Historically speaking, the Annamite (also known as ‘Vietnamese‘ in modern literature, this article uses the term ‘Annamite‘ instead of ‘Vietnamese‘) are a combination between Chinese prisoners, criminals, deportees and Austro-Asiatic speakers resided around the periphery of the deltas of the Ca and Ma rivers during the 1st millennium AD. The Chinese prisoners, criminals and deportees were forced to settle in the deltas of the Ca and Ma rivers under the policy of getting rid of the undesirables from the Central Kingdom. Living around the edge of the deltas of the Ca and the Ma rivers, there were the Austro-Asiatic speakers whose languages were the predecessors of modern Cuoi, Tho, Muong in Vietic branch.

As almost all of the Chinese settlers were males, there wasn’t other choice but to mate with females of the Austro-Asiatic speakers. As a result, those Austro-Asiatics living in the periphery of the deltas of the Ca and Ma rivers were captured as slaves by Chinese prisoners, criminals and deportees. It’s most likely that Austro-Asiatic male slaves were forced to work as agricultural labors, construction workers and recruited into the army of the stationing Chinese force, whereas Austro-Asiatic females became sex slaves for those Chinese settlers.

Culturally speaking, as most of the settlers were Chinese prisoners, criminals and deportees, they gradually formed a thieving, scamming, cunning, greedy, selfish, deceitful, dishonest, violent, opportunistic culture. It is not surprising that the modern Annamite living in north Vietnam are well-known for these evil traits. It is even more striking that the Annamite living in modern Thanh Hoa and Nghe An provinces are notorious for these traits, surpassing all northern inhabitants of the country.

During the colonial era, the French colonists were impressed by these traits of the Annamite that one of them, Paul Raffarel, stated:

“The Annamite are dirty, greedy, argumentative, fickle, ungrateful, cruel, thieves, liars and debauched.”

At the end of the 1st millennium AD, the Tang dynasty got weakened and broken into smaller states, fighting against each other in their attempts to re-unify China. Among them, Southern Han was the southernmost state that covered modern Guangdong, Guangxi and north Vietnam.

Taking advantage of the weakened, divided, chaotic political situation in the ‘Central Kingdom’, the descendants of those Chinese prisoners and criminals in the deltas of the Ca and Ma rivers decided to move northwards and eventually succeeded in taking over the control of the Red river delta. In their process of moving northwards, they brought together the Austro-Asiatic speakers whose languages later developed into Muong language. It’s worth noting that the ethnonym ‘Muong’ is a Tai word, indicating that upon reaching the delta of Red river those Austro-Asiatic speakers underwent linguistic contact with the Tai-Kadai.

The descendants of Chinese prisoners, criminals, deportees managed to overthrow the Southern Han control over the Red river delta, separating from this state as an independent entity which later developed into various Annamite dynasties. As these people descended from Chinese prisoners, criminals and deportees, they had no identity of themselves without referencing the Chinese historical texts. As Michael Churchman pointed out:

”The ancestors of the people now commonly referred to as Việt (or Annamite) were rather late in picking up the term Việt as a group designation for themselves, and they do not appear to have had any name for themselves that was not gleaned from a Chinese literary model.”

In seeking for a distinct and independent identity to set themselves off from their past as descendants of Chinese prisoners and criminals, these people started to compose their own history and origin based on what had been written down about the Red river delta in Chinese literature. Liam C. Kelley (2012) points out:

”…This is not to say that there were no polities in the Red River Delta in the first millennium BCE. The bronze drums and other artifacts that twentieth-century archaeologists have unearthed demonstrate that there likely were. However,there is no evidence to suggest that medieval Annamite scholars knew of the bronze drums or the people who had used them. That is a twentieth-century invented tradition. What the medieval Annamite did know about, however, was ancient texts, and they relied on old texts for material and inspiration to create a history as well as a local identity for themselves.”

Then whose history and origin did those Chinese prisoners, criminals’ descendants base on ? that’s clear that they based their writings on the history and origin of Tai-Kadai speaking people who inhabited the region scattering from East Coast of China to Guangxi and north Vietnam long before the arrival of the Chinese expansionists in the region as James R. Chamberlain, Michael Churchman, and other scholars have convincingly written about.

In the first half of the 11th century, Tai-speaking community living in what are now Cao Bang, Bac Kan, Guangxi were unified under general Nohng Chih Kao and continuously attacked Annamite-controlled areas which nearly pushed Annamite to the end of existence. They later marched to Guangdong and sieged Guangzhou for three months. After the Chinese reenforcement army arrived in Guangzhou, they marched to Yunnan and finally dispersed to northern Thailand.

In conclusion, the culture of the present-day Annamite has its root from Chinese prisoners, criminals, deportees who were forced to settle in the deltas of the Ca and the Ma rivers starting about 2,000 years ago. This culture is extremely dirty and sickening. That explains why the Annamite, in general, and the Annamite living in the deltas of the Ca and Ma rivers in particular, i.e. Thanh Hoa, Nghe An provinces, are cunning, greedy, selfish, thief-minded, scammer-minded, dishonest, deceitful, disrespectful, ungrateful, opportunistic.

That is a real unhappiness for Tai speaking peoples who have to live adjacent to these sub-human Annamite (a.k.a Vietnamese). The existence of these sub-human creatures poses a serious threat to all Kra-Tai speaking peoples.

Two of the Kra-Tai speaking peoples, the Lao and the Thai who establish and maintain their independent states, are threatened by these sub-human Annamites. Laos has fallen into the hands of communism which was brought to Laos by an Annamite by the name of Kaysone Phomvihane. Additionally, since the day Laos fell in the hands of communism in 1975, there have been many massive fluxes of Annamite immigrants to Laos, intermarrying with the native Laotians. These mixed up people often play critical roles in socioeconomic system of Laos. It is clear that the purpose of these sub-human Annamite is assimilating the Laotian by genetics and identity.

On the other hand, in recent decades, there has been another influx of Chinese immigrants moving to Laos who have clearly followed the same approach like the sub-human Annamite have done. That is intermarrying the native Lao and producing mixed up people like what the dirty Chinese have done throughout thousands of years of invading and assimilating non-Sinitic peoples in Southern and Western China. Given the small population of Laos numbering only 7,000,000, of which roughly 4,500,000 people are ethnic Lao, this country has increasingly become vulnerable by identity, culture, economy, religion and language. Whereas, Thailand, an another Tai-speaking country, has its Chinese population constituted up to 40% of its total population, and its royal family can trace their origin back to Guangdong, China. However, this country is rather successful in assimilating Chinese immigrants by forcing all Chinese to give up their clan names in exchange for Thai citizenship. Thailand may do well on its own. But Laos and other Kra-Tai speaking peoples living inside Annamite territory have still been threatened by the existence of the sub-human, cunning, greedy, selfish, thief-minded, scammer-minded, dishonest, deceitful, disrespectful, ungrateful, violent, opportunistic Annamites.

References:

Tana Li (2016), A Historical Sketch of the Landscape of the Red River Delta.

Liam C. Kelley (2012), The Biography of the Hồng Bàng Clan as a Medieval Vietnamese Invented Tradition.

Michael Churchman (2010), Before Chinese and Vietnamese in the Red River Plain: The Han–Tang Period.

James R. Chamberlain (2016), Kra-Dai and the Proto-History of South China and Vietnam. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 104.