Two intellectual paths that cross the borders: Nguyen Huy Quy, Phan van Coc, and humanities in Vietnam’s chinese studies

Abstract

The drive to enhance knowledge and the determination to carry out a humanistic tradition made self-silencing a fruitful mechanism for knowledge acquisition. A tradition greater and longer than individuals’ existence buttressed their determination. Indeed, the family tradition inherited from familial teaching remains fresh in both Phan and Nguyen’s recollections. Self-study proved to be critical in reclaiming the humanities lost in the crucial 15 years of censorship. Without the drive for self-study, self-silencing would have amounted to an unalterable and irreconcilable epistemic schism. Therefore, national confrontation is not the same as complete confrontation because individual paths are capable of preserving alternative, if not oppositional, paths. Such individual intellectual paths are not predetermined because human judgment and determination are varied by time and location. Spatial and temporal constraints are not completely binding. Moreover, such constraints are fallible, making borderless history and bordered territories clash, and creating a wider range of options for younger generations. Therefore, the lessons provided by Nguyen and Phan exceed the tangible manifestations of their scholarship.