鴉片托盤上的中越文化

一件藝術品的美，除了工匠的技巧和創造力外，還有它的社會和歷史文化價值。遠古以來，食品器皿就飲食習慣以及使用者與外界之間的互動而言，具有各種象徵性的吉祥驅魔模式。當其中一些成為博物館和古董愛好者的收藏品時，人們開始關注其歷史價值，並可能會考慮嵌入其中不同的文化含義。 本文作者試圖透過在拍賣網上買到的一個木製托盤來思考相關歷史的社會發展生活，加上從網路得到的資訊對百年來中國和越南經歷的文化交流作一簡單的探討。本文研究的緣起來自筆者在國際拍賣網站購買的黃花梨木托盤，因為它看起來像西餐餐具，上面鑲嵌著珍珠母的文字和圖像。後來，經過在網路的搜索，筆者了解到其中的文字是18、19 世紀常用於越南社會的「字喃」，而圖像更是來自清代章回小說、後來成為近代越南長篇文學作品《金雲翹傳》的重要一幕。不但如此，我們更可進一步了解到這是上（20）世紀初越南為中國市場製造的鴉片托盤，今天多數是中國古董出售給歐美古董和美術品市場作為收藏和裝飾之用。最後，透過它們在過去百年中曾擔當過的角色，作者想利用這些鴉片托盤來展示中越文化交流歷史上的多重意義。

The beauty of an artifact, in addition to the skill and creativity of the craftsman, lies in its social and cultural value. Since ancient times, food utensils have carried various symbolic patterns, either auspicious or exorcistic, in relation to rituals of eating as well as interactions between the user and the outside world. When some of them became collectable items in museums and among antique lovers, people paid more attention to their historical value and more consideration to the different meanings embedded in them as well. The wooden trays the author wants to introduce in this paper are not only about the social life of things, but also about the socio-historical understanding of the cultural affairs – intertwined in the cultural integration of China and Vietnam over the last hundred years. As it will be explained in this paper, the author bought these wooden huanghuali trays through an international online auction out of curiosity, because they look like tableware of western dishes, with characters made of mother-of-pearl inlaid. Later, the author realized that some of the characters were ancient Vietnamese characters commonly used in the 18th and 19th centuries, and discovered through further investigation that these were opium trays made for the Chinese markets, and were sold to Europe as Chinese antiques for decorations. Finally, the author uses these opium trays to demonstrate the multi-layeredness of a small part of the Sino-Vietnamese cultural relationship in the modern history.