Vietnam : journeys of body, mind, and spirit / Nguyen Van Huy and Laurel Kendall, editors.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Nguyễn, Văn Huy, 1945-

Kendall, Laurel.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Manners and customs.

Vietnam--Social life and customs.

Vietnam.

Physical Description:

ix, 294 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), 1 color map ; 26 cm

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press in association with American Museum of Natural History, New York, and Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, Hanoi, [2003]

Summary:

Vietnam: Journeys of Body, Mind, and Spirit takes the reader on an informed and engaging journey into the social and ritual life of contemporary Vietnam. Created to accompany the first major collaboration between a Vietnamese museum and an American museum on an exhibition of Vietnamese culture, this book moves beyond the troubled wartime history of both nations to a deeper portrayal of how Vietnamese of different ages, ethnicities, occupations, and circumstances live at the start of the twenty-first century. The contributors -- most of whom live and work in Vietnam, while others have spent many years in intimate association with Vietnamese life -- offer a unique perspective on the country and its diverse cultural mosaic. The text is complemented by a rich collection of photographs and illustrations that capture the complexity and nuance of daily life.

The journeys portrayed in this volume cut across virtually every domain of Vietnamese experience. Some take place on roads, railways, rivers, and footpaths, as family members come home for the New Year and traders carry goods precariously balanced on bicycles. Others are metaphorical: life is a journey marked by significant rituals, and the year is a journey mapped by a calendar with holidays as milestones along the way. Souls travel to the nether-world, while gods and ancestors return to the human world during celebrations in their honor. Although the Vietnam War dominated the consciousness of a generation of Americans, few understand the country and few can imagine what it is like today. Appearing more than a decade after Vietnam's entrance into the global market and more than a quarter century after the cessation of hostilities between the Vietnamese and U.S. governments, this book provides a new understanding of how Vietnamese live, work, and celebrate critical passages of life and time.

Contents:

Introduction: a journey between two museums / Laurel Kendall and Nguyen Van Huy

One country, many journeys / Oscar Salemink

Vietnam's ethnic mosaic / Frank Proschan

Tet holidays: ancestral visits and spring journeys / Nguyen Van Huy

The Mid-Autumn Festival (Tet Trung Thu), yesterday and today / Nguyen Van Huy

Four ways to map a year's journey / Chu Van Khanh, Cam Trong, and A. Bao

Bat Trang: a pottery village and global node / Nguyen Anh Ngoc

Scenes from the Sapa market / Claire Burkert

The Yao initiation ceremony in the new market economy / Ly Hanh Son

Weddings and funerals in contemporary Vietnam / Shaun Kingsley Malarney

Other journeys of the dead / Luu Hung, Nguyen Trung Dung, Tran Thi Thu Thuy, Vi Van An, and Vo Thi Thuong

The village god's journey / Nguyen Van Huy, Nguyen Anh Ngoc, Nguyen Huy Hong, and Nguyen Trung Dung

The perilous journey of the then spirit army: a shamanic ritual of the Tay people / La Cong Y

Len Dong: spirits' journeys / Ngo Duc Thinh.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-280) and index.

ISBN:

0520238710

0520238729

OCLC:

50192301