Dao cultural identity in Ban Tai Doan's poetry

When he was born and was exposed to that worshiping custom, he saw the positive and negative sides of the worshiping custom. When there were bad people who incited his people to destroy the ancestral altar, only worship the "heavenly king" and if the people worshiped the heavenly king, they would not need to work to have food. In the poem Don't listen to the wild wind, the poet pointed out to everyone that those were nonsense words, we should not listen to them.

From ancient times until now, generations have followed their ancestors and no one has abandoned them.

Nowadays, some people hear nonsense about worshiping the heavenly king and abandoning their parents.

(Don't listen to the wild wind) [11, pp.555-556]

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He also pointed out to everyone that ancestor worship is a beautiful tradition of Vietnamese people. We must know how to preserve and promote that beauty. He advised everyone:

Those who can abandon their parents' efforts are not Dao people of our race. Not Dao people, children of the New are those who can abandon their parents.

(…) Today there is the Party and the government. There is the Party that takes care of us every day.

Follow what the Party says and do it. Only then can we change our lives.

(Don't listen to the wild wind) [11, p.556-557] Ban Tai Doan lived the life of the Dao people, immersing himself in the customs and practices of the Dao people, so he understood that it was a deception. He had

affirm to my fellow countrymen that there are no ghosts or demons in this world, so everyone should not believe in the words of fortune tellers and sorcerers:

Today the Party tells us that we should not believe in ghosts. Gods and demons are not real because no one has seen ghosts.

(Chatting with friends) [15, p.28]

The poet has exposed the portrait of fortune tellers and sorcerers who have taken advantage of people's ignorance to spread rumors about ghosts and demons to worship and make profit.

Just listen to the fortune teller

The fortune teller also can't see ghosts. He told lies to scare us.

If you do not worship, you will be afraid that the ghosts will not forgive you.

(Chatting with friends) [15, p.28]

The true nature of fortune tellers is "random fortune telling, lying" causing many people to fall into misery, waste money, waste property and even many people lose their lives because of believing in their fortune telling.

There are sick people who have not found medicine yet, so they kill pigs and chickens to worship the ghosts. They worship all the ghosts of heaven and earth.

Illness cannot be cured from old age (!)

(Sleepless Night) [15, p.126]

As a Dao with progressive thinking, he clearly realized that. He wrote propaganda poems, explaining to his fellow countrymen that.

These are backward customs with strong superstitious colors. Everyone should stay away from and eliminate them from life to have a truly happy and prosperous life.

In the past, besides the backward and conservative customs that weighed heavily on their lives, the Dao people had another reason that caused them to fall into a state of broken homes and a life immersed in extreme addiction, which was the evil of opium smoking . The poet pointed out to everyone the harmful effects of opium on life and human health, so right from the opening verse, the author called on everyone to stay away from opium:

Please don't touch! Please don't touch!

It sticks to the body and is difficult to take off, causing suffering to the children and good wife. Opium has always been a smoke enemy.

(The lamp burned down the whole business) [11, p.145]

When addicted to opium, people lose all their health and personality, causing their families to fall apart.

Now the buffalo crawls into the bamboo tube to sleep, The lamp burns all the buffalo heads.

A laying hen for breeding

But at night he had a stomachache and could not sleep. In the morning he waited for his wife to go to the fields.

Catch the chicken and put it in the bag to change the medicine immediately. When I come home tonight, my wife can't find the chicken.

Asked husband said: "The hawk took it"...

(The lamp burned down the whole business) [11, p.146]

With a Dao heart, a true Dao soul, the poet always wants his people to escape from backward and old customs, evils, and bad habits so that the Dao people can keep up with other ethnic groups.

Therefore, besides the pride in the beauty of tradition, there is also the pain of poet Ban Tai Doan because the Dao people still have many old customs, superstitions, bad habits that need to be fought to eliminate from life.

Realizing that, poet Ban Tai Doan wrote poems to point out the good, the beautiful, the backwardness of the customs and practices of his homeland to widely propagate to his compatriots so that everyone would follow the path outlined by the Party and the State. That is why Dao poet Ban Tai Doan has a very special position in the cultural and social life of the Dao people. The Dao people have a famous poet thanks to the name of Ban Tai Doan. Reading his poems, readers can clearly see the Dao people's affection for Uncle Ho and the Revolution. The national cultural identity is imbued in each artistic creation of the poet, this is a typical national poet during the period of resistance against foreign invaders of our nation.

According to the rule of "old bamboo shoots grow", forty years after the poet Ban Tai Doan, the Dao people welcomed a new name that contributed to enriching and brightening the poetic life of the Dao people, that is the Dao poet Trieu Kim Van. He was born and raised in the mountains of Bac Kan, this Dao poet inherited the extremely rich and diverse cultural traditions of the Dao people, at the same time he also knew how to inherit and promote the good and beautiful things from the previous generation. Trieu Kim Van raised a poetic voice, a youthful, vibrant Pao Dung singing voice, full of the vitality of the people of the mountains. With 5 separate poetry collections, and many individual poems

Published in poetry collections, Trieu Kim Van is a worthy successor to his nation's "Uncle Ho's Salt", the poet Ban Tai Doan.

Trieu Kim Van has inherited the good and beautiful things in traditional poetry, Ban Tai Doan's poetry, but he also has his own creations in terms of genre, creativity in feeling, thinking, and expression. Therefore, poet Trieu Kim Van has somewhat integrated himself into contemporary poetry in general and poetry of ethnic minorities, which is rich in identity in particular. Behind Trieu Kim Van's thoughtful and quiet appearance is a passionate poetic soul, a burning love for life, for the ethnic minorities in the Northern mountainous region. He always wishes to revive the Dao culture, and return to his ethnic roots:

If I die take me to the mountain

Let my soul find its placenta again In the wilderness, drink water from the belly of a rock

(If I die, take me back to the mountain)

Besides the two famous Dao poets, we can also mention some names of other Dao poets such as Dang Phuc Luong, Ban Thi Cuc, Phung Trang Hong... but it can be affirmed with certainty that Ban Tai Doan and Trieu Kim Van are the two most prominent faces of Dao ethnic poetry. The two poets have breathed into their poems the soul of the nation and are the embodiment of the thoughts and concerns of the Dao people from the August Revolution until now.

A lifetime following the Party, writing poetry to serve the Revolution, poet Ban Tai Doan has made great contributions to Dao ethnic poetry in particular and ethnic minority poetry in general. It is Dao culture that has created the soul of Ban Tai Doan's poetry and it is also Ban Tai Doan's poetry that has made it shine.

added to the Dao cultural identity, at the same time his poetry also paved the way for Dao ethnic poetry, which later had other typical Dao poets such as Trieu Kim Van.

Reading Ban Tai Doan's poems, readers seem to see the majestic nature of the Viet Bac mountains and forests, imbued with humanity, faithfully attached to people and the Dao ethnic group. Not only that, we also encounter the simple, sincere, straightforward, brave, and proud mountain people, but also extremely loyal and affectionate. Readers are also immersed in the atmosphere of holidays, with the unique customs and traditions of the Dao ethnic group, imbued with national identity. It can be affirmed that: Ban Tai Doan is a great poet of modern Vietnamese literature in general and of the Dao ethnic group in particular. He is the great pride of the people of Cao Bang province.

CHAPTER 3

A POETIC ART WITH DAO IDENTITY

In the book Ban Tai Doan's Collection, poet Nong Quoc Chan (a great friend of poet Ban Tai Doan) commented: "Reading Ban Tai Doan's poetry, we do not see the sophisticated sharpness, the splendid images, the poetic sentences, the high philosophical passages... but on the contrary, the simple voice, the folk words comparing, describing with familiar images of the mountains and forests. He thinks, he writes from his sincere heart. It can be said that there is no trace of other people's poetry in his poetry, only the traditional poetry of his people" [11, p.17]. As poet Nong Quoc Chan commented, the strength in the poetic art of poet Ban Tai Doan is the national identity. That identity in his poetry is expressed in all elements, in specific artistic means such as: poetic language, poetic genre and poetic image.

3.1. A poetic language imbued with Dao culture

As we know, language is “the sum of all units, means, and combinations that speech uses (phonetics, grammar, vocabulary, rhetorical devices)” [26, p.183]. Language is the first and indispensable material for the subject to create his literary work. The most basic characteristic of poetic language is conciseness, musicality, and a language rich in associations – but also very simple and easy to understand. Poetic language is also considered a language of life that is tightly organized and full of images for the poet to express his emotions and the ability to reflect human life. Poetic language must be highly expressive, so that readers can see the poet's thoughts and moods.

Poet Ban Tai Doan has skillfully used social language to create his works of art. What makes his poetry unique and different is the simple, rustic way of speaking that only exists in the way of speaking of ethnic minorities in the mountains in general, and of the Dao people in particular, and of himself.

Ban Tai Doan composed poems first of all to express his soul, express his own feelings and for the purpose of propagating and praising the Party, Uncle Ho; praising the beauty in the cultural traditions of his people. His poems are often used by the Dao ethnic group as lyrics to sing Pao Dung . Is that why Ban Tai Doan's poems are mainly written in Dao (later translated into Quoc Ngu)? We conducted a survey of his 13 poetry collections and found that 4 poetry collections were written entirely in Nom Dao, 9 poetry collections were written in both Nom Dao and Quoc Ngu, only a few poems were written entirely in Quoc Ngu. The main use of the mother tongue in the process of composing his poems is the clearest and most convincing evidence of the national character and national identity in Ban Tai Doan's poetry.

He is a son of the Dao ethnic group, living in harmony with nature, the community with the customs and practices of the Dao ethnic group, speaking the Dao language - so he used a very rustic, simple language, like the daily speech of the Dao people in his poetic compositions. We encounter in his poems many expressions, comparisons, associations, narrations, and descriptions that are very natural, rustic, and simple, like the speech and expression of the Dao people in his homeland of the highlands of Nguyen Binh.

For example: When he wrote about his mountainous homeland Nguyen Binh (Cao Bang) with Khuoi Sao streams, Thin Toc mine... or

Dao cultural identity in Ban Tai Doan's poetry - 9

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