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Do you think Vietnam is a little China culturally?

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If one has a narrow vision to superficially look at only those popular/famous ancient architectures, as well as the classic style of calligraphy, but nothing apart from those two, then Yes, it is easy to find Hanoi and Hue to be representing “China”, but not for the rest of the entire Vietnam, and once again, even for Hanoi and Hue, you have to narrow your own vision to an extent of those impressions, very superficially, and you have to only count in these two ancient capitals to be “Vietnam”, so that you can have a Vietnam which’s “little China”.

In terms of the people’s mindset , you could ask a straightforward question to yourself, how much of Confucianism and Chinese civil standards are there in the Vietnamese mindset? My observation is? It has the least in that area of Asia, even the Thai society got a better idea and follow those heavy norms of sinosphere than, let’s say the Korean society is still doing. Perhaps it is also under the influences of a general impression of Thai architectural styles, it is not that as obvious for people to count in Thailand as a member of “sinosphere”, or another “little China”.

And then about “the Chinese civilization” itself, which’s the foundation of “sinosphere”, its disposition is not as clear as it seems to be, on a different question, I share my view about this concern. The question is, what is it to be qualified as “Chinese civilization”, and thus a society can be qualified as “China”(in the sense of 中華, whether it is a big one or a little one) :

Vietnam is not that, although there were feudal intellectuals in the past who also looked up to 中華 ideology, to advocated the Confucianist norms, and impacted the feudal governments, but to the Vietnam as a nation itself till these days, it is a culturally pluralistic model, it fail to fit a sole type of cultural sphere, as a result, there are also various “impressions” about Vietnam, I.e. what comes to your mind when you heard of the word “Vietnam”?

When growing up, back then my first impression of Vietnam is :

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And then later I learned that Vietnam used to be a French colony, other visions came to my mind, then my impression of Vietnam is the following :

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And after I learned the superficial vision of these Sinospheric supporters, then I could also wear their shoes and apply the following “impression” to Vietnam as well:

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That's not true. While many traditions are shared, just like with Korea, it makes neither culturally inferior to China.

One must always remember that Chinese traditions of the era gets exported and preserved while the motherland undergoes change. We see the Japanese interpretation of the Tang dynasty culture in their clothes, architecture, foods and writing. The same can be observed with the Korean interpretation of the Ming dynasty. For Vietnam, the traditions follow closely to the Qing dynasty I reckon. These are cultural observations from the people's living there and taking themon, absorbing them into their own traditions.

Another great example is the French in France compared to their former colony, Quebec. French traditions of that era got preserved in Quebec. The language followed pre-revolutionary French in their counting systems, dates and so on.

Other examples will be the Chinese diaspora in many parts of the world and in South East Asia. Many of the traditions observed were various interpretations of pre-revolutionary China, adapted to local conditions.

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A2A.

No. China is very unique in its own way. No country can ever be “a little China”.

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Vietnam is a little Chinese culturally but it is not Little China until hell freezes over. In fact there used to be a lot of similar nations to Vietnam in the region and over the course of some two millennia they all ended up being parts of China. That we haven’t turned out that way despite the best attempts of many powerful Chinese dynasties speaks volumes about our resistance to Sinification.

There is a joke that Vietnam is a congregation of people who don’t want to submit to the Chinese emperor, which has some truth to it. For example when the Qing dynasty took over China, a lot of Ming loyalists ended up settling in Vietnam. When the Chinese general Zhao Tuo was sent to occupy Vietnam, he ended up pretending to be native in front of the imperial emissary to keep ruling Vietnam independently.

That said Vietnam has certainly absorbed a lot of Chinese culture and it has certainly helped enrich our own.

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Of course most Vietnamese and Chinese will answer no to this question but I don't think that's what the person who asked this question wanted to know. The question has been phrased slightly condescending to the Vietnamese however it should be interpreted as: in reality is Vietnam so similar to China culturally? Politics aside, in reality because both countries share Confucianism, filial piety including worshipping of ancestors, Mongloid genes, Cuisines, Buddhism, pagodas, architecture, looks (Northern Vietnamese especially and most Southern Vietnamese who are immigrants from the north look like southern or some even northern Chinese) communism, Chinese characters (for many centuries up to about 100 years a go), Chinese literatures, novels, currently Chinese Tv and dramas, Chinese New years, Lunar calendar, Full moon festival, and a number of other important Chinese festivals, loud (similar sounding) spoken language even the way people behave in certain social situations, and now trading partnership, Vietnam is similar to China and visa versa. Of course if one dug deeper into the fabric of both societies they would find some variations but then even within China or Vietnam itself variations in culture do exist at regional levels. There are of course some typical Vietnamese cultural aspects which are uniquely Vietnamese and cannot be found in China but I am not going into details here, but the major things listed above are definitely shared between the 2 countries. In my humble opinion there are no other countries in the world , not even Korea , Japan or Mongolia, which share so much culture with China like Vietnam. I am happy to leave it as that for the readers to conclude and answer the above question.

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Many of the lighter skin Vietnamese has Chinese racial features mixed with other ethnicities and whether or not they admit Chinese genealogy is a matter for private admission.

Too many of their words are a slightly altered sounding Cantonese though written in Roman characters differently.

Their food and cooking methods are similar to the Chinese.

Many of their traditional architecture has Chinese looks and roots.

Culturally, they celebrate the same feast days, have the same religion. Buddhism and Taoism amongst some of the lesser ones of course.

Vietnam resembled a little bit of China whether the die hard ones admit it or not. Even their mode of living and the streets of their cities and villages are not that much different from those of China.

Large numbers of Vietnamese growers, food sellers and labourers travel across the border to obtain their sustenance from the Chinese mainland.

The local Chinese people to a person speaks Vietnamese language in commerce and family conversation and they inter-marry with Vietnamese men and women and in looks, one cannot tell them apart whether they are Chinese or Vietnamese.

Businesses whether run by the local Chinese or Vietnamese look the same and one cannot tell them apart.

Because of past conflicts, there is residual resentment to China but these are mostly hidden and only those who are not gainfully employed, engaged in business or manufacturing who harbour these anti feelings.

Yes, in many respects Vietnam resembles a little China and it isn’t such a shameful thing to be.

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