Nguyễn Khuyến

[1] Nguyễn Thắng was born on 15 February 1835 in his mother's hometown Văn Khế village, Hoàng Xá commune, Ý Yên district, Nam Định Province.

His father's home town was Và village, Yên Đổ commune, Bình Lục district, Hà Nam Province.

History unfolded like the text he wrote in his Đình Nguyên examination twelve years before: "As a carriage does not come toward because the horses do not want to pull, the political situation does not improve when the people do not want it to.

When patriotic movements such as "Cần Vương" ("Helping the King") were extinguished and his dream of "Trị quốc, bình thiên hạ" (leading the country, pacifying the world) was not realized, he landed in an impasse.

In 1884, he withdrew from public life and moved back to his home town Yên Đổ to support the Vietnamese resistance against the French enemy.

Throughout his life he taught his children to show deep gratitude toward farmers: "Even if you are a scholar, do not forget rice, beans and eggplants."