Someone explain to me about Vietnam and cultural influences?

Question

Lately I've been reading about Vietnamese culture, and how it has been heavily influenced from China, even though vietnamese always resisted. I'm kind of tired of hearing everything about how vietnam is like china, i wish there was more diversity in my culture, like more influences from india

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indosphere

and that says that everything around vietnam was influenced by vietnam, can someone give me another side of the culture of vietnam other than the chinese and where the vietnamese originated from? like from china or what

Answer 1

There's plenty of differences that makes the Vietnamese distinctly Vietnamese and there is nothing wrong with the Chinese influence on Vietnam. A better way of understanding the similarities and difference is comparing the U.S. to England.

We speak English. Protestant Christianity, that many of us choose as our religion, has roots in England. Many of our laws are based on English Common Law. Most of our customs and holidays come from England. Yet, Americans are distinctly American and not English. This distinction was developed in a little over 200 years, while the distinction between the Vietnamese and Chinese has developed over a couple thousand years.

You cannot separate Vietnam's origination from China because the Vietnamese were Chinese a very long time ago. The same goes for the Cambodians, Thais, Laotians, Hmong, Champas and the hundreds of other ethnic groups in Southeast Asia. Time, geography and historic conflicts had caused these societies to branch and evolve from the Chinese.

One important distinction from the Chinese is not being conquered by the Mongols. The Mongols invaded, conquered and controlled China for centuries, while failing to do the same in Vietnam. In fact, Vietnam is the only mainland Asian country that was not controlled by the Mongols as was not influenced by Mongolian society. China's society is heavily influenced by the Mongolians, which is the root of most distinctions between the Chinese and Vietnamese.

The Vietnamese have issues with China because of China's numerous attempts to conquer and control Vietnam. These issues are literally ancient history that should be left to historians to fight over. Both China and Vietnam have large communities of each others people. The Cho Lon (??) District in Saigon is one of the world's largest Chinese communities outside of China.

All this in mind, Vietnam and it's society will always be linked to China because China is a part of our heritage. We will not have to worry about China invading and conquering Vietnam in our lifetimes, which will change the fact that we are Vietnamese instead of Chinese.

Answer 2

Origins of the Vietnamese people:
http://www.tuvy.com/Countries/vietnamese/origins_of_the_vietnamese_people.htm

Since France owned Vietnam for about 100 years, they have had influence over religion and other areas.

French Influences:
http://www.geocities.com/vietnamrp/french_influence.htm
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/08/25/FDGF28CLUU1.DTL

America affected modern Vietnam. Here are some negative affects from the United States:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-02/05/content_303315.htm

Answer 3

Chinese influence permeated all aspects of traditional Vietnamese culture, while Western influences have been strong in the 20th century. You can find a very informative website which contains all aspects of Vietnamese culture here http://www.vietnam-culture.com

Answer 4

i must say, this is not true: "the Vietnamese were Chinese a very long time ago". Vietnamese was not chinese. Vietnamese was vietnamese along time ago. There was original vietnamese locals. Many chinese chose to move down to south. They settled down with locals. So many of us are mixed of vietnamese and chinese. Im one of them. Especially there is a big community of chinese living in part of saigon.

For the eating and drinking culture, viet has had its own stuffs. Viet has Pho, which is not like, or similar to any noodle soup all over the world. And learn how many kind of noodle soups Viet has? Many many, im viet i even dont know how many soup we have actually. Each province has their own soup used with specific vegetable, and ppl name it by adding the province name. The hotter the soup the better. Soup eating culture is: making you sweating as much as possible and its better to have a extreme hot soup in cold weather. Feel the heat running through ur tongue, ur throat, to your stomach.
Viet food is not as oily as chinese food is.

To the people, too friendly that everybody is a friend for year. Not chinese, there is defence, hesitating in knowing new ppl.

and many else

Answer 5

If you ever plan to come to Vietnam - DO NOT mention this "China thing" !!!!They really don't like China and they don't like to be compared.

Answer 6

Vietnam has its own and special culture, beauty

Answer 7

the third answer says it all. cheers.