Why do Vietnamese place such high value on academic exams?

An emphasis on the benefits of learning and on respect for teachers and talent has shaped the Vietnamese educational tradition for thousands of years. Through the centuries, even the poorest Vietnamese mothers dreamed of their children passing the royal examinations or graduating from university.

Although many Vietnamese are keen learners, the Vietnamese educational system had a rocky beginning. When the Chinese invaded in the late third century B.C., they introduced Chinese characters and Confucianism. However, during a thousand years of Chinese rule, the Chinese taught the Vietnamese only enough Chinese language for the Vietnamese to become good servants. Once the Vietnamese, led by Ngô Quyền, drove the Chinese out for good in 939 A.D., the nascent Đinh and Lê Dynasties still had to fight external and internal enemies; this left little time to promote learning.

The turning point in Vietnamese education occurred after Lý Thái Tổ acceded to the throne in 1009 as the first king of the Lý Dynasty and transferred the capital from Hoa Lư in Ninh Bình Province to Thăng Long, now Ha Noi, in 1010. In 1070, King Lý Thánh Tông constructed the Temple of Literature (Văn Miếu) to honour Confucius and his disciples. While continuing to maintain national independence, Đại Việt (Viet Nam) opened its door to other cultures, especially China and India. The Temple of Literature did not conflict with Buddhist pagodas.

Ly Thai To's monument

In 1076, Lý Nhân Tông established the National University (Quốc Tử Giám), the first university in Viet Nam to train senior officials for the civil service. He located it in the same compound as the Temple of Literature. The University initially recruited sons only from royal and senior mandarin families. Later, sons of common people could also enter the University if they had talent. The University continued to train doctoral laureates or tiến sĩ, until 1802, when Emperor Gia Long moved the capital to Phú Xuân (Huế).

The National University became the pinnacle of the Vietnamese educational system. Lower schools trained candidates for its examinations. Many villages had private schools apart from state-run public schools at the national, provincial, and district levels. Village teachers included unsuccessful candidates for the royal exams as well as some degree holders, who chose not to become mandarins or who did not want to be involved in politics.

The curriculum of both public and private schools included the Confucian classics, philosophy, literature, history, and politics. Successful students learned the Four Books of Confucianism by heart as well as Vietnamese and Chinese history. They also studied how to compose poetry and prepare documents such as royal edicts, speeches, mandarins' reports, analyses, and essays.

The Confucian educational system turned out brilliant politicians, military strategists, diplomats, writers, and historians. Among the most renowned Confucian scholars are General Trần Hưng Đạo (who led the army that defeated the Mongol invaders in the thirteenth century), the humanist Nguyễn Trãi, and the poet Nguyen Du. UNESCO has recognised the last two as great men of culture.

How many exams must a candidate pass to attain the title of "Doctoral Laureate?"

Education at the National University prepared students for the royal examinations, the gateway to becoming a mandarin at the court or in the provinces. Those who did not pass the exams became part of the nation's educated class and often returned to their villages as schoolmasters.

Both the examinations and the honours conferred evolved over the centuries. By the fifteenth century, the multi-stage examination process could take several months. The first step, called thi hương, was a regional examination held once every three years. Those who passed the regional exam went to Ha Noi with their sleeping mats, brushes, and ink-stones to sit for the four-part thi hội. The examination may have been held on the site of what is now the national library, as suggested by some historians and by the street name, Trang Thi, or Examination Street. With anywhere from 450 to 6,000 candidates, the exam area must have been a large one.

The exam area

The examination was held in four parts; a candidate had to pass each part in sequence in order to qualify for the following stage. The first stage, called Kinh nghia, was based directly on the Confucian classics. Examinees were given four subjects from the Confucian canon and told to choose one. In addition, candidates chose one out of three questions based on the five preConfucian classics. Finally, they were given two questions based on the Spring and Autumn Annals and told to synthesise them.

For the second part of the examination (chế, chiếu, biểu), a candidate wrote as if he were the king discussing matters of state. Candidates who passed the second test then wrote two different kinds of thơ and phú poems on given topics. The thơ is a poem of twenty-eight words divided into four lines of seven words each; the phú is a prose poem of eight seven-word lines.

The final part of the doctoral exam was văn sách, in which candidates commented on how to handle problems facing the country, drawing from their knowledge of the Confucian classics and the history of previous dynasties.

Those who passed all four sections received the title of Doctoral Laureate (tiến sĩ) and were invited to the palace for the thi dinh, or palace examination. During this examination, the king himself posed the questions and read the candidates' responses. He then ranked the tien si into three groups and conferred special distinction on the three most successful candidates of the highest-ranking group.

From 1076 until 1779, the date of the last royal examination held in Thang Long (Ha Noi), 2,313 examinees received the title of Doctoral Laureate. Today, 1,306 of their names remain on the eighty-two steles at the Temple of Literature. Each stele represents one examination year, starting from 1442, the first year individual names were recorded. The number of examinees awarded the tiến sĩ degree in any one year ranged from three to sixty-one, with the ages of the laureates ranging from sixteen to sixty-one. Over the centuries, thirty of the steles have disappeared.

The new mandarins were offered a cap and gown, given a banquet at the palace, and sent home to their villages in triumphal processions. There, they in turn offered a feast to the village, sometimes to their financial ruin. The scholars differed greatly in their contributions to their country. Some were more virtuous than others; some were nothing more than bureaucrats. Yet many were brilliant: mathematicians and philosophers, statesmen and finance ministers, and officials renowned for fighting corruption.

The new mandarins were kowtowed at the Temple of Literature (1897)

Literature and public service were not distinct realms in traditional Viet Nam. Poets contributed to the economic life of their times by bringing high-yielding maize from China, improving techniques for silk weaving and reed mat weaving, and developing a system of irrigation canals. Many of the most brilliant statesmen and diplomats were also poets. An example is Nguyen Trai (1380¬1442), the architect of a victorious fifteenth-century insurrection against the Chinese. He is still honoured as one of Viet Nam's greatest statesmen.

How difficult were the royal exams?

The royal examinations were difficult by design. Only 185 examinations were held between 1076 and 1919, and only 2,906 candidates ever reached the goal of a doctorate. On average, 70,000-80,000 candidates entered the regional competitions, but only around fifteen became doctoral laureates after the final examination in the king's palace.

In the beginning, the examination system was not well established. The first national exam was held in Thang Long during the reign of King Ly Nhan Tong (1072-1127). During the Ly Dynasty, the intervals between exams ranged from eleven to forty-two years. Candidates who failed an exam might have to wait several decades before taking the next one. During the Tran Dynasty, in 1239, the king shortened the interval between exams to seven years. In 1434, exams began to be held every three years. This practice continued through the Nguyen Dynasty until the last central-level exam in 1919.

King Le Thanh Tong revised the rules for the regional and national exams, making them stricter and more detailed. To become eligible for the national exam, a candidate first had to pass a regional exam, which was organised at one school in each cluster of four or five neighbouring provinces. For instance, candidates from Bac Ninh, Bac Giang, Thai Nguyen, Lang Son, and Cao Bang Provinces took their regional exam at the Kinh Bac Examination School. Each regional exam lasted several months and consisted of four stages. After each stage, the candidates waited ten days for the results; only those who passed could continue on to the subsequent stage. Those who passed all the regional stages were conferred the title of cử nhân (Bachelor's Degree) or tú tài (Baccalaureate), depending on their level of success.

Winners of a Bachelor's Degree were entitled to attend the next national exam. But transport to the capital city was anything but easy. A candidate from central Nghe An Province, for example, had to walk 300 kilometres to Thang Long (or nearly the same distance to Hue, after 1802), carrying food, a tent, a small bamboo bed, and writing materials. Along the way, the traveller risked robbery, tiger attacks and snake bites. If they survived the trip, most candidates chose to stay for some years to study at the National University before sitting for the royal exam.

Similar to the regional exams, the national exam also included four stages. Those who passed all the four stages became tiến sĩ (Doctoral Laureate) and proceeded to take the đình, or palace exam. The đình exam was held in the king' s palace. The king himself, with the help of senior mandarins, set the questions and marked the papers. He entertained the laureates at his palace on the day the results were announced, awarding caps and gowns and then taking the laureates on a tour of the royal garden and streets in the capital. Afterwards, they returned to their home villages to pay respect to their ancestors and wait for assignments.

What was a royal exam like?

The following excerpt from Ngo Tat To's novel, The Tent and the Bamboo Bed, describes candidate Van Hac's experiences of a royal exam held in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century:

The wind blew again. The thunder rumbled, ầm ầm. Rainwater poured everywhere, seething and swirling. Even though Van Hac had tied his tent securely to the earth, the tent twisted and shook with each gust. From time to time, he had to grab the frame to secure it so the tent wouldn't burst open.

Near midday, the rain became formidable. The ditches in the walled examination quarter filled with churning white water. Bubbles bobbed on the water's surface. A moment later, the water overflowed the ditches into Van Hac's tent and spread, swirling around his narrow bamboo bed.

Van Hac sat on the bed, his head bowed over his wooden lap table, absorbed in writing his exam. He felt his bed gradually sink into the earth; muddy water rose between its bamboo slats.

What was happening?

A few months before, the examination area had been a rice field. The rice came ripe just as the exams were about to begin. After the farmers had harvested their crop, they brought in water buffaloes to plow the field and break the earth into large clods. Then the farmers divided the field into areas where the students could pitch their tents and sit for their exams. 

The early days of the exam were sunny. The students walked about on the coarse earth, which was hard on their feet but fairly clean. But now, with the heavy rain, the area had flooded and turned to mud that couldn't support the weight of a bed with someone sitting on it. And so, the bamboo bed sank until its four legs disappeared like submerged stakes into earth that was as soft as pulpy rice.

Van Hac, like all the others, sat on a bed, but it was as if nothing was there. The water lapped around the bottom of his trousers and the flap of his gown and smeared them with mud. At times the northern wind drove splashing water into the tents. Van Hac had to turn his back to the gale so that his body became like a screen blocking the water and preventing the spray from striking his examination paper. The rainwater penetrated his clothes, soaking Van Hac to the skin. He felt a chill enter his bones as if he'd been shot by poisoned arrows. He blew out his breath. His hand trembled so much that he could no longer hold his brush to write down the poem he had composed.

"I'd better give this up and be free of it," Van Hac said to himself. "Taking an exam this way is more humiliating than a dog's life. Becoming a mandarin isn't worth this."

Van Hac seized his examination papers, intending to tear them to shreds. But then suddenly he remembered: Even if he wasn't going to continue with the exam, he must still turn in his empty pages before he could leave. If he did not turn over his examination book, then guards at the gate would think he'd snuck in to help another student; they would arrest Van Hac. And so Van Hac thought again: If I present an exam with only a few lines of poetry, I will be considered one of the 'due bach' class. They'll add my name and age to the wooden placard of mediocrity. I'll be humiliated for who knows how long.

There remained no other choice. He must press on despite his excruciating plight.

How were the three top winners of national exams selected?

The three top winners of national examinations received the special honour of tam khôi (three laureates), which the king himself conferred. These three highest titles bore different names at different times, but for most of Vietnamese history they were called trạng nguyên, bảng nhãn and thám hoa.

The selection of the tam khôi varied from one examination to another: some examinations had four tam khôi laureates, some had three, some had two, and some did not have any, depending on the qualifications of the candidates. Throughout the Tran, Le, Mac, and Nguyen Dynasties, only 166 people became tam khôi laureates: forty-six were First Laureates; forty-six, Second Laureates; and seventy-four, Third Laureates. By policy, the Nguyen Dynasty did not select First Laureates; in the eight palace examinations it organised, it selected only two bảng nhãn and nine thám hoa laureates.

The photo of national exam

An analysis of the tam khôi records provides a valuable picture of dynastic-era Vietnamese society. Reflecting the predominantly rural character of Viet Nam, only six out of all the tam khoi laureates came from urban areas: Ha Noi (three winners), Thanh Hoa (two) and Son Tay (one). Most came from the Red River Delta of northern Viet Nam. The most successful provinces were Bac Ninh (thirty-nine laureates), Hai Duong (thirty), and Ha Tay (eighteen). It is interesting to note that the 1256 and 1266 examinations each selected two First Laureates, one for the north and one for the south.

The tam khôi laureates bore thirty-six different family names. As one would expect, the Nguyen clan had the largest number of laureates (fifty-three). They were followed by Tran (fourteen), Vu (thirteen), Le and Pham (nine each), Hoang (six) and Luu (five). Fifteen other family names were represented by only one tam khôi laureate.

The laureates were a surprisingly long-lived group, with an average life span of sixty-two. One Second Laureate, Nguyen Nhu Do (1424-1525), lived more than a century. Two other laureates reached the age of ninety-four.

The average age at which laureates were awarded a tam khôi title was thirty-two. At age sixty-one, Nguyen Nghi (1577-1664) was the oldest candidate to become a laureate. The three youngest tam khôi laureates were all selected in the 1247 examination during the reign of King Tran Thai Tong (1225-1258): First Laureate Nguyen Hien (aged thirteen), Second Laureate Le Van Huu (aged eighteen) and Third Laureate Dang Ma La (aged fourteen).

How was a new doctoral laureate's homecoming celebrated?

The royal examinations came once every three years. A court official posted a large notice outside the National University in the capital. It read: "The King looks for talent." Since very few candidates passed the exams, success was a great honour and considered the doorway to becoming a mandarin. A successful laureate received a hero's welcome when he returned to his native village, with the level of ceremony depending on the specific academic degree: village-wide for a Baccalaureate, sub-district level for a Bachelor's Degree, and district level for a Doctorate.

After the examination, the village leaders sent an emissary to fix the date of the new laureate's return. On the appointed day, a procession began with flags and banners, other ceremonial objects, the flag and certificate granted by the king (in the case of a doctoral degree), the palanquins of the laureate's teacher and parents, and finally the laureate himself.

Along the way, drums sounded to inform villagers of the laureate's arrival. People poured out to see the laureate, who had brought fame to his parents, his family name, and to his village as a "land of literature."

When he finally arrived at his house, the laureate prayed in front of the altar to his ancestors and to Confucius. Friends, relatives, and villagers hosted the ensuing banquet. After the ceremony, the laureate remained in his native village until his assignment to a mandarin post.

How has the Temple of Literature in Ha Noi survived the odds of history?

Ha Noi's Temple of Literature (Van Mieu) was built in 1070 by the third Ly Dynasty king, Ly Thanh Tong, to worship Confucius and the Duke of Zhou (Chu Cong), who were regarded at the time as the twin founders of Confucianism. Confucian rituals took place at the Temple all year round. Once or twice a month, the prince came to study with his private tutor. In 1076, the fourth Lý king, Ly Nhan Tong, had the National University (Quoc Tu Giam) built at the back of the temple to teach the sons of mandarins.

The sixth Ly, king, Ly Anh Tong, renovated the Temple of Literature in 1156 and removed the Duke of Zhou from the altar, believing Confucius to be the sole founder of Confucianism. In 1475, King Le Thanh Tong built the first stone tablet, or stele, to record the names of the lien si or doctoral laureates. The steles in the Temple of Literature contain the names in Chinese characters of the winners of the lien st title since 1442.

Additional steles were erected after every examination until 1778, when continual turmoil forced leaders to discontinue building steles. Out of 116 national examinations that took place from 1442 to 1778, eighty-two steles remain on the temple grounds. They include such famous names as mathematician Vu Huu, historian Ngo Thi Si, scientists Phung Khac Khoan and Le Quy Don, and diplomat Ngo Thi Nham.

At the height of its development, the Temple included a dormitory quarter for students from the provinces, a lake, and several hectares of farmland in the front. The Temple management assigned neighbouring Van Huong Village (later renamed Van Chuong) to farm the land to raise money for rituals. After King Quang Trung defeated the Qing Chinese invaders in 1789, Van Chuong villagers petitioned the king to restore the steles. In order to raise money for the project, the villagers sold a small gold tortoise that the defeated Trinh Lord, who had sided with the Chinese, had thrown into the square well at the Temple during his retreat.

Over the years, the Temple has been heavily damaged by nature and man, especially during the years of French rule. The lake and surrounding land became an urban residential area.

One there was even a plan to move the Temple away from its current location. In 1903, a plague struck Ha Noi and spread quickly. Patients went to Phu Doan Hospital (now the Viet Nam-Germany Hospital) for treatment. The Hospital became so crowded that some patients moved to the Temple of Literature, which was surrounded by a protective wall. The plague stopped thanks to a vaccine provided by Dr. Alexandre Yersin (1863-1943) and the efforts of the medical staff. However, the Temple had become so contaminated that the French rulers wanted to build a hospital in its place! Mr. Pasquier, Chief of the French Governor General's office, asked local authorities to find a new location for the Temple.

Since Pasquier was aware of the Temple's importance in Vietnamese culture, he consulted the renowned scholar, Pham Van Thu. Thu replied, "Circumstances forced the Government to use the Temple as a hospital. Blood now stains the steles, disheartening the people. When the Nguyen Dynasty moved the capital to Hue at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it kept the Temple intact, since it is of national importance. If you move the Temple to another location, the entire population will be upset."

Pasquier listened carefully and reported the discussion to the French Governor General. Some days later, the colonial government announced that it would allocate 20,000 piastres to restore the Temple of Literature to its previous condition.

The Temple of Literature has withstood the odds of history. More reccent restoration of the Temple has further enhanced its image as a symbol of learning, creating a timeless atmosphere for intellectual inspiration.