Hoa Lư District

The Hoa people ( Vietnamese: ''Người Hoa'', or ) are citizens of Vietnam of full or partial Chinese origin. Chinese migration into Vietnam dates back millennia but most Hoa today derive their recent ancestral Chinese heritage from the 18th century, especially from southern Chinese provinces. They are an ethnic minority group in Vietnam and a part of the overseas Chinese community and can be found in the Americas. They may also be called "Chinese-Vietnamese" or "Chinese people living in/from Vietnam" by the Vietnamese, Chinese diaspora and Overseas Vietnamese.

Historically, ancient Chinese brought cultural, religious and philosophical thought to Vietnam, where the Vietnamese gradually developed and adapted on its own. Beginning as early as the 19th century, the Hoa people were known during the French colonial rule for collaborating with the French in heavily exploiting and taking Vietnamese resources. Despite this, the Hoa community still exists in contemporary Vietnamese society today, either as descendants of Han Chinese who have immigrated to Vietnam over the nation's history or as more recent immigrants. During the time that Vietnam was under Chinese rule, there were many attempts to civilize the Vietnamese.

During prehistoric times in the Red River Delta basin, there were two language main language families present. One being the Austroasiatic family from which the native modern Vietnamese language is descended and the other being influenced by the Sino-Tibetan culture and language brought by very few immigrants speaking Chinese to Vietnam.

Hoa, those of more recent Chinese extraction from around the 18th century, played a leading role in Vietnam's private business sector before the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 and the reunification of Vietnam. However, many Hoa people from South Vietnam had their businesses and property confiscated by the North Vietnamese Communist Party after 1975 and fled the country, as well as the South Vietnamese who faced persecution by the Communist Government. This was then intensified during the Sino-Vietnamese War. From the Vietnamese Communist government point of view, the Chinese unloyal to Vietnam were regarded with deep suspicion, and had potentially teamed up with the French occupiers in seizing control of Vietnam's resources and labour, an almost repeat of the forces of Japanese imperialism leading to the Vietnamese famine of 1945, resulting in 2 million deaths of the Vietnamese populace.

From the late 19th century, the Hoa played a leading role in Vietnam's private business sector before the Fall of Saigon in 1975. They were a well-established middle class ethnic group and made up a high percentage of Vietnam's upper class. Despite their small numbers, the Hoa were disproportionately dominant in the Vietnamese economy having started an estimated 70 to 80 per cent of pre-fall of Saigon's privately owned and operated businesses.
Communist intervention was then deemed necessary by wide swathes of the Vietnamese population and the Soviet Union and is considered to be an ingrained symbol of the Vietnamese identity by some. Many Hoa had their businesses and property confiscated by the Communists after 1975, and many fled the country as boat people due to persecution by the newly established Communist government. Hoa persecution intensified in the late 1970s, which was one of the underlying reasons for the Sino-Vietnamese War. The Vietnamese government's post-1988 shift to economic liberalization has revived the entrepreneurial presence of the predominantly urban Chinese minority allowing them reassert some of their previous economic clout in the Vietnamese economy, despite fierce competition with the Kinh Vietnamese. Contemporary Hoa economic clout however pales in comparison to the old days, where Vietnam has mostly diversified its economy, allowing global corporations to operate within Vietnam.

Migration history

Early history

According to folklore, prior to Chinese domination of northern and north-central Vietnam, the region was ruled by a series of kingdoms called Văn Lang with a hierarchical government, headed by Lạc Kings ( Hùng Kings), who were served by Lạc hầu and Lạc tướng. In approximately 257 BCE, Văn Lang was purportedly annexed by the Âu Việt state of Nam Cương. These Âu Việt people inhabited the southern part of the Zuo River, the drainage basin of You River and the upstream areas of the Lô, Gâm, and Cầu Rivers, according to Đào Duy Anh. The leader of the Âu Việt, Thục Phán, overthrew the last Hùng kings, and unified the two kingdoms, establishing the Âu Lạc polity and proclaiming himself King An Dương (An Dương Vương).

In 179 BC, the Âu Lạc Kingdom was annexed by Nanyue, which ushered in more than a millennium of Chinese domination. Zhao Tuo incorporated the regions into Nanyue but left the indigenous chiefs in control of the population. This was the first time the region formed part of a polity headed by a Chinese ruler, Zhao Tuo posted two legates to supervise the Âu Lạc lords, one in the Red River Delta, named Giao Chỉ, and one in the Mã and Cả River, named Cửu Chân. although we do not know if the locals agreed with this nomenclature or if they were even aware of it. It appears that these legates are mainly interested in trade; and their influence was limited outside outposts.

In 111 BC, the Han dynasty conquered Nanyue and ruled it for the next several hundred years. Han dynasty organized Nanyue into seven commanderies of the south (Lingnan) and now included three in Vietnam alone: Giao Chỉ and Cửu Chân, and a newly established Nhật Nam. Local Lạc lords, just as under Nanyue, acknowledged Han dominion to be granted authority. "Seals and ribbons" were bestowed upon the local leaders as their status symbol, in return, they paid "tribute to a suzerain" but the Han officials considered this as "taxes". During the first century of Chinese rule, Vietnam was governed leniently and indirectly with no immediate change in indigenous policies. Initially, indigenous Lac Viet people were governed at the local level but with indigenous Vietnamese local officials being replaced with newly settled Han Chinese officials. In fact, indigenous ways of life and ruling class did not experience major Sinitic impact, into the first century CE. Han imperial bureaucrats generally pursued a policy of peaceful relations with the indigenous population, focusing their administrative roles in the prefectural headquarters and garrisons, and maintaining secure river routes for trade. By the first century AD, however, the Han dynasty intensified its efforts to gain money from its new Vietnamese territories by raising taxes and instituting marriage and land inheritance reforms aimed at turning Vietnam into a patriarchal society more amenable to political authority. The native chief paid heavy tributes and imperial taxes to the Han mandarins to maintain the local administration and the military. The ancient Chinese vigorously tried to civilize the Vietnamese either through forced sinification or through brute Chinese political domination. The Han dynasty sought to assimilate the Vietnamese as the Chinese wanted to maintain a unified cohesive empire through a " civilizing mission" as the ancient Chinese regarded the Vietnamese as uncultured and backward barbarians with the Chinese regarding their " Celestial Empire" as the supreme center of the universe with a large amount of success. However, implementation of a foreign administrative system and sinicization was not easy as frequent uprisings and rebellions were indicative of Vietnamese resistance to these changes. Han immigration into Northern Vietnam was also not overwhelming during this time, and population levels were not affected until after the middle of the second century. While enough immigrants existed to form a coherent Han-Viet ruling-class, not enough existed to administratively or culturally dominate the indigenous society. In fact, it appears that "imperial law was never successfully imposed over the Vietnamese, and that during the post-Han era of the Six Dynasties, enfeebled imperial courts were repeatedly forced to compromise their authority and recognize the local power system in Vietnam". Meanwhile, Han colonial officials and settlers found themselves adopting local customs.

A Giao Chỉ prefect, Shi Xie, who was in the sixth generation from his ancestors who migrated to Northern Vietnam during the Wang Mang era, ruled Vietnam as an autonomous warlord for forty years and was posthumously deified by later Vietnamese monarchs. In the words of Stephen O'Harrow, Shi Xie was essentially "the first Vietnamese." His rule gave "formal legitimacy" to those identifying with interests of the local society than with the Chinese empire. And while the Chinese saw Shi Xie as "frontier guardian", the Vietnamese considered him the head of regional ruling-class society. According to Taylor (1983):
A revolt against China was mounted by Ly Bon, whose ancestors were also among the Chinese who fled south to escape the disorders of Wang Mang's usurpation, in the fifth century.

Attempts to civilize the Vietnamese were failed and there was more 'Vietnamization' of Chinese of Vietnamese ancestry than assimilation of the Vietnamese in the first six centuries of Chinese rule. The Chinese of Vietnamese ancestry became assimilated while still maintaining their Chinese identity with the native people and absorbed into the "social, economic and political environment" in Northern Vietnam. The insight, skills, customs, and ideas brought in by the Chinese allowed the native to develop an identity, making the probability of their being assimilated to Chinese and Chinese intrusion lower. The strength of localization in ancient Vietnam has thus been widely noted. The policy of assimilation was continually enforced over the 1,000 years of Chinese rule of Vietnam until the Ngô Dynasty when the Vietnamese regained their independence from China. The Vietnamese rulers deported some 87,000 Chinese nationals, although a smaller minority applied for permanent residency in Vietnam. Chinese who chose to remain in Vietnam chose to assimilate. The Vietnamese were wedded with Chinese peasantry that later became gentry of Vietnam.

After independence

Sporadic Chinese migration into Vietnam continued between the 9th and 15th centuries AD. The Vietnamese court during the Lý dynasty and the Trần dynasty welcomed ethnic Chinese scholars and officials to fill into its administrative and bureaucratic ranks, but these migrants had to renounce their Chinese identity and assimilate into Vietnamese society. The Vietnamese court also allowed Chinese refugees, which consisted of civilian and military officials with their family members to seek asylum in Vietnam. However, these Chinese settlers were not allowed to change their place of residence without the Court's permission and were also required to adopt Vietnamese dress and culture. During the Early Lê dynasty some Chinese were captured in 995 after the Vietnamese raided the border. During the Lý Dynasty Vietnam raided Song Dynasty China to enslave Chinese, who were forced to serve in the Vietnamese army as soldiers. In 1050, the Cham dedicated some Chinese slaves to their goddess Lady Po Nagar at the Po Nagar temple complex, along with Thai, Khmer and Burmese slaves. It has been speculated by Professor Kenneth Hall that these slaves were war captives taken by the Cham from the port of Panduranga after the Cham conquered the port and enslaved all of its inhabitants, including foreigners living there. In the South, the Daoyi Zhilue also mentioned Chinese merchants who went to Cham ports in Champa, married Cham women, to whom they regularly returned to after trading voyages. One notable example of such intermarriages was Chinese merchant from Quanzhou, Wang Yuanmao, who in the 12th century traded extensively with Champa and married a Cham princess. Chinese prisoners were returned to China for captured districts in 1078 after China defeated Đại Việt and overran several of Cao Bằng Province's districts.

The founder of the Lý Dynasty, Lý Thái Tổ (Lý Công Uẩn) 李公蘊 has been ascribed of having origins from Fujian Province somewhere in his paternal bloodline while little is known about his maternal side except for the fact that his mother was a woman named Phạm Thị. Very few direct details about his parents are known, however, the ethnic Chinese background of Lý Công Uẩn (李公蘊 Hokkien POJ: wiktionary:李">Lí kong wiktionary:蘊">ùn">wiktionary:�.html" ;"title="Pe̍h-ōe-jī">Hokkien POJ: wiktionary:李">Lí wiktionary:公">kong wiktionary:蘊">ùn, at least on his paternal side has been accepted by Vietnamese historian Trần Quốc Vượng (historian)">Trần Quốc Vượng.

The ancestors of the Trần clan originated from the province of Fujian before they migrated under Trần Kinh (陳京, Hokkien POJ: wiktionary:陳">Tân