Xin chao!

Xin Chao means Hello in Vietnam.

This blog is created to provide an in-depth study  to find out the true essence of the culture and traditions of a place. Through this case study, one can learn about the interlocked relationship between the Vietnamese people and culture of the place, and how culture will affect them and society.

Facts and Statistics of Vietnam
Location: Southeastern Asia, bordering the Gulf of Thailand, Gulf of Tonkin, and South China Sea, alongside China, Laos, and Cambodia
Capital: Hanoi
Climate: tropical in south; monsoonal in north with hot, rainy season (mid-May to mid-September) and warm, dry season (mid-October to mid-March)
Population: 82,689,518 (July 2004 est.)
Ethnic Make-up: Vietnamese 85%-90%, Chinese, Hmong, Thai, Khmer, Cham, various mountain groups
Religions: Buddhist, Hoa Hao, Cao Dai, Christian (predominantly Roman Catholic, some Protestant), indigenous beliefs and Muslim

Culture and Traditions of Vietnam

Vietnam's rich origins are evident throughout the Vietnamese culture. Spiritual life in Vietnam is a wide ranging array of belief systems, including Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Tam Giao (literally 'triple religion', which is a blend of Taoism, popular Chinese beliefs, and ancient Vietnamese animism).

Tet, one of the most important festivals in Vietnam lasts from January to early February. It heralds the new lunar year and the advent of spring and the celebration consists of not only raucous festivity (fireworks, drums, gongs) but also, quiet meditation. In addition to Tet, there are about twenty other traditional and religious festivals each year!

Vietnamese architecture expresses a graceful aesthetic of natural balance and harmony that is evident in any of the country's vast numbers of historic temples and monasteries. The pre-eminent architectural form is the pagoda, a tower comprised of a series of stepped pyramidal structures and frequently adorned with lavish carvings and painted ornamentation. Generally speaking, the pagoda form symbolizes the human desire to bridge the gap between the constraints of earthly existence and the perfection of heavenly forces. Pagodas are found in every province of Vietnam. One of the most treasured is the Thien Mu Pagoda in Hue, founded in 1601 and completed more than two hundred years later. In North Vietnam, the pagodas that serve as the shrines and temples of the Son La Mountains are especially worth visiting. In South Vietnam, the Giac Lam Pagoda of Ho Chi Minh City is considered to be the city's oldest and is notable as well for its many richly-carved jack wood statues.

As a language, Vietnamese is exceptionally flexible and lyrical, and poetry plays a strong role in both literature and the performing arts. Folk art, which flourished before French colonization, has experienced resurgence in beautiful woodcuts, village painting, and block printing. Vietnamese
lacquer art, another traditional medium, is commonly held to be the most original and sophisticated in the world. Music, dance, and puppetry, including the uniquely Vietnamese water puppetry, are also mainstays of the country's culture.

Although rice is the foundation of the Vietnamese diet, the country's cuisine is anything but bland. Deeply influenced by the national cuisines of France, China, and Thailand, Vietnamese cooking is highly innovative and makes extensive use of fresh herbs, including lemon grass, basil, coriander, parsley, laksa leaf, lime, and chilli. Soup is served at almost every meal, and snacks include spring rolls and rice pancakes. The national condiment is nuoc mam, a piquant fermented fish sauce served with every meal.

In the next few posts, I would be covering certain specific aspects of the Vietnamese culture and tradition. They include wedding, clothing, water puppets as well as religions and beliefs. I personally feel that they are the more significant identifications of Vietnam. This makes Vietnam’s culture and tradition different from any other.

Wedding

The traditional Vietnamese wedding is one of the most important of traditional Vietnamese occasions. Regardless of westernization, many of the age-old customs practiced in a traditional Vietnamese wedding continue to be celebrated by both Vietnamese in Vietnam and overseas, often combining both western and eastern elements.

In the past, both men and women were expected to be married at quite a young age. The parents and extended family would make required arrangements and the children have no say in this matter. However, in modern Vietnam, this has changed completely as people choose their own marriage-partners based on love, and in consideration primarily to their own needs and wants.

 “Le dinh hon”?

"Le dinh hon" is an old Vietnamese tradition whereby the couple’s families would meet for the very first time. They would then officially announce the couple’s engagement to family and friends, and at the same time pick a good date for the wedding.

A "le dinh hon" ceremony begins with the future groom’s family visiting the future bride’s home and presenting gifts wrapped in round lacquered boxes covered in red cloths to the bride and her family.  Usually the gifts would include areca nuts, betel leaves, tea, cake, fruits, wines, a roasted pig, and other delicacies that are beautifully arranged and carried by unmarried women and men to the future bride’s home.  If the gifts are accepted by the future bride’s family, it is a sign that they approve of the upcoming marriage between the couple.

The future bride, dressed in a magnificent ao dai (Vietnamese traditional dress), is hidden in another room while the gifts are presented, accepted, and introductions are exchanged.  Her parents will come into the room and walk her out to be introduced to both sides of the family.  The couple then lights incense for the ancestors and serves tea to the elders of both families.

The future bride’s family would have prepared a feast for everyone to enjoy after the tea ceremony. That’s not it! Appropriate portions and items must be shared with the future groom’s family before they leave the party.  Each gift has a special meaning and must be shared among the two families properly for good luck.

Adapted from: What's the big deal with Vietnamese weddings?

Vietnamese customs of weddings, funerals, holidays and rituals all are attached to village community. Marriages not only reflects the lovers' desire but also had to meet the interests of the family lines, the village. Thus, the choice for future bride or groom must be done very carefully, which had to go through many formalities from the lighting ceremony, the official proposal to the bride's family, the wedding to the marriage tie, the ritual of sharing bridal cup of wine, the newly-weds' first visit to the bride's family. Besides, the bride had to pay a fine in order for her to be accepted as a new member of the village.

Clothing

The Vietnamese preferred to wear light, thin, well-ventilated kind of clothing that originated from plants and was suitable for such a tropical country as Vietnam, with grey, indigo and black colours.

Men's clothing changed from loin-cloth with bare upper half of the body to short jackets and Vietnamese traditional trousers (re-designed from Chinese trousers). 

Women’s clothing changed used to be brassieres, skirts and four-piece long dress but now it is the modern ao dai.

In general, Vietnamese women adorned themselves subtly and secretively in a society where "virtue is more important than appearance".

The most popular and widely-recognized Vietnamese national costume is the ao dai, which is worn nowadays mostly by women, although men do wear them on special occasions such as weddings and funerals. Ao dai is similar to the Chinese Qipao, consisting of a long gown with a slit on both sides, worn over silk pants. It is elegant in style and comfortable to wear, and likely derived in the 18th century or in the royal court of Hue. 

In feudal Vietnam, clothing was one of the most important marks of social status and strict dress codes were enforced. Commoners had a limited choice of similarly plain and simple clothes every day, as well as being limited in the colours they were allowed to use. For a period, commoners were not allowed to wear clothes with dyes other than black, brown or white (with the exception of special occasions such as festivals), but in actuality these rules could change often based upon the whims of the current ruler.

The ao tu than or "4-part dress" is one such example of an ancient dress widely worn by commoner women, along with the ao yem bodice which accompanied it. Peasants across the country also gradually came to wear silk pyjama-like costumes, known as ao kanh in the north and ao ba ba in the south. They wear it like this:

The headgear of peasants often included a plain piece of cloth wrapped around the head (generally called khan dong). For footwear peasants would often go barefoot whereas sandals and shoes were reserved for the aristocracy and royalty.
Monarchs had the exclusive right to wear the colour gold, while nobles wore red or purple. Each member of the royal court had an assortment of different formal gowns they would wear at a particular ceremony, or for a particular occasion. The rules governing the fashion of the royal court could change dynasty by dynasty, thus Costumes of the Vietnamese court were quite diverse.

Water Puppetry

Water Puppetry (Mua roi nuoc)
The village had organized the performance to celebrate spring. The puppeteers were not professionals but, instead, farmers from a village puppetry guild. They had practiced with puppets they’d carved. Their characters were men, women and children, the old and the young... The performers used stories from Vietnamese traditional theater and tales of national heroes who have resisted invaders.

Vietnamese water puppets probably began as a ceremony to pray for water to nourish the rice crop. For that reason, the mythical dragon (a positive image in Vietnamese culture) is a particularly strong character. The Red River Delta is hot, humid and filled with rivers. Every village has a pond or lake that can serve as a water-puppet theater. The weather must be warm since the performers stand in waist-deep water for hours. A theatrical set, which is often a village temple, separates the audience from the performers who works from behind a bamboo curtain. They manipulate their puppets at the far end of the bamboo pole about two meters long and must keep the pole under the water. The heavy wooden puppets held so far from the puppeteers require that performers be very strong.



During French colonialism, urban Vietnamese did not know about water puppets because only farmers perform such puppetry and only for their own neighbors. As the result, water-puppet scenes take place in rural settings with rice paddies, fishponds, bamboo thickets, banyan trees, wells and of course the village temple.

Water puppets incorporate Vietnamese animism as well as Buddhism, Taoism and especially Confucianism. Spectators sitting amidst rice paddies as they watch the water puppets soon sense how Vietnamese farmers live together with spirits in an atmosphere of pantheism.

Religions and Beliefs

In regard to the major world religions, Vietnam is a multi-religious state, with more than 20 million believers, and more than 30,000 places of worship. Buddhism is the largest of the major world religions in Vietnam, with about ten million followers. It was the earliest foreign religion to be introduced in Vietnam, arriving from India in the second century A.D. in two ways, the Mahayana sect via China, and the Hinayana sect via Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. During the ten-century feudal reign of Vietnam, Buddhism was considered a state religion. At present, Vietnam has more than 20,000 pagodas dedicated to Buddha, with a large number of other pagodas being built or restored.

Under the Chinese domination, Confucianism had yet to gain a position in the Vietnamese society. The official adoption of Confucianism had not been recorded until 1070 when King Ly Thai To built Van Mieu (the Temple of Literature) to worship Chu Cong and Khong Tu (Confucius). In the 15th century, due to the need of constructing a unified nation, a centralized administration and a social order, Confucianism took the place of Buddhism to become a national religion under the Le dynasty. Confucianism, mostly Song Confucianism that took root deep into the social and political structure, the system of education and examinations and the circle of Confucian scholars gradually dominated social and moral life. However, Confucianism was only accepted to Vietnam in specific factors, particularly on politics and morality, rather than its entire system.

Taoism penetrated Vietnam at roughly the end of the 2nd century. Since the Vo Vi (letting things take their own course) doctrine bore the thought of resisting the Chinese rulers, it was used as a weapon against the Northern feudalism. This religion also contained factors of magic and mystery, so it fits human subconscious and primitive beliefs. Many Confucianists also admired Taoism’s tendency of enjoying quietness and joyful leisure. However, Taoism has long been regarded as an extinct religion that only left vestiges in folk beliefs.

The second largest foreign religion in Vietnam is Catholicism, with about six million followers. Catholicism was introduced to Vietnam by Spanish, Portuguese, and French missionaries early in the 17th century. There are now more than 6,000 churches engaged in religious activities throughout the country. More than 500 churches damaged during the U.S. air war against Vietnam are being rebuilt.

Christianity came to Vietnam in the 17th century as an intermediary of the Western culture and colonialism. It made use of the favourable opportunity in which feudalism was in crisis, Buddhism was depraved and Confucianism was in deadlock to become a spiritual relief of a part of the population. However, this religion failed to integrate into the Vietnamese culture for a long time. Christians had to set up an altar dedicated to Jesus Christ right at their homes. Only when the Gospel was introduced into Vietnam, Christianity was able to gain a position. In 1993, there were 5 million Catholics and nearly half a million Protestants.

Foreign religions imported to Vietnam did not exterminate the local folk beliefs, but they mixed with each other to derive specific variants for both sides. For example, Taoism could not lower the women’s role, which was reflected by widespread worship of Mau (Goddess). The features of polytheism, democracy, and community are manifested by the worship of groups of ancestors, and pairs of gods. Entering a pagoda, people can easily recognize that not only Buddha but also gods and even human are worshiped there. Perhaps, only in Vietnam, there were legends that a toad dares to sue Heaven or a human being marries a fairy. These are the prominent features of Vietnamese beliefs.

History of beliefs and religions

The Vietnamese folk beliefs since the ancient time consist of belief in fertility, worship of nature and worship of man. Human beings need to be reproduced; crops need to be lushly green for the nourishment and development of life, so belief in fertility came into existence.

Among the human-revering beliefs, the custom of worshiping ancestors is the most popular, which nearly become one belief of the Vietnamese (also called Dao Ong Ba in the Cochin China). The Vietnamese choose the death-day rather than the birthday to hold a commemorative anniversary for the deceased. Every family worships Tho cong, or the God of Home, who takes care of the home and blesses the family. Every village worships its Thanh hoang, the God of the village, who protects and guides the whole village. The whole nation worships the very first kings, sharing the common ancestors' death anniversary (the Ritual of Hung Temple). Particularly, the worship of Tu Bat Tu, or the Four Immortal Gods, namely, God Tan Vien (preventing flooding), God Giong (resisting and defeating foreign invaders), God Chu Dong Tu (together with his wife growing out of poverty to consistently build his fortune) and Goddess Lieu Hanh (heavenly princess who left Heaven for the earth in the yearning for happiness) has been regarded as extremely beautiful national values.

Indigenous group - Khmer Krom

People and Culture

For the inhabitants, it is estimated that there are about 8,240,000 Khmer Kampuchea Krom, worldwide. Khmer Krom meaning the Khmer people who live in the Southern part of Cambodia (Kambuja). Approximately 80% of them live in the Mekong delta, and a small number is in other provinces out the Southern part of Vietnam.

The Khmer Krom people have been in existence in this part of the peninsula since the beginning of the first century. They have sacrificed their lives to hold on to the territory since then. The territory was immense compared to the Khmer population at that time, creating opportunities for expansionist neighbors to invade. For this reason, after the Vietnamese exterminated the Kingdom of Champa; they used all kinds of pretexts and tactics to move their people to Kampuchea Krom. Since the French colonial departed Indochina in 1954, after nearly one hundred years (1867-1954) of domination on this land, Kampuchea Krom has been placed under Vietnamese control. The Khmer authority had filed complaints against this criminal act, but the French National Assembly chose to ignore them.

Besides the Vietnamese, there are Cham and Chinese living in Kampuchea Krom. The Khmer Krom are outnumbered by their "invaders" and "rulers", who once asked the Khmer Krom for asylum or migration only. About seventy percent of the Vietnamese and ninety-five percent of the Chinese live in the cities and fill most of important jobs in government and business. The Khmer Krom, live throughout the country, especially, in the Mekong delta.

Khmer Krom's Population in the following countries:

Vietnam: 7,000,000 (seven millions)

Cambodia: 1,200,000 (1.2 million)

Other countries: 40,000

Their language

The Khmer language is spoken in all Khmer families and communities. For official business, however, the Vietnamese language is strictly enforced. About 10% of the Khmer Krom are able to speak and write Vietnamese correctly. The Khmer language is taught at home and in the temples, but it is not permitted in any official business.

The struggle for the Vietnamese government to allow the use of Khmer in school or public place has been advocated for years, but no satisfactory result has ever been achieved. In many instances, thousands of Khmer Krom were accused, jailed, tortured, deported, or persecuted for speaking, learning, or teaching the Khmer language. The Vietnamese do not allow books or documents to be written or published in Khmer unless they are to be used as propaganda.

Their religion

Approximately 95% of the Khmer Krom are Buddhists. They practice Hinayana Buddhism, (Theravada or Southern School) whereas most Vietnamese practice Mahayana Buddhism (Northern School) or Christianity. The Chams are Muslims, and the Chinese are mostly Buddhists, and some Christians. There are more than 500 Buddhist temples and more than 10,000 monks throughout Kampuchea Krom. Some temples were erected many centuries ago are still standing today, but many others were destroyed during the wars.

Languages

The official language of the Social Republic of Vietnam (SRV) is Vietnamese (Quoc ngu). A tonal language, it bears similarities to Khmer, Thai, and Chinese, and at least one-third of the vocabulary is derived from Chinese. Formerly, Vietnamese was written in Chinese characters, but under French rule a Romanized alphabet originally developed by Roman Catholic missionaries in the 17th century was adopted as the standard written form of the language. Most of the minority groups have their own spoken languages, and some have their own writing systems, but all children in the SRV today receive instruction in the national language. There are other languages spoken as well such as Chinese, Khmer, Cham and other languages spoken by tribes inhabiting the mountainous regions. Although there are some similarities to Southeast Asian languages, such as Chinese, Vietnamese is thought to be a separate language group, although a member of the Austro-Asiatic language family.

Previously known under the French colonization as Annamese, Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of the country’s population and of nearly 3 million Vietnamese abroad; it also spoken as a secondary language by several ethnic minorities of Vietnam. It was only in the 20th century when Vietnamese became the official executive language. For a long period of time Vietnam used written traditional Chinese for governing purposes and written Vietnamese was mainly used for literature and poetry. A large extent of Vietnamese vocabulary has been adopted from Chinese particularly words that signify abstract ideas. The current Vietnamese writing system is a borrowed version of the Latin alphabet with extra diacritics for specific letters and tones.

There are 4 commonly understandable regional dialects of the Vietnamese language. It includes the Northern Vietnamese (spoken in Hanoi, Haiphong), North-central Vietnamese (Nghe An, Thanh Hoa, Ha Tinh, Quang Bình), Central Vietnamese (Huê, Quang Nam), and Southern Vietnamese (Saigon, Mekong). These dialects generally differ in sound systems, vocabulary (basic and non-basic), and grammar. Other common languages spoken by minority groups in Vietnam include Murong, Chinese, Tay, Nung and Hmông. French is still spoken by a number of older Vietnamese as second language. English is gaining popularity and is a mandatory subject in most schools. Chinese and Japanese have also become popular among Vietnamese.

Language policy

While spoken by the Vietnamese people for millennia, written Vietnamese did not become the official administrative language of Vietnam until the 20th century. For most of its history, the entity now known as Vietnam used written classical Chinese, whereas written Vietnamese in the form of Chu nom was invented in the 13th century and extensively used in the 17th and 18th centuries for poetry and literature. Chu nom was used for administrative purposes during the brief Ho and Tay Son Dynasties. During French colonialism, French superseded Chinese in administration. It was not until independence from France that Vietnamese was used officially. It is the language of instruction in schools and universities and is the language for official business.