About Vietnam
1. Geography
- Lying on the eastern part of the Indochinese peninsula, Viet Nam is a strip of land shaped like the letter “S” China borders it to the north, Laos and Cambodia to the west m the East Sea to the east and the Gulf of Thailand to the east and south.
2. Topography
- High mountains, flat plains and most other landforms in between Vietnam are mainly hills and densely forested mountains. Most of its population lives on the 20% that is level ground: 40% of its 331,688 square kilometers is mountainous, and the remaining 40% is hills. Approximately 25% of land is under cultivation.
- Once, forests covered 75% of our country, but deforestation by the US Army during the war reduced that figure to 23% in 1980. A programme to replace 5m hectares was launched in 1998 - so far, about 0.6m ha has been reforested.
- Topographically, Vietnam has five main land regions. The North consists of the Northern Highlands and the Red River Delta, and the South is made up of the Annamite Mountain Range, the Coastal Lowlands, and the Mekong Delta.
3. Climate
- Viet Nam’s climate is characterized by strong monsoons, a considerable number of sunny days , high levels of rainfall, and high humidity.
- Although the entire country lies in the tropics and subtropics, it presents a very diverse climate according to its different altitudes and latitudes. Winters can be quite cold in the North, while the South offers sub-equatorial temperature all year-round. Some mountainous regions have temperate climates.
4. History
- Vietnam’s history is complicated – a minestrone of kingdoms and dynasties, invasions and resistance, independence and occupation. Guide books and potted histories that attempt a chronological synopsis of the 500,000 years since the first human habitation of Vietnam usually end up as an impenetrable mêlée of names and dates.
- Rather than providing our customers with information that is freely available elsewhere, we prefer to try to interpret the development process that has led to modern Vietnam and attempt to shed a little light upon some of the more arcane, or positively baffling, modes of conduct and behavior encountered by visitors to our country.
- Putting chronology on one side, each of the eight pages in this section follows a particular theme, tracing the influences that have shaped and mounded the Vietnamese people over two millennia. They are intended to provide a framework to enable visitors to place the things they see and hear in a context that makes sense.
Since their emergence in the Vietnamese heartland of the Red River Delta seven thousand years ago, the Vietnamese have fought for their independence. This struggle, beginning with a thousand years of Chinese domination from the second century BC, has been a potent element in creating the Vietnam of today.
Vietnam’s history has been one of resistance interspersed by periods of feudal communalism under dynastic rule. Many invaders have sought to conquer the country, including Kublai Khan's Mongol army, and a few have succeeded. However, in every case, the Vietnamese have ultimately triumphed.
Whilst religion has been a powerful influence, the strictures of Confucianism, the most successful instrument of large-scale social control ever devised, have probably been the defining factor in the evolution of the Vietnamese character. An outline of its philosophy and development is a prerequisite to an understanding of modern Vietnam.
Incorporation and transformation
Vietnam has experienced numerous incursions of foreign forces, and their subsequent expulsion, throughout its history. Rapidly alternating balances of power have been instrumental in shaping the remarkable pragmatism of its people, and underpinned their assimilation of foreign religions and philosophies: beliefs and ideas that were absorbed and transformed into something distinctly Vietnamese.
Colonial occupation and liberation
The impact of a hundred years of colonialism has also left its mark, but perhaps more upon the tangible infrastructure of the country, rather than its people. However, the French occupation earns its right to being a discrete theme by its galvanizing effect upon Vietnam’s burning desire for liberation and the subsequent commitment of most of its people to all-out war against the forces of the United States and its allies.
Reunification and a new direction
After victory, re-unification and eventual international recognition of Vietnam as a free and sovereign state, all these themes combined to set the stage for Vietnam’s recovery, reconciliation and eventual emergence into the world community. As our country struggles to establish its relationships and roles in the emerging world order of the new millennium and prepares for entry to the World Trade Organization, the current pages of Vietnam’s history are being written by the juggernaut of globalization, and its impact upon a people who virtually bypassed the twentieth century.
5. Culture
- The roots of Vietnam’s culture are firmly bedded in a thousand years of Chinese domination, but other influences ha
ve helped to shape Vietnam’s intellectual achievements and way of life. The early Dong Son people, the original Vietnamese, brought sophisticated mining, smelting and casting skill from their Mongolian origins and left a legacy of magnificent bronze statues and drums. The Champa Kingdom also left its mark in the form of ornately carved sculptures decorating their mysterious brick towers.
- However, the impact of other races and nations is dwarfed by that of China. The Confucian code and Buddhism introduced during their occupation of the country have dominated Vietnamese life for two millennia, and will doubtless continue to do so for centuries to come.
- Putting aside the differing cultures of Vietnam’s many smaller ethnic groups, most of which have migrated into Vietnam comparatively recently, the post-Chinese development of the culture of the majority ‘Kinh’ people that constitute 85% of the population can be divided into four phases. They are a long period of dynastic rule, the French occupation, the years between 1945 and 1986, and the post ‘doi moi’ period.
The years of the Imperial Dynasties that ruled Vietnam from the 10th to the 19th century were marked by wars and feuds with neighboring countries as the country expanded to the south and consolidated its territory. Culturally, there was little change under the Confucian administrative structures inherited from the Chinese. The conservative nature of Confucianism limited technological and cultural progress, making the country highly vulnerable to the advanced military power of the French.
The French brought European-style administration, Christianity in the form of Catholicism, and implemented the written version of Vietnamese that had been ignored by the Vietnamese since its creation by a Jesuit monk in the 17th century. They introduced new forms of cultural expression, such as painting and prose, established a European-style theatrical tradition, brought in a different style of architecture and European cuisine, and created the social conditions that led to the rise of communism in Vietnam during the twentieth century.
Ho Chi Minh’s declaration of independence in 1945 ushered in a new era of social realism in which the purpose of culture and all forms of artistic expression was to further the county’s revolutionary aspirations. Many traditional and French-influenced artistic genres were suppressed. The influence of the USSR was considerable during this period. Russian became the second language, large numbers of Vietnamese people went to the Soviet countries to study, and new administrative systems, economic structures, planning models and mass movements based on examples in the Soviet Union were introduced.
- The advent of ‘Doi moi’ (new thinking - reformation) following the failure of centralization and collectivization paved the way for opening up the country to the outside world and re-entering the international community after a long period of isolation. Since then, the reins have been loosened, and several traditional and new forms of cultural expression are beginning to flourish. Tourism, television and the Internet have hastened the rate of change, but the brake of Confucianism has meant that cultural development has been slower than might have been expected. However, it has also helped to insulate Vietnam from some of the more pernicious features of globalization
- Nevertheless, change is moving ahead relentlessly, and the culture of Vietnam is being reborn in a different guise. Vietnam’s large proportion of young people will mature into a social and cultural milieu that will be completely unrecognizable to their elders.
6. Population and People
The Vietnamese population was born through a mix of two major ancient cultures: the Chinese and the Indian. Thus a peculiar trait of Viet Nam’s culture was formed. As far as anthropology is concerned, the Vietnamese people have their origins in the Mongoloid race, believed to be one of the most ancient races and often found in northern and eastern Asia.
At present, there are 54 different ethnic groups inhabiting Viet Nam. The Kinh people or Viet represent 80% of the whole population. Many minorities possess its own traditions and language.
