Chinese culture has a long history, and the reason why it has been passed down to this day has never been interrupted is that ancient Chinese characters have served as the carrier of Chinese culture. It is worth mentioning that China's neighboring countries have been influenced by Chinese culture and have also used Chinese characters, and Vietnam is one of them.
But over time, Chinese characters gradually died out in Vietnam due to various reasons. Today, although it has been 76 years since the abolition of Chinese characters in Vietnam, there are three Chinese characters that are still in use today.
Chinese characters have a long history, as early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties in China, there were already formed characters, but in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there were many different versions of the characters. After Qin Shi Huang Yingzheng unified the six kingdoms, in order to facilitate his rule, he began to unify the work of writing, and finally formed a script called "Xiao Seal", which has evolved to form the Chinese characters we use today.
Although the Six Kingdoms had been pacified, Ying Zheng did not give up his ambitions for expansion, and he began to turn his attention to the Vietnamese region, and immediately launched a conquest of this region, and soon Vietnam was included in the territory of the Qin state.
After the conquest of Vietnam, the Qin State soon established the county system and began to vigorously promote the small seal, in addition to relocating a large number of people from the interior to settle in Vietnam. These measures not only strengthened Qin's rule over Vietnam, but also made Vietnam deeply influenced by the culture of the Central Plains.
After the fall of the Qin Dynasty, the Qin general Zhao Tuo, who was stationed in Vietnam, took the opportunity to establish himself as king and established the state of Nanyue. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Kingdom of Nanyue was conquered by the Western Han Dynasty, and this land was once again included in the territory of China.
During this period, the influence of Chinese culture on Vietnam became more and more far-reaching, and Chinese characters became more and more widely used in Vietnam, gradually becoming the official language of Vietnam. It should be noted that many of the precious classics that have been handed down in Vietnam to this day are written in Chinese characters, and there were even imperial examinations in ancient Vietnam, and the content of the examinations was completely in Chinese characters, which shows that Chinese characters were widely used in Vietnam at that time.
At that time, in addition to using Chinese characters, Vietnamese people gradually imitated Chinese customs such as celebrating the Spring Festival, and these customs have been passed down to this day. In addition, the Vietnamese rulers of the time embraced Confucianism as the foundation of their governance, which lasted for thousands of years until the nineteenth century.
However, for the Vietnamese people at that time, Chinese characters were too complicated, so the Vietnamese imitated Chinese characters, with the help of some Chinese characters and radicals of Chinese characters, and at the same time according to the pronunciation of the Jing language, to create "mum". Although the word "喃 character" was relatively easy to write for the Vietnamese and was once the official language of Vietnam, it has never surpassed Chinese characters in terms of influence.
In the middle of the XIX century, Vietnam became a French colony. In order to eliminate Chinese influence on Vietnam and to educate the Vietnamese people in slavery, the French colonizers combined the Western Latin alphabet with Vietnamese pinyin to create a script called "Chinese characters". In 1919, the Vietnamese puppet** officially issued a decree announcing the abolition of Chinese characters and mlang characters and the promotion of this so-called Chinese character, which led to the gradual marginalization of Chinese characters and munji.
When Vietnam declared independence in 1945, Vietnam's supreme leader Ho Chi Minh did not abolish the Chinese language, but further promoted it as an official language. It was from this time that Chinese characters gradually withdrew from the stage of Vietnam's history. The reason why Ho Chi Minh wants to continue to promote the Chinese character is also to eliminate the influence of Chinese culture on Vietnam.
In addition, the Chinese character is relatively simple, probably similar to the pinyin learned in China's primary education, as long as you learn the pronunciation and spelling rules, it only takes a few months to fully master the language.
Although the Vietnamese people want to eliminate Chinese characters, the development of events is not transferred by the subjective thoughts of the Vietnamese people, and the influence of Chinese characters on Vietnam is still there, and Chinese characters have been fully integrated into Vietnamese culture.
Chinese characters can still be found everywhere in some places of interest in Vietnam, and the Vietnamese still retain the custom of sticking the character "Fu" during the Spring Festival, in addition, because "Shou" and "Lu" mean auspiciousness and longevity, the Vietnamese naturally do not abandon such Chinese characters, so they have been preserved to this day. It should be noted that there are still calligraphers in Vietnam who specialize in writing "Fu, Longevity, and Lu", which shows that the influence of Chinese characters on Vietnamese culture is indelible.
It is worth mentioning that the abolition of Chinese characters has made many historical documents written in Chinese characters in Vietnam obscure, thus leading to a disconnect in Vietnam's cultural heritage, which is undoubtedly sad for a nation.
Chinese language and Chinese characters can be said to be the greatest language and script in the world, it has a strong vitality, has been passed down to the present, has experienced thousands of years of wind and rain, but is still endless, as the descendants of Yan and Huang, we have the obligation to pass on Chinese characters, carry forward.