In the subconscious of Southeast Asian people, the dragon (龍) is a very sacred animal and often symbolizes water which is the main element of the agricultural civilization. Of course, dragons are only fiction, but it is often associated with the crocodiles. I have watched many Western films about Asian culture, then I must say, most of the interpretation of dragons was very clumsy and different from the local beliefs. The latest film - Raya and the Last Dragon, fortunately, is more positive, because the scriptor is a Vietnamese-American man. However, since he has lived in the US since his childhood and was also hardly familiar with traditional culture of East Asia, he basically followed the familiar formula of American cinematographers : East Asia, Southeast Asia or Asia in general means only bamboo trees, red furnitures, chopsticks, conical hats, or eyelids... In fact, East Asians rarely used red paint, because the sun was bright all year round ; we also used spoons, forks, knives when eating, even bare hands ; especially, we also have blue or brown eyes, even blond hair (like myself), and very large eyelids. Occasionally it also snows in this area, and of course we also have some similar trees in the polar climate as : Pine, cedrus, fir, strawberry, cauliflower... Our forest just can not grow birch, and streams can not feed crayfish, because these are creatures harmful to the native. There is a very special point, because the rugged terrain of Southeast Asia is quite similar to Greece and Italy, so this area does not have horses and foxes. Southeast Asian horses have existed in history, but only as small as mules ; in the past, kings who wanted to have horsemen had to buy horses in Yunnan or India where there were very big and strong horses. "Foxes" in Southeast Asia are really just jackals, but also very few. In return, Southeast Asian elephants and tigers are invincible in all animals ; the kings of India and Southeast Asia even built arenas for lions, tigers and elephants to fight. In addition, Southeast Asia also has almost no predatory birds as buzzard, eagle, hawk, kestrel... luckily only seagulls. The nature of ancient Southeast Asia was toxic because of its abundance of snakes, the abundance of crocodiles, and the proliferation of insects. Film "Dragon" also partly reflected this nature.
Talking about the Southeast Asian worldview, the dragon is considered a mascot (or even ancestor), and because it symbolizes water, the dragon's scales are usually blue or black, of course never green. In the legend of the founding from the Vietnamese folks, hero Lạc-Long-Quân ("dragon king") cut a very ferocious giant fish into three pieces to form three locations where the people would live. At the beginning of the 15th century, an official named Nguyễn Trãi was composing a book "Lam Sơn thực lục" (藍山實錄, "true records on K'lam mountain"), said that :
When Lê Lợi was not yet king, he picked up the hilt of a sword on a high branch (which represented the element "earth" | đất), at the same time, his general named Lê Thận while fishing, caught a blade with the inscription "Will of Heaven" (順天). Here, Lê Thận was originally a fisherman, so he picked up his sword in the river which were synonymous with "water" (nước). So in Vietnamese colloquial language, "đất nước" means "country". This mythical event was intended to strengthen the legitimacy of emperor Lê Thái Tổ whom was originally a mountain leader (similar to cases of Alaric, Charlemagne, Attila, Grimaldi or Napoleon). I also have to explain more that, the blade is "linga" and the hilt of sword means "yoni" - when they are combined, the meaning is "universe" or the world. According to the ancient concept, when you have the support of "heaven-earth-human", then you have the whole world, so you are the king.
And the story of the king returning the sword to Golden Shell to form "Lake of the Returned Sword" (hồ Hoàn Kiếm) of modern Hanoi, there are two versions : Around the 18th century, writers simply said that the king took his sword and threw into the water to scare one turtle away ; however, around the beginning of the twentieth century, when compiling "Manuels de lecture en quoc-van, ou Langue indigène", scholars have said otherwise that, the golden turtle surfaced to ask for the sword back, so the king put the sword in its mouth to return the aquarium. Because to this short essay, the legend really became famous, because it contained the meaning of educating Vietnamese children about citizenship who would grow up to be revolutionaries. As early as a few years ago, I thought that this new version was an imitation of the motif "Excalibur" from the chivalric romance.
In the end, the "dragon" image in this film probably reflected colonialism, the conservative monarchy and the capitalist-financier forces that dominated Southeast Asia, and Maung Tin the kid represented the youth. Also, please notice that the Vauban architectural style resembled stars or turtles. In East Asian philosophy, the star is always white and has a round shape, so quite similar to the sun (which is always red). However, the turtle represents the stronghold, or rather urban civilization. Here, the turtle also means the capital or the creation of a new government. Also note that, in the past, technology was still very poor, Asian people every time they build some citadels, they let turtles crawled around, animal instincts will help them locate a stable place to foundation, it was quite similar to the legend of King Vortigern. In Nguyễn Trãi's story, it is also said that, when Lê Lợi was chased by the Ming soldiers, the corpse of a village maiden suddenly turned into a fox which has distracted the enemy to save the king. After ascending the throne, Lê Lợi named this "fox" as The Lady, ie a demigod. This legend probably refered to the future capital of Lê Dynasty, ie modern Hanoi. Why so ? In the North of Hanoi city, there is a vast water with big waves what was named as West Lake (hồ Tây). It is also known as "Golden Buffalo Lake" (hồ Kim Ngưu) or "Fox Corpse Swamp" (đầm Xác Cáo), because indeed, its shape is easily reminiscent of a certain animal. Legend has it that Lạc Long Quân (ie "dragon king") defeated a nine-tailed fox, so it stayed there forever.
Dragon
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