Liêu Hữu Phương

Liêu Hữu Phương (Chữ Hán: 廖有方; Chinese pinyin: Liao Youfang; Wade–Giles: Liao Yu-fang), Chinese name Liao Yuqīng (fl. 9th century), was an poet and government official of the Tang dynasty during the early 9th century AD.

Biography
Liêu Hữu Phương was of Vietnamese ethnicity. He was born in Jiao prefecture (modern-day Hanoi), Protectorate General to Pacify the South, when Vietnam was part of the Tang dynasty. Little was known about his early life.

The Tang imperial system allowed for some promotion by merit and could even be strikingly trans-ethnic. At this time, however, Confucianism ideas had very little impact on the indigenous people of North Vietnam. A Tang official wrote dismissively in 845: "Annan has produced no more than eight imperial officials; senior graduates have not exceeded ten."

In 815, Liêu Hữu Phương took a 1,450-mile journey from Hanoi to Chang'an, the capital of the Tang dynasty, to take the Tang imperial examination, but he failed. He then took a trip to Shu, modern-day Sichuan Province, to visit a fellow student. In the next year, he again participated in the civil service examination and passed it. He was appointed as a librarian at the imperial court.

His poems are now lost; his On a Stranger’s Coffin: A Poem Engraved on the Occasion of Burying a Scholar at Baoqe in Quan Tang Shi is the only preserved one and the oldest extant poem written in Chinese by a Vietnamese.