Information About Vietnam The Country History Essay

Vietnam has 79,939,000 habitants (density = 259/km2). It is largely composed of young, in fact in 1989 39% of Vietnamese were under 15 years old, one of the purposes of government is to reduce the rate of population growth, life expectancy is around 70 years. From the territorial point of view, the population is concentrated in coastal cities and the region of Cochin China.

The population is made from 86, 2% of Vietnamese, and the remaining 13.8% are Chinese, Thai, Cambodian and other minorities who live mostly in mountainous areas of the north. The group of ethnic Vietnamese (Kinh or Viet), concentrated in the alluvial deltas and coastal plains, forms a homogeneous social group which exercises full control over the life of the country due to traditional cultural dominant position and control of political and economic activities.

Education

Vietnam has an extensive state-controlled network of schools, colleges and universities but the number of privately run and mixed public and private institutions is also growing. General education in Vietnam is imparted in 5 categories: Kindergarten, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and college / university. Courses are taught mainly in Vietnamese. That is why courses in English will open them to world. A large number of public schools have been organized across cities, towns and villages with the purpose of raising the national literacy rate which is already among the highest in the world. There are a large number of specialist colleges, established to develop a diverse and skilled national workforce. A large number of Vietnam’s most acclaimed universities are based in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Facing serious crises, Vietnam’s education system is under a holistic reform launched by the government. In Vietnam, education from age 6 to 11 is free and mandatory. Education above these ages is not free, therefore some poor families may find it hard to come up with the tuition for their children without some forms of public or private assistance. Regardless, school enrollment is among the highest in the world and the number of colleges and universities increased quite dramatically in recent years, from 178 in 2000 to 299 in 2005.

Culture

Vietnam is an agricultural civilization based on wet rice cultivation with ancient Dong Son culture as one of its defining aspects. The major stimulation of Vietnamese culture’s development comes from indigenous factors, with Chinese and Indian influence serving to further enrich it. Through history, Cham culture and the cultures of other minority ethnic groups in Vietnam have been integrated with Vietnamese culture in correlated effects.

The official spoken and written language of Vietnam is Vietnamese.

Vietnam is considered a part of the East Asian Cultural Sphere, or Sinosphere, due to highly significant cultural influences from China throughout its history.

In the socialist era, the cultural life of Vietnam has been deeply influenced by government-controlled media and the cultural influences of socialist programs. For many decades, foreign cultural influences were shunned and emphasis placed on appreciating and sharing the culture of communist nations such as the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and others. Since the 1990s, Vietnam has seen a greater exposure to Southeast Asian, European and American culture and media.

One of the most popular Vietnamese traditional garments is the “Áo Dài”, worn often for special occasions such as weddings or festivals. White Áo dài is the required uniform for girls in many high schools across Vietnam. Áo Dài was once worn by both genders but today it is worn mainly by females, except for certain important traditional culture-related occasions where some men do wear it.

females students wearing Áo dài

Football (soccer) is the most popular sport in Vietnam. Sports and games such as badminton, tennis, ping pong, and chess are also popular with large segments of the population. Volleyball, especially women’s volleyball, is watched by a fairly large number of Vietnamese people. The (expatriate Vietnamese) community forms a prominent part of Vietnamese cultural life, introducing Western sports, films, music and other cultural activities in the nation.

Among countless other traditional Vietnamese occasions, the traditional Vietnamese wedding is one of the most important. Many of the age-old customs in a Vietnamese wedding continue to be celebrated by both Vietnamese in Vietnam and overseas, often combining both western and eastern elements.

Politics Factors

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a single-party state. A new state constitution was approved in April 1992, replacing the 1975 version. The central role of the Communist Party of Vietnam was reasserted in all organs of government, politics and society.

Only political organizations affiliated with or endorsed by the Communist Party are permitted to contest elections. These include the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, worker and trade unionist parties. Although the state remains officially committed to socialism as its defining creed, the ideology’s importance has substantially diminished since the 1990s.

Strong, centralized government.

The President of Vietnam is the titular head of state and the nominal commander in chief of the military of Vietnam, chairing the Council on National Defense and Security. The Prime Minister of Vietnam Nguyen Tan Dung is the head of government, presiding over a council of ministers composed of three deputy prime ministers and the heads of 26 ministries and commissions.

The National Assembly of Vietnam is the unicameral legislature of the government, composed of 498 members. It is superior to both the executive and judicial branches. All members of the council of ministers are derived from the National Assembly. The Supreme People’s Court of Vietnam, which is the highest court of appeal in the nation, is also answerable to the National Assembly.

Beneath the Supreme People’s Court stand the provincial municipal courts and the local courts. Military courts are also a powerful branch of the judiciary with special jurisdiction in matters of national security. All organs of Vietnam’s government are controlled by the Communist Party. Most government appointees are members of the party. The General Secretary of the Communist Party is perhaps one of the most important political leaders in the nation, controlling the party’s national organization and state appointments, as well as setting policy.

The Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) is the official name for the combined military services of Vietnam, which is organized along the lines of China’s People’s Liberation Army. The VPA is further subdivided into the Vietnamese People’s Ground Forces (including Strategic Rear Forces and Border Defense Forces), the Vietnam People’s Navy, the Vietnam People’s Air Force and the Vietnamese People’s Coast Guard.

Through Vietnam’s recent history, the VPA has actively been involved in Vietnam’s workforce to develop the economy of Vietnam, in order to coordinate national defense and the economy. The VPA is involved in such areas as industry, agriculture, forestry, fishery and telecommunications. The total strength of the VPA is close to 500,000 officers and enlisted members. The government also organizes and maintains provincial militias and police forces. The role of the military in public life has steadily been reduced since the 1980s.

Economy factors

The economy of Vietnam is a developing mixed economy. Over the past 20 years, Vietnam has made a shift from a centrally planned economy to a Socialist-oriented market economy (this period named Đổi Má»›i- renovation). Over that period, the economy has experienced rapid growth. Nowadays, Vietnam is in the period of integrating into world’s economy, as a part of globalization and is in transition from a planned economy to a market-oriented mixed economy. Although, almost all Vietnamese enterprises are SMEs (Small and Madium Enterprise) with some nationwide trademarks such as VNPT, Vinamilk, Trung Nguyen, Khanh Do and others, Vietnam has been rising as a leading agricultural exporter and an attractive foreign investment destination in East and Southeast Asia. Vietnam had an average growth in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of 7.1% per year from 2000 to 2004. The GDP growth was 8.4% in 2005, the second largest growth in Asia, trailing only China’s. Government figures of GDP growth in 2006, was 8.17%. According to Vietnam’s Minister of Planning and Investment, the government targets a GDP growth of around 8.5% for 2007. By November 7, 2006, Vietnam is a WTO’s member (World Trade Organization).

Although Vietnam’s economy, which continues to expand at an annual rate in excess of 7 percent, is one of the fastest growing in the world, the economy is growing from an extremely low base, reflecting the crippling effect of the Vietnam War (1954-75) and its subsequently repressive economic measures introduced in its aftermath.

In 2003 Vietnam produced an estimated 30.7 million cubic meters of roundwood. Production of sawnwood was a more modest 2,950 cubic meters. In 1992, in response to dwindling forests, Vietnam imposed a ban on the export of logs and raw timber. In 1997 the ban was extended to all timber products except wooden artifacts. During the 1990s, Vietnam began to reclaim land for forests with a tree-planting program.

Vietnam’s fishing industry, which has abundant resources given the country’s long coastline and extensive network of rivers and lakes, has experienced moderate growth overall. In 2003 the total catch was about 2.6 million tons. However, seafood exports expanded fourfold from 1990 to 2002 to more than US $2 billion, driven in part by shrimp farms in the South and “catfish,” which are a different species from their American counterpart but are marketed in the United States under the same name. By concentrating on the U.S. market for the sale of vast quantities of shrimp and catfish, Vietnam triggered antidumping complaints by the United States, which imposed tariffs in the case of catfish and is considering doing the same for shrimp. In 2005 the seafood industry began to focus on domestic demand to compensate for declining exports.