My Life in Vietnam

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Vietnam has served as a cultural bridge between China and Southeast Asia. Only after the end of the 19th century did Western influences begin to replace Chinese inspiration in national life. In today's Vietnam the primary goal of education and the arts is to inculcate in all citizens the virtues of the socialist system. Education. During the precolonial period Vietnamese education was patterned after the system used in China. Its chief goal was to train potential candidates for the bureaucracy. Promising young males were exposed to the Confucian classics at village schools in preparation for the civil service examinations and entry into officialdom. During the colonial period the Confucian educational system was abolished and replaced by the French model. Course content changed from Confucian ethics and philosophy to the social and natural sciences. The concept of education as a stepping-stone to an official career was discarded, and emphasis was placed on practical training and exposure to Western culture. Only a minority of school-age children, however, actually attended school. After 1954 the Saigon government retained and expanded the French system. In the north the Communists turned to the Soviet model. After 1976, in the early years of the socialist republic, emphasis was placed on Marxist doctrine, revolutionary ethics, and the value of combining book learning with manual labor. By the 1990s the approach to education had changed to reflect Vietnam's emergence into the world economy as a growing trade partner. Primary education became compulsory from age 6 to 11, and secondary education included instruction in English as a second language. Culture. During the centuries of Chinese rule, Vietnamese society was introduced to a variety of influences from the north. Chinese styles transformed Vietnamese literature, music, and visual arts and mixed with indigenous themes. This tendency was particularly pronounced in literature. Under Chinese rule, literary Chinese was the official language of Vietnam and the primary mode of expression in philosophy, poetry, and historiography. But the vernacular survived, and when a native form of the Chinese writing system—chu nom, or "southern characters"—was developed sometime after the 8th century, the Vietnamese language came into increased use as a literary vehicle. During the Le dynasty (1428–1804) a new form of novel based on the vernacular began to flourish. Its distinguishing characteristics—such as its frequent use of irony and social criticism—set it apart from its contemporary Chinese equivalent. Under French rule, Chinese cultural influence rapidly declined. Literary Chinese was abandoned, and many educated Vietnamese turned to the French language as a modern alternative. At first, some felt that Vietnamese was inadequate as a sophisticated means of written expression, but after Chinese ideographs were replaced by quoc ngu, Vietnamese gradually became accepted as the national language of the country. Western music, painting, and architecture replaced traditional Chinese forms. Literature, poetry, fiction, drama, and essay writing were all transformed by French influence. In the 1920s and 1930s a new generation of Vietnamese novelists began to depict the habits and aspirations of the new Westernized middle class. At first some were simple imitations of popular romantic novels in the West. In the 1930s, however, a school of young writers influenced by the trend toward critical realism in the West began to use the novel as a vehicle for serious critique of colonial society. After 1954 the popularity of Western culture continued and even intensified in the south. In some areas, such as popular music and literature, the dominant role of French tradition was replaced by that of the United States. In painting and the visual arts, French influence held its own. With the introduction of several hundred thousand U.S. troops after 1965, American rock music, popular literature, and individualistic lifestyles became increasingly prevalent, particularly among the young and in urban areas. In the north, culture was viewed by the regime as a means of creating the New Man. During the Vietnam War, art, music, and literature all reflected themes of patriotism and sacrifice for the sacred cause of national reunification. In unified Vietnam, culture continues to serve politics, but owing to international pressure the poet Nguyen Chi Thien, and fiction writers Doan Quo Sy, and Du'o'ng Thu-Hu'o'ng, who wrote of communist corruption, were released from prison. Writers in exile continue to publish in France and America. Bao Ninh defies political censors and writes honestly about the Vietnam War, as in The Sorrow of War (1990), a novel of the war's devastation . The most prolific contemporary author is Nguyen Ngoc Ngan, whose The Will of Heaven (1982; with E. E. Richey) was translated into English.