Ca Dao: Vietnamese Folk Poems

Finally I have a chance to write about Vietnamese folk poems, or ca dao. These are poems straight from the oral tradition: we don’t know their authors (if they have authors), and we don’t know their history.

Cao Dao: A Gorgeous Book Which I Do Not Own

Interestingly, the folk poems I’ve come across are very different from Vietnamese folktales. Vietnamese folklore – as well as much Asian folklore in general – has always impressed me with its strong female protagonists. Yet the ca dao has a different view of women, one more simplified and directly tied to romantic love. Take this poem, for example, which first appeared in English in 1995 and was translated by Linda Dinh:

Wobbly, like a hat without a strap,
Like a boat without a rudder
Like a woman without a husband.
A married woman, like a shackle around the neck.
An unmarried woman, like a board with a loose nail.
A board with a loose nail a man can fix.
The unmarried woman runs this way, runs that way.
It is miserable to be without a husband, Sisters!

Now what are we to make of this?