RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION

　

The Background

Vietnam is a geographical region, a body of customs, a language, and a history laden with trials. There are certain ways of life that are peculiar to the Vietnamese. Therefore, there are bonds of intimate interrelationships that are dear to the Vietnamese people and that help discover their identity. Historically, from the immemorial times, Vietnam has been the crossroads of immigrants from all corners of the world. The country has gradually become a multiracial land where various cultural values coexist and develop. Owing to this social and cultural integration from which social and cultural uniformity and diversity develop. The Vietnamese are then apt to live in harmony with their fellow men and associate themselves with the others. They are tactful to people from other civilizations, genuinely acquiring the novel ways of life and modes of living while preserving for themselves their own identity.

Spiritually, the Vietnamese are generally intelligent although men of great mind and talent are a few. They are gifted with a good memory. They are skillful in manual work and clever in the reproduction. Mentally, they hold both vices and virtues. They are rather bare-brained, thus, often act without much thought. They are generally slow to sensitivity, boastful, vain, and thirsty for fame. They have love for leisure, pleasures, and gambling. They are apparently timid and afraid and, they tend to live and let live. They nevertheless show themselves brave and tenacious in face of danger. Morally, they maintain respect for human love, righteousness and leniency. They observe discipline and are ready to die for the good cause. They are pious, religious, although markedly superstitious The Vietnamese woman is famous for self-sacrifice, hard work, and devotion. The best-respected virtue of the Vietnamese is patriotism. It is with this spirit that the Vietnamese people have maintained solidarity and have successfully fought for national independence from the hegemony in the North for thousands of years.

　

Popular Beliefs and Religions

On the basis of millennium-old traditional legends, it is supposed that the Vietnamese, in the prehistoric times, believed in some form of natural polytheism and animism. They conceived that phenomena such as heaven and earth, wind and rain, and mountains and rivers of the natural world and the spirits of the world beyond all are supernatural forces. All these spheres of the universe are governed by "God" in heaven and geniuses and deities on earth. They also believed that there exist mystic communication through phenomena of telepathy between the dead and the living person. The spirits of the dead could maintain communication with the living person, and, if the former is worshipped, he or she would render the latter protection, and, if not, he or she would cause the latter harm. These popular beliefs practices were later influenced by the Chinese forms of spirits worshipping. They were mainly of an agricultural civilization and incorporated in the rites and rituals commemorating important agricultural events around the year and celebrating the veneration of geniuses, deities, and the ancestors. Until the middle of the 20th century, the practices of traditional popular beliefs and religious worships were still manifest in all aspects of life of the people. The worship with rites and rituals were reverentially practiced whether it was performed in a pagoda, a church, a temple, an ancestral home, a simple or at the foot of an ancient tree were all admitted.

Culturally, the popular beliefs and the religions, on the surface structure, were all regarded the religions. Most of them, were practically all some forms of polytheism, however. That is the characteristic that a pilgrim or even a profound scholar who visits a temple or a pagoda would recognize. Only could those who used to observe with their own eyes the common daily activities in the religious life of the people recognize. Hence, an attitude, a gesture, a response, or an act of veneration inherently suggests a meaning that is characteristic of the Vietnamese

 
　

　

The Characteristics

　

The Sacred

Traditional beliefs venerate the sacred invisible, Troi (Heaven) and Dat (Earth). Heaven and Earth are like "Father" and "Mother." These almighty gods are equally protective supernatural forces that protect and nourish men and all living things. Life and death depend on them. They are particularly attentive to the invasion of all mysteries in the bosom of the world that surrounds them. In their daily life, the Vietnamese believed that supernatural spirits can come into contact with the human beings and maintain this omnipotent power in the entire world that is seen. The sacred is the medium through which the world of supernatural forces are open to man.

This character of sacred can also be attributed to all living beings. Certain animals are venerated in the relations of man to the world beyond, and they are particularly respected. People would avoid to call out the name of the tiger. They call it Ong Cop (Master Tiger). instead. Another animal, the whale, enjoys the greatest consideration of the fishermen. People living on the Central Coast of Vietnam call with veneration the whale Ca Ong (Master Fish) or Ba Ngu (Dame Fish). Each time one among them ran aground a beach, he or she was buried with a very great display of ceremony. The person who discovered him or her used to wear mourning clothes as if he/or she were his or her eldest son or daughter.

Certain periods of the year are particularly thieng, that is, they are propitious times to share communion with the world beyond. At the period of Tet (New Year), the invisible world comes nearer the daily life in such a way that nature, things, situations, and events get some sort of "double exposure" from it. Then, everything becomes a sign prefigured to man. Everyone lives a soul of a child, which is created by the availability of and attention to infinite possibilities through which privileged relations to the supernatural graces are delivered. The lesser important events are interpreted as indicators confirming the future, and thus the most somber encounter could bring forth good omen. The year is viewed in its entirety, then, follows the line of changes in these first days. He who knows how to conduct himself during these days could discover the intrigues of all the other days of the coming year. A man’s existence and his behavior are thus molded into a world where the invisible god is always present. In this universe. Every material realization is associated with a spiritual end. There existed then in the old days rites and rituals associated with every instance of life. The religious sentiment is built on it. The signs of the divine spirits of the world should be deciphered with wisdom and patience accordingly.

　

Kinship

　

Historically, by the time the Chinese conquered the Kingdom of Van Lang of the Viet in the II and III centuries B.C., the Vietnamese still preserved a matriarchal family system and, by which system a widowed was to marry her dead husband’s younger brother. The millennium period that followed the Chinese domination, the Chinese acculturation initiated by the Chinese governors took shape then developed, thus gradually altering the indigenous manners and customs. They were molded after the principles and concepts of Confucianism that became through the ages a doctrine of thoughts and a system of codes of behavior for the natives. Patriarchy played a role and took the place of matriarchy.

Economically, an agricultural land, Van Lang eventually adopted most methods of cultivation and irrigation. New modes of life from China were integrated in the social and cultural life of the natives, adding new modes of behavior in the conduct of the family life of Van Lang. Hence, the Confucian patriarchal tenets of kinship affected and modified at the roots the matriarchal old family system. Most Vietnamese are peasants. They live in villages and grow rice. They rely on the land for subsistence. They are potentially bonded to the soil. Imbued with their traditional concepts of the family. from which social institutions are inspired, sentiments and love for their village develop. They adhere to it with compassion and empathy.

Socially, the Vietnamese family is seen largely as the creation by two superseded hierarchical layers of kinship: the embryonic family and the extended family; the former consists of the spouses, the parents, and the children and the latter, all the men and women born from the same ancestry, including the dead and the living. The head of the family, particularly in the old days, not only serves as a family head but also serves his parents as a son. The head of the extended family takes the responsibility of the worship of ancestors, perpetuating the family lineage.

The bonds that tie he children to the parents, especially the father, show respect and intimacy. Children define themselves according to their position to their family. They address to their parents not as ‘I’ but as "con" --my parent’s son-- or "your father’s daughter-- a participant in a kinship network. The respect for the elders is observed in the family and respectable social elders in the village. It is the source of stability for the family, the village, and country. (Andrew J. Porter. Scholarly Resources Inc. 1999 X III ).