Hello !
Pour ceux qui lisent l'anglais, j'ai trouve ce texte sur Lonely Planet qui parle de societe vietnamienne, de vie de tous les jours, du developpement ...
Et personnellement, je l'ai trouve touchant.
Je ne sais pas si tout ce qui y est dit est vrai mais c'est bien ecrit et j'espere que vous prendez le meme plaisir que moi a le lire.
17 Things You Should Learn to Love About Vietnam
As per request of @rockportrait on twitter, along with @coachleaders’ list: CoachLeaders, @fisheggtree’s published list: Adam Bray, and plus @dynamicscholar’s penetrating list that he wrote after reading my post at his blog, ControlDown, I’ve made my own list of 17 Things You Should Learn to Love About Vietnam. So here’s my semi-insider’s perspective on learning to love Vietnam for what it is and appreciating how it all works. I’ve tried to write this post from my experience and am unaware of how other countries in the region operate, but I’m sure there’s some overlap. I’m sure there’s somethings I missed and some things you may not agree with, I welcome the discussion.
1. Nothing is as it seems – Vietnam, as many other Asian nations, is a world of appearances. That lady you meet down at the end of your block may smile every time she sees you, but the minute you walk around the corner, she’s talking about how your belly’s a lot bigger than it was a few months ago. You propose a new project to a bunch of Vietnamese people, and despite all the Yes’s you heard, nothing happens for months, making you wonder what those Yes’s really meant. Vietnam and its layers of culture and meaning make it a sometimes excruciating but fascinating onion to peel. I’m definitely still peeling.
2. Language is the key – Without Vietnamese language one’s understanding of Vietnamese culture just scratches the surface. But once you get the hang of it (which starts with the tones), it’s quite a ride. Vietnamese language, with its innuendos, puns, nuances, plays-on-words, spoonerisms, politenesses, coarseness, connection to old Chinese words, adoption of French and American vocabulary, and its ability for cussing people out (chửi thề) makes it the number one gate into the nitty gritty of Vietnamese culture and society, and the deeper you go, the greater the rewards. (How do you learn? Well, as most VNese people would say “get a girlfriend/boyfriend!”;-) I’m inclined to say, “get a job that forces you to think and use it”)
3. Pronouns – “How old are you?” is a common question that Vietnamese people ask because they want to know where they stand with a new person, and how they should act towards that new person. This system of politeness gets mind-bending! My grandfather’s older sister has great great grandkids (because her offspring all got married early) who call me great uncle Minh (Ông Minh). When I meet xe om drivers on the street, I often call them “Anh” (which means older brother), but they also call me “Anh” since we won’t have time to know each other’s ages we’ve made our polite formalities and placed the other person above ourselves semantically. Becoming more and more a part of and adept at this elaborate naming system punctuates an initiation into the rather familial atmosphere of Vietnamese society. It just feels different to call people by their proper pronouns. “Tính Tiền em ơi!”
4. North, South AND Central – The average tourist and/or ignorant American will come to Vietnam or speak of Vietnam as comprising of only the North and the South whereas every Vietnamese person knows that the imperial capital was in Huế, and that there are three dominant accents in Vietnamese language, not just two. There’s the lazy, rolling Southern style, the strict proper Northern style and the sweet but heavy Central style. Each adding their own panache to the Vietnamese language (and culture). Enjoying, or for that matter, understanding these three is a real art. Not to mention there’s no end to how many jokes there are that go across accents. (“Bạn có tới Vietnam đủ chưa?” is a classic Huế accent joke that plays on the word “đụ” (fuck) – “Have you had enough of Vietnam?” or with a Central accent, “Have you fucked in Vietnam yet?”) Also, getting familiar with these three regions is at least a 10-20 year project.
5. Cutting in line – Some people may disagree with me on this one, but…People interrupting your drinking table, cutting in line at the supermarket, zooming obnoxiously past on a motorbike, honking the horn just to get by, only staying until the final fight scene in a movie, taking off seat belts before the airplane fasten seat belt sign turns off etc. are a bit annoying at first but are part and parcel to general Vietnamese society. If you can’t learn to appreciate this, which sometimes manifests as a welcoming gesture to drink beer and other times as overbearing, you’ll probably leave Vietnam within months of your arrival. I’ve asked some of my close Vietnamese friends why this is the case, and they’re also perplexed by this counter-intuitive behavior. In a place where politeness towards strangers and elders is paramount it adds some perplexing flavor to Vietnam.
6. The countryside village mentality – The deeper you go into the countryside in Vietnam, the more contours you get to see of Vietnamese people and their natural welcoming attitude (among other things). When you go to a cafe alone with a book, the waiter just might ask you “Why are you lonely?” or “Where are your friends?”. These questions can be summed up with “Càng Đông Càng Vui” meaning “the more people there are the more fun there’ll be.” This mentality permeates Vietnam and makes up the fabric of every part of Vietnamese lifestyle.
7. Complicated past, seemingly hopeful present and an ambiguous future – The last hundred years in Vietnam has had the imperial court, colonialism, World War 2, capitalism (post-colonialism), communism, and a buregoning market economy, etc. (some of these things have come to haunt contemporary Vietnam). Vietnam’s present is characterized by (possibly naive) optimism, greater presence in the SEA region, wonderful FDI statistics, booming private sector, a catch-up public sector, among other things. But when we look at the future of Vietnam there’s so much going on I wonder what will happen…odd new policies, one step forward two steps back, makeshift infrastructure, huge amounts of money, fast food, new bridges, intense rapid progress in some areas and intense slowness in others….all this makes for an exciting unknown future. But as my Vietnamese drinking buddies in the Mekong say “Tomorrow never comes…”
8. The tool in front of you is the right tool - The other day I was driving on the street and came upon some construction workers that had stopped traffic. They had chained the back of a dirt truck up to a tractor and were trying to pull the tractor out of a pit. All the motorbikes on the street waited for 5+ minutes before the chain finally broke and the tractor fell back into the pit, we all sped off chuckling to ourselves, but knowing full well that these workers would probably come up with another idea and eventually get the tractor out of the pit, chain or no chain. Vietnamese problem solving consists of using what is around to squeak by a solution that lasts for that moment at most.
9. The traffic is a metaphor – Some advice on keeping up with Vietnamese traffic: be perceptive (look everywhere), be adaptable (to poor infrastructural circumstances), pay attention, be alert, react quickly, obey most of the rules and keep enough money in your pocket. Western traffic is usually more simple: turn on your left/right light signal, look both ways, drive in the lines, follow the lights, etc. Basically, in the West, just remember to follow the rules. In Vietnam, follow the rule of no rule, look for the easiest legal route and go for it. Vietnamese people seem to emulate the way their traffic looks. All the advice I listed above are equally applicable to everyday Vietnamese society.
10. Emotion vs. Logic – Some say Vietnamese education is a cause of many of the holes in Vietnamese logic but putting that aside, emotion still takes precedence over rationality in Vietnam despite education. I think this may be one part of why many Vietnamese Americans have culture shock when they go back to USA from visiting Vietnam. Upon landing back in the states people are struck by how physically and socially cold Americans are compared to Vietnamese people. When you leave Vietnam, those people that met you and became close to you let their emotions pour out and you realize why you love Vietnam, the people. Sometimes even Vietnamese acquaintances react with more feeling to your departure than your best friends!
11. Everyone is outside – It only takes a day to realize that everyone in the country spends more than 50% of their time outside, be it on motorbikes, on street side coffee-shops, at pubs, on their porches, etc. It makes you wonder sometimes if anybody’s working in this country, but it’s an extension of that “Càng Đông Càng Vui” mentality and the coffee break culture. It also makes everybody a spectator for motorbike accidents, street fights, etc.
12. Humility? – If you’ve been in Vietnam long enough you’ll probably know the meaning of “lemon question” or Chảnh (if you don’t know, ask your Vietnamese friends!). I think this new lingo is a modern manifestation of the Vietnamese sensitivity to humility. And although there’s an emphasis on the concept of humility, it doesn’t mean that people are actually so. A new acquaintance may meet you for the first time, and act all humble and polite with you, but it’s just for show. People may be so humble (or obsessed with the idea of humility) that they don’t believe they could ever be right (currently a problem in Vietnamese education). My new colleague asked me “Are you a good karaoke singer?”, I said “I don’t know.”, she said, “Ah, so that means you’re good.” If I had said “Yes”, she might say “Hehe, We’ll see.” The ins and outs of Vietnamese humility are hilarious.
13. Public vs. Private – As some of us may have all experienced, that classic barrage of Vietnamese questions: “How old are you?” “Are you single?” “How much do you make?” “What did your parents do?” etc. …some would get annoyed by the above, but the beauty of it is that it gets everything out in the open and is another manifestation of Vietnamese people’s need to know where they stand with you. Honestly, American privacy issues in the face of these questions stems from an obsession with the self and it makes sense that it would be challenged by a society that is obsessed with being connected and knowing one’s specific place in that society.
14. Red envelopes – I can’t talk about Vietnam being Vui without mentioning money in its most well known packaged form in VN. If you’ve been invited to a Vietnamese family’s Tet party, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. And if you’ve seen a circle of uncles, aunts, and grandparents getting well wishes from their nephews, nieces and grandchildren the chaotic schizophrenia that is Vietnamese society enters a calm familiar and familial quality that somehow synthesizes the essence of everything mentioned above and below.
15. Big circles run around the straight forward – Just as much as Vietnamese humility is complicated so is the Vietnamese way of expressing themselves. Ask a direct question about how to complete a task and they talk about how they came to be here, summing up everything that is not relevant to the question. Want to get something done, and you find yourself running around from one department to the next with no one taking the blame nor taking a risk. Some would say it’s a waste of time, but it’s definitely not a waste of Vietnamese time.
16. Mày – This word encapsulates so many of the coarse parts of Vietnamese society that I’ve come to love deeply. Mày is used to talk to dogs, to nephews, nieces, grandchildren, to cats, to your children, to strangers that you’ve met that are considerably younger than you and clearly more innocent and in a way to subtly insult them, to people you want to fight or kill, to brothers and sisters, and to best friends. It takes at least a year to get on the level where you’ll be calling your Vietnamese friends “mày” and vice versa. But once you’re there, it’s a closeness you’ll find once in a blue moon.
17. Đám – Vietnamese people love to party. They love to get together, talk, gossip, eat and drink, and there are so many reasons to do so. So it’s no surprise that Vietnamese people try to celebrate all the Western holidays in addition to their own. Not to mention all the “đám’s”: wedding, wedding anniversary, death anniversary, engagement party, funeral, festivals, and feasts. Do I even need to mention “đi bão” (to “go storming” through the streets to celebrate Vietnamese football victories) and “rửa” (to “wash” your new belongings with alcohol)?
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