A. Scenes Of Vietnamese Life
XI. RELIGION IN EVERYDAY LIFE
A. SCENES OF VIETNAMESE LIFE
Click to enlarge
A tribesman of the hills and mountains of South Vietnam.
For many Vietnamese, the village encompasses their lives. They are born, grow up, marry, have children, grow old, if fortunate, and die, often without ever having left their village environment. And some 80% of the Vietnamese are villagers.
Since religious beliefs affect every phase of Vietnamese life, and because these are quite different from Judeo-Christian beliefs, the resulting value systems determine patterns of thinking, habits, customs, and taboos quite different from those found in America. Because religious beliefs so richly color and tint almost every Vietnamese action or thought, it is imperative that Americans understand these if we are to live and help others to live through shared understanding and partnership.
The use of religious concepts in everyday life is more evident among the Vietnamese than among Americans. Americans tend to compartmentalize religion into a limited part of the week-in many cases to less than one hour per week. Most of the Vietnamese religious beliefs affecting daily life are so complex that they do not easily lend themselves to precise statements, definitions, beliefs, or creeds which can readily be understood by Americans.
Click to enlarge
Tribespeople often store grain in small houses to protect it from fire or rats
Click to enlarge
Tribeswomen share the labor
Click to enlarge
The Vietnamese wooden bed also serves as the family table at meal time
Click to enlarge
A Montagnard Village
Click to enlarge
Water buffalo are an important part of the Vietnamese economy
Click to enlarge
The commercial drying of joss sticks
Click to enlarge
Mobile ''Hot Shoppes'' are everyday sights in Vietnamese towns and cities
Click to enlarge
Tilling the fields for the planting of rice
Click to enlarge
Scene along a canal in Saigon
Click to enlarge
Vietnamese women washing their family's clothing