Learning Points

During this IBSM trip, I have learnt more about the Vietnam culture in terms of the education, history, art, dance, religion, beliefs and people.

HISTORY
The trip to Reunification Palace and Cu Chi tunnel has allowed me to know more about the history of Vietnam. For a few centuries, the Vietnamese lived in wartime. They have fight with the French, Americans, Japanese and Chinese before.

For example, Cu Chu tunnel is one of the war places in Vietnam. It is the war between the Americans and the Vietnamese. Cu Chi tunnel is a network of underground dug-outs of 75-mile-long, consisting of many layers and turnings with living, meeting and fighting quarters for the NLF fighters (guerrillas). In order to hide from the attacks by the American soldiers, the guerrillas dug the tunnel.

I think that from all the wars that the Vietnamese have braved through, they have developed a strong survivor instinct. They are not only smart and also very meticulous about everything during the war as we all can see during the visit to Cu Chi tunnel.

Below is a general outline of the history of Vietnam:

Legends to pre-history (3000-111 B.C.E.)
3000 Lac Long Quan
2879-258 Hung Vuong
258-207 An Duong Vuong
207-111 Trieu Dynasty

Chinese Millennium (111 B.C.E. -939 C.E.)
111BC-39C 1st part of Chinese Millenium
Trung Nu Vuong (40 - 43)

043-544 2nd part of Chinese Millennium
Trieu Thi Trinh (248)
1st Ly Dynasty:
Ly Bon (541 - 544)

603-939 3rd part of Chinese Millennium
Mai Thuc Loan (722)
Phung Hung (767 - 791)
Ngo Quyen (939 - 964)
Dinh Bo Linh (968 - 980)

9 Cen. of Independence (939 - 1858)
0981-1009 Le Hoang

1009-1225 Ly Cong Uan
The Ly Dynasty

1225-1440 Tran Hung Dao
The Tran Dynasty

1400-1407 Ho Dynasty

1407-1427 Nguyen Trai
Under Minh Rules

1428-1443 Le Loi

1428-1788 The Le Dynasty
The Le - Mac fighting
(1527 - 1592)

1752-1792 Quang Trung
The Tay-Son Dynasty
(1788 - 1802)

1802-1858 Bao Dai
The Nguyen Dynasty
(continued through French and Japanese occupation to 1945)

French & Japan. Occupation (1858 - 1945)
1858-1940 French colonization
1940-1945 Japanese occupation

First Indochina War (1945-1956)
Vietnamese against the return of French rule.

Second Indochina War (1956-1975)
Ho Chi Minh determined to unite Vietnam; Americans determined to halt the spread of Communism in Asia by preventing the unification.

Third Indochina War (1978-1989)
In response to the Khmer Rouge's raids across the border, Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia.

1989 to the present
Vietnam, still recovering from the decades of wars and reconciling deep historical and cultural divisions, is slowly embracing Western values and systems.

Extracted the list from: http://www.vietmedia.com/history/?L=leloi.html


PEOPLE
I have understood more about the people from my observations of the Vietnamese tour guide and real life experiences and stories from the business personnel in the networking dinner.

The Vietnamese are hardworking, smart and some of them are quite ambitious. Good examples are the 2 Vietnamese tour guides. The Hanoi tour guide, Kahn is quite ambitious as he holds 3 jobs at a time; tour guide, teacher and a law student. He earns about US$1,000 a month which a lot in Vietnam. He is passionate about his work and plans for his future.

The Ho Chi Minh City tour guide, Kah is a very knowledgeable guy. He knows what he wants and has his own goals. Besides working, he also invests in stock market for extra income. In this trip, we have a private conversation with him and in this short conversation, he teaches us many things. We exchanged email and I hope to learn more from him.

And due to the different language and culture, Vietnamese are different from the Singaporeans in terms of their thinking, habits, etc. For example, if they say yes doesn’t mean that they agree, is just that they do not want to offend you. Thus, never take ‘yes’ for granted.


RELIGION
The trip to Temple of Caodaism has let me learnt that religions have great influence to the Vietnamese and government of Vietnam is aware of that, therefore allowed this temple to be built. As it is a temple where several regions like the Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, etc. are combined into 1 religion which is the Caodaism for the people to worship.


BELIEF
During the trip to Reunification Palace and the Temple of Literature, I have learnt that actually the Vietnamese also believed in ‘feng shui’ just like the Chinese.

For example in the Temple of Literature, there are 2 ponds at the side of the temple and many trees in the temple. The reason for their existence in the temple is because of ‘feng shui’ (風水). From the viewpoint of ‘feng shui’, ‘yin’ represents tree while ‘yang’ represents pond. ‘Yin” and ‘yang’ should always exist together to have a balance. That is the reason why trees and ponds can be found in the temple.

This has also shown that the Chinese culture has influenced the Vietnamese to a certain extent.


DANCE & ART
I was quite surprised when I saw lion dance performance outside the HCMC International Exhibition & Convention Centre. The reason I was surprised is because I though that I could only see it in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.

I have learnt that lion dance is one of the traditional dances in Vietnam. It was imported from China into Vietnamese culture and is usually performed at traditional festivals such as Tết (Lunar New Year) and Tết trung thu (Mid-Autumn Festival), and also during other occasions such as the opening of a new business. As we can see at the opening ceremony of the exhibition, the people also used lion dance for it as it symbolizes an auspicious sign (“ji li” in Chinese). Just like the Chinese, Vietnamese believed that lion dance is highly symbolic, supposedly used to ward off evil spirits.

I have also enjoyed the water puppet shows in the second last day of our IBSM trip.
I have learnt that the water puppetry was created by farmers thousand years ago. It is performed in a deep pool of water, with the water's surface as a stage and puppeteers standing behind a curtained backdrop controlling the puppets. Water puppetry was first performed on the surface of the ponds and paddy fields in Red River Delta in Northern Vietnam, Hanoi.

Water puppets bring humor to scenes of farming, fishing, legends, national history and festival events such as buffalo fights, children's games, etc. In the show, I noticed that puppets have different characters; lion dogs, human, fish, dragon, turtles, wolf, etc. And in different scenes, there are different characters of puppets.


EDUCATION
I have learnt that education is very important in Vietnam. The country is raising more attention on the education and English as the country is developing.

There are more and more foreign investors coming to Vietnam to invest. And normally, they require workers who speak English as English is a common language in the world and this would reduce the problem that they (foreign corporations & companies) faced which is the language barrier. That is the reason why schools in Vietnam like HOU and Saigon Tech are enforcing rules for the students to speak English.

Government of Vietnam is very concern about the education in the country. Therefore, has enforced the rule of having compulsory primary and secondary school education in certain parts of Vietnam like HCMC. Besides that, companies in Vietnam are currently looking towards a more ‘educated workforce’ whereby they mostly hire a university graduate who is able to speak English.