Of many popular tales in Vietnamese mythology, the one about Thánh Gióng (or rather, Thanh Giong) is one that emphasizes majorly on standing up for Vietnam. Thanh Giong's tale starts with him being a kid, considered absolutely useless and unable to speak, walk, or smile is suddenly changed when the Chinese enemies attacked on Vietnam. Somehow, with the magic of mythical tales, Thanh Giong was suddenly able to speak, walk, and smile, and actually fought for Vietnam has he suddenly got all these abilities. He first went into battle with a steel bar but as soon as he broke that, he continued to battle the Chinese with bamboo sticks.
Sơn Tinh and Thủy Tinh (or Son Tinh and Thuy Tinh) is a tale of two powerful gods who fight for the heart of the king's daughter (King Hung Vuong VI). Son Tinh is the god of the mountains and Thuy Tinh is the god of the sea (because Thuy means 'sea' in Vietnamese). After days of the two rising their lands or water to attack at each other, the king declares that whoever finds his exotic list of things first will be able to marry the princess. Son Tinh and Thuy Tinh both venture out to find the items but the fastest was Son Tinh. And even though Thuy Tinh had lost his chance of marrying the princess, he comes back every year to release his anger on the land again and we call them monsoons.
Despite having no supernatural powers, the TrÆ°ng sisters still became of a hero figure to their nation. The two sisters lead a revolution that had been left behind by someone who had died before them to stop the Chinese enemies. Troops and soldiers were put up in different parts of the country to try and fight back and their journey started from Mê Linh down to Lãng Bác and fought with the enemy. However glorious the idea of starting a revolution and defeating enemies may sound, Vietnam was forced to retreat after losing too many of the population. The Trung sisters refused to fall into the hands of the ones they hate the most- the Chinese enemies at the time- so they committed suicide. The death of these brave women only gave more motivation to the Vietnamese soldiers to carry on the revolution the Trung sisters had initiated.
