Academic literature on the topic 'French language Vietnam'

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living t

This chapter embarks on a history of Vietnamese cinema as it developed during the Republic of Vietnam period. Due to historical circumstances, Vietnam was deeply influenced by French culture. After the French left, the Republic of Vietnam was assisted by the United States, and American films and English-language films entered the country. In the South, with nearly a million recent migrants from the North, ethnic cultural heritage still remained its unified identity. Talents came from all regions of the country. With these proper first steps, South Vietnam in the First Republic period properly inked the very first page in the history of the national film industry. In addition, the Southern government provided support to help the private cinema industry to recover. International studios were invited into Vietnam to cooperate and help develop the private cinema industry.

Based on interviews and observations of cosmetics retailers and shoppers at several malls in Ho Chi Minh City, this chapter considers how cosmetics consumption inaugurated a new form of what scholar Jonathan Reinarz termed “skinliteracy” in Vietnam. Though purchases of prestige cosmetics far outpace those of luxury clothing, sales are not easy to come by. Retailers instruct customers to consider a product’s national origins—French, Scottish, Japanese, Korean, and American products were seen as quite distinct—to ensure “suitability” (hop) with their own “Vietnamese” skin. As such, this chapterargues that the language of “land” and “landscape” that dominates discussions of cosmetics works to narrate women’s consumption as a reflection of their nation’s standing, and to foster a feeling and imagination about which nations might serve as “suitable” models and allies. In this sense, cosmetics consumption becomes a way women narrate their experiences of development and their feelings about the modernity enveloping them.

Chapter 3 looks into how the PLA established and trained the first three regular divisions, the 304th, 308th, and 312th Divisions, for the Viet Minh in China in 1950. The PLA also opened two officer academies; four communication, technology, and mechanic schools; three driving schools; two medical training centers; and six language institutes in 1951 for the Vietnam Minh. By 1952, the Chinese had provided military, technology, and professional training for 25,000 Vietnamese officers, soldiers, engineers, technicians, and medical staff in China. In August, when the Chinese Military Advisory Group (CMAG) arrived, more than 450 Chinese advisors worked with the PAVN commanders at the high command, division, regiment, and battalion levels. The PLA advisors taught the Vietnamese their successful tactics from the Chinese Civil War. They developed tactics for mobile operations and designed surprise attacks to outnumber the enemy whenever the situation permitted, in order to wipe out entire enemy units instead of simply repelling them. Chinese training, rearmament, and advisory assistance were intended to improve PAVN combat abilities in order to achieve victory by using annihilation tactics. When the PAVN launched the Border Campaign at Cao Bang in September-October 1950, they defeated the French near Cao Bang, opening transportation lines for Chinese aid.

Focusing on Khái Hưng’s Nửa chừng xuân [In the Midst of Spring], Chapter 4 examines how the author addressed the cultural translation of Europe’s first-person grammatical category, a significant marker of modern Vietnamese literature, into Vietnam’s Confucian sociolinguistic order. The chapter suggests that the cultural translation of Western individualism into the Vietnamese language was a site of gendered discrepancies and differences. In particular, the chapter examines how the colonial government’s implementation of a French educational system in place of the preexisting mandarin exam system affected women, a social group that had been excluded from the precolonial educational system.