Mai Hac plate
Ladies and gentlemen!
The Mai Hac plate is associated with Nguyen Du's diplomatic mission to the Qing court in 1813. On the plate are two lines of poetry considered to be his handwriting. Also on the plate is a tree blooming with Mai flowers (Ochna integerrima), below is a stone slab on which stands a crane (Hac). The plate was made by a very large and famous ceramic workshop in China, but after deciding on the two figures of Mai and Hac, the workshop owner did not know what words to write on the plate to make it more valuable. During his diplomatic mission, Nguyen Du visited the ceramic workshop, and after learning that this Annamese chief envoy was very talented in literature, the workshop owner asked him to write a poem on the plate. Nguyen Du used the Nom script of his home country to write these two lines of poetry: “Humming happily in peace. The Mai flower is an old friend, the crane is an acquaintance.”
Currently, the Nguyen Du Memorial Site has collected more than 10 sets of Mai Hac plates in different sizes and periods.