inspirations, the popular sayings, limericks which have been "coded" as the
soul of the story. And it turns, folk stories bring back to life its legendary
places and people: Vong phu (a waiting - husband) peak, Kim nguu
(Golden Buffalo) River, witty and expressive sayings and proverbs which
are "decoded"... Nguyen Dong Chi said "Life, in turn, imitates folk stories,
in other words, folk arts again become a source of inspiration for people’s
artistic recreation to further refine the art of folk stories and enrich life."
(Nguyen Dong Chi: 2449-2450).
Especially Nguyen Dong Chi spent a chapter to compare carefully about
the tif and the motif between Vietnamese folk stories and "Treasure of
folklore" that is has ever under influenced deeply such as folk stories of
China, India and neighbouring countries. Through schemes that Vietnamese
folk stories have under influenced, Nguyen Dong Chi tried to discover
similar schemes through changing and step by step distinguished forms of
indigenous schemes. This is a hard painstaking work but very interesting,
although for Nguyen Dong Chi it is the only first step. It promises a good
prospect. That is: it points out rationally the development process of
nation’s folk stories. In fact, so far these stories have still been covered by
the historical development between types of folklore in the Indochina
region and the South - East Asia, of which the important propulsive and
gravitational force is two types of Chinese folklore and Indian folklore.
The research on Vietnamese folklore is a long and worthy enterprise.
Nguyen Dong Chi has made a significant contribution to the study of
Vietnamese folklore. His insights and suggestion shall be of great value to
present as well as future folklore researchers. His achievement in the study
of Vietnamese culture has been the result of extensive and profound
knowledge the fields of oriental and western studies, classical Chinese
