How Many Religious Believers in Vietnam?
From: <sdenney@library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:03 PM
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
I am reading a book, helpful in understanding Vietnam's official religious
policy, Religious Issues and Government Policies in Viet Nam, published by
The Gioi in 2005. At the end of the book he presents a breakdown of
religious believers, based on "the summary report and statistics of 1997."
Here is the breakdown:
Buddhists: 7,620,803
Catholics: 5,026,480
Protestants: 412,344
Cao Dai: 1,147,527
Hoa Hao: 1,306,969
Islam: 92,294
total: 15,609,417
Would anyone care to comment on these figures?
- Steve Denney
library assistant, UC Berkeley
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From: Bill Hayton
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 3:16 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
My partially-informed comment would be that since every religion has to be registered with the government office on religion and every religious congregation has to give a list of its members to the same (?) office (I'm not sure exactly to whom they have to provide this information) then the state can rest comfortably in the knowledge that it knows precisely how many religious adherents there are in the country.
Anyone with any knowledge of humans will understand that this is nonsense but it serves to keep the bureaucrats happy.
Bill
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From: Nghia Vo <nghia2520@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 3:49 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Steve and list,
1. First of all, since these are 1997 figures, they are outdated in 2011.
2. The ACCURACY of these figures remains to be determined. How are these figures compiled?
3. Based on these figures (if they are correct),
-there is an acknowledgement from Hanoi that they are believers under communism and that religion is NOT the "opium of people,"
-the 7,6 M Buddhists among 85 M people (less than 10%) is suspicious. My estimate is about 20 M. This raises two other questions:
-Vietnam is NOT a Buddhist country like Thailand for example: the true believers are few,
-Many Buddhist believers may have been miscounted b/c true Buddhist do not flaunt their religion and say: I'm a Buddhist like I'm MC or Visa holder,
4. The number of Cao Dai is low compared to the Hoa Hao (1.1 v 1.3). I would suspect the figures to be 2.3 to 1.3,
5. Since Vietnam is a country of two states, North and South, the breakdown should be:
North South
Buddhists: 7,620,803 3.6 4
Catholics: 5,026,480 2 3
Protestants: 412,344 0.2 0.2
Cao Dai: 1,147,527 1.1
Hoa Hao: 1,306,969 1.3
Islam: 92,294 92,000
All the Cao Dai, Hao Hao, Islamists are in the South. This breakdown does better illustrate the multiculturalism and openess toward religions of the South. After 30 years of communism and 25 years of socialism, the North is "restocking" in Buddhists and Catholics.
6. The low number of Buddhists confirms what many have known about the Vietnamese: their religion is a mixture of Buddhism, Taoism, animism, Confucianism, belief in goddesses (Ba Chua Xu by Taylor and Ba Lieu Hanh by Dror).
The question is WHY?
Nghia
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From: Oscar Salemink
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 3:53 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Steve and list,
The assumption in these calculations is based on the monotheistic notion of exclusive religious membership. That may be the case for a number of religious communities in Vietnam – certainly the monotheistic groups – but not for all people. Many folks who regularly visit a pagoda, for instance, would care to call themselves Buddhist (let alone have that stated publicly on their ID); and they might just as well engage in all sorts of other practices that we might gloss as ‘religious’ or ‘ritual’ , as is evident from scores of scholarly publications.
The fallacy of statistics is usually not in the calculations, but in the categories – the same with ethnic categories which was a previous topic on this list.
Oscar Salemink
Oscar Salemink
Professor in the Anthropology of Asia
Department of Anthropology
Faculty of Social Sciences
University of Copenhagen
Øster Farimagsgade 5
1353 København K.
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From: Oscar Salemink <o.salemink@anthro.ku.dk>
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 4:03 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
There is a typo in my posting: it should read “would not care to call themselves Buddhist”.
Apologies for the confusion.
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From: Tobias RETTIG
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 4:25 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear All,
The case of Japan is a good illustration of this:
See for instance http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/8/2/5/3/p182534_index.html, especially first sentence:
“In Japan, numerical accounts of religious membership range from more than one and a half times the total population to less than ten percent. The results of qualitative research tend to support the latter statistic; however, until recently it has been nearly impossible to know what percentage of Japanese individuals claims to be Shintô, Buddhist, Christian, or a member of a “new religion”. Moreover, we know very little about what might predict such affiliations. This paper employs large, national probability samples from the 2000-2003 Japanese General Social Surveys to help explain these divergent quantitative and qualitative results. Additionally, I examine socio-demographic predictors of religious membership in Japan and rely on ethnographic studies to support and explain these new findings.”
All the best,
Tobias
Tobias RETTIG, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Southeast Asian Studies
School of Social Sciences | Singapore Management University
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From: William Noseworthy
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 6:03 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear All,
For additional responses to this question (which I raised myself in 2008) see the archives of VSG under the heading "Questions about Modern Religions"
Ever the best,
Billy
--
William B. Noseworthy,
Masters Candidate '11
UW-Madison
CELTA ILA Viet Nam Oct. '07
B.A. Oberlin '07
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 6:27 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Just a few comments.
Ever since the 15th century, when communal houses replaced pagodas as the center of village public life, there has been a division of religious labor, so to speak, whereas men compete with one another in the public arena and women seek divine protection for their families within the pagodas. In modern times, especially in the North, this means that men do not necessarily consider themselves Buddhist, and even chuckle indulgently when mentioning that their wives attend pagodas on appropriate days but would be quite upset if their wives did not do so. What this means in terms of self-reporting and census-taking is anybody's guess.
Lots of men (as well as women) are devotees of specific cults (such as Tran Hung Dao, or the Goddess of the Treasury or Ba Chua Xu), but would not self-report as religious.
While there is a great deal more religious diversity in the South, it does not have to do with Communist policy, but with the history of Vietnamese settlement in the South, as I tried to show in my book, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam. That Hoa Hao and Cao Dai failed to expand into the North had to do with colonial policy banning their spread into the two protectorates by invoking the sovereignty of the emperor in these two regions.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
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From: Dennis
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2011 6:33 AM
Subject: Fw: How many religious believers in Vietnam?
Hi all:
Attached is a table from the Vietnam 2009 census...
The report can be found at: http://www.gso.gov.vn/default_en.aspx?tabid=515&idmid=5&ItemID=10799
Dennis
Dennis F. Berg, Ph.D.
Educational and Research Consultant
18 Bis 13/7 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, Q. 1
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
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From: Stephen Denney
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 12:09 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thank you, that is very helpful. I neglected to mention the author's name, Nguyen Minh Quang. So the full citation would be:
Religious Issues and Government Policies in Viet Nam, By Nguyen Minh Quang, published by
The Gioi in 2005, 266 pages.
The statistical breakdown is in one of the appendices, page 259, based on "the summary report and statistics of 1997,"
and he lists the Government Committee for Religious Affairs as his source.
The breakdown of religious believers in the 2009 census linked below is on pages 281-312. Here is a comparison of the main categories:
Buddhists: 7,620,803 (1997); 6.802.318 (2009 census)
Catholics: 5,026,480 (1997); 5.677.086 (2009 census)
Protestants: 412,344 (1997); 734.168 (2009 census)
Cao Dai: 1,147,527 (1997); 807.915 (2009 census)
Hoa Hao: 1,306,969 (1997); 1.433.252 (2009 census)
Islam: 92,294 (1997); 75.268(2009 census)
total: 15,609,417 (1997); 15.651.467 (2009 census)
The 2009 census also lists several smaller religious groups, which are not included in statistical breakdown in Quang's book.
In the past official atatistics from Vietnam on religious believers has come under criticism. So I wonder how reliable these figures might be.
- Steve Denney
library assistant,
UC Berkeley
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From: Bill Hayton
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 2:16 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The reason that there are more religious groups listed in 2009 than in 1997 is simply because those religions were recognised by the state in the intervening period. Because those religions weren't recognised back in 1997 they clearly (in the minds of the government) didn't have any adherents. Once they were recognised they gained some - miraculous!
Others on the list probably know more than me about hilarious-sounding discussions between the VN government and representatives of smaller denominations about why 'Christians' needed more than one officially-recognised church. ("Well, it all goes back to 16th Century Switzerland...")
Bill
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 3:48 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Interesting that the number of registered Buddhists has gone down--and that it was low to start with. Catholics seem to have achieved near numerical parity.
One of the reasons why the VME decided to hold an exhibit on Catholicism in Vietnam was that they are thought to be unfamiliar and therefore "invisible" to most Vietnamese. When VME mooted the idea of the exhibit to some cultural officials, the latter wondered why VME did not choose a much more "mainstream" religion, i.e., Buddhism, to highlight in its first foray into the religious lives of Vietnamese. But now, according to government figures, Catholics are almost as numerous as Buddhists. Something's not quite right.... Disraeli comes to mind.
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From: Nghia Vo <nghia2520@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 5:27 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
According to Hanoi statistics (if they are correct),
1. Not only has the number of registered Buddhists decreased, that of the Cao Dai has also dropped from 1,147,527 (1997) to 807.915 (2009), almost 25%.
2. The 2009 data reveal the following breakdown:
_______________________________________________________________________
Northern Mountains Central Coast South East
& Red River delta & Central Highland & Mekong delta
Regions 1 & 2 3 & 4 5 & 6
________________________________________________________________________
Total 1,731 908 3,939 460 9,980 099
Buddhists 365 411 1,417 904 5,019 003
Catholics 1,235 072 1,886 900 2,555 114
Others (not added)
________________________________________________________________________
a. The differences between North and South are more striking with the 2009 figures:
1.7 M believers in the North compared to almost 14 M in the South!!!!
b. Two thirds of the Buddhists (5 M) live in the deep South (regions 5 and 6)
c. Almost 80% of the Catholics live in the central and southern regions (3 through 6).
d. There are only 365,411 Buddhists in the North.
Interesting figures.
Nghia
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From: Michael DiGregorio
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 8:54 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear hue tam.
If you ask many northerners about religion they will say the have
none. By that they mean they are not a registered member of a
religious creed or sect. This does nit mean they lack
spirituality...something we all now well. The day that tin nguong
truyen thong becomes a religion, the percentage of believers will
increase exponentially.
Mike
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From: <sdenney@library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 11:08 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Yes, the statistics on the Cao Dai are particularly puzzling. In the 2005
book by Nguyen Minh Quang I cited, he eaid there were about 2 million Cai
Dai followers at the time (p. 99), yet the appendix in his book,
supposedly based on 1997 statistics, lists them at 1,147,527. Then, as
Nghia notes, the 2009 census estimates them at just under 808,000. Would
the reason for these apparent discrepancies be either that many Cao Dai
members do not want to publicly state their religious adherence, or that
some of the Cao Dai sects are not recognized by the government?
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From: Janet Hoskins
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 11:52 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I am also very suspicious of these figures for Cao Dai.
Government statistics presented online in 2003 for the numbers of Cao Ðài followers counted 3.2 million, although the leaders of various denominations assert that there are closer to 4-5 million, some of them practicing in private.
In 2007, a study published by the Religion Department also used the 3.2 million figure: See Ph?m Bích H?p, Ngu?i Nam B? và Tôn Giáo b?n d?a (The People of the South and Indigenous Religions) (Hà N?i: Tôn Giáo, 2007). Of these, roughly half follow the Tây Ninh Holy See, which is the first and largest denomination and has 800 temples out of a total of 1346 in Vietnam. Leaders of the second largest denomination, in B?n Tre, claimed over a million followers in 2003 and have 300 temples in the Mekong Delta.
It is possible that the lower figures reflect only the Tay Ninh Cao Dai. However, I met with Cardinal Tam, the head of that branch in August 2010 and he told me then that Tay Ninh alone had about 5 million followers.
There are eleven branches of Cao Dai which have gained official recognition, but whether any of them are part of these figures is another question. Cao Dai leaders assert that their membership is growing quickly now, as younger people are no longer afraid to declare themselves as followers. And temples have been renovated, re-opened and are gathering large groups of worshipers all over the country.
So these figures look pretty strange from that perspective.
Janet Hoskins
Professor of Anthropology, University of Southern California
Visiting Researcher, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto
University, Japan
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From: Frank
Date: Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 1:52 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
It would be an interesting research effort for someone to stand outside of a Catholic church in Hanoi on any Sunday before or after Mass and ask all of the worshippers to see their chung minh and tally what percentage of identity cards reflect the status of 'Catholic' and what percentage reflect the status 'Non-religious'. Perhaps the Institute of Religious Studies has done something like this. Likewise at a Buddhist temple at holiday time. My guess is that the proportion of those with ID cards reflecting religious adherence is substantially lower than those practicing religious devotions. I've certainly seen the ID cards of several of my devout Catholic friends and none of them are identified for administrative purposes as believers.
Frank Proschan
37 place Jeanne d'Arc
75013 Paris
FRANCE
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 5:45 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Mike:
Of course, that is true. Buddhist beliefs are so ingrained in the culture that they're unconscious of them. If a member of the Party expect that his wife attend pagoda on certain days, is he or isn't he Buddhist? If he believes in the transmigration of souls? or pray to Quan Am?
How about the Day of Atonement, originally a Buddhist festival (Vu Lan Bon) which has been co-opted by the state (into Xa Toi Vong Nhan), and so on. The problem is the need to register one's religion.
I remember the immediate aftermath of the Buddhist crisis of 1963. Masses of people who had never stepped within a pagoda suddenly flocked to services. After attending services where they were asked to intone "Nam Mo A Di Da Phat" 100 or 200 times, they probably stayed away again, but the self-identification as Buddhist remained.
This is somewhat different from "tin nguong truyen thong" such as Dao Mau or Tran Hung Dao.
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From: Chung Nguyen
Date: Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 6:38 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thank you, Frank. This is an astute observation that lies at the heart of the statistics conundrum. Do we have something in America that is similar - "Lies, damned lies, and statistics"!
Even since 1954, although somewhat of less a degree now, to be officially certified as a believer- Buddhist, Catholic, Protestant, etc. - is to rule out any possibility for higher advancement in the state sector. Following classical Marxist thought, esp. true in Europe but much less applicable in Vietnam but applicable nevertheless, the church isn't a favored institution because it holds so much power over the population, esp. always in alliance with the most conservative/reactionary elements of the country. That's why its influence has to be circumscribed, esp. from 1954 to before the Renovation period.
Institutionally, as Bill and Mike have pointed out, Buddhists have never been required to register for anything, then using official methodology to "count" them is a non-starter, esp. in an environment when there are social and and political costs in doing so. The only way to do this is by triangulation, as others have pointed out. But the state has no interest in doing this. Why should it try to invalidate its own ideology?
CN
Umass Boston
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From: Michael DiGregorio
Date: Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 2:37 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
A question for follow- up on this issue.
Can someone check to see if the religion question is in the short form
census or the long form 15 percent survey?
In the past, only registered believers were counted, and there were
two question that captured this as belief and registration. Can
someone please check if this question structure remains? If should be
available at GSO.
Thanks.
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From: Nghia Vo
Date: Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 4:40 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
List,
1. There is nothing wrong with statistics b/c they are just empty formulas. The problem is, as some have indicated, with methodology.
If you input wrong numbers, you will get wrong results on the other end.
If you exclude/include groups or your working definition is wrong, you will end up with wrong results.
Therefore, Disraeli was wrong to say that "Statistics lie," they don't. Only humans do.
2. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics"! (from ....UMass)
Since all the data came from the Hanoi 2009 p 290 report,
thttp://www.gso.gov.vn/default_en.aspx?tabid=515&idmid=5&ItemID=10799 (thanks Judy and Dennis for providing the report)
I would modify the about quote as follows:
"Lies, damned Hanoi communist lies, and statistics"!, if certain VSG do not agree with these statistics.
3. What is interesting about the 2009 Hanoi report,
36 years after the war, there are 1.7 M believers in the North compared to 14 M in the South. Vietnam remains a country of two states.
Nghia