The Rebel Den of Nung Trí Cao: Loyalty and Identity along the Sino-Vietnamese Frontier

7. Monumental Pride: Sino-Vietnamese Cross-Border Commemorations of Nung Tri Cao

Monumental Pride: Sino-Vietnamese Cross-Border Commemorations of NiIng Tri Cao Nowhere else is Nimg Tn Cao more revered than in his own home region within the Tai-speaking communities along the modem border between China's Guangxi Autonomous Region and Vietnam's Cao BfuIg province. Many families with the Nung surname still reside in the border region, and most consider themselves to be direct descendants of Nung Tri Cao, his father Nung T6n Phuc, and his mother A Nling. Moreover, there exist many public displays of regional pride in the Nling leaders' accomplishments in the form of temples and locally sponsored monuments. However, the tale of Tri Cao's public commemoration among Zhuang communities of southern Guangxi has differed dramatically from the history of such activities conducted across the border in northernmost Vietnam. Sites of veneration for Nung Tn Cao are not evenly distributed across the Sino-Vietnamese border region. Northern Vietnam, on the one hand, supports numerous sites that celebrate the deeds of Nling Tn Cao. In the province of Cao BAng, annual festivals have long been observed to honor Tn Cao and his parents. Moreover, at least three temples still exist in Vietnam for the specific worship of these figures. On the other hand, there is little physical evidence from any premodern period to mark the existence of temples sites dedicated to 152 Monumental Pride 153 Tri Cao in South China. In fact, most relevant Chinese sources describe only stelae and temples that honor the names of the Song generals who crushed Tri Cao's bid for independence.l So the question is, why does Vietnam have a number of temples devoted to Nung Tri Cao, in addition to an active worship community, while southern China has few such sites or communities? In this book, I explore the effect of Nilng Tri Cao's rebellion on Sino-Vietnamese relations in the mid-eleventh century. In the course of my study, I was prompted to give more thought to another question, namely, where does the figure of ancient "local hero turned local deity" fit in today's cross-border community affiliations in the Guangxi-Cao B~ng region? When this once remote and largely ignored region gained importance as a "local place" within the larger scheme of twentiethcentury nationalism (occurring earliest in China), Nilng Tri Cao, the historical personage, was inserted into two, often mutually exclusive narratives (Chinese and Vietnamese) of proto-nationalism and antiimperialism . As such, Tri Cao was grandfathered in by both sides with all the rights and obligations of a modem citizen of the two nationstates . Only recently have these nationalist narratives been challenged by renewed cross-border contact between professed descendants of Nung Tri Cao and groups wishing to revive pride in Tri Cao's local, not nationwide, achievements. This last chapter undertakes a brief exploration of the historical implications for this cross-border difference in public commemorations of Nung Tri Cao from the Imperial period through the modem age. These commemorations have been closely linked to differing Chinese and Vietnamese policies of frontier and, later, border management as well as differing local responses from communities living on the Vietnamese and Chinese sides of the border. Of course, the topic of this chapter extends well beyond the book's historical focus on the Nung Tri Cao Rebellion and its effects felt in the 1075-77 Song-Dl;li Vi~t border conflict, and so I do not draw a direct correlation between Nilng Tri Cao's act of rebellion and the political attitudes of his modem descendants. Instead, I examine how an event such as the deification and worship of a regionally revered ancestral hero has shaped local identity among communities 154 Monumental Pride that reach across a modern political divide. The modern cult of Nung Tri Cao appears to be a particularly apt focus for such an examination. One factor that has played an important role in shaping local identity in the Sino-Vietnamese border region is regionalism, in the sense that Diana Lary uses "political regionalism" in her study of Guangxi local politics in the early twentieth century. A precarious balance of local loyalties and loyalties professed to distant central authorities certainly existed the closer one traveled to the heart of the Sino-Vietnamese frontier region. Moreover, as Lary notes, "Regionalism responds to situations; the external situation decides which form is called for, not the regionalism itself. From a system...