|
Serving
Students at
Santa Ana
College and
Santiago
Canyon College
VIETNAM
Culture
|
Cultural
Orientation
Ask any
Vietnamese about the origin of his people, and most likely he will tell
you that they were born of a dragon and a fairy ("con rong chau tien").
Certainly this is an unscientific explanation, and one that can hardly
be sustained or demonstrated hi storically, yet the power of that myth
is such that no Vietnamese, no matter how much scientific training he has
received, would
ever
deny believing in it at least to a certain extent. The Vietnamese
myth of origin then, is a matter of belief, of faith, that mountains of
evidence to the contrary cannot change.
Historically,
Vietnam has served as a fertile ground for all kinds of beliefs and religions.
Yet regardless of religious belief, whether Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism,
Taoism, or animism, Vietnamese share the conviction that they came from
the sam e source, originating from the same womb, hence they call one another
dong-bao ("born of the same womb"). It is this power of myths that
sustains the Vietnamese throughout their history, that keeps them together
despite their other differences.
Foreign
Influences
The cultural
life of Vietnam was strongly influenced by that of China until French domination
in the 19th century. At that time the traditional culture began to
acquire an overlay of Western characteristics. The postwar government
expressed its desire to rid Vietnamese life of Western influences.
The Vietnam Museum of Fine Arts (1966) in Hanoi includes an exhibition
of the tools and costumes of more than 60 ethnic groups in Vietnam.
The National Library was established in Hanoi in 1919; a counterpart was
founded in Ho Chi Minh City in 1976.
Contemporary
ethnic Vietnamese live in urban as well as rural areas, are engaged in
a variety of occupations, and are represented at all levels on the socioeconomic
scale. The power elite (senior officials in the party, government,
and military establishments), in particular, is dominated by ethnic Vietnamese.
Although predominantly Buddhist, the Vietnamese people's
religious
beliefs and practices nevertheless include remnants of an earlier animistic
faith. A sizable minority is Roman Catholic.
Despite
some regional and local differences in customs and speech, the people retain
a strong sense of ethnic identity that rests on a common language and a
shared cultural heritage.
Links
to More Information
Vietnamese
Myths
|
