Fragments of the Present: Searching for Modernity in Vietnam's South (ASAA Southeast Asia Publications) [Hardcover]

Philip Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2001 | Series: ASAA Southeast Asia Publications

A study of the transformation of southern Vietnam during the post-war period. Philip Taylor's ethnographic reserch in a southern village explored the local view of modernity. Here he shows the differing interpretations of the villagers' view of their own history and the sense of its decline. He presents ideas about colonization, social differentiation, the overlap of society and state, and the dilemmas of a southern village caught in such a culturally and historically huge moment as the attempted imposition of the northern Vietnamese political, economic and social identity after 1975.

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Philip Taylor worked for two years in Vietnam's Mekong delta, researching this book between 1992 and 1995. He has eight years teaching experience in anthropology, Asian studies and languages and he has designed and developed a post-graduate teaching program in Pacific and Asian studies. He is currently a Visiting Fellow in the Division of Pacific and Asian History, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 237 pages
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press (January 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824824172
• ISBN-13: 978-0824824174
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,403,046 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and insightful., January 6, 2002

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alainviet "alainviet" (Indianapolis, IN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fragments of the Present: Searching for Modernity in Vietnam's South (ASAA Southeast Asia Publications) (Hardcover)

As an Anthropology student at the Australian National University, Taylor spent two years in South Vietnam (92-94), then returned to this country in 95, 98, and 99. Faced with a unique southern identity, he decided to define the "idea of the South".

North and South Vietnam despite decades of postwar communist control are two completely different countries from the political, social, economical, and even musical aspects. In the first decade after the 1975 fall of Saigon, the communists controlled everything down to the toothpaste the Vietnamese used. Faced with poverty and income loss, southerners began to peddle their cherished belongings to the black market in order to survive. While goods in state stores were scarce, everything was available on the black market. Goods and money sent home from overseas Vietnamese swelled this illicit economy. As a result, the southern economy rebounded. A southern reformist, Nguyen Van Linh spearheaded the doi moi (renovation) policy officially moving the country to free market economy. The "modern" South thus replaced the "backward" North.

This unique southern free enterprise spirit did not sit well with Hanoi, which did everything to undermine it and ironically to profit from it at the same time. "Corruption, abuses of power, and administrative incompetence" became the hallmarks of communist Vietnam. However, the free southern spirit traced back to the pionering spirit of the South Vietnamese who settled in the Mekong delta some four centuries ago, lives on. If Saigon lost the war in 1975, it won the peace a decade later. Despite acknowledging past "errors", the communists still refused to release their grip on power.

The author is to be congratulated for his most interesting study and his keen observations of the South Vietnamese mind.