CULTURA Y RELIGIÓN VIETNAMITAS

Martes 13 de diciembre

Salón de Grados de Filología, Ed. A.

Prof. LE THI NGOC DIEP, Professor at the Vietnam National University – HCMC, University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City.

Prof.  TRAN CAO BOI NGOC, Professor at the Vietnam National University – HCMC, University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City.

 

VIETNAMESE LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Profesoras TRAN CAO BOI NGOC (PhD.) AND Ms. LE THI NGOC DIEP

(Universidad USSH de Vietnan)

 

Martes 13 dic. 2022. Salón de Grados del Ed. A de Filología UCM, 12.30h

Coordina: Consuelo Marco Martínez y David Sevillano (Estudios de Asia Oriental)

 

1. VIETNAMESE CULTURE AND RELIGION

Knowledge

- About Vietnamese culture: Presenting cultural subjects, cultural space and cultural time in Vietnam; Vietnamese cultural characteristics are expressed through the elements of the cultural system: cognitive culture, organizational culture, behavioral culture, etc.

- Vietnamese religion: Presentation on major religions in Vietnam: Exogenous religions: Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam; indigenous religions and those formed through the process of acculturation from exogenous religions

1. VIETNAMESE CULTURE

1.1. Positioning Vietnamese culture

- Multi-ethnic cultural subject.

- Conditions of contant nature contribute to the formation of basic characteristics of Vietnamese culture: geographical and natural conditions, historical and social circumstances, development level (still mainly belonging to agricultural civilization).

1.2. Progress of Vietnamese culture

- Divergence of Vietnamese culture

- Cultural characteristics of each period, transitional steps between periods. Special attention is paid to the indigenous aspect of Vietnamese culture with typical achievements being the Dong Son Culture, which serves as the foundation for the process of cultural exchange and acculturation.

1.3. Vietnamese cultural space

- Cultural zones: According to the method of zoning of the author group Tran Quoc Vuong, there are 6 zones.

- Cultural characteristics of each zone in which attention is paid to the South as a new cultural zone/region compared to other cultural zones/regions of Vietnam.

1.4. Vietnamese cultural elements

1.4.1. Cognitive culture

- The role of perception and regular characteristics of cognitive thinking associated with the development of culture and civilization. In pre-industrial times: thinking under the influence of emotion, experiences, synetics and putting a lot of weight on relationship; In industrial times: thinking in a scientific, rational, analytical and synthetical manner.

- Accordingly, the perception in the traditional culture of ethnic groups in Vietnam is based mainly on experiences.

- For the Vietnamese, the process of cultural acculturation has contributed to building and developing the yin-yang philosophy – one of the pinnacles of experiential thinking, synthesis, and the high appreciation of relationships of Asian culture. As a product of cognitive experience, the yin-yang philosophy also contains many mistakes, especially for the application of the yin-yang philosophy to explain many socio-cultural phenomena.

- Characteristics of modern cognitive culture: Since the beginning of the twentieth century, scientific thinking has gradually been adopted and developed with a way of thinking that favors rationality, analysis and synthesis on a high level.

1.4.2. Life-organizing Culture

1.4.2.1. Culture of organizing collective life

-   Family organization, rural organization, national organization, urban organization

- The basic characteristics of rural organization, national organization, urban organization in traditional as well as in modern periods.

1.4.2.2. Culture of organizing personal life (from the perspective of relationship to each individual’s spiritual life such as beliefs, customs, art, etc.)

- Regarding beliefs: Roles and characteristics of beliefs in Vietnam (mainly focusing on culture of Vietnamese people’s beliefs): belief in souls (everything is animistic), fertility beliefs, ancestors-worshiping beliefs, Thanh Hoang-God worshiping, Ancestor-King worshiping, and some other prominent beliefs.

- About customs: Focusing on customs associated with life cycle rites and transition rites of the Vietnamese and some other ethnic groups.

- Regarding communication culture: Paying attention to the bases that form the communication characteristics of Vietnamese people such as the role of family and clan in personal and community life, leading to the trend of "familyzation" in the addressing way of Vietnamese people, etc.

1.4.3. Behavioral culture

1.4.3.1. Behavioral Culture towards the natural environment

- Behaving towards the natural environment including food, clothes, accommodation and transportation. This is a way of classification to emphasize the obvious "original" characteristics in the relationship between humans and nature (making full use, coping).

 

2. RELIGION IN VIETNAM

- Analyzing religion in relation to social environment, mainly from the perspective of contact and cultural acculturation in terms of religion.

In traditional Vietnamese culture:

+ Keeping contact and experiencing cultural acculturation with Chinese culture, adopting Confucianism, Taoism and Mahayana Buddhism.

+ Keeping contact and experiencing cultural acculturation with Indian culture, adopting  Brahminism and Theravada Buddhism.

- In pre-modern and modern Vietnamese culture:

+ Keeping contact and experiencing Western culture, adopting Christianity

CONCLUSION

 

1. THE ROLE OF ENGLISH IN VIETNAM

I (and Dr. Le Thi Ngoc Diep) will talk about the role of English in Vietnam, the use of English as a lingua franca and will share experiences in teaching and learning English at our University.

In addition, we will share some of the situation of teaching and learning the Spanish language in our University with the hope to develop student exchange programs between the two Universities.