Culture of Vietnam
[4][5] Following independence from China in the 10th century, Vietnam began a southward expansion and annexed territories formerly belonging to Champa and Khmer, resulting in various influences on the Vietnamese.
[6] Some elements considered to be characteristic of Vietnamese culture include ancestor veneration, respect for community and family, and living in harmony with nature.
The first surviving literature in Vietnam is the Sanskrit Võ Cạnh inscription (4th century AD) near Nha Trang, which belongs to either Funan or Chamic culture.
Following Võ Cạnh is the Old Cham Đông Yên Châu inscription near Trà Kiệu, dating from late 4th century, was erected by King Bhadravarman I of Champa, and was written in Old Southern Brahmic script.
It remains today as the oldest attested epigraph of any Southeast Asian language, predating Mon, Khmer, Malay by centuries.
[citation needed] Since the 1920s, literature has been mainly composed in the national language script (Vietnamese alphabet) with profound renovations in form and category such as novels, new-style poems, short stories and dramas, and with diversity in artistic tendency.
Written literature attained speedy development after the August Revolution, when it was directed by the Vietnamese Communist Party's guideline and focused on the people's fighting and work life.
Some famous female poets include Hồ Xuân Hương, Đoàn Thị Điểm, and Bà Huyện Thanh Quan.
However, this changed upon the advent of foreign European rule with the introduction of the romanized script (known as chữ Quốc Ngữ)[15] As a result, although the Latin alphabet provided widespread literacy and access to the Vietnamese language in terms of oral and written literacy, the precise meaning and beauty of Vietnamese poems in Hán-Nôm may have gotten lost in the translation process to the Latin alphabet of chữ Quốc Ngữ.
On special occasions such as Lunar New Year, people would go to scholars to make them a calligraphy hanging (often poetry, folk sayings or even single words).
[17] Vietnamese silk paintings typically showcase the countryside, landscapes, pagodas, historical events or scenes of daily life.
Vietnamese folksongs are rich in forms and melodies of regions across the country, ranging from ngâm thơ (reciting poems), hát ru (lullaby), hò (chanty) to hát quan họ, trong quan, xoan, dum, ví giặm, ca Huế, bài chòi, ly.
Water puppetry (Múa rối nước), is a distinct Vietnamese art form which had its origins in the 10th century and very popular in northern region.
The boiling stock, fragrant with spices and sauces, is poured over the noodles and vegetables, poaching the paper-thin slices of raw beef just before serving.
Phở is meant to be savored, incorporating several different flavors: the sweet flavour of beef, sour lemons, salty fish sauce, and fresh vegetables.
[20] Recently, scholars have provided empirical evidence on the existence of the socio-cultural phenomenon called "cultural additivity" in Vietnamese history and society.
There are two types of funeral processions: In feudal Vietnam, clothing was one of the most important marks of social status and strict dress codes were enforced.
Due to the previous centuries of conflict between China and Vietnam, Ming administrators said that their mission was to attempt to "civilize" the unorthodox Vietnamese "barbarians",[28] which ironically reduced the amount of Taoist institutions in the process.
For instance, commoners were not allowed to wear clothes with dyes other than black, brown or white (with the exception of special occasions such as festivals), but in actuality these rules could change often based upon the whims of the current ruler.
Beside the popular nón lá, a vast array of other hats and caps were available, constructed from numerous different types of materials, ranging from silk to bamboo and horse hair.
They decided that their garments had to be distinctive to set themselves apart from the people of Đàng Ngoài where áo tràng vạt and nhu quần were worn.
Traditional clothing is worn instead on special occasions, with the exception of the white áo dài commonly seen with high school girls in Vietnam.
[citation needed] Vietnamese martial arts are highly developed from the country's long history of warfare and attempts to defend itself from foreign occupation.
Some of the more popular include: Vietnamese martial arts remain relatively unknown in the world today when compared to their counterparts from China, Japan, Korea or Thailand.
However, this is seeing a definite change as schools teaching various styles of Vietnamese martial arts are starting to pop up all over the world, notably in countries such as Spain.
[31] Prior to Han Chinese migration from the north, the Yue tribes cultivated wet rice, practiced fishing and slash-and-burn agriculture, domesticated water buffalo, built stilt houses, tattooed their faces, and dominated the coastal regions from shores all the way to the fertile valleys in the interior mountains.
[37]: 1–2 Water transport was paramount in the south, so the Yue became advanced in shipbuilding and developed maritime warfare technology mapping trade routes to Eastern coasts of China and Southeast Asia.
[44] A royal edict was issued by the Lê dynasty in 1474 forbidding Vietnamese from adopting foreign languages, hairstyles and clothing of the Lao, Champa or the "Northerners" which referred to the Ming.
[45] According to Nayan Chanda, the Vietnamese had adopted Sinocentric views towards their surrounding neighbors such as the Chams and Cambodians, and considered non-Sinospheric cultures as barbaric.
[46] David G. Marr noted that a possible reason for social stratification, such as with the Montagnards and the Việt, were that other ethnic groups did not share the same passion for wet-rice cultivation as the Vietnamese Kinh people did.
