A certificate of bestowal issued by Hue Imperial Court

The casket is 12cm x 61cm x 15cm. It has pattern of two carved dragons on both the front and back sides. A red lacquer shows quite clearly after the casket is cleaned. It used to be placed on an altar dedicated to the worship of Dao Ba Quat, said Tung. Without full understanding about its value, people in the family then locked it in a warehouse and forgot about it. The casket is probably a container of a high-school graduate certificate granted by the Hue Imperial Court to Dao Ba Quat, says a 77-year-old descendant Dao Tung Phi who calls Dao Ba Quat great-great grandfather and is keeping the ancestral temple now. The Dao descendants incidentally appreciate and review their preservation of all items related to the celebrities.

At the ancestral temple (at Vinh Thanh 2 hamlet, Phuoc Loc commune, Tuy Phuoc district), the old man Dao Tung Phi introduce me another casket on the altar dedicated to the cultural celebrity Dao Tan. There are 8 certificates of appointment inside it. All are well preserved. Chinese scripts on them are still prominent on gold background. Mr. Phi tells me that in war time, he always kept the casket with the certificates as the most valuable property.

He next introduces me another object: an ivory bamboo cane, the indispensable belongings of his great great grandfather Dao when he was alive. The cane is about 1,5m long with bronze shields at 2 ends. On its top, there are wishes for his long life and a 4-verse Chinese script poem. The cane was once lost in 1978 and Mr. Phi had to redeem it with two taels of gold. 

Phi continue show me around a garden at the Dao ancestral temple and talks about relics which are directly related to the great Dao’s life and his family way of living when he was still alive. There is no vestige of the house’s foundation. It was built with two-layer roof design (the top layer is thatched roof; the lower layer is earthen roof). It was demolished for unknown reasons then. In front of the vestige of the house, stands a 200-year-old cycas which was grown by Dao Duc Ngac, father of Dao Tan. Next to it locates a shrine dedicated to worship of Fire Goddess. The region experienced a lot of blazes, causing great damages to the local people, says Mr. Phi. Dao Tan established the shrine to worship the Fire Goddess so that she didn’t bring about disasters and sufferings to the people.

In front of the shrine, there are two gate poles which were erected as Dao Tan was alive. The two northward facing poles are still kept although they are used for nothing. Next to the gate, two lotus ponds where Dao Tan used to admirably beheld lotus flowers still exists. Although many people want to fill up the ponds, Mr. Phi insists to keep them so that future generations can imagine about the life and beautiful soul of his great great grandfather.

Adjacent to the vestige of Dao Tan’s old house is a plot on which he built a communal house for training Tuong (classical drama) experts and their Tuong performances. The communal house was a bridge between the performers of Tuong and the local people. The building, hence, played an important role to spiritual life and cultural improvement of the local communities.

Those are relics all kept by Mr. Dao Tung Phi. A lot of Tuong plays written by Dao Tan and his autographs have been lost for many reasons, says Mr. Phi. Some are keeping the most important autographs but they don’t accept his payment to redeem them because they consider them treasures.

Mr. Phi says he has tried his best to preserve the relics for the next generations. However, he is so old now and unable to fulfill many tasks. He more than one time suggests restoring, preserving the things and vestiges relevant to Dao Tan. He expects the society join in the preservation because the cultural celebrity Dao Tan is not a person of the Dao family but also of Tuong lovers, firstly of Binh Dinh. If the preservation is good, the ancestral house of the Dao family certainly becomes an attractive tourist spot.

• Ngo Hong Son