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 netherworld, 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.
Copublished with the American Museum of Natural History and the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology
Edited by:
Van Huy Nguyen,
Laurel Kendall
Imprint: University of California Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 254mm,
Width: 203mm,
Spine: 25mm
Weight: 998g
ISBN: 9780520238725
ISBN 10: 0520238729
Pages: 303
Publication Date: 02 May 2003
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Acknowledgments Introduction A Journey between Two Museums --Laurel Kendall and Nguyen Van Huy 1 One Country, Many Journeys --Oscar Salemink 2 Vietnam's Ethnic Mosaic --Frank Proschan 3 Tet Holidays: Ancestral Visits and Spring Journeys --Nguyen Van Huy 4 The Mid-Autumn Festival (Tet Trung Thu), Yesterday and Today --Nguyen Van Huy 5 Four Ways to Map a Year's Journey --Chu Van Khanh, Cam Trong, and A Bao 6 Bat Trang: A Pottery Village and Global Node --Nguyen Anh Ngoc 7 Scenes from the Sapa Market --Claire Burkert 8 The Yao Initiation Ceremony in the New Market Economy --Ly Hanh Son 9 Weddings and Funerals in Contemporary Vietnam --Shaun Kingsley Malarney 10 Other Journeys of the Dead --Luu Hung, Nguyen Trung Dung, Tran Thi Thu Thuy, Vi Van An, and Vo Thi Thuong 11 The Village God's Journey --Nguyen Van Huy, Nguyen Anh Ngoc, Nguyen Huy Hong, and Nguyen Trung Dung 12 The Perilous Journey of the Then Spirit Army: A Shamanic Ritual of the Tay People --La Cong Y 13 Len Dong: Spirits' Journeys --Ngo Duc Thinh List of Contributors Photograph Credits Index
Nguyen Van Huy is Director of the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology and the principal author of The Cultural Mosaic of Ethnic Groups in Vietnam (1997). Laurel Kendall is Curator of the Asian Ethnographic Collections at the American Museum of Natural History. Her books include Getting Married in Korea: Of Gender, Morality, and Modernity (California, 1996) as well as several other works on gender and popular religion.
Reviews for Vietnam: Journeys of Body Mind and Spirit
Written in a very accessible, jargon-free style, this superb book is a marvelous window on the culture of Vietnam. Highly recommended. --
