Chinese Elements Within Vietnamese Culture: Customs, Traditions,
Language and Contemporary Media
The conflict between China-Vietnam regarding the 2016 territorial dispute appears a new development to the rest of the world. In reality, this hostility is deep rooted, and significantly more vibrant and imminent from Vietnam side, almost making the conflict one sided. Overpowered and overshadowed by China, the smaller nation puts more things at risk than its neighboring country by being involved in this aforementioned conflict, even if China is on the receiving end of this hostility.
A thousand years of Chinese domination of Vietnam and the countless wars and arguments that precedes …show more content…
Chinese American expert on Asian relations, Pao-min, Chang (1982) reports about the Sino-Vietnamese dispute over the ethnic Chinese from the 15th century to after Vietnam’s independence in 1975, in an article with the same name; he notes that “independent Vietnamese rulers as early as the 15th century sought to control Chinese immigration”, between the end of the Chinese ruling and the French colonization (pg. 195-196). As he states: Vietnam had tried to assimilate the Chinese population within Vietnam via similar means to the government’s during the Chinese ruling (Chang, 1982, pg. 195-196). In 1830, the court of Annam starts preventing families of mixed Chinese Vietnamese from the mix with “pure Chinese stock”, as well as forbidding them to immigrate or travel to China; additionally, the French government later on enforces policies to control Chinese immigration and China’s intervention in Vietnam’s politics, as well as stir evokes more anti-Chinese movements and feelings within the Vietnamese community (Chang, 1982, pg. 195-196). The animosity Vietnam has towards China kept rising through time, seemingly pushed the relation between the two nations pass the point of …show more content…
Just as Rambo (2005), an EWC Representative in Vietnam from 1997-2000, states in one of his writings in Searching for Vietnam: “Virtually every aspect of Vietnamese culture was modified during the more than one thousand years of Chinese rule which followed.” (pg. 70); the influence is undeniable, and most clearly demonstrated in Vietnam’s customs and traditions, language, and contemporary culture–including cinematic productions, music, visual arts and other entertainment platforms–which would be addressed as Vietnamese culture in this