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Young People and Globalizing Trends in Vietnam

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DOI: 10.1080/13676261.1999.10593047

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 Journal of Youth Studies, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1999 353

Young People and Globalizing Trends in Vietnam

PAM NILAN

ABSTRACT The past 10 years have seen an increasing research emphasis on young people
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and youth culture. The appearance of this very journal is testimony to a surge in academic
interest. However, not much has so far been written in this vein about youth culture
phenomena in post-Communist countries undergoing radical change towards a market
economy. Yet this is clearly a very interesting investigation as one of the great
meta-narratives of history-State Communism-declines. In the complex discursive
aftermath of perestroika or doi moi, young people are at the cutting edge of deep social
and economic change. Although the generational shift in identity-formation towards greater
individualism, and conspicuous consumption, is really only one part of global economy
integration, it is an important part, as new kinds of state citizens emerge. This paper
examines globalization in relation to cultural shifts in modern youth culture in Vietnam.
The focus is primarily on urban life in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Introduction
This paper is written with the purpose of opening up critical intellectual debate
about the relationship between the diverse youth culture experiences of young
people in Vietnam, and globalizing trends which have impacted upon that country
since the radical reforms of 1986. As such, the paper consists primarily of a review,
within a critical sociological framework, of some recent accounts of youth
phenomena in Vietnam. The phenomena I discuss in this review point to key issues
which might be the focus of further research and investigation about the lives of
young people in the post-Communist state of Vietnam. Further research will enable
the voices of young Vietnamese to be heard, which was not possible within the
scope of this paper. The analytical arguments made here should be seen as located
within the discursive field of studies of youth culture, and young people's lives,
in post-Communist countries such as those in Eastern Europe, and in the few
remaining Communist states, such as Cuba.
In the past five decades, a series of technological, cultural and economic changes
have effectively transformed world society (Giddens, 1994). Transnational
companies, which now largely control the movement of international capital,
encourage a competitive world-wide labour market (Martin & Schumann, 1997).
The term globalization may be understood to describe the emergence of a world
system which is as much about information/knowledge and culture, as it is about
economics and the flow of capital. However, there are nation-states which have
resisted or avoided the globalization trend to a greater or lesser extent, and for

Pam Nilan, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan
2308, New South Wales, Australia.

1367-6261/99/030353-18 © 1999 Taylor & Francis Ltd

 354 Pam Nilan

different reasons. These include some middle-eastern Islamic countries, tiny island
nations in the Pacific, countries reduced to chaos by civil war, and Communist bloc
countries. In post-Communist countries the relationship to world global markets
and trends is very complex. Cuba, China and Vietnam have all embraced some
economic reforms which take them closer to the model of Western-style capitalism,
while retaining ideological commitments and capital investment restrictions that
maintain the rhetoric of the Communist state [1].
Apart from the sometimes subtle effect on local labour markets of transnational
business conglomerates, two of the most obvious ways in which the populations
of countries engage with global trends is through the popular media and education.
Education systems in post-Communist countries must change and usually extend,
in response to altered labour market needs and aspirations. Images and messages
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received through local and regional media work at the level of desire and the
imagination, to construct lifestyle possibilities and cravings for brand-name
commodities (Martin & Schumann, 1997). Young people come to see themselves
as different kinds of citizens and workers from previous generations. They also
come to see themselves as particular kinds of consumers. These powerfully shaping
processes contribute to the expansion of the global labour market, while at the same
time expanding the global consumer market for the purchase of artefacts of popular
culture and markers of lifestyle. These new global markets are also in a sense
'created' by the 'reordering of space and time' brought about by post-modern
media (Thompson, 1995, p. 160). The lifestyles of the new middle class in
developing countries such as Vietnam tend to be 'urbane, and consumption and
entertainment oriented' (Reimer, 1995, p. 123). Urban ~1iddle-class people in
Vietnam sport brand-name clothing, watch MTV, cruise the Internet and ride their
Honda Dreams (motor scooters), to school, to university or to the office.
One of the curious effects of globalization, as defined above, is that while it
'universalizes' the cultures, desires and needs of world populations in order to
promote commodities, and to encourage the work ethic for transnational
companies, it also 'individualizes'. That is, the internationalization of capital,
labour markets, and information, interpellates members of populations at a
personal, individual level to respond to what is offered and promised. A
meritocracy of competitive achievement between individuals is bolstered by the
entrepreneurial milieu of private enterprise, and legitimated by education systems
geared to modernization.
Vervoorn proposes that as these dual effects of globalization continue, there is
an oppositional reaction from groups within populations. He terms this
counter-reaction 'insulation':
Insulation involves setting oneself apart from others, whereas globalisa-
tion involves being linked to others on an ever-increasing scale. (1998,
p. 1)
Insulation is described as a process of constituting distinctiveness, of maintain-
ing and re-establishing control over one's own affairs. He gives examples in the
political context, where ethnic groupings are being re-asserted. The revitalization
of religious sects and practices may also be described as a form of insulation. This
kind of reaction against the effects of globalization is very evident in Vietnam.
Nostalgia for the rural past, fervent nationalism and a resurgence in religious
affiliations and practices, are all indicative of a desire to remain definitively
Vietnamese in the context of a rapidly modernizing South-east Asian region. This

·--------·--------------------------
 Globalizing Trends in Vietnam 355

tendency towards the local and the culturally distinctive as markers of Vietnamese
youth identity, will be evident in some of the examples of cultural change discussed
later in the paper.
Young people in Vietnam are growing up in a rapidly industrializing, politically
stable milieu in which there is a falling fertility rate (two children per couple),
divorce is increasing and young people themselves expect to negotiate the choice
of marriage partner, subject to some sanctions from family regarding religion,
wealth and status. Young people from all socioeconomic strata are watching TV,
films and video clips which enable them to 'experience events, observe others and,
in general, learn about worlds, both real and imaginary' that extend well beyond
the sphere of their everyday lives (Thompson, 1995, p. 180). In this milieu, a virtual
explosion of popular culture consumption has occurred since doi moi. However, this
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is not to deny that most people in Vietnam still work and live in the most basic
conditions, and are very poor. They may have access to the images, but not to the
advertized items and lifestyles (Vervoorn, 1998).

Globalization and Local Identities

The moment the rain tapers off in Ho Chi Minh City, adolescent street
hawkers re-emerge from beneath the awnings to continue their endless
search for new customers. Ten year olds selling lottery tickets run from
food stalls to tailor shops,looking for people who believe that today might
be their lucky day. Then commuters peer out from under the eaves, wipe
pools of water from the new Honda motorbikes, and roar off into the
sprawling arms of the metropolis. (Vietnam Venture Group, 7 /10/98)

Vietnam has been selectively open for foreign business since the late 1980s (Reidel,
1997) through a series of reforms collectively labelled doi moi (Lai, 1997). In 1995,
an official normalization of relations with the USA took place, and Vietnam became
a member of the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) trading bloc,
an action which enhanced its bargaining position in world trade (Thayer, 1997). A
number of laws were passed which encourage foreign investment while imposing
restrictions on sectors of investment, recruitment of personnel, and political rights
of workers. These laws offer certain incentives to investors, including tax
exemptions and tax minimization. The result has been an influx of foreign
investment, 70 per cent from within the Asian region (Thayer, 1998, p. 20), primarily
in the areas of tourism, building construction, heavy and light industry and
agriculture (Vasavakul, 1997). However, the launch of Vietnam into the
.f;re~Mr.%.'5 ~.iH' .~1f 6\~'"'.1 Ccipl\'u1\i~1IT ~ rWtL ~;1'gm1y- any- 1iu'em'ton o{ tne
government to complete full-scale transition to a capitalist economy. The political
report to the Eighth National Party Congress in 1996 makes the current position
clear. It states that 'building a commodity-based and market-oriented multisectoral
economy must be accompanied by efforts to strengthen the state management role
along the socialist path' (Vasavakul, 1997, p. 340). Over the past four years, the
government of Vietnam has pursued an agenda of consolidating the one-party
political system which includes measures to ensure that control of the economy
remains firmly in the hands of the Central Party through the hegemony of
state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Some of the profits resulting from SOEs have been
directed towards rebuilding and strengthening state institutions. However, while
these state institutions exist nominally to serve the needs of the people within the
 356 Pam Nilan

framework of a socialist state, they consist of clusters of party cadres, technocrats

and military officers with their own interests in making profits. On the streets of
Vietnam one often hears the observation that party bureaucrats still enjoy a range
of privileges under the new regime, and that their privileges may prove to have
been enhanced even further by recent policies of strengthening Central Party
control.
As a result of doi moi reforms, Vietnam is no longer subject to world trade
sanctions. And it has not collapsed into chaos like some post-Communist countries,
despite the fact that it is remains an extremely poor country. Political stability and
very low labour costs make Vietnam an attractive proposition for investors. Direct
investment is permitted through joint ventures, and the government does allow an
increasing range of imports [2]. Yet the Party-controlled central government still
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controls the extent to which the national economy is linked to world markets, and
is currently refusing strong hints from the World Bank to 'liberate' its private sector
and abolish the two-tiered pricing and wages system that penalizes foreign country
investment. Nevertheless, Vietnam appears committed to doing business on a
global scale. For example, the Fifth Plenum in July 1998 recommended 'the creation
of a securities market as the first step towards creating a stock exchange' (Thayer,
1998, p. 20), even though only a tiny number of state-controlled companies would
be eligible for listing.
While Vietnam remains one of the poorest countries in the world (Liu, 1998),
during the process of economic development and modernization over the last two
decades, an urban middle class has emerged with spending power and
discretionary tastes for consumer commodities. Many of the upper section of the
new middle class are party cadres, military officers, private entrepreneurs and their
families. Professional people are not so well off. Their salaries remain relatively
low, even in the major cities. Nevertheless, even people on very low incomes will
make sacrifices in order to purchase desirable imported items (Fforde, 1998), or
cheap copies of these which are sold on the black market. In the major cities of
Vietnam there is a thriving trade in authentic high status American and European
brand name goods [3] which well exceeds the small number of high-income
earners. By the year 2020 it is estimated that 35.1 per cent of the population of the
country will have taken up urban living (United Nations, 1997, p. 68). If patterns
of social change in other South-east Asian countries are in any way repeated in
Vietnam, a thriving, entrepreneurial, commercial and professional middle class
will increasingly demand the right to choose what they will consume from a
world-wide range of products and services (see e.g. Neil, 1994).
Giddens points out that the process of globalization, through the international-
ization of capital and the commodification of culture, brings about transformations
at local and personal levels:
Our day-to-day activities are increasingly influenced by events
happening on the other side of the world. (Giddens, 1994, p. 5)
In countries like Vietnam there are critical tensions between the pull of tradition
and Communist Party ideology (the past), and modern lifestyle trends (the
imagined future). There is a dialectic relationship between old-world communi tar-
ian orientations, and the ascendancy of the self-centred and self-serving individual
subject of late modernity. The 'process of individualisation in society' (Reimer,
1995, p. 122) is closely tied to the central ethos of any capitalist economy. In
nation-states moving rapidly towards modernization, traditional ties with family,

--------~---- ----------------------
 Globalizing Trends in Vietnam 357

class and originary status groups become less important, especially in large cities.
Individuals feel more and more that they must take responsibility for their lives
(Beck, 1992; see also Furlong & Cartmel, 1997). These claims must be viewed,
however, in the light of Vervoorn's (1998) argument that there is counter-tendency
towards 'insulation' which may involve the rejuvenation of some forms of peer and
status groupings.
However, in fast-developing countries, membership of social groups beyond the
nuclear family, largely defined in peasant societies by the mutual dependency of
subsistence agriculture, is constituted increasingly by middle-class status markers
and leisure pursuits-'conspicuous consumption' (Veblen, 1949). Weber (1978)
pointed out that social stratification is always about status, especially through
visual cues and lifestyle. The social world of young, urban, middle-class
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Vietnamese is increasingly articulated in relationship to markers of status: housing,

colour television sets, white goods, mobile phones, CD players, motorbikes and
brand-name apparel. Some of these are particularly important in social practices
of leisure and courtship. However, in attempting to understand how contemporary
young people construct who they are, 'consumption operates alongside other
discursive multiple identities derived from the school, the family and the media'
(Miles et al., 1998, p. 94; see also Wyn & White, 1996).
The situation for poor young people is quite different from those who enjoy
privilege. Lai claims that the 'relatively easier earnings in the initial years of doi moi'
have been replaced with job queues. He notes that 'employment for young people
has been scarce and the inadequacies of the secondary schools, colleges and
universities are becoming serious problems' (1997, p. 19). Huyen (1998) argues that
the continued migration of young people from rural areas into Hanoi during the
'slowdown' in job recruitment 1996/1997 has created a situation where vast
numbers of poorly educated young men and women are looking for manual work.
However, a serious shortage of labour exists in jobs which require a university
degree and specialized skills. Young people with these credentials are eagerly
sought by employers and the state sector. Fforde (1998) recognizes a growing
contrast between the lifestyles of middle-class and blue-collar worker families in
Hanoi. While middle-class affluence is taking those who can afford it into large
stucco villas built over traditional rice paddy land in the outer suburbs, worker
families inhabit crumbling multi-storey apartment blocks in run-down inner city
areas. Some struggling families live in spaces only two metres by six metres square.
The recent appearance of elite private schools and universities also provides an
example of the growing gap between the poor and the well-off (see below). Young
people in the major cities of Vietnam are now growing up into a sharply
wealth-differentiated society despite the egalitarian socialist rhetoric of the central
government, which continues to insist that all young people have the same
opportunities for advancement.
Thinh Le, one of a relatively small number of young Vietnamese to complete
tertiary education, reflects upon the gap between the new rich and the poor:
In Saigon, there are now lots of kids whose parents have struck it
rich-they ride around on new $4,000 motorbikes, go to night clubs and
bars, and are more interested in clothes and parties than an education. But
they are few compared to those struggling to survive. (Thinh, 21/1 /98)
Since 1987, young people in urban Vietnam have had access to information,
entertainment and commodities from Western countries and from other parts of
 358 Pam Nilan

Asia. Expatriate Vietnamese, tourists and business representatives have flooded

into the country since 1987, bringing with them all the goods, trappings and value
systems of consumer culture. Thinh Le is aware of the hegemony of this 'new'
knowledge:
There was a poll taken recently in Saigon-SO per cent of the youths
between 12 and 22 years old did not know the meanings of the streets
named after revolutionaries who fought against the French and the
Americans. On the other hand, around 80 per cent recognized Madonna
and Michael Jackson. (Thinh, 21/1/98)
Young Vietnamese who have studied in other countries also bring back with
them different perspectives on education and lifestyle. These new know ledges tend
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to favour a sense of the personal self as achiever and consumer. Furthermore, the
powerful discourse of 'see and be seen' which now operates in urban settings
during leisure and courting practices of youth, reflects hegemonic global style
trends.

Concerns about Cultural Preservation

In the most recent Plenum the Vietnamese government railed yet again against the
growth of bourgeois individualism (ABC Online, 4/2/99). Central Party ideology
still strives to maintain the understanding of the ideal role of young people in a
socialist society mapped out originally by Ho Chi Minh. Educational institutions
still focus on national unity and appropriate Communist party values [4]. Yet
outside cultures have had an increasing influence on urban youth, particularly
Western culture (Huyen, 1998), although regional influences from Hong Kong and
Japan are also strong (Berry et al., 1996, p. 202). Concerns about the threat of
consumerism and Western-style trends to Vietnamese culture, and to Communist
ideology, were perhaps most forcibly demonstrated in the 'anti-social evils
campaigns' which were launched in early 1996 (Vasavakul, 1997, p. 350). These
campaigns arose in principle from the resolution of the Fourth Plenum of the
Central Committee (Seventh Session) in January 1993. This resolution identified a
number of phenomena deemed threatening to Vietnamese traditional culture,
including:
Superstition, the spread of "poisonous" cultural products, tendencies
towards anti-revolution and anti-heroism, commercialisation of culture,
and the rejection of party leadership in cultural management. (VietNam,
1993, pp. 51-57)
Campaigns against these 'social evils' included attempts to eradicate pornogra-
phy, prostitution and crime, regulation of the mass media, control of Internet
access, and curtailing the reception of foreign television programs (Vasavakul,
1997). Vervoorn (1998) recognizes censorship of information as a form of
'insulation'. The Vietnamese government was trying to preserve the cultural and
ideological distinctiveness (purity) of the country.
Yet the black market in most of the banned 'social evils' flourished even
throughout the application of the anti-social evils campaigns. When arrested,
prostitutes, brothel operators, drug addicts, opium den operators, owners of
Karaoke bars and bia om (beer cafes) as well as purveyors of pornography, either
bribed their way to freedom or disappeared for a while into 're-education' centres,

~~~~-~~----~--~----·-----------------------
 Globalizing Trends in Vietnam 359

only to start up business again elsewhere. In Vietnam today steady informal trade
in 'social evils' continues apace. The national masculine obsessions with Karaoke
and gambling and bia om have not diminished. Gold smuggling still flourishes in
Ho Chi Minh City (Gainsborough, 1998, p. 6). Vietnamese authorities found, like
governments everywhere, that the Internet is notoriously difficult, time-consuming
and expensive to monitor and control. They had a greater degree of success in
regulating foreign TV broadcasts, since proper satellite transmission dishes are
difficult to conceal. However, Caiger et al. (1996) claim that people throughout the
region pressed into service a variety of objects, including woks and garbage tin lids,
to pull down foreign satellite television signals.
Behind many of the targeted 'social evils' in modernizing Vietnam lie
transnational media and merchandising conglomerates (both legal and illegal),
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which control and manipulate labour markets and national economies to maximize
profits (Thompson, 1995). In the new market economy, entrepreneurs both inside
and outside the country have a vested interest in promoting whatever it is they are
trying to sell. The saturation effect of transnational media hype and advertizing
makes its impact most noticeably on younger people, and stimulates the tastes and
predilections of both entrepreneurs and consumers. Lai (1997) recognizes that in
the social dynamism which followed doi moi-'young people quickly adapted to
the new mechanism, the new tempo of life' (p. 21). The term 'red capitalists'-
young party cadres as entrepreneurs-was not just a piece of wry commentary.
From the very beginning of reform the Vietnamese political economy encouraged
a 'spreading of risk' by families, so that one foot was kept in state employment
while the other tested the waters of private business enterprises (Fforde, 1998,
p. 3). The young party bureaucrats who succeeded 10 years ago in this dual career,
now form the elite management personnel of profitable SOEs. It is they and their
families who constitute the majority of customers for luxury item retailers in the
fashionable quartier of Hanoi, where shops such as Calvin Klein For Men, Colorado
Shoes and The Body Shop are to be found. They also have the means to employ
y\%1"6'0XP~ k&w 1ruYa11aYe'a"S a"S Sel.'V aTi\'5' aJ.~ Li\-acdihrs~ d)~ t't\l~ 1~ arr liTCTe'dSliTg
trend. So, in both theoretical and practical terms, considerations of emerging youth
culture in Vietnam cannot be separated from an analysis of worldwide economic
expansion. In the remainder of this paper I discuss selected aspects of rapid cultural
change for young people in Vietnam. I acknowledge, however, that very clear class
differences are observable within the youth population. And even though the
Asian currency crisis has not affected Vietnam as badly as some other countries
in the region (due to its limited foreign capital exposure), as the queues of
unemployed young people grow in the cities, these class differences are
increasingly leading to resentment and conflict between privileged and marginal
youth groups.

Education
The Communist state of Vietnam has always recognized the importance of
education. In 1975 the aim was to teach children to read and write-to form up
citizens who would rebuild the shattered nation. Vietnam now has a literacy rate
of 94%, according to the most recent annual UNICEF survey report (Vietnam News
Network, 1999a). Government spending on education grew from 12 per cent of
GOP in 1990 to 15 per cent in 1997. In 1991 it became compulsory for all Vietnamese
children aged between 6 and 14 to attend school (Biddington, 1998, p. 162).
 360 Pam Nilan

Currently the primary school enrolment rate is 91 per cent. However, only 63 per
cent actually complete primary school. Those who drop out do so mainly for
economic reasons. Girls are particularly likely to leave early due to the prevalence
of traditional beliefs about the subordinate role of women in Vietnamese society
(Vietnam News Network, 1999a). Ethnic groups such as the H'mong are still
massively under-represented in school enrolments.
The government of Vietnam is not unusual in using the education system to
create national unity and ideological consensus. Like the media, the education
system is the paradigmatic institution for the promotion of political precepts and
moral values upon which specific political systems depend. Nations in the
process of building or rebuilding themselves look to schools to do the work of
moulding the 'right' kinds of citizens. We have seen this process in the founding
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of the modem state of Israel. However, the effectiveness of a system of education

to inculcate strongly defined political and moral messages to young people,
depends significantly on the ideological discourses which inform traditional
approaches to education.
In the Asian region, the traditional function of education was to pass the
knowledge of prior generations on to the present generation, as well as to teach
moral values, discipline, obedience and respect for knowledge. The questioning
of knowledge, a characteristic feature of Western education, was viewed as
incompatible with respect for knowledge and for the teacher (Caiger et al., 1996,
p. 69). In contemporary Vietnam, similarly to China, educational ideals are still to
some extent 'informed by a complex mix of Confucian values and communist
rhetoric' (Caiger et al., 1996, p. 74). Traditional forms of learning stressed
intellectual stamina, selflessness and industriousness. These values have trans-
lated effectively into values of loyalty to the people of Vietnam and the Party,
knowledge of Communist party rhetoric (especially the writings of Ho Chi Minh),
and the link between political theory and practice.
However, the education system in Vietnam is increasingly under pressure to
teach not only the 'basics' [5] and ideology /moral values, but also skills required
by a modem industrializing nation. For example, English language classes are
much in demand from primary school upwards. Computer education is eagerly
sought, despite limited resources. Health education programmes are increasingly
promoted through schools. There is also pressure from some quarters to revive
traditional Vietnamese folk arts in schools (the 'insulation' trend). The year 1993
saw some significant changes. Specialization was introduced 'at both secondary
and tertiary level in an attempt to equip students to deal with rapidly changing
technologies' (Biddington, 1998, p. 161). The secondary school curriculum now
includes a range of subjects deemed appropriate to future integration into the
world economy. In his recent unveiling of 1999 goals for the education sector in
Ho Chi Minh City, the Director of Education, Truong Song Due, stated that the
ultimate purpose of a programme was to support talented students 'for continued
study at home and abroad' (Vietnam News Network, 1998a, emphasis added).
Studying abroad has now become a key objective of middle-class secondary and
tertiary students.
Widespread private supplementation of government funding for schools has
led to considerable variation in quality between schools, and a lack of access for
poor students:

The costs of schooling consist of two components: direct and indirect

 Globalizing Trends in Vietnam 361

costs. The direct costs of schooling include out-of-pocket costs such as

school fees, books and contributions. As part of the reform process in
Vietnam, education is no longer free. User pays principles have been
introduced. (Liu, 1998, 2, emphasis added}
The major indirect cost of schooling is the labour lost to the family economic unit
if the young person is in school. Since the removal of subsidies and the introduction
of user fees, primary education is becoming almost a luxury for children from very
poor families, especially girls (Vietnam News Network, 1999a}. There are now three
kinds of schools: (a) free public schools, completely funded by the government, (b)
semi-public schools which charge parents for tuition costs, (c) 'people-sponsored'
schools set up by groups of wealthy parents (Biddington, 1998, p. 165). These
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schools charge full fees. Many require selective examination for entrance and offer
specialized tuition in mathematics, literature, foreign languages or sciences.
'People-sponsored' schools offer scholarships to able students and pay higher
wages to teachers. They pave the way to university and beyond.
So, while the poor are increasingly excluded from education, the education
system in Vietnam is becoming much more complex, and occupying more and
more space in middle-class young people's lives and imaginations than previously.
And it is not insulated from changes taking place elsewhere in a rapidly
modernizing nation [6]. Younger and better-educated teachers are using more
active and innovative approaches in the classroom than a previous generation of
teachers, especially in privately funded schools. Yet education in Vietnam still
stresses teacher-centred rote learning and examination. The dominance of
competitive public examination has a long tradition in Vietnam. Even now it is less
about bourgeois individualism than the symbolic achievement of honour for the
family, the Party and the nation-state. There are some signs that this is changing,
though. Huyen (1998) claims that 'compared to a decade ago, young people now
pay more attention to personal achievement and success' (p. 3).
The expansion of secondary schooling since 1986 has certainly contributed to
youth culture phenomena in Vietnam. By the age of 12 in previous eras nearly all
young people would have assumed an 'adult' role, directly supporting the family
or community through their labour in various forms. This is still the case for poor
families, especially in rural areas. But for middle-income families in the cities the
trend for more privileged students is towards extended cohabitation, and economic
dependency on the family, in order to complete secondary and perhaps tertiary
education. This increased period of studying provides social and temporal space
for youth culture practices. Furthermore, the completion of secondary school
and/or university may require boarding in a town or city. Young people,
particularly girls who may have led rather restricted lives in the country, find a time
of relative independence in which they have an opportunity to socialize with age
peers. Commitment to study is high though. Most students in upper secondary
school and university are only there through the sacrifice of their families because
all wages are still relatively low. The internalized ambition of lthe family for the
student to succeed and acquire position and wealth provides a strong motivation
for study (Caiger et al., 1996, p. 95).

Motorbikes and Youth Culture

Every Sunday night, the downtown streets of Ho Chi Minh City are
packed with young people having fun. They deck themselves out in glitter
 362 Pam Nilan

duds, striking poses while moving at 25 m.p.h. on their 70 cc Honda

motorbikes. Boys with James Dean hairdos and dangling cigarettes loosen
their shoulders to whip like snakes through traffic. The girls ride behind,
chatting, sometimes sidesaddle and at ease, poised cross-legged, as if at
a debutante ball. (Vietnam Venture Group, 7 /10/98)
Fforde (1998) nominates the imported Electrolux washing machine, Hi-Fis,
colour television sets, VCRs, and domestic servants as important status symbols
in 1997 Hanoi. But the most important status symbol remained the motorbike. In
1997 the Spacey replaced the Dream as the desirable vehicle in Hanoi. By Western
standards, Dreams and Spaceys are small, cheap motorbikes which Westerners
would not usually associate with ostentatious display of wealth and privilege.
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However, in Vietnam where private citizens (with the exception of party officials)
are not permitted to own cars or even motorbikes over 125 cc, the Cub, Dream or
Spacey is the primary youth culture artefact upon which status is inscribed.
Differences of status within the range of possible motorcycles do not just rely on
price-as-new, and therefore on family income. There are gender differentiations
and regional variations. For example, the Minsk-a sturdy Russian-made bike-is
very popular in rural areas since it is relatively easy to fix. Tough young men with
money customize their 125 cc Husky machines with upswept 'chopper' handle-
bars, chrome and decals to look as much as possible like Harley Davidsons. Illegal
racing of such motorbikes is a frequent male youth activity in Hanoi and Saigon
(see Anh, 15/12/98). When the police raid these gatherings violence usually ensues
and arrests are made.
A court in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, has imprisoned fifteen youths
found guilty of involvement in illegal motorbike races in the city last
December which ended in violent clashes with police. (BBC News Online,
17/4/99)
Older, slow-moving motorbikes are driven by poorer youth, and married men
and women who stack the family up behind. Rebuilt step-through scooters are
driven by young, poorer women and older worker women. Old scooters and
limping Honda Cubs transport goods-food, bundles of grass or sticks, wood,
building material, chickens or fighting cocks in cages, in fact anything. Newer,
brightly coloured step-through scooters are ridden almost exclusively by young,
wealthier women: upper secondary and tertiary students, clerical workers and
professional career types. This group of young women often wear ao dai. A young
woman wearing this archaic-looking costume, driving an imported Lambretta
through rush hour traffic in Hanoi, talking on a mobile phone, seems a prime
example of the hybridity of affluent, urban youth culture in Vietnam.

Di Choi and Ao Dai: Two Examples of Cultural Hybridity

In Vietnam popular culture runs in tandem with a deep nostalgia for the past and
a profound sense of national identity. This matrix of discourses from which a sense
of identity may be formed, shapes current youth culture practices in significant
ways, leading often to 'bricolage'-a fundamentally creative and rather unpredict-
able cross-fertilization of disparate cultural forms to produce something new
(Hebdige, 1988, p. 103; see also Cranny-Francis, 1994). In Vietnam the merging of
tradition, ideology and modernity (Caiger et al., 1996) often constructs a unique

-···----·----------------------------
 Globalizing Trends in Vietnam 363

cultural product or activity (Wulff, 1995). Processes referred to by Vervoorn (1998)

as 'insulation' in the face of globalization are observable in some of these hybridities
and syntheses.
Soucy (1998) observes that religious practices in Vietnam have flourished since
doi moi. Although these observances and activities have been mainly the preserve
of older people, young people are participating in some religious practices. Soucy
describes pilgrimages by groups of young people to pagodas outside Hanoi during
the celebration month of Thet. These day-trip 'quasi-pilgrimages' synthesize
entertainment, religious practice and communitas. Young people speak about them
in terms of di choi-entertainment-but there is an implicit element of religious
practice in their visits. Even the buying of souvenirs in the foregrounds of the
pagodas carries a religious connotation. Soucy found that young women had a
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stronger religious orientation to the excursions, while young men were more
interested in the cultural significance of the sites. Yet both ranked the entertainment
value of these pilgrimages very highly. Soucy maintains that through these
pilgrimages young people constitute themselves as Vietnamese (through distinc-
tively Vietnamese religious practices, and through honouring sacred sites) while
conducting the practice of leisure as part of youth culture. Vervoorn's (1998)
argument about globalizing tendencies existing in parallel with a tendency to
'insulate' and reach out for symbols of distinctiveness, is well illustrated by the di
choi example. Soucy concludes that far from 'losing' their culture, young people
are ratifying their 'Vietnameseness' by such practices [7].
Like di choi the wearing of ao dai by young Vietnamese women exemplifies a
post-modern hybridity. As a fashion statement, the ao dai outfit is an easily
recognizable symbol of Vietnam. Ao dai consist of long floppy pants worn under
a long close-fitting dress. The dress has long tight sleeves, a high Chinese-style
collar, and splits up the side of the tunic to the waist. They are made from silky
fabrics which show off the figure. The hair is worn in a low bun or a single plait.
As exotic and archaic as they seem though, ao dai are a relatively recent fashion
phenomenon (Zin, 1998). Ao dai were invented in the 1930s. Ao dai obviously derive
from the loose tunic and pants worn in rural North Asia. However, ao dai fit closely,
thereby distancing the wearer from the loose clothing suitable for manual work in
a hot climate. The elongated trousers which almost cover the high-heeled shoes
make walking slow. Ao dai are made from luxury fabrics, advertizing the wealth
of the wearer.
In the 1930s the French schools which offered elite education to the daughters
of aristocratic Vietnamese made ao dai the school uniform. Personal maids and
prostitutes also began to wear ao dai. Schoolgirls wore them in white, and they still
do. Maids and servants wore them in dark and pastel colours and this is still the
case in hotels. Prostitutes wore garish coloured ao dai, often heavily decorated, and
this is still de rigeur in more expensive establishments. While some women may be
compelled to wear ao dai, as indicated in the examples above, in modern day Hanoi,
young professional women also wear ao dai voluntarily on many occasions. They
team the outfit with designer shoes and make-up. Shops and fashion houses
specializing exclusively in ao dai now produce them in an infinite array of colours,
fabrics and variations on a theme (Vietnam News Network, 1999a). For example,
all the 3000 teenage girls entering the hugely popular Miss VietNam competition
in 1998 wore ao dai (Vietnam News Network, 1998b).
As a visual symbol of youthful femininity in Vietnam, ao dai points in two
different directions. It points to the past of Indo-Chinese tradition, but through the
 364 Pam Nilan

lens of French fashion houses of the 1930s. Ao dai is also anchored in the present
both as a symbol of national identity and as a meaningful icon of exotic Asian
femininity in the global fashion stakes. European designers regularly 'rediscover'
the elegance of Asian elite traditional dress in their fashion lines. Above all, though,
ao dai is a symbol of youth, since unlike other national dress, it is worn primarily
by young women. Furthermore, it emphasizes the body of the young woman who
wears it. A current fashion trend is for expensive ao dai to made in very fine
brocaded pale silk through which the outlines of underwear can clearly be seen.
As the slightly culture-shocked online travel writer observes:
Though noticeably transparent, the white ao dai has somehow become the
high school uniform in Ho Chi Minh City. (Vietnam Venture Group,
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7 /10/98)
It is possible that the aesthetic pleasure young women clearly obtain from
wearing ao dai may derive from the extent to which it spans a variety of identity
discourses, including desire. In any case ao dai provides yet another example of
Vervoom's (1998) point about dual processes of globalization and 'insulation' (the
tendency to reinforce distinctiveness) in the context of Vietnam.

Crime and Drugs

As elsewhere it is difficult to estimate the extent to which youth crime is a problem
in Vietnam. The State-run media deplore the increasing lawlessness of young men
in the cities, and express dismay about the number of young female prostitutes.
On the other hand, they claim that Ho Chi Minh youth groups are still popular,
and that the primary concern of young people is success at school and finding a
lucrative job. Both reports are probably true and indicate the growing gulf between
the practices of the poor and disadvantaged, and the practices of the rest of the
population, especially the growing middle class. Outside the big cities, the
south-western coastal province of Kien Chang is reported to have exceptionally
high rates of 'juvenile delinquency and crime' (Vietnam News Network, 1999b).
A survey of the province in 1997 revealed that 1682 young people were
'delinquents'; 941 were 'still in their adolescence' and 139 were the leaders of gangs
with names like 'Night's Street', 'Scorpions' and Cau Due'. The news bulletin
reports that:
Many delinquent children gather in gangs to steat disturb public order,
or engage in socially evil acts. (Vietnam News Network, 1999b)
Their crimes apparently included robbery, rape and manslaughter. In Vietnam
the answer to behaviour deemed anti-social is still're-education' and 440 of the
most serious young offenders had been placed 'in re-education centres where they
receive psychological and vocational counselling'. This includes studying the
writings of Ho Chi Minh. Thirty-eight juvenile drug addicts were reported to have
been treated in special institutions 'and they soon were able to quit their deadly
habit'. There is a tradition of opium use in Vietnam stretching back to antiquity,
but the modem way of achieving the same mood-altering effect is to inject heroin
(ABC Radio, 15/2/99). The most common treatment practice in Vietnam is to lock
up heroin addicts and leave them to go 'cold turkey', so that was probably the fate
of the young addicted people here.
It is rare that the official Vietnamese press ever acknowledges that socioeconomic
 Globalizing Trends in Vietnam 365

factors play a crucial role in places where youth crime and drug use is on the
increase. Instead, the 'causes' given for extensive youth crime in Kien Chang
province are 'absence of discipline in the family, schools and society', 'inconsisten-
cies in child care and educational practices', 'breakdown of traditional patterns of
family life',' one-parent households or both parents working' and 'less supervision
at home' (Vietnam News Network, 1999c). Yet these are claimed to be
Vietnam-wide trends, so this does not actually explain why crime rates in Kien
Chang province are so high.
A typical Central Party explanation is that lack of education leads to crime. Blame
then shifts back to dysfunctional families, for example:
Vu Van Bang in Thang Binh district, Quang Nam province, doesn't mind
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that none of his six children ever finished primary education although he
could afford their schooling expenditures. (Vietnam News Network,
1998c)
However, the same article reports that in Ho Chi Minh City, '50,000 kids of school
age-about 1 in 20-do odds jobs rather than going to school''. These 'odd jobs'
include flocking to garbage dumps or markets to scavenge for things to sell. Others
eke out their existence from doing odds jobs for shop owners,. shining shoes, or
hawking newspapers and lottery tickets. An estimated 1 million school-age
children across the country have no chance to join their friends in class, according
to the National Literacy Committee of Vietnam. Socioeconomic factors differ from
the city to the countryside, but poverty is actually the most overwhelming reason
for lack of school attendance. Yet the greatest growth in the schooling sector since
doi moi is the proliferation of elite private schools. It is difficult to gauge the
long-term effect of increasing class stratification in the education sector. According
to commentators inside the country, most people expect that things will get better
for the poor in Vietnam, and keep getting better (ABC Radio, 15/2/99). It would
seem that they still believe the beneficial effects of doi moi will trickle down and
raise the living standards of the poor. However, if this does not occur, then the
eventual outcome will be an unbridgeable gulf between the life experiences and
opportunities of poor people, and more privileged young people in Vietnam. As
elsewhere in the region, the long-term consequence may be political upheaval.

The Representation of Young People in Popular Television

Mass media in Asia-that is, magazines, books, newspapers, television, film,
advertizing-constitute one of the most rapidly expanding markets of the global
economy (Berry et al., 1998). Even isolated communities tune in to the worldwide
exchange of ideas, information and images. The expansion of mass media in Asia
is frequently seen as harmful and destructive of unique national cultures. The
Vietnamese government certainly saw it this way when it placed restrictions on
foreign television content. Yet watching television is now the most common leisure
pursuit in Vietnam, so it is not surprising that making television programmes in
Vietnam for the domestic audience is a growing industry. In the mid 1990s the
popular national weekly offering called Van Nghe Chu Nhat featured locally made
films and short serials. In the following discussion I discuss one four-part
mini-series featured in Van Nghe Chu Nhat programming in 1995. Titled 12A & 4H,
this innovative serial was made by contemporary film-maker Bui Thac Chuyen.
Offering rich images of contemporary urban life from the perspective of students
 366 Pam Nilan

in their final year of secondary school, 12A & 4H shares many generic characteristics
with some notable Western counterparts, for example Degrassi Junior High
(Canada) and Heartbreak High (Australia). Like those series, the action moves
mostly between the classroom, the playground, the cafe and the family homes of
the characters [8]. In class 12A is a group of four girls whose names begin with H
(4H). The principal character is a wistful-looking member of this group called
Hang, who is also the class monitor.
The opening moments of the serial show an instant juxtaposition of past and
present. On the first day of school, the four heroines are dressed in white ao dai (see
above). They move quietly under old shady trees outside the school buildings as
the theme music plays. This is a nostalgic image, intertextually related to the
depiction of innocent (yet exquisite) Vietnamese schoolgirls in Western films about
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Vietnam such as the French-made Indochine. However, soon we are inside the
classroom and Ngon arrives late in a Sex Pistols T-shirt, gyrating to music pouring
through his Walkman headphones. We meet the 'bad' Four Seasons group
consisting of boys like Ngon and girls who never seem to wear ao dai. This group
hangs out in beer halls. They dance to heavy metal music.
As the serial progresses, the past shrinks in relation to the gritty present. The 4H
girls usually wear ordinary school day jeans and T-shirts. Ngon defies the physics
teacher and has a hit-and-run accident in which the victim dies. Hang's parents
separate. The teacher Minh fights with his wife. Hang's father turns out to be a
corrupt businessman who is having a secret affair. Hang's mother is also having
an affair. Ngon's father buys his way out of the consequences of his son's bad
conduct. He bribes both the school and the police. In later episodes tragic romances
are much to the fore. Hang has an affair with her teacher Minh (which he later
repudiates) and Hoa (another of the apparently virtuous 4H group) falls in love
with the tough reformed street kid Long, a romance of which her mother does not
approve. Chittick (1996) maintains that new ideas about sex have entered Vietnam
since doi nzoi. More Vietnamese young people are experimenting with sex at earlier
ages than did previous generations [9].
Drummond's (1998) analysis of the impact of 12A & 4H reveals that the serial
stirred quite some controversy among viewers. Two incidents in particular
shocked the audience. The first was the affair between the virginal Hang and her
married teacher, Minh. The second was a conflict between bad boy Ngon and the
physics teacher over Ngon's poor attitude to classwork and discipline. This ended
with the humiliating resignation of the teacher after Ngon's rich father intervened.
Viewers wrote letters to the Education Ministry about these incidents. Drummond
(1998) makes the following points about 12A & 4H. In the first place she maintains
that the structures of society are de-emphasized in soap operas such as this.
Characters stay located in 'domestic' space, thereby mirroring the web of
relationships in which the typical viewer is located. 12A & 4H deals with social
issues as moral issues in the private lives of the characters. Nevertheless, as
indicated above, the structural dimensions of Vietnamese society, particularly as
they impact on young people, are not presented in whitewash. Issues of illicit
wealth, corrupt business practices, schools and police who can be bribed are all
critically addressed. 12A & 4H does not shrink from depicting the gap in wealth
between the households of Hang (whose father is rich and corrupt) and Hoa (whose
parents are poor but honest). There is a contrast between the wealthy cynicism of
Ngon and his father, and the poverty-stricken but honest and admirable attributes
of Long. Drummond (1998) concludes that ex-street kid Long (the idealized student

------------------------- "~--"""""-""_"_ .. ____ ,

 Globalizing Trends in Vietnam 367

hero) embodies the notion that poor people are honest and basically good-natured.
In the first episode most of the 12A class go to picnic at the lake near the lower-class
horne of Hoa. They catch fish and roast sweet potatoes in the hot coals. Later they
sing together and talk about this being a wonderful interlude as they progress
towards graduation and the fragmenting post-school world. Drummond (1998)
claims that underlying the main plotlines of 12A & 4H lies the notion that only
nature can rescue troubled urban youth. Urban life is depicted as affluent but
spiritually impoverished. Young people must find their way through a moral
minefield towards adulthood with the aid of the natural and the simple.
One of the most important messages of the serial is that young people no longer
unquestioningly submit to the wisdom of their parents and elders. This is so both
in the sense that this is not part of modern youth culture in Vietnam, and in the
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sense that young people would be unwise to submit to the judgements of their
elders, given the hypocritical moral standards of older people. As the serial
concludes we are left with the impression that 'in the end the young people
construct new forms of identity for themselves between the hollow modern and
the traditional obsolete' (Drummond, 1998, my notes). Street (1977, p. 191) claims
that the importance of popular culture to politics lies in 'its ability to articulate the
feelings and passions that drive politics'. Frith (1996, p. 277) argues that if a cultural
product constitutes the potential for change in a society, then it must have a
'disruptive cultural effect'. 12A & 4H is not a radical text as such. However, it did
create quite a storm of interest when it was shown and it certainly raised more
questions than it answered about the changing position of young people in
Vietnamese urban life. The respectful, submissive attitude of young people to
parents, teachers and elders is an enshrined aspect of Vietnamese culture. Age is
believed to endow wisdom and the ability to morally guide the young. However,
this belief is not reinforced in 12A & 4H. Rather, it is proposed that under the current
circumstances of rapid economic reform in Vietnam, most adults cannot be trusted
to offer proper guidance to young people. 12A & 4H is not obviously subversive
or directly critical of the central government. However, the depicted events and
moral dilemmas in the lives of the young main characters imply the corrupting
influence of 'red' capitalism and upward social mobility, on their parents'
generation.

Conclusion
In this paper I have given a number of examples which imply that the growing
population of young people in Vietnamese cities shows an increasingly ambiguous
relationship to Central Party rhetoric. While some still enthusiastically embrace the
spirit of Ho Chi Minh's ideology, the majority, especially in the south, are
pre-occupied with surviving, and/ or prospering from, the new economic reforms.
Global media and the new emphases in education invite young Vietnamese to see
themselves as different kinds of future citizens and workers from previous
generations. The post-modern reordering of space and time in lives of urban youth
give rise to interesting hybrid forms of culture, so that the past (real or imagined)
touches the increasingly technological present at key points in the framing of
identities. It must be questioned though, in the case of Vietnam, whether old-world
cornrnunitarian orientations are being entirely lost in favour of the self-serving
individual subject of late modernity. In some of the examples I have given in this
paper, young people in the large cities do seem to feel more and more that they
 368 Pam Nilan

must take responsibility for their lives. In Vietnam now there are a vastly greater
number of job, lifestyle and consumption choices for many young people than was
the case 20 years ago, so the matter of choosing necessarily comes down to the
individual, rather than the family or the state. However, we should not assume that
this connotes a breaking of strong links with family traditions, or a lack of national
pride and loyalty.
Huyen (1998) claims that young people now pay more attention to personal
advancement, as if this were a purely voluntaristic reaction to modernization.
However, the current relationship of the Vietnamese state to the social fabric of life
means that provision of standard goods and services has dwindled. Vietnam has
rapidly changed from a Communist regime in which the state owned everything-
companies, land, housing, even household goods and transport-to a system
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which allows private ownership and private enterprise (albeit on a limited scale).
The result is similar to that seen in East Germany after reunification. When the state
suddenly does not provide much basic support any longer for a range of social
services, then personal gain and advancement do become considerably empha-
sized. A new entrepreneurial milieu emerges in which personal ingenuity and
personal profit, rather than state services, ensure a viable lifestyle. So we should
not find it surprising that young Vietnamese are pre-occupied with personal
advancement, since they must now obtain by individual effort what was previously
provided. The past two decades since doi moi have seen an astounding growth in
the popularity of popular culture and imported trends.
Post-modem theorizing advances the notion that in the post-modem state, it is
not possible to separate out the economy from popular culture, not least because
the realm of consumption is increasingly influenced by popular culture (Strinati,
1995, p. 224). In contemporary urban Vietnam the choice of what to buy is a driving
concern. The issue of whether a young person has the means to purchase desirable
items is critical in the cities, where conspicuous consumption has become the
underlying logic of work and social life. In such a situation, education, once a tool
for creating national solidarity in the socialist state, becomes a privatized
commodity which endows status on the graduate, and constitutes a meal ticket to
middle-class urban life.
One of the points of resonance between Western economists and post-modem
theorists is that both attribute major importance to the collapse of Soviet-style states
in the past 10 years. Economic rationalists delight in the apparent triumph of the
logic of free-market capitalism, and, like Bill Gates, are enthralled with the idea of
a global market for labour and commodities. Post-modem theorists see the collapse
or 'renovation' of Marxist states as evidence for the decline of metanarratives in
the post-modem world. The vision of a Communist state in Vietnam in 1975
certainly derived from the metanarrative of Marxism. Ho Chi Minh envisaged a
utopian socialist Vietnam in which there was an important role for young cadres.
Guided by the wisdom of their elders, their actions would lead the nation forward
to socialist prosperity. This vision no longer has much currency in Vietnam, even
though Ho Chi Minh is still revered as a national hero. It is increasingly difficult
for young people to organize and interpret their lives in the light of the
metanarrative of the utopian Communist state led by the Central Party. Young
people in urban Vietnam can and do look to other discourses with which to make
sense of an increasingly complex world. They draw both upon the mythic past and
the sprawling, chaotic present to do so. Pertierra (1995), writing about the
Philippines, describes this post-modem and post-colonial phenomenon as 'a
 Globalizing Trends in Vietnam 369

colocation where the past coexists with the present'. Local identities are still
nurtured but these are interfaced with 'the cultural boundaries of a global order'
(p. 197).
If the character of post-modern 'global' culture is 'diverse, iconoclastic,
referential and collage-like' (Strinati, 1995, p. 228), then the urban social life of
young Vietnamese is advancing towards this state of flux with increasing speed.
The generational shift in identity-formation towards greater individualism and
conspicuous consumption is only one part of global economy integration.
Nevetheless it is an important part, as young people form up new kinds of state
citizenry, which support, but may also eventually challenge, state-driven agendas.

Notes
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[1] This version of capitalism is described by Thayer (1998, p. 33) as 'red capitalism'.
[2] Vietnam has not entirely escaped the economic woes of the region. Mid-1997 saw a fall in foreign
investment, downturn in export markets and a fall in GOP growth rates (Thayer, 1998).
[3] Even the Australian beer Fosters Lager is being promoted. A private venture in Ho Chi Minh City
markets and distributes Fosters as a youth drink. It costs 9000 Dong (A$1) for a can in a bar (ABC
Radio, 15/2/99).
[4] Moral values such as loyalty and selflessness. This is closely linked to the tradition of Confucian
education.
[5] The 'basics' are reading and writing, Mathematics, Vietnamese Literature, Sciences, Geography and
History. Physical exercise and the Arts also form part of the core curriculum.
[6] For the majority peasant farming population in Vietnam though, schooling still has a more
traditional meaning than it does for urban dwellers.
[7] To some extent the leisure practice of visiting the countryside is an integral part of middle-class
urban life in Vietnam, as it is in many other cultures. It represents a nostalgia for the rural idyll,
the simple peasant past which can appear so desirable to those enmeshed in the urban rat-race.
[8] Although these generic resemblances are unmistakable, it may well be that the structural similarity
of the schooling experience for young people in both Vietnam and western countries gives rise to
this resemblance rather than any imitation of genre.
[9] However, most young Vietnamese remain relatively unconcerned and unaware of the facts
surrounding the transmission of HIV I AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, even though
most new HIV diagnoses are people in their twenties (ABC Radio National, 1999).

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