Vietnam was under French rule for a long time. But why didn't the Vietnamese adopt the French customs or language??? Does anyone here have any mixed French blood???

French rule was for less than 100 years. That's why we don't adopt that many French things compared to Filipinos who have been under colonization by whites for 400 years, so that probably is why Filipinos adopted much more Spanish things than Vietnaemse. That's why there are very very very few Vietnamese with French blood compared to the Filipinos who have hispanic blood in them.

Vietnamese like to preserve their own culture and thus kicked out the French in less than 100 years after we were invaded.

but i heard that french bread has become a local food to the vietnamese...

BUt anyway, yeah i argee that vietnam has preserved alot of their own culture during the colonial rule, while many places have been influenced badly.

Viets used to hate French to the guts , why should we adopts their culture , we kicked their @ss . I am 100% Vietnamese , no French blood !!

we might like their bread doesn't mean we like them

First of all, there are over 500 Vietnamese recipees in the food department.
Have you ever try the bread ?
It's like nothing compare to the original French bread (baquette).
The French uses the bread as just bread.
We modified it to stuff the goodies inside it.
Another word, they might invented it, but we perfected it.

Every culture in general does tend to borrow from one another when come in close contact. The influences are usually two-way streets regardless of who's the conquerer or the conquered or whether you're a super power or a third world countries. Everyboby has to learn something from somebody. If not, civilization tends to trade places. We've seen that so many times in history already.

The inability to learn is the inability to adapt, thus yields the inability to progress.

Pork roll anyone??

Yeah but French rule was only around 90 years. Only like one life time. I doubt Vietnam culture would be influence that much by 90 years. Yeah sure we adopted some French food like French bread but even that is modified from the original.

They also replaced our Han-Viet characters with roman ones, but I think at this point it is too costly to go back, since everyone knows that roman ones and Vietnam has a literacy rate of 94%.

yea, good thing... Replacing an entire population of indigenous people with mestizos is like having your racial/ethnic identity wiped out...how shameful...Look at the mexicans who were once native americans....good thing Viet Nam didn't end up like that...

Having French bread is hardly an accurate indication of France's influence on Viet Nam.

To answer the original question, Vietnamese are stubborn. That characteristic explains a lot of our history

I'm glad the french didn't influence us on fighting wars....that would be disasterous... we might actually start losing wars to Cambodia =(

Pork roll? do you mean "spring roll" ?? spring rolls actually comes with pork along with shrimp and other stuffs..

what pork roll ???

cha? gio`

We weren't influenced by French that much, heck, we'be been dominated by china for 1000 years, but we still kept our culture. However, there was a time when our grandparents were speaking French. My grandpa used to teach me French, and tells me stories of him working as a French chef, and how the Vietminh was killing people in the street that associate with the French, by cutting their throat in the street (what savages). If they were going to kill people for working for the French to make a living, they should have just killed HCM.

LOL i thought it was original Vietnamese food, I guess the Viets here in Australia modfied it.



Sound familar?? Its good stuff.

well the only thing i thought of is what byron already mention about losing their han-viet character. just like filipinos lost our indic-filipino writing script when spanish came because it was not more useful than romanized letter.

but also i read that vietnam has the second largest christian/catholic population after the philippines, is that true? is the french maybe influencetial in why invasian and dai_viet are catholics today?

i wonder how truly influential the chinese were in vietnamese society with 1,000 years of rule, do the vietnamese see the chinese in the same light as they see the french as colonizers? or is it different because they were asians and french were white so its not as bad?

Actually there were Catholic Vietnamese even before the French colonized Vietnam.

Yes Vietnam is the 2nd largest Catholic asian nation after the Phillipines but it is a DISTANT 2nd. Only 10% of Vietnamese are Catholic.

As for the Chinese, well of course Vietnamese saw them as occupiers. Vietnam did eventually defeat them and kicked them out.

Vietnam and China share the similiar ideologies, but have had testy relations in their history.

cool. can u tell me after 1,000 years what is the degree of inter breeding between chinese and vietnamese? cause as of yet i never seen vietnamese say they are half chinese or etc after 1,000 years of rule than i see filipinos who were only colonized for 300 years and already filipinos have a misconception that a few hundred spaniards can have sex with every islander.....

85% of Vietnamese are full blooded Vietnaemse. While the others mixed Vietnamese and ethnic minority groups.

When I do see half Chinese half Vietnamese it's usually their parents were the ones that intermarried which is much more recent than the Chinese domination which ended in around 900 A.D which is more than a thousand years ago.

I don't think many Vietnamese in the old days wanted to marry the occupying Chinese. They were viewed as enemies and oppressors.

But anyway, I've tried many types of breads and Vietnamese bread is the best. So light and crunchy. Oh don't mention Banh Mi Thit. *drools*

hmm...

Manchus interbreeding with Han?

I always thought that Manchus forbade such an act...

"Ever suspicious of Han Chinese, the Qing rulers put into effect measures aimed at preventing the absorption of the Manchus into the dominant Han Chinese population. Han Chinese were prohibited from migrating into the Manchu homeland, and Manchus were forbidden to engage in trade or manual labor. Intermarriage between the two groups was forbidden."

http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/imperial3.html#manchus

Mongols were absorbed into the Han population (thru generations of interbreeding, so Mongol blood got thinned out over the generations...Manchu wanted to prevent that from happening so that they can be distinguished from Han. That way they can stay seperate from Han Chinese and can continue their rule and economic exploitation of Han China.

anyway off topic:

don't you think its bizzare that the Chinese consider the Mongol conquests of China as a Chinese civil war?

"One of the most striking is commonly expressed by Chinese undergraduates; the idea that "Genghis Khan made China great." This would strike a western student of history as absurd; but in China it is a commonplace. When it is pointed out that Genghis Khan was a Mongol who conquered much of Europe and Asia, and began the conquest of China that was completed by his descendants, the standard answer is that Mongols are Chinese. The Mongol conquests, many Chinese students are convinced, were just a "Chinese civil war"."

http://sacu.org/cifc10.html

The mongols robbed raped and killed off million Hans and the Chinese consider those conquests to be Chinese civil wars, espescially when Mongols were foreigners

"Khubilai Khan, the Mongol emperor of China, murdered a reported 18 million Chinese over a forty year reign."

http://www.freedomsnest.com/rummel_pre20a.html

How can you consider brutal massacre, colonization, and exploitation by Mongolians on Han China, a Chinese civil war? The Mongolians were foreigners... This is like Mexicans considering the Spanish conquests of the Americas, a "Mexican civil war."

I know its not the same in the sense that two factions of the same country fighting each other... but it is the same in the sense that both involve slaughter, exploitation, and rule by a foreigner.

Bizzare!!

hmmm???? I see there yep

Tibet is similar, but the Chinese say that Tibet was Chinese.......

Bizzare indeed!!!!!!

well didnt the chinese refer to the mongols as as barbarian, and build the great wall of china to seperate china from those "barbarians"?

what came first, the building of the wall to keep the mongol barbarian out of china or the gengis khan conquest?

man dalawapo you are smart!!!

I forgot I even watch Mulan!!

yess the great wall - wasn't it to keep out the Huns????

French rule was only 80 years.Viet Nam was under Chinese rule 1000 years, but we have still our owns customs. So, 80 years is nothing.

That's what china does to save face. They call mongols chinese, when their ancestor fought hard and exploited by mongols, then they call manchus chinese, while their ancestor fought years to try to freed themselves from manchus. If the American conquered china, I'm sure china would consider american as chinese also. They are so unlike us Vietnamese, where we hold true to our history, and never tries to distort it. We are Vietnamese, chinese invasion and oppression of a millenium, did not make us one with them, French did the same thing, and we kicked them out. We never try to be who we're not, and never worship our ancestors' enemies.

Very well said Fiji

the Mongols and Manchu conquered and ruled the Chinese for 350 years, of course the Chinese have to find a way to lessen their humililation by claiming that the Mongols and Manchu are " Chinese", this does not include the Khitan and Jurchen who carved pieces of chinese land and formed two kingdoms called Xia Xia and Jin as well. Fortunately for the chinese, the Mongols helped them get rid of the Khitan and Jurchen.

you are da man dawg!

American colonials ruled the Philippines for about 50 years and look at the impact they left, the Philippines is the 3rd largest English speaking nation in the world after the United Kingdom (the origin of English language) and the United States (our teachers) The Philippines even outranks Australia and New Zealand, who only have one language to learn, and the philippines is an island chain where there are over 90 indigenous languages spoken....

i think the answer to halohalo's question is based on the type of colonizer any given asian ethnicity was faced with. Some Colonizer was not much concerned about the dealings with the inhabitants of the land they controlled and allowed them to continue their traditional ways etc as long as they were not troublesome and did not interfere with whatever they desired, which was a focus on natural resource a geographical foothold etc....

but some colonizers such as the spaniards not only took the land, but wanted to convert the people and such. and they also used the conversion as a way to pacify the natives and make them more controllable by convoluting their minds in divide and conquer tactics... if you look more like me and practice my religion and kill your brother who does not convert, i will give you one extra piece of meat for your dinner... etc. that is why today filipinos think being a mestizo or looking whiter is like the next best thing since rice.... because it was instilled in their minds that if they were to be whiter they will have a more comfortable status in the philippines during colonial times.

I dont think like you. Because under the French rule, many traditional occupation and industries werent allowed to exist. Some could be but it ứa jút " mị dân ". Do u know ?

I think this goes here...

MUCH LOVED FRENCHMEN... in Vietnam

and this...


More on "Alexandre de Rhodes"...

Alexandre de Rhodes is portugese. Quoc Ngu is a Latinized Portugese scripts that adopted to fit vietnamese, like chu nom using chinese script.

It's funny how many today's Vietnamese would rather have Alexandre de Rhodes to be a Portuguese... he is a Frenchman, a Jesuit, born in Avignon, South of France...

"Sur le pont d'Avignon on y danse on y danse,
Sur le pont d'Avignon on y danse tout en rond!"

is a well known old song in kindergardens! you hadn' read any of all the links that I joined to the post !

so read only this one in Vietnamese:
http://www.binhcang.com/giaosidaclo.html

and this one from CNN whoswho in Vietnam



and
http://www.saigon.com/~nguyent/hoa_06.html


all the rest of the world can't be all wrong in this matter!!! or can it ???

This is interesting. I was taught he's Portugese.

But Quocngu is still based on Latinized portugese script.
\http://www.omniglot.com/writing/portuguese.htm

Really ? I didn't know that many Vietnamese think (or would like to think) he was Portuguese. Always thought he was a Frenchman.

You're right.

So why Alexandre de Rhodes, as a Frenchman, had he not transcribed the then spoken Vietnamese using his own language - French? The simple reason was, and still is, because the French language just could not be used to transcribe in any way the then spoken Vietnamese : the French language does not have the adequate sounds, and would not fit for that job.

He, Alexandre de Rhodes, who was a scholar (as most missionaries at that time were), also studied and spoke Portuguese, and so did the second Frenchman, Pigneau de Behaine, who later further improved the Latin from/to Vietnamese dictionary.

The Vietnamese language could only have been transcribed using the existing Portuguese language sounds.

So, our following Vietnamese sounds came from Portuguese (ther are no equivalent sounds in French or would be written differently) :

Vietnamese KH sounds as Portuguese J, and respectively,
ONG as ÃO
OONG as ON
NH as NH
ANG as AN
NG as ending N
AU as AU
O as O
U as U
H as H

etc... etc...

So, São Paulo, the Pope name John Paul II,
can be easily pronounced "SONG PAU-LÔ" in Vietnamese!

And why a Latin - Vietnamese Dictionary? because Latin was the language used in the Bible, and to teach ancient science and Christianity!

You mean our following Quoc Ngu not sounds came from Portugese..

Vietnamese sounds already existed.

I mean "QUOC NGU" was only the officially adopted name for Vietnamese written language as from 1 January 1900 on = Vietnamese "NATIONAL LANGUAGE"...

In 1900, this big world was shared only between the few most invasive discoverer nations, the then supreme maritime powers: Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, and France.

The Vietnamese (I used 'Vietnamese' as a generic term for the people of our country) didn't even know they had adopted the new way of writing their language, and were still using CHỮ NHO until some twenty years after Quốc Ngữ slowly became generalised in Vietnam.

Edit: You'll probably be most interested in going thru the resulting links given here by a Google search with accented "Quốc Ngữ".

Enjoy reading it!

and chunom

CHỮ NHO means HÁN NÔM writing

So Whites tried to ruin Vietnamese culture basically?

All this is a very long story, so you'd need to start reading a lot if you wish to wholy understand modern historical matters.

Up until the late 30's, despite our glorious history, Vietnam, and even the big Chinese Empire, were very, very, very, very, very, weak nations, when being compared to advanced mechanised industrial nations like France and Great Britain! if we weren' under French protectorate, we would have been under someone else's protectorate. Look at how Big China was also occupied by so many nations!

All went only badly when World War II started...

really a long story...

http://www.cjvlang.com/Writing/writsys/writviet.html

Chu Nho is refered to Nho Giao writing, which is Classical Chinese. People who write chunho is not only writing in Chinese characters but also follow Classical Chinese grammar.

You know...
We could also not be colonized like Japan and Thailand. It's just the Nguyen emperors are just stupid and famous for copying all Chinese acts (like the current goverment now with their economy plan, an exact copy of China) i.e the Nguyen Laws are exact copy of Qing, the Hue forbidden city is the mini-Beijing forbidden cities etc. If they actually listen to PHan Boi Chau or other people who wanted to industrialize Vietnam, Vietnam won't face the wars.

Vietnam had a chance to modernize her army/country in 1826 when the ambassador of the United States came to Vietnam with the letter of President Andrew Jackson in requesting the Vietnamese to adopt its "open-door" policy but Ming Mang turned down the request.

... or Vietnam and China could have extincted out of cholera or pest !!!

if we hadn't had the first French Doctor Without Borders in history, Alexandre Yersin !!!



OK.

Wow, lol..

Vietnamese people (or rather people inhabited in nowaday Vietnam) existed more than 3000 years, already. You mean just some random factors in the twentieth century, the whole vietnamese population died off.

Ridiculous.

Somehow i feel like you're implying that France was a "good" colonizer.

That's normal: I'm also French!

"Uống nước nhớ nguồn" mà lại...

Well, the French also saved the Algerians from an epidaemia of pest...

Oh no, they weren't too bad, not until some king killed their missionaries. From then on, they became dominant, and colonised us for good!

Do you know that East asian people are known to take bath frequently (it's even a ritual in japan), while in Western Europeans hardly took shower or bath until like the 1920 i.e Queen Elizabeth...

Vietnamese foods are way healthier than French food too.


"Uống nước nhớ nguồn" mà lại còn tôn vinh thực dân Pháp