có hai cửa là Tả Đoan Môn (左端門) và Hữu Đoan Môn (右端門). Đến năm Minh Mạng thứ 14 (1833) khi triều Nguyễn tổ chức quy hoạch lại toàn bộ mặt bằng kiến trúc Hoàng thành, Nam Khuyết Đài bị giải thể hoàn toàn để lấy chỗ xây dựng Ngọ Môn. Về mặt từ nguyên, Ngọ Môn có nghĩa là chiếc cổng xây mặt về hướng Ngọ. Hướng này, theo quan niệm của địa lý phong thủy phương Đông là hướng Nam. Hướng của Ngọ Môn cũng như toàn bộ Kinh thành Huế trên thực tế là hướng càn - tốn (tây bắc - đông nam) nhưng vẫn được xem là hướng Ngọ (hướng nam). Theo Dịch học hướng nam là hướng dành cho bậc vua Chúa để "nhi thính thiên hạ, hướng minh nhi trị" (chữ Hán: 而聽天下, 向明而治, tạm dịch: hướng về ánh sáng để nghe thiên hạ và cai trị thiên hạ một cách sáng suốt)." Source: Ngọ Môn (Hoàng thành Huế) (revision 70791332)
The fate was specifically modelled on the Beijing one and was built according to the specifications of Fengshui. It's pretty difficult to argue that Fengshui is somehow "less Chinese" or "less Sinocentric". — Donald Trung (talk) 14:13, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

The characistics of Vietnam history and culture is that it has Chinese influence, but not totally Chinese and has its own unique characteritics. Meridian Gate (Huế) is a building influenced by Chinese structures but has its own unique Vietnam characterisctcs. That is exactly what Vietnam history and culture is. Chinese characters on the other hand have nothing Vietnanese inside, therefore not appropriate to reprent Vietnam history. EditQ (talk) 14:36, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

EditQ, "For common people studying Vietnam history in Wiki, Chinese characters are puzzles. Chinese characters are strongly characteristic of China and have nothing Vietnamese." Is a gross misrepresentation of what Traditional Chinese characters are in Vietnamese history, for example the term "Phòng" could be written as "妨", "房", "肪", and / or "防", in this case Latin script is a puzzle with missing pieces that Traditional Chinese characters provide. Traditional Chinese characters are used to write Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary, the term "History of Vietnam" in Vietnamese is a completely Sinitic phrase. You seem to think that Traditional Chinese characters were never used by the common people but this is objectively not true as all levels of government and administration used them for the vast majority of Vietnamese history. Chinese characters were localised wherever they arrived, even in China southern Chinese languages use Chinese characters in ways that northern Chinese don't and give versa, on top of that there's Korean Gukja, Japanese Kokuji, and Vietnamese Nôm script that are localisations that always use Traditional Chinese characters side-by-side for Sinitic loan words.
You seem to want to omit important information from Vietnamese history. "Chinese characters on the other hand have nothing Vietnanese inside, therefore not appropriate to reprent Vietnam history. " This is clear Sinocentric non-sense, as noted above wherever Chinese characters are used they are localised, the Vietnamese themselves have used them to represent themselves and their history for the entirety of the recorded history of Vietnam until roughly 1933 to 1945 (1954 if you count North Vietnamese banknotes and South Vietnamese seals). Chinese characters are not "strongly characteristic of China", would you call Kanji in Japan as "being characteristic of China"? Latin script isn't the exclusive domain of Italy either, nobody would claim that it's "Italocentrism" / "Latinocentrism" to write English in Latin script rather than Runic script. -- — Donald Trung (talk) 20:10, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@Donald Trung . I'm warning you of personal attacks for using such word as "gross" during discussion. As you said,"the term "History of Vietnam" in Vietnamese is a completely Sinitic phrase", there is no localization. It is an imported phrase that no longer used by Vietname pepeople. Therefore it is not suitable to server as a symbol for Vietnam history. Besides, there is no such red chop as History of Vietnam at all. EditQ (talk) 02:51, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Pointing out bits and pieces of Vietnamese artifacts or lack thereof and idiosyncracies isn't an argument. It doesn't negate other facets of Vietnamese history like Chinese script, cultural influence, and its representation. Qiushufang (talk) 03:54, 6 January 2024 (UTC)