ABSTRACT
Nations are nurtured by legends and myths and Vietnam is no exception. Looking at Vietnamese myths it does not surprise that national survival is the dominant feature. Although Vietnamese origins remain obscure, the first signs can be traced back to the first millennium BC. During that time the Vietnamese lived as agricultural people in the region of the Red River delta, a northeastern part of Southeast Asia. Although the Vietnamese absorbed traits of Chinese culture as, for example, the civil and moral law, the Confucian glorification of bureaucracy, the civil service examination system, and the institution of the emperor as ‘mandate of heaven’, mainly the upper classes of society were affected. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, trade with Vietnam continued to expand. Japanese sailors and merchants regularly visited Vietnam and some Japanese even settled in Tourane.
