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Re: re vietnamese cultural values
On Tue, 4 Mar 1997 22:13:24 -0800, you wrote:
>This is from a non-Vietnamese - from observation of my Vietnamese friends
>
>1) Goals: Educational/business/marriage
> My Vietnamese friends are extremely goal oriented
> These goals take precedence over everything else.
> They either have an educational goal (typ engineering or medical degree)
> or a business goal (restaurant, beauty shop, video store.....)
> Everyone has some kind of marriage goal (same or other sex)
> They all take a very dogged, determined step-by-step approach to
>achieving
> these goals; changing goals when one (to me) obviously isn't working out
> is done only after repeated failure, and then with great resistance
>and reluctance; some never give up no matter what.
>
>2) Family ties: 1st to parents, then brothers and sisters, then
>grandparents, then
> nephews and nieces. Much effort & money is spent maintaining these
>ties -
> sponsering relatives to come here, phoning those in Vietnam, making
>trips to
> Vietnam, sending money, fixing relatives houses or cars (in the US),
> driving relatives places, making
> medical appointments for them, participating in weddings, religious
>ceremonies,
> etc. Vietnamese are also very attentive hosts - always offering
>food and drink
> to any visitor - the visitor becomes sort of extended family. I
>think I need
> to upgrade my host skills by imitating them in this regard...
>
>3) Consumerism: With very few exceptions, they all have karaoke systems
>with huge TVs
>(40 inch?) video-disk players (and many video disks), stacks of kung-fu
>videos (Hong-Kong dubbed in Vietnamese), enormous speakers, equilizers, and
>CD and casette players and lots of Vietnamese CDs and tapes for them. It
>seems the karoake system must always include a huge fish-tank. These
>karoake systems (with fish tank) are universal even among those living in
>public housing. I think the karoake-fish tank purchase is made with the
>first paycheck in the US, before buying new clothes. I should look, maybe
>in the appropriate store the fish-tank comes included with the karaoke
>system. Karaoke IS grand fun, especially in Vietnamese, and many many
>Vietnamese sing it very well. Most Vietnamese have late model cars, usually
>Honda Prelude (preferred) or Accord. I rarely have trouble spotting any
>Vietnamese friend's suburban house - it's usually the one on the block with
>5 or 6 cars parked in the garage, on the driveway, and in front (a minimum
>of one for each adult). Quite a few of those garages have motor boats....
>
>"Minh"
>
>
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