Journal # 20

Vietnamese Culture

     Vietnamese culture may still be mysterious and unknown to most people outside the country. Today, more and more people are going to Vietnam for tourism and trading. Getting to know Vietnam and its culture is interesting and fascinating. I hope with my writing, you can find one of the fascinating resources to understand Vietnamese culture and beyond. Those are pregnancy and birth customs of Vietnam people.
     Normally in Vietnam especially in the countryside regions, three generations live under the same roof. Based on Confucianism telnets, when a girl gets marry she has to follow her husband and live in her spouse family. It presents some difficulties for the wife when she is pregnant and has baby at the first time. The first-born child custom means that the wife can come back to her family to have the first-born baby, and from the second child she stays at her husband’s family.
     Why Vietnamese has first-born baby custom? Because in the past the marriage age is young, (woman from thirteen and man from sixteen can get married), and when a young wife has a baby for the first time, she does not have any experiences during pregnancy. Furthermore, she still hesitates to depend on her mother-in-law or her sister-in-law for help and it would be easier to ask for help from her mother and sister. Any subsequence baby she already has enough experiences to deal with difficulties by herself so she can stay at her husband’s family. Some days before confinement, the parent-in-law or the husband goes to the wife’s family to talk with the wife’s parents to take the wife home. After confinement and when the baby is strong enough, the husband prepares some presents to pick his wife up and take her back to his home. The grandparent-in-law of the baby is very careful mark a smut on baby’s forehead as a way to drive ghost away from the little one.
     According to the old custom, after checking the family annals, avoiding the profanation of taboo names (name of a child is same as the name of ancestors); the newborn child is officially given a name. In case of the name of the child is similar the name of ancestors, it has to be changed. The ceremony to announce the name of the newly child is very simple. The needed equipments are incense, betel and a glass of wine. Normally this ceremony is organized annual during ancestor death anniversary. All children who are born in that year are invited to announce their names during the ceremony. The order of each name in family annals is sorted by year. There are number of forms which are used to record the name but all of them contain the following information: name, parent, generations, branch of family, first-born child or not, date of birth and the date of recording this information.
     In short, Vietnamese culture has many customs and tradition from a long time ago. They are special and interesting to foreigners when they visit Vietnam. Vietnamese culture also is a part of its people life. It always is kept and developed by Vietnamese from thousands years. I want to introduce my culture to all of my friends in and around the world. I’m very proud of my culture. It helps shape my life rightfully and encourages me to thrive in this new and different country.