I'm working on a project (novel, cough cough) and hope I actually finish this one. It will partially take place in Vietnam (or a small fishing village in Asia). I'm curious what life was like then, roughly in the 1000s AD. I live in Vietnam and it's hard to find good books in English (most books about Vietnam are about the war). Shipping is insanely expensive from Amazon. Therefore I'm hoping to get a nice discussion going from the good folks at 2 plus 2.

I specifically choose Vietnam because I live here and also because I don't want politics to get in the way. I want to depict a religious and cultural life in a small village, far away from the hands of Ghengis Khan or the Chinese Empire. Although I'm sure China tried to conquer Vietnam at least several times.

OK, I'll start googling now.

not sure if you're still doing this but your best bet will be Chinese resources as Vietnam didn't have their own written language until modern times so they just used chinese

in general though, there was very little going on then and whatever you read will likely be from the Chinese point of view because again... they weren't big on written language given they never developed one of their own

I hope I'm not late for this thread
The 1000s AD corresponds to the Ly dynasty in Vietnam and the Northern Song dynasty in China. And at that time I guess that people adhered to Buddhism and Confucianism, and the rulers were aristocrats while most of the normal citizens were farmers and artisans