Nguyen Huu Son1 & Nguyen Huu Le 2
1Literary Research Journal, Granduate Academy of Social Sciences, Vietnam
2Researcher, Hanoi, Vietnam
Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.17
[Article History: Received: 29 June 2023. Revised: 25 August 2023. Accepted: 27 August 2023. Published: 28 August 2023]
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Abstract
Western culture has had a profound influence on Vietnamese culture and literature during the colonial period, especially in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. During this historical period, records appeared about the journey of Vietnamese people to France with different purposes. Based on this context, the article studies the attitude of Vietnamese intellectuals towards French culture to see the acculturation of Vietnamese to Western culture. Based on the cultural approach to studying travel writing, the article explores the French cultural awareness of some Vietnamese intellectuals such as Pham Quynh, Dao Trinh Nhat and Nhat Linh. Each story of their journey as an explanation for the purpose of the journey is the expression of aspirations: reforming Vietnamese culture, awareness of colonialism and feminism, and renewal of novels. These are current issues of contemporary Vietnamese culture and literature. From that, it is possible to recognize the characteristics of the travel writing about the journey to France representing the travel stories of the colonized people to the Western imperial countries and the process of escaping from slavery norms of Western culture. With an interdisciplinary approach to studying travel history, the article also provides a view of the process of modernizing Vietnamese literature in the first half of the 20th century.
Keywords: travel writing, French culture, cultural criticism, acculturation, cultural sensitivity.
Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Son, Nguyen Huu & Nguyen Huu Le. 2023. The journeys of acculturation of Western culture in Vietnamese travel writing in the first half of the 20th century. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.17