Did ancient Chinese people have any idea that Vietnam exsted before they came into contact with them?

在和越南接触前，古代中国人知道越南的存在吗？

以下是Quora网友的评价：

Chinese Hedgehog

The name Vietnam was a gift from the chinese. At that time, Vietnam wanted to be called 南粤, but 南粤was the name of an ancient country, including Guangx in today's Guangdong Province of China. Therefore, the chinese at that time took the term越南,

Exchanges between China and Vietnam have been going on for thousands of years. Vietnam, along with China, Korea and the Ryukyus, was once considered part of Chinese civilization.

For thousands of years, mainland China was even more attached to Vietnam than to China's frontier minorities (such as the Mongols and Tibans).

越南这个名字就算是中国送出的礼物。当时，越南希望起名为“南粤”，但“南粤”是一个古老国家的名字，地理范围涵盖广西，位于今天中国广东省的位置。因此，当时的中国给它起了“越南”这个名字。

中越交往源远流长，跨越千年。越南、中国、朝鲜和琉球曾经都是中华文明的一部分。

几千年来，中国大陆对越南的依赖甚至超过了对中国边疆少数族群(如蒙古人和西Z人)的依赖。

Since the decline of Chinese civilization and the invasion of East Asia by Western civilization, former brothers Vietnam and Korea have tried to maintain a clear distance from China.

Some Vietnamese even believe that China colonized Vietnam for thousands of years, which is totally wrong. Colonization is a product of the West. Chinese civilization has no concept of colonization. This is because Vietnam was once the creator and guardian of Chinese civilization, just like China. This is a blood relationship as close as brothers.

自从中华文明衰落以及西方文明入侵东亚以来，越南和朝鲜一直试图与中国保持距离。

一些越南人甚至认为中国殖民了越南几千年，这完全是错误的。殖民是西方的产物。中华文明没有殖民的概念。这是因为越南和中国一样，曾经是中华文明的创造者和守护者，是兄弟般的血缘关系。

William Hennigan

How did ancient China view Vietnam?

Historically, both ancient and modern, China viewed Vietnam as unconquered Yue territory. The modern view fails to recognize that Vietnam is a Confucian/Co unist culture that because of the events of their history it is a unique nation similar to Korea and Japan that is no longer unconquered Yue territory. Or, maybe it is, but not part of China.

古代中国是如何看待越南的？

从历史上看，无论是古代还是现代，中国都将越南视为未被征服的越国领土。现代观点没有认识到越南是儒家/*主义文化，因为历史经历成了一个类似于韩国和日本的独特国家，不再是未被征服的越国领土。或者，也许是，但已不算中国的一部分。

Jackie Chan

What do Chinese people learn about Vietnam?

Overseas Chinese from Canada here.

Chinese school teachers tell us that Vietnam was like little brother to big brother China. I guess that was an analogy to the tributary relationship. They also said Cantonese and Vietnamese are very similar in culture and language. My childhood friend has the same last name as me (Tran).

I thought, wow, Vietnamese really must "hate" China. But my Vietnamese friends prefer to talk about the many cross compatibilities between Chinese and Vietnamese culture.

For example, our shared Lunar New Year.

中国人对越南了解多少呢？

我是生活在加拿大的海外华人。

中文学校的老师告诉我们，越南就像中国大哥的小弟弟。我想这应该所的是越南对中国的纳贡关系。他们还表示，粤语和越南语在文化和语言上非常相似。我儿时的朋友就和我一个姓(Tran)。

我想，哇，越南人肯定真的“不喜欢”中国。但我的越南朋友更喜欢谈论中国和越南文化之间的许多交叉兼容性。

例如，我们共同的农历新年。

Zhao Chen

What do Chinese people learn about Vietnam?

中国人对越南了解多少呢？

I’m from PRC China, and this is what we have learnt (by personal memory , some detail may inaccurate ) :

long long ago , Vietnam was a part of ancient China, and latter became China’s vassal state until 19th century.

In 19th century, When Qing dynasty in China declined, and failed in Sino-French war (1884–1885). Vietnam became French colony and no longer China vassal state .

我来自中国，我们学习的内容是(根据本人记忆，有些细节可能不准确)：

很久很久以前，越南是古代中国的一部分，后来变成中国的附属国，直到19世纪。

19世纪，中国清朝衰落，输掉了中法战争(1884-1885)。越南成为法国殖民地，不再是中国的附属国。

Modern Vietnam history started in September 1945, President Ho Chi Minh declared independent of Vietnam from France. China is the first foreign country recognized independence of Vietnam, after that China gave Vietnam a lot of supply and military aid, helped Vietnamese people to fought against French and Americans and finally Vietnam won the war.

现代越南成立于1945年9月，胡志明主席宣布越南脱离法国独立。中国是第一个承认越南独立的国家，之后中国为越南提供了大量的物资和军事援助，帮助越南人民与法国和美国人作战，最终越南赢得了战争。

About the war between China and Vietnam 1979. The textbook only writes : “Since reunification of Vietnam, due to the cold-war international environment, China-Vietnam relationship gradually frozen and had a period of unpleasant history until 1991, when both sides agreed bilateral relationship normalized. ” We call that war : “对越自卫反击战” (Self-defense and counter-strike war against Vietnam).

I can grantee that most people in China recognize Vietnam as a independent country, nor shall be a part of China.

至于1979年的中越战争，教科书只写道：“自越南统一以来，由于冷战的国际大环境，中越关系逐渐转冷，并有过一段不愉快的历史，直到1991年双方同意双边关系正常化。”我们中国称这场战争为“对越自卫反击战”。

我敢说大多数中国人都认为越南是一个独立的国家，现在不应属于中国。

Mark Bellows

What do Chinese people learn about Vietnam?

中国人对越南了解多少呢？

Overseas Chinese here from Southeast Asia. I suppose the "Chinese people" in your question means the PRC citizens, not overseas Chinese.

From my experience talking with PRC Chinese, a short answer is "they don't know too much about Vietnam".

My father was a business man, who traveled a lot in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Singapore, Malaysia, China, etc. So I like to introduce Southeast Asia to my China colleagues.

我是来自东南亚的华侨。我猜你问题中的“中国人”是指中国公民，不包含海外华人。

从我自己和中国人交谈的经验来看，我可以跟你们说个简短的回答：“中国人并不太了解越南”。

我的父亲是一个商人，他去过缅甸、泰国、老挝、新加坡、马来西亚、中国等很多地方。所以我想跟我的中国同事介绍一下东南亚。

The first time I mentioned Vietnam with my China colleague, he said:

"Yeah I've been there before. A good place. Many elephants. Some boys become girls. Muay Thai is a good fighting skill."

I was like:"WTF, you are talking about Thailand not Vietnam, aren't you?"

He said:"Oh maybe I'm wrong. But wait, Aren't they the same?"

我第一次和我的中国同事提到越南时，他说：

“是的，我去过越南。那可是一个好地方，那里有很多大象，有些男孩变成了女孩。还有泰拳，是一种很出色的格斗技巧。”

我说：“什么鬼，你说的是泰国，不是越南吧？”

他说：“哦，我可能搞错了。等等，它们不是一回事吗？”

After that I found many China citizens are very very ignorant about the neighboring countries. Many China people can say something about North Korea, South Korea and Japan, but know nothing about Southeast Asia. Some of them know North Korea, South Korea and Japan are neighbors but don't know Vietnam, Myanmar and India are also neighbors.

And it looks like the China textbooks don't talk too much about Vietnam.

后来，我发现很多中国公民对邻国都非常非常无知。很多中国人对朝鲜、韩国和日本都略知一二，但对东南亚却一问三不知。他们中有些人知道朝鲜、韩国和日本是邻国，但并不知道越南、缅甸和印度也是邻国。

看来中国的教科书对越南的介绍并不多。

Claire Dali

Why did China say that Vietnam is part of China since 5,000 years ago?

In fact I didn’t know anything resembling to that until I saw some Vietnam people mentioned it when they were accusing China had colonized Vietnam on Quora.

Ps, It was not 5000 years ago, it was during Tang Dynasty if My memory is right.

Eeeeeeee, the minute I finished my answer, I saw other answer said it was Han dynasty. So , my memory is wrong.

为什么中国说越南在5000年前就是中国的一部分？

事实上，我之前从未听说过这个说法，直到我看到有些越南人在Quora上指责中国殖民统治越南时提到了这一点。

顺便说一下，如果我没记错的话，那也不是5000年前的事，当时是唐朝。

呃，我写完回帖时，看到另一个回帖说当时是汉朝，所以，我记错了。

Nhan Nguyen

Why did China say that Vietnam is part of China since 5,000 years ago?

Both China and Vietnam did not exst five thousand years ago. Two entities cannot belong to each other when they did not exst.

为什么中国说越南5000年前就是中国的一部分？

五千年前，中国和越南都还不存在呢。当两个国家实体都还不存在时，它们根本不可能属于彼此。

Sophie Deloni

Why did China say that Vietnam is part of China since 5,000 years ago?

为什么中国说越南5000年前就是中国的一部分？

The question can be asked to Vietnam people, why did they think China wanted them to be part of their territory?

In France it's not strange to see unsaid dislike of Vietnam people towards Chinese, though not the other way around.

这个问题可以问越南人民，为什么他们认为中国希望他们成为他们领土的一部分？

在法国，看到越南人对中国人明里暗里的厌恶并不奇怪，但反过来也不奇怪。

What I understood (purely personal opinion) is that Vietnam people probably think that Chinese are nothing better than them, and maybe even more inferior to Vietnam people. So they are often very close to French, American though both nations robbed them and put them into slavery in centuries.

我认为(纯属个人观点)，越南人可能认为中国人并没有什么过人之处，甚至可能还不如越南人，所以他们通常更愿意亲近法国人和美国人，尽管这两个国家曾在几个世纪里掠夺越南，把越南人视为奴隶。

inyang Li

Do Chinese people consider Vietnam as part of China?

中国人认为越南是中国的一部分吗？

Of course not.

If mean the mordern country Vietnam, Feifei’s answer is completely right.

If you mean the ancient Vietnam (越南， Việt Nam), well, this name is given by 嘉庆皇帝 (emperor Jiaqing) of Qing dynasty (清朝) in 1804 and Nguyen phuc anh (阮福映, Nguyễn Phúc Ánh) confirmed it as the name of the nation in 1805. In that time, Vietnam had been independent for more than 1000 years since 900 A.D. during which the name was Annam(安南, An Nam) or Daiviet(大越，this name could make Chinese emperors a little bit anger but they never conquered the Great Viet, haha). Whatever the name was, Vietnam was independent.

当然没有。

如果你说的是现代越南，Feifei说的完全正确。

如果你说的是古代越南，那么越南这个名字就是嘉庆皇帝(清朝嘉庆帝)在1804年敲定的国名，阮福安(阮福映)在1805年正式确认。越南自公元900年以来已经独立了1000多年，当时它的名字是安南或大越（大越这个名字可能会让中国皇帝有点生气，但他们从未征服过伟大的越南，哈哈)。但不管叫什么名字，越南都是独立的。

What I want to say is the period between 200 BC and 900 AD when Vietnam belonged to China, whether I agree it was a part of China?

This is a map on the distribution of population in 2 AD and the name of Vietnam was Jiaozhi (交趾,Giao Chỉ ) , which located around the green circle. As is shown in the map, people in that time were crowded in the middle plain area (中原). And the large part of South China (the orange circle) there were almost no people. Was that possible?

我想说的是，从公元前200年到公元900年，越南属于中国，我是否同意它是中国的一部分?

这是一幅公元2年的人口分布图，当时越南的名字是交趾，位于绿色圆圈的周围。如图所示，当时的人们聚集在中原地区。华南的大部分地区(橙色圆圈)几乎没有人。但这可能吗？

Actually in the large depopulated zone of South China and Vietnam，there were many local ethnics, but they were not calculated or governed by the central governments. And the chief was the powerful king of his/her tribe but the central government bestowed the chief as an official- mostly and hereditary offical. That is to say, in South China and Vietnam, although maps showed there were land of China, but the power of central government could not reach to the folks. This model of governance was not steady and rebellions were easy to happen. This is one of the reasons why Vietnam got independent after more than 1000 years as a part of China- because the governance never reached to the folks, the local people. Vietnam used to be a part of China, but in name only.

实际上，在中国南方和越南的大片人口稀少地区，生活着许多地方民族，但他们不受中央政府的统计和管理。酋长才是当地部落掌握实权的王，但中央政府授予酋长为官员-主要是世袭官员。也就是说，在华南和越南，虽然地图上显示某些地区属于中国，但中央政府的权力无法到达民间。这种治理模式并不稳定，很容易爆发叛乱。这就是作为中国部分领土的越南在1000多年后获得独立的原因之一——因为皇权统治从未下达至当地民众。越南曾经是中国的一部分，但这只是名义上的。

As a common folk, I really wonder why there are questions like this. In most of the time, even now, trival folks are nothing but cannon fodder. People who always conduct propaganda like “Vietnam belongs to China” are really suspicious to drive a wedge between China and Vietnam. The last war between the two country is just 40 years ago. History should be remembered, but should never be taken advantage by politics.

As a peace-loving Chinese, an ordinary civilian, I really wish a forever peace.

作为一个普通人，我真的很奇怪为什么大家会有这样的问题。那些总爱宣传“越南属于中国”的人，只是在挑拨中越关系。两国之间的最后一场战争发生在40年前。我们应该铭记历史，但绝不能被政治利用。

作为一个热爱和平的中国人，一个普通的公民，我真心希望永远和平。