halong bay tour
0 votes
in Culture, Living by
edited by
What do Vietnamese think of Japan and its people?

6 Answers

0 votes
by

First of all, you must know that Vietnamese is really clear thinking about other nations and past events. We know about Japan and Japanese in different eras and different contacts, and are very clear about those.

The first contact should be from the ancient dynasties, where Vietnamese people and governments knew about Japan with the name “Phù Tang”, a nation far east of the sea. Their businessmen crossed the sea and traded with Vietnamese in ports like Hội An, and there was a Vietnamese princess who get married to a Japanese lords and moved there. As far as I know, this relationship ended when both Vietnam and Japan chose to close their international trade market. So all we now know about ancient Japan, is through TV shows, history lessons, and sometimes anime/manga. I think in ancient times, Vietnam and Japan were quite the same: poor agricultural nation, full of uneducated farmers.

The second contact is after the French came and colonized Vietnam, while Japan was under Meiji era and developed so fast. A Vietnamese patriot named Phan Bội Châu chose to find supports from Japan, whom he believed “had the same red blood and yellow skin” as Vietnamese, and they could help Vietnam liberate. He gained some agreements and wills to help from some Japanese friends, whom he could only communicate through letters in Sino-centic language, but they helped him moved Vietnamese students to Japan to study. This campaign was called Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục, with Đông Kinh means Tokyou. Phan Bội Châu had hoped that the well-educated students can come back and help Vietnam developed, but sadly this campaign was interrupted by the French and Japan governments. This also ended a really good friendship that the two countries once had.

The third contact is really sad. Vietnam was still under French colonization and Japan became nacist. Then World War II, and Japan took over Vietnam from the French. This happened in 1945, and the nacist Japan caused a serious famine in Vietnam and it killed 2 millions people. Then the nacist Japan lost the World War, and Viet Minh gained the country from them.

And the fourth contact, is recently. Now Vietnam and Japan became business partners. Many Vietnamese youngsters know about Japan through manga (with Doraemon as the first manga ever to be published in Vietnam), anime, and other entertainment products. Then we know more about Japan, for example their tea cultures, sushi, samurai and ninjas, and so on. Hope that the relationship would go well.

About the feels of similarites, I have to disagree with all of the others. Vietnamese nowaday doesn’t any similarities with Japan, or at least most of the cases. Yes, tea culture feels similar, but Kanji is not something we can understand or even feel familiar. Both countries have Buddhism, but they’re far from being similar. While Japanese monks can eat meats and marries, Vietnamese monks can’t. While Ashura is a famous god killer in Japanese culture, the Vietnamese version A tu la is not that well-known. The Haiku poems are too exotic and not familiar. The last names don’t even make sense. The Kings are not really the kings, and their language is so strange. The Samurais just have too much of self-pride that Vietnamese will wonder how dumb they are to commit suicide (seppuku). Even in general East Asia, Japanese culture is too exotic and foreign that it doesn’t really belong here. They were isolated in the islands and developed a really unique culture, and it’s hard to say Vietnamese can feel familiar with them, nor the Japanese can either way.

But after all, the relationship between the two is now ok. Better understanding makes better life.

0 votes
by

Thank you for your request Taiki Fujimoto (藤本 大輝) .

My answer is written from the personal perspective, I'm obviously not sure about what the other Vietnamese think about Japan and its people.

Take a look back in history, the interaction between Vietnam and Japan has been set up at least since the XVI century. In the time post-1945, a group of Japanese officers did have the significant contributions into the formation Vietnamese military force in the very first days ( There are more details about that at the two excellent answers • Tuan Nguyen's answer to Did the Vietnamese really defeat the Japanese in Vietnam during WW2 or did the Japanese simply leave after the announcement of surrender? and Tuan Nguyen's answer to Did South Korea or Japan have a closer tie to Vietnam over the ages?

Japan is also the first country that overcomes the embargo against Vietnam set by the U.S to have aid and trading with Vietnam, and keeps on the encouragement for Vietnam to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. And today, through economic aids as well as financial investments and cultural exchanges, the presence and influence of Japan in Vietnam is significantly huge. There are many young people here are urge to learn Japanese. You may see Japanese language centers everywhere, specially big cities. To me, the Japanese are really admirable people for having overcome many challenges and obstacles to make their homeland become an amazingly prosperous country. My personal impression about Japanese people is that they are very humble and polite (sometimes over polite) as well as highly disciplined. They got many great achievements but never show off, but just keep on working to improve the jobs better and better and never run away from the reality. Nevertheless, I do know that every country or nation has its own dark side, there are rich and developed countries, there are poor and less developed countries. But there is no perfect country on Earth, Japan is not an exception.

However, my positive impression about Japan is stronger than the negative one.

0 votes
by

Vietnamese basically have positive thoughts about Japan

Japan culture / food / products affect to us a lots

When someone buy something was made in Japan they are very proud of it

So to say the most simple way Vietnamese like Japan and its people and have a friendly relations

image

0 votes
by

In short: very positive. Take a look at the result of the Pew Research survey below.

image

0 votes
by

What do Vietnamese people think about Japan?

- Rich country, high income people

- Good products but losing market share

- Japanese people work hard and discipline

- Japan once invaded Vietnam

- A country with many elderly people

- Vietnamese teenagers like Japanese comics

- Having good diplomatic relations with Vietnam

- Videos for adults (JAV)

- Japanese people are afraid to express their opinions, tend to be hypocritical.

0 votes
by

Japan is the second biggest economy in the world. Although the country has heavy western influences but they still keep their tradition and culture than most other countries.

Japanese is among the most educated and well behaves people on earth.

Japanese culture is also some of the weirdest on earth.

You are using Adblock

Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors.

Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker.

I turned off Adblock
...