Viet Nam. Hữu Ngọc
nation (unifying the family, village, and state) at an early stage to fight foreign invasions and natural disasters (e.g., building dikes against floods); formation of the village as the basic social, political, and economic unit
• an essential element: love for one’s country
• an ancient culture: importance of the Việt language and love of learning
• ardor for work: intelligence, innovativeness, skillfulness, thrift, and the influence of wet-rice cultivation
• primordial role of the family: language use of personal pronouns according to the presumed age of the interlocutors and their position in the wider cultural family
• relationships: filial piety, respect for aged persons, and solidarity (family, village, and nation)
• adaptability: ability to survive, suppleness of comportment, sense of realism, preference for concreteness, eclecticism, and empiricism
• lifestyle: sobriety and simplicity, greater sensitivity to the simple, skillful, lovely, and graceful than to the imposing and monumental
• spectrum of feelings: tendency to be more sentimental than rational
• philosophical tendencies: little inclination toward philosophical speculations or metaphysical flights
• religious feelings: religiosity rather than fanaticism, with a large presence of autochthonous beliefs (animism)
• profound influences: Confucianism and Buddhism
• priority: preference for the good rather than the beautiful, hence the predominant role of morals and virtues
Our researchers analyzing Vietnamese character and cultural identity tend to highlight positive points. Very few discuss negative aspects. This attitude was justified during the long wars for national liberation, since we needed to emphasize positive national traditions to galvanize our Resistance. However, we need truly scientific research in today’s increasing competition on a world scale to reveal our people’s weaknesses and strengths in order to help shape capable and highly motivated citizens. According to our researchers, the main negative traits of traditional Vietnamese character and cultural identity may be listed as follows:
• social development and socio-economic structures: inability to evolve normally because of war and other interruptions
• in opposition to the strong sense of community: exaggerated concern for face-saving, difficulty for individuals to gain self-affirmation; localism and regionalism
• in opposition to fidelity toward traditions: conservatism and reluctance to embrace reforms and renovation of the economy, technology, and society
• patriarchal traditions inherited from traditional society: sectarianism, anarchism, and the cult of personality; too much emphasis on artisans and small-scale agriculture; lack of discipline, foresight, planning, and accounting; weak concern for profitability
• lack of logical and analytical sense: emphasis on empiricism and reliance on chance
Not all the traits enumerated can be taken as gospel truth. Nevertheless, they provide material for serious research and discussion.
The Vietnamese “I” and “We”
To understand the Vietnamese community, we should explore the strong socio-affective ties binding the “I” to the “we,” that is, binding the individual to the community, large or small. We can trace these ties back to the formation of the nation. Việt Nam, lying in the heart of Southeast Asia, developed its own life and culture as early as the Bronze Age (first millennium BCE) and before exposure to Indian and Chinese influences. The Vietnamese nation was formed through the sporadic multiplication of villages (làng, xã), which were political, social, and economic units with solidarity forged through successive struggles against natural elements and foreign aggression. The Vietnamese language, which symbolizes the Vietnamese community, has no general word for “I.” The first person singular cannot be expressed uniformly but must vary to suit different relationships the speaker has with others, including equals, parents, children, older or younger persons, and persons from different social conditions.
The pronoun “ta” may signify “I” or “we” depending on the context. The interrogative pronoun “ai” may mean “I,” “you” (singular or plural), “he” or “she,” “they,” as well as “him” and “her” and “them,” with a hint of tenderness, melancholy, or mild reproach. Consider this couplet in six-word, eight-word meter from an eleven-line oral folk poem (ca dao):
Ai đi muôn dặm non sông
Để ai chất chứa sầu đong vơi đầy
When translated literally, these lines are virtually meaningless:
Who crossed myriad mountains and rivers,
Leaving who fraught with melancholy, which defies measure.
With an understanding of the variations possible in “ai,” the lines become:
You are away, across many mountains,
Leaving me fraught with melancholy, which defies measure.
The Vietnamese: A Warlike People?
A favorite anti-Vietnamese press theme during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s was: “The Vietnamese are the Prussians of Asia.” As ideological issues fade with time, perhaps future historians will agree among themselves that, at its base, all that fighting was for national liberation. If we consider the often bloody conflicts that tore apart Southeast Asian states in gestation during the second millennium, we can see that most wars fought by Việt Nam were in resistance to foreign aggression.
If it is true that literature mirrors a people’s psyche, then we might point out that the literature of Việt Nam’s majority ethnic group (the Kinh or Việt) does not have epics or other works exalting war for its own sake or singing the grandeur of massacres. On the contrary, the work second in popularity only to The Tale of Kiều (Truyện Kiều, the masterpiece by Nguyễn Du [1766–1820]) is a long anti-war poem, “Lament of a Wife Whose Husband Has Gone to War” (Chinh Phụ Ngâm). For two centuries, this lament enjoyed the love and esteem of both common people and learned scholars. This poem in 103 quatrains with eight-word meter exudes a poignant despair, which leads to instinctive hatred of war. As a woman subjected to Confucian education, the wife never directs the least reproach toward war’s initiators—the kings, lords, and other feudalists. Instead, she simply describes her loneliness and suffering. Her only solace is hope for her husband’s return. Memories of the separation from her beloved cast a constant shadow on her waking hours:
The brook rippling beneath the bridge is pure,
The roadside grass is still a tender green.
Seeing him off leaves her anguished,
Once he’s astride his horse, aboard his boat.
The rushing water can never cleanse her grief,
The fragrant grass can never ease her memories.
Let us note that the Vietnamese text of this lament is a translation by the poetess Đoàn Thị Điểm (1705–1748) from the original version, which male poet Đặng Trần Côn (1710–1745) wrote in classical Chinese characters (Hán). Ðoàn Thị Điểm condensed the original 477 lines into 412 lines in Vietnamese ideographic script (Nôm). During the Resistance War Against France, Hồ Chí Minh taught this long poem to his staff while on long jungle treks.
Are There Differences in the Mentality of Northern and Southern Vietnamese?
After first visiting southern Việt Nam and before traveling to the country’s northern region, a foreign friend asked me, “Have differences affected your national identity because of the regional interests and disparities in northern and southern