The above riddle refers to a pair of clogs, footwear imbued with symbolic meaning in Vietnam. One popular legend tells of a pair of stone clogs passed down for generations by a family in Cao Bang, high in Vietnam's northern mountains.
Cao Bang was situated in what was then known as the Vu Dinh region of Van Lang - as the nation was then called. Vu Dinh was divided into nine zones, each of which was governed by a
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At the end of the 10th century, King Le Dai Hanh often wore nothing but a loin-cloth, his feet bare. A Chinese Tong dynasty official, having been snubbed by King Le Dai Hanh, made a disdainful report about the rustic ways of the Vietnamese court. In fact, up until the Tran Dynasty (1225-1400AD), most Vietnamese people went barefoot.
Even in those early times, however, clogs were not unknown. Ancient Chinese books like Nam Viet Chi and Giao Chau Ky record that in the third century, the leader of a Vietnamese resistance movement, Ba Trieu, wore a pair of ivory clogs. "Lady Trieu Au with breasts three meters long never married," reports a surprising passage in Giao Chau
Formerly, on cold days, men and women from rural areas would don clogs made from bamboo roots when attending festivals or visiting friends. At home they wrote wooden clogs with vertical straps to protect the toes.
In Phu Yen in south-central
The soles of women's clogs were shaped like hour-glasses, while men's clogs -known as "sampan clogs"- had straight soles. Made of white wood, Phu Yen clogs were left unpainted, while those from the central city of
Up until the 1940s, young pupils at public schools in the southern
"Like finding a needle at the bottom of the sea, now, Flying Horse clogs have been discovered!"
In the 1950s and 1960s, wooden clogs produced in Dong Do village in the Thanh Tri district of Hanoi and Ke Giay in Ha Tay province were taken to 12 Hang Ga street or Bach Mai street in Hanoi to be painted and sold. As the following poem reveals,clogs were considered extremely romantic by young girls of the time:
Clogs long unheard
On the tree-lined streets
And spring comes, apples fall,
I remember your zither sounds.
To Huu
By the 1970s, plastic clogs rivaled wooden clogs in popularity. Considered stylish and comfortable, clogs could offer other, more unusual, benefits. Travelers would sometimes bore holes in the wooden soles to hide gold or jewels.
While countless Vietnamese poets have waxed lyrical about the conical hat and traditional ao dai tunic, clogs have been all but ignored by the nation's bards. One exception is the following Ca Dao poem:
"A walk in clogs round the garden in the morning,
Herons are singing and crying
Half for fate, half for their destiny.
Ca dao poem from south-central
On the other hand, clogs are often the subject of riddles:
Two females in colored dresses Each carrying five males on their backs On the way, talk and chat, And left alone at home: fed up! What is this?
From Ba Trieu's ivory clogs to clogs made of bamboo, wood and plastic, this humble footwear has covered a lot of ground on Vietnam.
Source: Vietnamculture
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