Vietnam Multiculturalism

Vietnam\u27s fifty-four different ethnic groups are increasingly engaged in the outside world, and concepts of multiculturalism within the country have tremendous importance. The historical view of Vietnam as either Kinh or Cham in precedence (Mus, Parmentier, Aymonier) leaves out many of the details of its rich cultural heritage (Hickey). The Kinh, the largest ethnic group in Vietnam, consists of nearly ninety percent of the country\u27s population. The Cham, or Champas, was a civilization in central and southern Vietnam from the 7th century to the mid-1800\u27s. The ruling Communist Party has taken notice of the immense economic and political value of embracing this diversity after years of emphasis on a common Red River centered Vietnam localization of its Sinic heritage. The new multi-cultural policies provide the means for foreign and domestic tourists to have meaningful educational experiences, and Vietnamese citizens with both foreign and domestic markets for their products. Also, it allows the country to move beyond its war tarnished legacy. Previous Vietnamese regimes legitimized themselves using the Cham culture of southern Vietnam or the Northern Sinic influenced culture. From the 1930s, Ho Chi Minh spoke of a unified Vietnam undivided by ethnicity to counter the previous North-South divide ingrained during French rule of Vietnam. After gaining power in the 1950s, and especially from the 1970s, the Communist Party undertook actions ranging from museum shutdowns in the South and Center to history revisions that took place to downplay the significance of Vietnam\u27s historical/cultural diversity in favor of the appearance of a united nation (DeCaro). When Doi Moi, an economic and political renovation, began in 1986, the Party began to liberalize many of its policies (Hayton); ethnic diversity became a symbol of pride for Vietnam. The Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi, a culminating state investment, was constructed from 1987 to 1995, and the Museum of Cham Sculpture in Da Nang was expanded and reopened in In Hue, the former Nguyen Dynasty palace complex and their tombs have been rebuilt and restored via solicitations of foreign partnerships, which includes Cham temple reconstructions and other notable architecture renewals, the most notable consequent to the designation of My Son and Hoi An as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Site (E.G. the Japanese bridge and the Fujian Meeting Hall were conserved to show the variety of people living in ancient Hoi An). In making sense of all this, we had done some preliminary reading prior to our Vietnam trip, but when we arrived in country, we retained several misunderstandings common to Americans abroad, less from the Hanoi-inspired sense of a single cultural nation, but more in the aftermath of the American assertion of a singular Vietnam as a legacy of the Vietnam war. Instead, during our travels in Vietnam, we encountered many different cultures leading us to question our previous view of Vietnam as a monolith. Several of our most memorable experiences allowed us to reach a basic understanding of the current impact and future potentials of Vietnam\u27s Doi Moi transitions. We have looked to previous academics for their research methods and conclusions in their studies of Vietnam\u27s past, as these compared to our own direct exposure to Vietnam\u27s present civilization, to allow us to see first-hand how modern day approaches to ethnicity differ from those reported during French colonial and Vietnam war era research (Mus, Parmentier, and Aymonier vs. Taylor and Jamieson), and strengthens the contemporary multicultural view of Vietnam and its wider impact on Vietnamese society and culture. Works Cited DeCaro, Peter Anthony. Rhetoric of Revolt: Ho Chi Minh\u27s Discourse for Revolution. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. Print. Hayton, Bill.Vietnam: Rising Dragon. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2010. Print. Hickey, Gerald Cannon.Village in Vietnam. New Haven: Yale UP, 1964. Print. Parmentier, Henri, Paul Mus, and E. Aymonier.Cham Sculpture of the Tourane Museum, Da Nang, Vietnam: Religious Ceremonies and Superstitions of Champa. Bangkok, Thailand: White Lotus, 2001. Print. Taylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. California: University of California, 1983. Print. Jamieson, Neil L. Understanding Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California, 1993. Print