Memory is another Country: Women of the Vietnamese Diaspora
The author of the book is Nathalie Huynh Chau Nguyen and the Praeger publishers printed it in 2009. The author is a renowned scholar in matters affecting women in society, particularly those living in foreign countries. Currently, she is an ARC Australian Research Fellow serving at the Australian Centre.
She holds a doctoral degree having won a common wealth scholarship to study at the University of Oxford. She has authored several books and articles and one of her bestselling books is the Vietnamese Voices: Gender and cultural identity in the Vietnamese Francophone Novel. The book was written in 2003 and went on to be nominated for an international award. Another book that she has written is the Voyage of Hope: Vietnamese Australian women’s narrative, which was published in 2005.
Apart from books and other published materials, Nguyen has been engaging in online reviews whereby she has analyzed the writings and views of many scholars. The author takes a feminist approach whereby she reports some of the issues that women face in society (Nguyen 8).
She notes that women are unable to realize their objectives and ambitions because of factors such as religion, male chauvinism, and defective social structure. She teaches that the individual should not be judged based on his or her gender because everyone has a unique capability, irrespective of the sexual category.
Introduction
The topic, Vietnamese Diaspora, is important in understanding some of the problems that foreigners encounter in other countries. Unfortunately, Vietnamese never left their land at will, but instead they were forced to vacate because of the escalating conflicts and continued disagreements over governance.
The fall of Saigon and the subsequent takeover by the Communist regime fuelled conflicts that made it unbearable for citizens to coexist peacefully. The topic is important in understanding the role of peace and peaceful resolution of conflicts because any confusion might lead to deaths and continued suffering.
Nguyen undertook her study on the lives of Vietnamese living in other countries through ethnography whereby individuals are given an opportunity to narrate what they experience, as well as how they feel being refugees. Ethnography is one of the qualitative research designs that explore the cultural problem of a group. Through ethnography, Nguyen expresses the culture of Vietnamese graphically and in written form.
Views of Nguyen
Through the book, she proves that remembering is one of the most effective ways of explaining and expressing the past. Moreover, it is an imaginative way of dealing with any form of a loss in an individual’s life. In the world characterized by conflicts leading to forceful transfer of population, the use of the technique understanding people’s lives is considered effective. She requested the interviewees to give an account of their lives in foreign land. In particular, she interviewed forty Vietnamese women.
In her analyses, she categorized issues into several subtopics, including divergent views of families, the importance of homeland, the return of Vietnamese, cross-cultural interactions, conflicts among various generations, and finally the unspoken issues that women encounter in their daily lives.
The role of Vietnamese women in society has changed dramatically following the influences of the west. Studies show that women have always occupied inferior positions in Vietnam, with Confucianism being the major cause of women’s tribulations in society.
For many years, women have been considered the sex objects meaning that their major role was to satisfy the desires of women, including preparing food and ensuring that all activities related to the home are conducted in time.
Towards the end of the Sago dynasty, there was a shift in the roles of women, as a number of intellectuals called on the government and the society in general to consider giving women a chance to realize their potentials through instituting reforms that would give women an advantage in matters related to political, economics, and education.
Christian missionaries played a critical role in ensuring that the government protects the interests of Vietnamese women while at the same time making sure that women are empowered through community projects (Ong and Meyer 45).
This was at the turn of the 19th century when it was made clear that each person has a potential in society, irrespective of gender and economic background. In 1898, a reform movement was formed with the major aim of protecting the interests of women, whose main objective was to liberate women from the hands of men.
Methodology
Qualitative methods explain why a given pattern of events has taken place. On the other hand, quantitative methods explain what and when of a phenomena. Ethnographic research and phenomenology as approaches of qualitative research were appropriate in her study. Ethnography helps in the investigation of culture women. Phenomenology helped in investigating the realities of culture, as well as how it affects women as regards to their status in oversees countries
Analysis
This allowed women to participate fully in the revolution with their interest being forcing their way out in education and economics. The formation and subsequent leadership of the Communist Party in the country allowed women to take up positions in the government, as the party insisted on gender equality.
Before the introduction of the western ideals in the Vietnamese society, women in the country were expected to respect the Confucian laws, which are known to pin down the contributions of women in society. The Confucian laws tend to set up a certain hierarchy with an aim of enforcing obedience that is based on an individual’s age and sex.
Based on the traditional law, old people would definitely have the most powerful positions whereas the youth, particularly women, were expected to occupy the least positions in the social ladder. A married woman was to obey the husband and other men in the family, including her own son when the husband dies.
This proves that the power of women was very limited to an extent that a woman had no power to negotiate for her own marriage, but instead the parent was expected to do so (Stevens 54). In fact, the family had the right to sell their daughter to any stranger provided adequate resources were given out. Fewer women held positions of influence when compared to men who had all the rights to inherit property, divorce, pursue a course of their choice, and engage in politics
Towards the end of the 19th century, the Saigon dynasty failed to protect the country from foreign aggression, paving way for the western missionaries who had an enormous influence on the lives of Vietnamese women.
Western traders inserted too much pressure on the Vietnamese society to accept change, with political intervention from western powers playing a role in shaping the local activities in the country. Through this, urbanization was realized, which led to internal unrest. Missionaries combined efforts with other Vietnamese reformers to convince the government that the reason for backwardness was the low status of women who had no education (Eberhard 78).
The fall of country’s leadership led to the formation of the communism, women have continuously enjoyed their freedoms, even though male chauvinism and defective policies continue to hamper their achievements. The government has always been under pressure from local and international activists, who are mostly from western countries, to allow women to undertake courses that would allow them to compete favourably in the global market.
Before the 20th century, many women were encouraged to undertake courses that are feminine in nature, including nursing and secretarial related courses. This means that women would not have an opportunity to undertake science related courses in institutions of higher learning, as society had already determined certain courses for them (Zhang 89).
In the 20th century, women in the western societies forced their governments to provide mechanisms through which they could study sciences, particularly medicine, in the institutions of higher. This urge spread out to parts of Vietnam, with local pressure groups fighting for the rights of women calling on the government to come with measures that would ensure women study sciences ion universities.
Before this, the standards for enrolling in the sciences courses were very high consequently locking out many young women with an ambition of studying medicine. In the United States and various parts of Europe, the government came up an affirmative action in education that would give women an advantage to study sciences (Stevens 76).
Works Cited
Eberhard, Wolfram. A history of China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Print.
Hoyle, Richard. Research methods in social relations, Wadsworth, Fort Worth, 2002. Print.
Nguyen, Nathalie. Memory Is Another Country: Women of the Vietnamese Diaspora. Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger, 2009. Print.
Ong, Nhu-Ngoc, and Meyer, David. “Protest and Political Incorporation: Vietnamese American Protests, 1975–2001”. Centre for the Study of Democracy, 4.8 (2004), 89-95. Print.
Stevens, Keith. “A Jersey Adventurer in China: Gun Runner, Customs Officer, and Business Entrepreneur and General in the Chinese Imperial Army. 1842-1919”. Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 32.1 (1996): 79-112.
Zhang, Zhan. “Modernization of China”. Asian Social Science 6.4 (2010): 154-159. Print.