Tu Xuong was born in 1870, when he was 15 years old, he started taking exams. Faculty of At Dau 1885, did not pass. Faculty of Mau Ti 1888, Faculty of Tan Mao 1891 all failed. Khoa Giap Ngo 1894, only passed the baccalaureate, that year he was only 24 years old and since then he has officially become Tu Xuong. He has a verse about the taste of the academic story: “I don’t eat chili but it’s spicy”. After that, Tu Xuong also carried a tent to sit for another four exams: Faculty of Dinh Dau 1897, Faculty of Canh Ti 1900, Faculty of Quy Mao (1903) and Faculty of Binh Ngo 1906. Nguyen Tuan said: “Then Tu Xuong died at the beginning of the year. later (1907). That is, Tu Xuong will die, only the people will die”.

“Just a literary thing is bullshit,

What’s the point of being in a hundred years?”

(Sad exam broken)

The Dinh Dau exam for Tu Xuong has a special meaning: a lot of enthusiasm and hope. In the previous exam (Giap Ngo faculty, 1894), he passed the baccalaureate, so in this exam he hopes to pass a bachelor’s degree and step up to the stage of fame: “You hammock goes first, her hammock follows”.

The title of the poem also has another name: “The ceremony of naming the faculty of Dinh Dau”. The poem describes the honoring ceremony of the Huong exam at the Southern School in 1897, thereby expressing the shame of losing the country and the bitterness of the contemporary scholar.

Two questions introduce a new feature of the Dinh Dau exam:

“The state opens a faculty every three years,

Nam school mixed with Ha school”.

The exam in the past belonged to the king and the court for the purpose of selecting talented scholars, selecting talented people to serve as officials to help the king and help the country. At that time, our country was under French colonial rule. the exam is still taking the kanji exam according to the old custom of “opening a faculty in three years” but the season is over. And the proponent of these examinations is the state – the protection government. The second verse shows the mixed nature of this exam: “Truong Nam is mixed with Ha school”. During the Nguyen Dynasty, in Bac Ky, there were two Huong exam schools, Hanoi and Nam Dinh exam schools. Western colonialists occupied the Hanoi exam school, so there was a story that Hanoi’s students had to take the exam with the Ha school like that. According to Nguyen Tuan, the examination department of 1894, Nam Dinh exam school had eleven thousand students, passed 60 bachelor’s degrees and 200 baccalaureate degrees. Tu Xuong passed the baccalaureate exam. Surely the Huong exam in the year of the Rooster will have a lot more participants!

Two real sentences describe the scene of entering the school and calling the name with two very distinctive strokes. Because he is an insider, Tu Xuong highlights the spirit of such an exam scene. The figure of a soldier, “shoulder with a bottle” looks sloppy, “sluggish”. The martyrs were the people who took the exam, were the intellectuals in the feudal society who used to follow the career of writing research. Among the “sluggish” soldiers, there will be appointees, doctors, and teachers. The verse “Turning the soldier’s shoulder with a bottle” is a humorous and bitter scene. The inversion of the two words “sluggish” at the beginning of the verse gives a sad sleazy impression: “shoulder carry a jar”. Ink bottle or water bottle on test day? Taoism (Chinese characters) is at the end of the season, “The timid spirit of the chicken must fox – Literature recklessly punches and eats sticky rice” so the new exam school has a sarcastic image: “Deeply, the soldier’s shoulder is wearing a jar”!

The second drawing is also ingenious:

“Umm, the school’s mouth is screaming”.

Uigh means to show anger, to threaten. The structure of the inversion verse puts two onomatopoeias “mow” at the beginning of the verse to highlight the image of the officials “screaming with their mouths”. Exam school is no longer a place of sanctity and order, too messy, too noisy, like the scene of a market, so the new school officials “wow” and “scream” like that. Tu Xuong is very well adjusted, showing two central images of the exam school. Soldiers are sloppy and sloppy, losing their scholarly elegance. Officials, supervisors, judges also no longer have the inherent dignified and solemn demeanor. This unique caricature of Nhi Binh recalls the sunset of feudalism in our country:

“Pull the soldier on his shoulder to carry the vial,

Oops, the school’s mouth screams”.

Two essays highlight the picture “The ceremony to announce the faculty of Dinh Dau” with two caricatures of Mr. Tay and the mother. Old documents said that that year, Governor-General Paul Doumer and his wife, Nam Dinh, Le Normand, the ambassador, attended. The new faculty, the quilters, the doubles… must bow down and bow down to Mr. West, to the lady “sweeping the ground”, “on the chair, sitting on the duck’s ass”. The humiliation of thousands of Bac Ha soldiers cannot be overstated:

“The parasols filled the sky, the ambassador came,

The patchwork sweeps the ground, she spreads out.”

Western colonialists are riding our people’s necks. The image “Underground umbrella” depicts the welcome scene for “ambassadors”, the bandits of our country, an extremely solemn ceremony.It is the pain of losing our country. the exam hall is a place of sanctity, the feudal cult that respects men and despises women, women are not allowed to go to a place where talents are selected, but now, not only “she dresses up” but also “dresses” sweeping the earth” but also presented in broad daylight an extremely humiliating adversity:

‘On the chair, the lady dressed in the duck’s ass

In the courtyard, he raised the dragon’s head.”

Nguyen Tuan said about that humiliation as follows: “It’s too hard not to pass, but to pass to have to prostrate to the west, bowing to the whole lagoon, it is too humiliating”.

If you don’t have two images of Mr. Tay’s midwife, the caricature is considered as nothing. Tu Xuong’s counter art has increased the appeal of Tu Xuong’s realistic style. And thanks to the “parasol” for “skirt”, “man” for “mother”, the laughter, laughter, laughter, and laughter (in words of Nguyen Tuan) of Tu Xuong’s verse inherit the national laughter in the poem. folk songs, in tuong, ancient rowing. It is understood that a parasol is a kind of ceremonial staff (flag, sea, canopy, butt, hammock, parasol, etc.), which is used in the ceremony to welcome sacrifices and is brought to the skirt (dirty clothes), to see the art. Unique satire technique in Tu Xuong’s counterpoint. The pain and humiliation of losing the country are bitterly and coldly left behind through this pair of sentences.

The source of the lyrical circuit seems to be extracted from what the eyes see and hear, from the ridiculous, messy, messy inside and out, up and down where the Southern School of the Year of the Rooster takes the exam:

“Someone who is talented in the North,

Turn your neck and look at the country.”

The verse is like a lament; in the call contains so much sorrow, humiliation and bitterness. Talents in the North are poor men, great men, people with national pride, etc. in the Son Nam region, in the Thang Long capital with thousands of years of civilization, where the country’s talents and quintessence converge. The three “someone” chit-chat only makes the lament, the call become more poignant, the wake-up call. The word “turning your neck” suggests an attitude, a state of mind that cannot be committed to living in humiliation forever in a life of slavery. Must know “turn your neck and look at the country”. “Homeland scene” is a humiliating scene:

“The king is a wooden statue, the people are the body of a buffalo…

(…) The waiter, the person who took the coolie

Interpretation, record chi chi

Full life as a soldier, full of honor!”.

(Asian ace)

Tu Xuong is one of tens of thousands of students who attended the Huong exam in the year of the Rooster. He was a participant, a witness, etc. From the pain of those who failed the exam, he reflected on the humiliation of soldiers, intellectuals, and talents in the North. The humiliating pain of loss of water like a stagnation of anger condenses into sighs, lamentations, and even tears…

The poem “Vinh Khoa Thi Huong” describes the scene of “entering the school” and dozens of scenes “the naming ceremony”, thereby expressing the poet’s painful and bitter mood. And the lyricism is full of bitterness and shame. Poetry, poetic soul, Tu Xuong poetic style are like that!

Commenting on this poem, Nguyen Tuan wrote: “… Tu Xuong’s poetry about the exam school is like the elegant words of a class of sage at that time. If you can’t hit anyone with weapons, you have to at least take out a pen. but splash the ink of morale on the smuts, but keep the noses of the times!