Asking for a Child

From: sharon <snuggles@pacific.net.sg>

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Date: Tuesday, March 14, 2000 8:51 PM

Subject: Re: asking for a child

Is the Center associated with NCSSH? I had an impression that they were a branch of NCSSH, they did not come across as an NGO.

An article "Asking for a child" Practive at An Hiep commune appeared in Vietnam Social Sciences, 1(39), 1994, pp.103-109. by Le Nham. It is the only article that dealt specifically with this topic.

sharon

From: Daniel Duffy <dduffy@email.unc.edu>

To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: asking for a child

Sharon's topic is one that attracts much interest among fiction writers. It is one of author Ho Anh Thai's persistent themes. I learned at AAS that the University of Washington Press will publish a translation of this author's Nguoi dan ba tren dao, which I have not read but wouldguess has something to do with this theme.

I gather that the issue is one that also has been debated by journalists in the major newspapers in Viet Nam. I bet there is an interesting contrast between the way urban newspapers treat it and the way provincial newspapers report it, since I expect it is largely a rural practice.

Michele

Thompson likely knows where Harriet Phinney is. Dissertations Abstracts International would have an abstract of her diss, if she has defended.

I am delighted to hear that Helle has filed her dissertation. I think I heard her speak about her work at AAA in 1997, and her ideas have helped me think about the way that Vietnamese women read and write novels. In 1997, Helle (if I have the right person) was saying that her time-studies in a rural village show that from infancy a woman is tutored to apprehend and strategize about the internal states and intentions of those around her, by every woman who comes into contact with her. In contrast, the men run wild, disciplined more crudely by beatings from a few senior males. This is not only suggestive about the plots of Vietnamese love stories, but it also suggests that a woman reaching literacy would have a strong impulse to flee her richly figured social world into the solitary interior of a book, while at the same time she would be well equipped with the social imagination necessary to enjoy fiction.

Dan Duffy

Graduate student

Department of Anthropology

University of North Carolina

Chapel Hill, NC

27599 USA

919-932-2624

<dduffy@email.unc.edu>

From: "Harriet M. Phinney" <hphinney@u.washington.edu>

To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: asking for a child

For those interested,

Other articles published on the topic of asking for a child include:

1) Nguyen Thi Khoa

1996 "Tinh canh eo le cua nhung gia dinh phu nu khong chong co con"

in Gia Dinh Phu Nu Thieu Vang Chong. Hanoi: NXBKHXH

2) Nguyen Thanh Tam

1991 "Ve Nhung Gia Dinh Phu Nu Co Don, Thieu Chong." In Nguoi

Phu Nu va Gia Dinh Hien Nay. Hanoi: NXBKHXH.

Harriet

From: Giang Minh Le <lg282@columbia.edu>

To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: asking for a child

Dear Sharon and others,

I know that Prof. Le Thi Nham Tuyet and her colleagues at the Center for studies on gender and family in development - a NGO in Hanoi - have worked on this issue for a while and actually published something in Vietnam Social Sciences. They can be reached at ltntcgfed@bdvn.vnd.net.

Best,

Giang

*****************

Le Minh Giang, M.D

Ph.D student - medical anthropology

Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health

Columbia University

Tel: (212) 568 2291

E-mail: lg282@columbia.edus