VIETNAMESE WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (15:16): I would like to speak today about last Saturday morning when I joined the SA Vietnamese Women's Association for the Vietnamese Reading Presentation at the Denison Centre in Mawson Lakes. The association does a fantastic job of helping South Australian Vietnamese community to maintain their culture, a task that is never easy when you are far from one's motherland. The association and its committee members, led by president Mrs Dieu Hong, work very hard to create empathy, understanding and harmony through the Vietnamese community in South Australia.

Joining me on the occasion were the Lieutenant-Governor and Chairman of the South Australian Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission Mr Hieu Van Le, the new member for Port Adelaide, the federal member for Makin, Sandra Dan from the Working Women's Centre and Janet Giles of Unions SA.

For the first time, the association this year commenced a reading competition for young people to demonstrate their reading proficiency in Vietnamese. Commencing at the Tet Festival in February, the competition went through several rounds that culminated in the presentation on Saturday. It was an innovative way to showcase the talents of young people. By using the association's regular radio spots on 5EBI FM, the reading rounds were broadcast live and the radio audience became interactive contributors in the voting process via SMS, email and talkback calls.

I had the pleasure of presenting the winners and highly commended students with framed certificates and trophies. The youngest of the competitors was five years old, and the senior students were all of high school age. I made a personal contribution on the day to make sure that the competition becomes an annual event next year, and I look forward to seeing the way this interactive and innovative competition matures and grows in the future.

The event also commemorated the heroic efforts of the Trung sisters in ancient Vietnam with a traditional ceremony. The Trung sisters, Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, were daughters of a powerful Vietnamese lord who lived at the beginning of the first century. At the time, Vietnam was under the rule of the Chinese Han Dynasty and Vietnamese women still had many rights which their Chinese sisters had lost over time.

Vietnamese people did not actively oppose the Chinese rule until the year 39AD. To frighten the Vietnamese and bring them to submission, a Chinese commander raped Trung Trac and killed her husband. In retaliation, the Trung sisters organised a rebellion. With the support of tribal lords, they formed an army of 80,000 men and women. Thirty-six of the generals were females. With their mother, the Trung sisters led this army in an attack on the occupying Chinese forces. They won back the territory extending into southern China and were proclaimed co-queens. Their royal court was established in Me-linh, an ancient political centre in the Hong River plain.

Around the year 42CE, the Chinese forces were sent to recapture the area, and the queens and their people fought hard to resist their invaders. One close comrade of the Trung sisters, Phung Thi Chinh, led one of the armies in resistance as well, and she apparently fulfilled her mission, despite being pregnant at the time. She delivered her baby on the front line, hoisting her baby on her back and continuing to fight. However, in the end the Vietnamese troops were defeated. According to the popular belief, the Trung sisters elected to take their own lives in the traditional manner, by jumping in a river and drowning, along with their loyal Phung Thi Chinh.

The Trung sisters became symbols of the first Vietnamese resistance to China's occupation of their land. Temples have been built in their honour, and the people of Vietnam still celebrate them every year around February, just as the Vietnamese Women's Association of South Australia does each year in Adelaide and will continue to do, with the poetry reading competition in future years.