Vietnamese Bourgeoisie
From: Aliénor Anisensel
Date: 2008/12/29
Hello everybody,
I would like to ask your advice about the expression of "vietnamese bourgeoisie" which seems to be used in different contexts.
When the term "bourgeois" or "petit bourgeois" is used by postcolonial writers, it sounds like a condemnation. For example, the bourgeois idea of art for art's sake which doesn't serve workers and peasants (Ho Chi Minh, 1958)
During my ethnography on a traditional music (ca trù), an old listener has used the term "gia dinh quy tôc" to refer to his family which he describes as "rich" and which appreciates an elitist tradition during private meetings of intellectuals and artists in HN (1960 -1980)
But I don't know if the vietnamese term "quy tôc" is linked to "bourgeoisie".
Could someone give me suggestions for readings on biography about this subject ?
Thanks before
Chuc cac ban mot nam moi hanh phuc va binh an
Aliénor Anisensel (Doctorante en ethnomusicologie, Paris)
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From: David Marr
Date: Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 5:05 PM
Did anyone pick up on this question from M.Anisensel? The bourgeois class was translated as `giai cap tu san' from the early 20th century, probably borrowing from Japan. Along the way the term `trung luu' came to signify middle class, with a less pejorative ring. The term `quy toc' is usually translated as aristocrat, but of course Vietnam didn't have any of those, right? I think your informant was being slightly ironic. By 1960 Hanoi had two elite traditions, Neo-Confucian literati and Francophone, and was busy creating a third under Party leadership.
David Marr
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From: DiGregorio, Michael
Date: 2009/1/14
David,
Some of the complexity of this period comes through the role of marriages in creating relationships intended to protect families, or in hindsight protecting families, from any of several possible futures. There is a dissertation in here somewhere on the political economy of elite marriage in northern Vietnam, 1945-1954. I have heard cases of families that earned their living through business agreeing to marry one or more of their daughters into any of the three elite traditions you mention. In some cases, they did this for status, especially if the young man was educated abroad. In other cases, parents were clearly playing their cards against the future. At the same time, I have also heard of the reverse: business and elite families who married one or more daughters into rural peasant families, or accepted a situation proposed to them, aware of the effect on lowering their class status. At a time when lower status afforded distinct benefits.
Mike
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From: Aliénor Anisensel
Date: 2009/1/16
Thank you David. I have received two private messages.
Maybe my informant was slightly ironic (she was not issued from a high mandarin family) when she said her family was "quy toc", that means she appreciated an elitist musical tradition (ca trù) which was marginalized by the communist Party.
During my fieldwork, I had heard too the term "hâ`u" to design the drummer who has traditionnally a high social position.
I think we can analyse these terms in part as a rhetoric in reference to the feudal society.
Mrs Aliénor Anisensel
Doctorante en ethnomusicologie, Paris