I've spent 100+ hours this semester (and likely 20 in the last day) reading up about Vietnamese history and learning more about what criteria might be used in determining what is ~Vietnamese~. I came to this topic because, being unknowledgeable, I didn't know what it meant to be Vietnamese when I answered people's "What are you? No, like, what areeee you?" question. And honestly, I don't know if I should still say Vietnamese, because there's a lot to unpack here!
I will try to summarize some things I've learned in this project, and how that relates to being Vietnamese (and how I think I am Vietnamese?):
1) Vietnamese as a language has persisted for centuries
Ok, so this is kind of a lie - this is what the research I read says, but I know (actually, I don't even know) the written language has some French influence (lacking in Chinese characters is my assumption). But, for a written language to persist for millennia, even under 1,000 years of foreign occupation, I think that's impressive!
2) Vietnam has had a lot of infighting - #familydrama
I guess I know where my family drama comes from - being Vietnamese! (Just kidding, my family and I are on good terms). The fact that dynasties would be toppled by people that intermarried into the royal family across centuries is incredible - people really wanted power! And Vietnam was quite divided!
3) Historical Vietnam = Northern Vietnam
Southern Vietnam has been unjustly forgotten! I wrote a post about the Champa - but honestly, it's a little bit pathetic, because I still don't know that much about it.
Because. All. Of. The. Research. Focuses. On. The. North.
Because, you guessed it, China.
It's a real travesty I don't know much more about the Champa and other Southern Vietnamese people/culture, and I think that's what I'd want to explore in another project.
4) Vietnam has had a lot of names - and it's not actually Vietnam!
Shocked at that last part, right? The real answer to this is Viet Nam - that's how the name is officially written in documents by Vietnamese people. Guess we're just going to keep doing the same thing we usually do, though, because we're lazy and in the West - when was the last time the West has respected anything in East/Southeast Asia? (Another joke... kind of). The names are actually on the home page - they include most names that stayed with Vietnam for a while.
There's more I could write, but I hope to make future posts and keep this blog up - thanks for a great semester, Freeman Think Tank!
Comments