Khai Thu Nguyen (2012) State reform and use of cải lương

Scholars have situated cải lương's development to the building of Vietnamese (particularly Southern) culture at the turn of  the century. Vuong Hong Sen, the author of A Diary of Fifty Years of Love for Singing, a memoir about cải lương in the early years of its formation, ties the birth of cải lương with a brewing sense of national identity emerging in the south during colonialism: "At that time, in the South there was a mysterious wind: 'the rise of patriotism.' We no longer resisted, because we could not defeat [the French] with force, we could no longer be revolutionaries, so patriotism boiled and brewed silently within us" (Vuong 1968: 26). Vuong Hong Sen attributes cải lương's ability to double as a pure form of entertainment as a means through which national identity could be (surreptitiously) imagined: "At first, singing and playing, mixing French into our language, playing at life, making fun. .., putting a love of country into an old performance, we kept on transforming, changing it, and cải lương was born unexpectedly, from what year no one knows for certain" (Vuong 1968: 21-22; see also Ba 1988). Cải lương was a means of "burying" the patriotic spirit "within a surface of enjoyment and play" that allowed the latter to develop (Vuong 1968: 18-19).

Philip Taylor writes that many of the Chinese stories, costumes, and choreographies were eliminated from post-1975 reformed cải lương, as well as "Western melodies, musical genres from the tango to love songs, eclectic foreign costumes, use of Western stories and motifs drawn from sources as varied as Ancient Rome, Egypt, India and the US Wild West" (Taylor 2001: 151). According to Taylor, revolutionary reforms in the south after 1975 tamed the "excesses" of cải lương by directing its emotional components toward the building of socialist and revolutionary values. The emotions of reformed cải lương expressed merely "fearlessness and optimism" (Taylor 2001: 152) and were stripped of personal components. 

Yet the reformed post-1975 cải lương plays did not abandon cải lương's historical relationship with sentimentality and narratives of the woman and family. In remaking cải lương, the state would borrow from the immensely popular form to create nostalgia for an original and coherent state, or "homeland," as a way to erase the loss of southern society and facilitate an imaginary of a united nation.

Khai Thu Nguyen (2012) A Personal Sorrow: "Cải Lương" and the Politics of North and South Vietnam, Asian Theatre Journal, 29(1): 255-275

Patrick Sharbaugh (2015) Civic engagement through Internet memes

On the surface it all appears to be just harmless fun and therefore inoffensive to both government officials and, crucially, to other citizens. The medium of the message allows indirect social and political commentary to sneak in disguised as lulz. And it also assures that the content is shared much more widely and viewed much more widely than direct critique would be. In between the two poles of the starry-eyed techno-utopians and the skeptics there are thinkers who’ve suggested that the real potential of online tools for social change in places like Vietnam is not necessarily in coordinating massive street protests and mobilizing activist movements but rather in how they enable citizens to articulate and debate a welter of conflicting ideas throughout society. In other words, social media may matter most not in the streets and the squares but in the myriad spaces of the social commons that Jürgen Habermas called the public sphere. These images and the worldviews behind them are becoming part of the national discourse in Vietnam. And in the process they are quietly, incrementally shifting the zeitgeist.

It’s often said by way of criticism that these images are amateurish and juvenile and short-lived, and that’s true. But they seem to be achieving what all the finger-wagging from the dissident bloggers in Western democracies has not. They’re changing minds. And they’re doing it so precisely because they are juvenile and short-lived and ephemeral and yes, often silly. That’s the whole point.

Patrick Sharbaugh (2015) How meme culture is empowering civic engagement in the socialist republic of Vietnam?

Bill Hayton (2010) Obedient youth

'But regardless of region, for the time being the desires of most urban young people seem to be quite compatible with those of their parents. Parents want their children to be successful, to avoid the privations of their own youth, and their children want the same – the tangible benefits of a rising standard of living. Surveys suggest that the more educated the children, the more concerned they are to obtain a good job. They’re prepared to study hard and work to achieve material success. Their horizons are wide and their hopes are high. In the mainstream of teenage and young adult life there’s very little cynicism or defiance of parental wishes. Traditional values of respect for elders and a sense of community responsibility are still strongly inculcated by parents and schools and the vast majority of children still expect their parents to have a strong influence over how they live their lives.'

Bill Hayton (2010) Vietnam: Rising Dragon Link

Truong Huyen Chi (2009) Child work as voluntary

'Knowing that their parents are working hard for better days for their family, youths take upon themselves an obligation to share the load. The mutual love, moral indebtedness, willingness to share the hardship, and pay back their debt is strongly felt by Dong Vang children and are not simply expressions of filial piety ascribed in a moral model. Rather, these emotions are the moral expectations young people take upon themselves; they have, pace Bourdieu, been internalized and naturalized. Taylor's concept of social imaginary helps explain the tension between the articulation and materialization of the contrasting experiences of Dong Vang children. Their hard work, overwork at times, and feelings towards their parents are consistently cast in overwhelmingly affectionate terms that overshadow any hint of 'abuse' or 'exploitation'.'

Truong Huyen Chi (2009) A home divided: work, body, and emotions in the post-Doi Moi family Link

Ramona Vijeyarasa (2010) Law-enforced stigma of victims of trafficking

'Trafficked returnees are directly implicated by the State's approach to sex work as a 'social evil'... The language of social evils has negatively influenced attitudes toward sex workers and victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation alike... My argument is that the State and the family, two central facets of the communist community, and the values promoted by these institutions, inhibit access to social services and undermine the ability of trafficked returnees to 'reintegrate' into the Vietnamese society. This thereby defeats the very goal of supporting returnees that the government is attempting to advance.'

Ramona Vijeyarasa (2010) The State, the family and language of 'social evils': re-stigmatising victims of trafficking in Vietnam Link

Nguyen Kien Giang (1993) Cultural influences on people's view of equality

'Trong nội bộ cộng đồng dân tộc, sự cảm nhận về bất công cũng được thể hiện rất rõ trong các quan hệ xã hội khác nhau: thống trị - bị trị; giàu - nghèo; sang - hèn... Xin nói ngay, các quan hệ này không được coi là bất công tự bản thân chúng. Ðạo lý Nho giáo, Phật giáo và cả Ðạo giáo nữa ăn rất sâu vào tâm thức người Việt, khiến người ta coi những quan hệ thứ bậc (hierarchique) như một cái gì tự nhiên, do Trời định đoạt, do phúc đức cha ông, do đức độ cá nhân tạo nên. Ở người Việt ngày trước, không hề có khái niệm “giai cấp” (do đó, cũng không có khái niệm “đấu tranh giai cấp”) mà khái niệm chiếm ưu thế trong các quan hệ xã hội là “hòa”, là “nhường”, là “nhẫn”. Thỉnh thoảng có nổi lên những cuộc đấu tranh xã hội quyết liệt nhưng không phải là để xóa bỏ hệ thứ bậc xã hội cũ mà là xóa bỏ những hiện tượng loạn cương, như xã hội học gọi tên. Có vua là tự nhiên, người ta chỉ chống lại hôn quân (bạo chúa) và ủng hộ minh quân (minh chúa). Có quan cai trị cũng là tự nhiên, người ta chỉ chống tham quan ô lại và ưa thích những liêm quan, những vị quan trung nghĩa. Giàu nghèo cũng là tự nhiên, người ta chỉ bài bác những ác bá, trọc phú và tán dương những người giàu ân đức. Trong quan hệ gia đình cũng vậy, người ta không chống lại quyền uy gia trưởng mà chỉ bài bác những người bố ác nghiệt với con cái, những anh em bất nghĩa với nhau. Người ta tin vào “mệnh trời”, vào sự sáng suốt của trời (“Trời có mắt”), vào “ác giả ác báo”, vào “luân hồi” như một sự điều chỉnh tự nhiên... Một xã hội công bằng đối với người Việt xưa là vậy. Công bằng về đạo lý hơn là về xã hội, về tính chính đáng (legitimité) hơn là về quyền lợi kinh tế. Nó hướng tới một trạng thái “đại đồng” nhưng “tiểu dị”, tới một trật tự được coi là tự nhiên, mà thật ra, đó là một trật tự noi theo những khuôn mẫu (stéréotyes) lâu đời. Nói như thế, không phải là tuyệt đối không có xu hướng bình quân trong ý thức xã hội. Những vết tích thị tộc nguyên thủy, những tác động dòng họ thường là chỗ dựa khá bền vững cho xu hướng bình quân, nhất là ở các làng xã. Nhưng xu hướng này chưa bao giờ là xu hướng chủ đạo và cũng chưa bao giờ được “lý luận hóa”.'

Nguyễn Kiến Giang (1993) Suy nghĩ về công bằng xã hội ở Việt Nam hiện nay Link

Nghiem Lien Huong (2004) Female migrant workers' double disadvantages

'Women may resist certain forms of gender inequality, but in so doing they may simultaneously reproduce these structures. The state's discourse, shifting from a stress on women as productive workers to caring mothers in its new strategies of improving family quality, has unintentionally promoted an alienated image of women who have practical domestic knowledge as well as ample time to take care of the family. In other words, professional and middle-class urban women become more desirable than female migrants who work far from home and have no time for families. Indeed, garment workers' decision to remain in the city can be interpreted not as the refusal of society norms but as a failure in their efforts towards conformity.'

Nghiem Lien Huong (2004) Female Garment Workers: The New Young Volunteers in Vietnam's Modernization Link
Nghiem Lien Huong (2006) PhD Thesis: Work culture, gender and class in Vietnam: ethnographies of three garment workshops in Hanoi Link