Minh City Research Articles

Prosthetic Memory: Children Remembering the Remnants of Suffering

This study draws on site observation and worksheets from a field trip to examine children’s narratives of the exhibitions at the War Remnants Museum in Hô Chí Minh City, Vietnam, with a specific focus on the portrayal of the victims of Agent Orange through both “photographic” and “life” exhibitions. In applying Landsberg’s concept of “prosthetic memory,” the findings reveal how the photographic exhibition with its visual documentary evidence, and the life exhibition, through its interactive engagement, play important roles in the formation of children’s prosthetic memories of the US war in Vietnam. These exhibitions provide context, depth, and immediacy to the portrayal of the ongoing suffering of the Agent Orange victims, enabling children to integrate historical and personal memory. This dual approach influences their perceptions, interpretations, and remembrance of the war, enhancing their learning experience by offering a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the historical event.

Professionalizing Engaged Buddhism in Contemporary Vietnam

In the 1960s, Thích Nhất Hạnh formulated his vision of engaged Buddhism in war-torn Sài Gòn. His approach continues to inspire a new generation of urban Buddhists who are reshaping what engaged Buddhism can mean in contemporary Hồ Chí Minh City. Drawing on extensive fieldwork from 2016 to 2019, this article examines continuities and changes in institutionalized Vietnamese engaged Buddhism. It argues that contemporary engaged Buddhism, while continuing Thích Nhất Hạnh’s vision, must respond to a market-socialist regime of political and financial regulations, leading to the rise of more industrialized and professionalized forms of Buddhist social engagement.

Impacts of the Internet on Parent-child Communication: A Case Study in Hồ Chí Minh City

Impacts of the Internet on Parent-child Communication: A Case Study in Hồ Chí Minh City

Shrimp in labs: Biosecurity and hydro-social life

Since the 1980s, modern shrimp aquaculture has been seriously affected by shrimp diseases worldwide. Shrimp aquaculture cooperates with scientists in the lab to develop biosecurity strategies and biotechnology products, such as specific-pathogen-free shrimp, vaccines and probiotics, to tackle the risk of shrimp disease. Securing shrimp health needs to manage the breeding environment, particularly water quality and water ecologies. Shrimp and water travel between the lab and the field for monitoring, experimentation and disease prevention. This article proposes the notion of hydro-social life to analyse how biosecurity strategies and biotechnology products are developed in the lab and deployed in the field by visiting private, governmental and university laboratories in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, Hô` Chí Minh City, and Taiwan. I argue that scientists innovate biotechnology products to improve biosecurity strategies by reconfiguring hydro-social lives, like managing shrimp health and water quality. The development and deployment of biosecurity from the lab to the field are influenced by capitalist forms of life and social relations.

Digital Vietnam: State of the ‘State of the Field’, Saigonese Motorbike YouTubers, and Diasporic Vietnamese Social Memories of the Republic of Việt Nam

Abstract This article employs two approaches to characterize the nascent field of research on digital Vietnam. I first analyze the source base and methodologies in state of the field essays about Vietnam. I then turn to digital autoethnography to weave my academic journey with digital Vietnam studies and resources that I encountered along the way. In the second half, I use a case study from an emerging genre in YouTube videos uploaded by Saigonese motorbikers. These motorbikers not only provide a record of the city today that can offer points of entry for social-scientific studies of contemporary Hồ Chí Minh City but also helps historians and members of the Vietnamese diaspora alike to identify histories and memories of a Sài Gòn of the past.

Belief of Customers in Social Commerce Performed via Social Networking Sites: An Empirical Study from Hồ Chí Minh City

Belief of Customers in Social Commerce Performed via Social Networking Sites: An Empirical Study from Hồ Chí Minh City

Power division in the sacred world: the Cults of Neak Ta and Arak of the ethnic Khmer in Southeastern region, Vietnam

ABSTRACT Neak Ta and Arak are two indigenous beliefs which have existed together in traditional Khmer spirituality. This article presents the results of fieldwork in Lộc Khánh commune, Lộc Ninh district, Bình Phước province (about 200 km. north of Hồ Chí Minh City) where Khmer people have continuously maintained their traditional social structure including their strong local beliefs in spiritual power. Using qualitative research methods in combination with document analysis, the article shows that Neak Ta is representative of male power that is confirmed by the power and position of the elder council of the village, while Arak is representative of the female power that is displayed only through a woman appointed by the village clan that controls Arak from a theoretical power clan in the village. As result, it is analysed and examined the link of the theocratic power of Neak Ta and Arak through the rituals and the spirit mediumship in Lộc Khánh commune all which is a positive consequence of gender power balance between patriarchy and matriarchy.

High-school students’ perception of the American War through literature: a case study from Hồ Chí Minh City, Vietnam

ABSTRACT The present case study explores the reception of American War literature among Vietnamese high-school students. In April and May 2020, seventy-seven seventeen-year-old students from Lê Hồng Phong High School for the Gifted (Hồ Chí Minh City) participated in this study by answering Google form surveys about literary texts that form part of the Vietnamese national curriculum. The main findings show that 86% of the students deem it necessary to study literary works about the American War because of the historical and documentary value they provide. A vast majority of participants (95%) would be interested in reading literary texts written by American authors to learn about the war from a transnational perspective. This would require an alternative approach to the teaching of the American War in general, and its literary works in particular, with a revision of the national curriculum to include a wider variety of texts and authors.

Film Review

Review| August 01 2021 Film Review: Monsoon Rachel Tough Rachel Tough Rachel Tough is a PhD student in the School of International Development at the University of East Anglia, UK. She is currently conducting ethnographic research on war memory in Hồ Chí Minh City, supported by the Leverhulme Trust. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of Vietnamese Studies (2021) 16 (3): 129–137. https://doi.org/10.1525/vs.2021.16.3.129 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Rachel Tough; Film Review: Monsoon. Journal of Vietnamese Studies 1 August 2021; 16 (3): 129–137. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/vs.2021.16.3.129 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentJournal of Vietnamese Studies Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2021 by The Regents of the University of California2021 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Visualizing Debt and Credit in Hồ Chí Minh City

While conducting research on debt in the lives of sex workers in Hồ Chí Minh City, I stumbled upon an ad a moneylender had glued to a wall. It revealed that financialization was thriving in Vietnam, and more specifically that credit was rapidly expanding and colonizing the urban landscape. Photography became a tool to visually capture this radical financial transformation. This article argues that photography can be an effective inductive research method for moving from the particular to the general and seeing the big picture. I contend that looking at the world through the camera viewfinder with an open mind can help us to uncover hidden patterns and generate a rich and meaningful overall picture of a research problem. This process facilitates the formation of research perspectives and generalizations based on observations. I support this argument by describing the reflexive journey that drove me from photographing debt records in enclosed spaces to wandering in Hồ Chí Minh City’s streets to document a thriving credit boom. This journey radically transformed my research agenda on credit and debt.

Factors Affecting Students’ Learning Satisfaction: Case Study in Learning Physics Courses

This study aimed to explore factors affecting students’ learning satisfaction. The survey questionnaire was used to gather data from 315 students through the General Physics course at Cao Thang Technical College, Ho Chí Minh City. The Exploratory Factor Analysis method and Linear Regression were used to determine factors influencing students’ learning satisfaction. The research factors that were explored consist of learning outcome statement (LOS), content knowledge for teaching (CKT), knowledge building process (KBP), applying knowledge (AK), organizing and managing classroom (OMC), teaching method (TM), teacher- student relationship (TSR), learning resources materials (LRM), and assessment process (AP), in which CKT, AP, and TM are of three most important factor affecting students’ satisfaction learning process.

Doing Bodhisattva’s Work

This paper explores the charitable work of Buddhist women who work as petty traders in Hồ Chí Minh City. By focusing on the social interaction between givers and recipients, it examines the traders’ class identity, their perception of social stratification, and their relationship with the state. Charitable work reveals the petty traders’ negotiations with the state and with other social groups to define their moral and social status in Vietnam’s society. These negotiations contribute to their self-identification as a moral social class and to their perception of trade as ethical labor.

Unburdening the Heart

Based on twenty months of ethnographic research from 2016 to 2019 at Buddhist educational programs for youth in Hồ Chí Minh City, this article investigates the emergence of urban therapeutic Buddhism. Responding to the heightened public concerns over youth’s well-being and mental health, urban monastics are adapting Theravada vipassanā meditation and Thích Nhất Hạnh’s mindfulness teachings to help youth address their social-emotional concerns. The article argues that by promoting a lifestyle based on Buddhist mindfulness and meditation practices, Buddhist monastics and youth are fashioning a framework of ethical personhood and moral community that challenges, but also reinforces, market-socialist morality.

Reproductive tract infection and related factors among female migrants working in industrial zones in Vietnam 2013–2014

ABSTRACTWe conducted this study to analyze factors related to reproductive tract infections (RTIs) among female migrant workers (FMWs) in four industrial zones across four regions in Vietnam. A analytical cross-sectional study was implemented with FMWs aged between 18 and 49 year old in four industrial zones in Hanoi, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh (HCM) city and Binh Duong, Vietnam. Stratified sampling was used to select about 6400 married and unmarried FMWs. Cases were identified through self-reporting of female migrants concerning RTIs symtoms experienced in the 1 year prior to the study. Based on multivariate logistic regression results, we suggested that about 32% of FMWs reported having RTIs problems (27.6% in Hanoi, 30.3% in Danang, 36% in HCMC and 32.9% in Binhduong). We also identified different factors related to RTIs among different study sites. Marital status, level of education, social-economic status and numbers of migration were important related factors of RTIs.

Techniques of Death: Buddhist Practice, Femininity and Self-Cultivation at the Last Stage of Life in Vietnam

This article explores how death is conceptualised by elderly lay Buddhist women in Hồ Chí Minh City (Vietnam). It explores the traits of a ‘good death’ which elderly laywomen wish to experience, and their dedicated practice of Buddhism to prepare themselves for a peaceful end stage of life. This article contends that, in fact, women’s perceptions of death speak to their desires to live a life with dignity and retain their full personhood and nurturing femininity which they have embodied throughout their adult lives even until their last moments. They pursue devotional practices to train their body and mind in order to prepare themselves for the critical moment of dying, believing that these self-cultivating practices will enable them to transcend physical suffering and mental confusion, and immediately move on to the next, better life.

Unpacking the figure of the backpacking neighbourhood Phạm Ngũ Lão in the making of Hồ Chí Minh city

Our article aims to understand the participation of the ‘backpacking neighbourhood’ Phạm Ngũ Lão in the current metropolization process of Hồ Chí Minh City. This neighbourhood is representative of Vietnamese ‘glocalization’. By this term, we mean the abilities of local stakeholders to benefit from the opportunities created by an increasingly global economy. These skills are reflected not only in innovations and landscape transformations to attract tourists, but also in ‘reactivations’ based on older urban practices. We question not only the production of specific urban territories through backpacking activities, but also the spatial and social inequalities they generate. By doing so, our intention is to combine tourism studies and urban studies to ‘unpack’ the figure of the backpacking neighbourhood and to go beyond the idea of urban enclaves.

Core Criteria Affecting Decisions to Select Logistics Services Suppliers in Hồ Chí Minh City

Outsourcing of logistics services has become popular since the beginning of the 21st century. Along with increasingly great changes in supply of logistics services, exploring customers’ demand and core criteria affecting decisions to select logistics services suppliers becomes increasingly necessary. Employing the EFA and binary logistic regression, the research identifies eight core criteria affecting decisions to select service suppliers by HCMC-based exporters and importers: quick response to customers’ demand, updating service supplying fares, brand reputation of logistics services suppliers; exact billing; care of customers’ interests and needs; location of service suppliers; availability of e-commerce services and electronic billing; and reasonable pricing.

Core Criteria Affecting Decisions to Select Logistics Services Suppliers in Hồ Chí Minh City

Core Criteria Affecting Decisions to Select Logistics Services Suppliers in Hồ Chí Minh City

Déplacements forcés et renouvellement urbain à Hồ Chí Minh Ville

Les procedures de deplacements forces a Hồ Chi Minh Ville sont designees localement sous les vocables de « recuperation » ou de « liberation » de la terre et s’inscrivent dans une histoire fonciere complexe, ou le recours a l’occupation informelle de terrains fut une constante. L’analyse de l’evolution de ces procedures depuis les reformes de la fin des annees 1980 permet d’offrir une lecture originale du renouveau legislatif et institutionnel du Việt Nam « socialiste a economie de marche ». L’implantation des projets urbains contemporains se heurte en effet immanquablement a l’absence de terrains disponibles et a la complexite des differents statuts administratifs et juridiques de leurs occupants. Deplacer les habitants constitue alors un passage oblige du renouvellement urbain. Mais le cout de ces procedures, et la difficulte croissante de leur mise en œuvre, commence a faire veritablement debat avec l’entree en jeu de nouveaux acteurs, dans un domaine originellement controle par les seuls acteurs etatiques. En deux decennies, ce ne sont pas seulement les procedures de deplacements forces qui ont evolue mais egalement leurs objectifs et le type de population concernee.

The Socio-Spatial Constellation of a Central Vietnamese Village and its Emigrants

This paper seeks to understand the patterns and experiences of migration from a subsistence rice-farming village in Quảng Nam Province. Emigration from Bình Yên ranges from circular and seasonal migration to the cities and central highlands for construction, forestry and plantation work; semi-permanent migration to Đà Nẵng and the south for work in the manufacturing and service sectors; and more permanent migration to Hà Lam, Tam Kỳ, Đà Nẵng, Hồ Chí Minh City and elsewhere for education, trading, business, and professional employment. In addition, people from Bình Yên have engaged in assisted settlement migration to frontier zones in Đắk Lắk Province since the time of the Ngô Đình Diệm regime. By examining migration from the perspective of the village, the paper aims to illuminate the central Vietnamese peasant experience of the policies and socioeconomic conditions that have driven some of the nation's major migratory movements. The authors also map the social geography that ties members of the Bình Yên diaspora back to the village and to each other. Emigrants participate in the cash economy and endure alienated social relations in the cities and factories. When they return to Bình Yên they return to a world of tradition, warm social ties and a moral economy. Given this relationship, the paper asks, how do Bình Yên's locals and emigrants conceptualize their places in the socio-spatial “constellation” that connects the village to the locations in which its members have settled or found temporary work?