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VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES L TRAN VAN HUAN BEHAVIORAL CULTURE TOWARDS THE DECEASED IN THE FAMILY LIFE IN HO CHI MINH CITY TODAY Major

VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

L

TRAN VAN HUAN

BEHAVIORAL CULTURE TOWARDS THE DECEASED IN THE FAMILY LIFE IN HO CHI MINH

CITY TODAY

Major: Sociology Major code: 9.31.03.01

SUMMARY OF THE DOCTORAL DISSERTATION

IN SOCIOLOGY

Hanoi - 2019

The dissertation completed at Graduate Academy of Social Sciences, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences

Supervisors: 1 Assoc Prof Dr Mai Van Hai

2 Dr Truong Xuan Truong

Reviewer 1: Prof Dr Dang Canh Khanh

Reviewer 2: Assoc.Prof Dr.Sc Bui Quang Dung Reviewer 3: Assoc.Prof Dr Pham Van Quyet

The dissertation will be defended at Graduate Academy Level Council of dissertation assessment at Graduate Academy of Social Sciences, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences

Time: ………… date ……… month …… …year 2019

The dissertation may be found at:

- Vietnam National Library;

- Graduate Academy of Social Sciences Library

INTRODUCTION

1 The urgency of the research topic

After more than 30 years of Doi Moi, behavioral culture towards the

deceased in the family life in our country has been changing very strongly both content and form Of course, this change has brought about great impacts on the community and society on both positive and negative aspects Positively, just as scholar Vu Khieu wrote: “since the unification, everywhere in the country, especially in recent years, the family issue has been particularly concerned Almost every family reset the incense bowl to worship ancestors, churches and graves are rebuilt Family annals are retrieved, recorded and disseminated Due to the needs of family sentiment, people in the family are frequently visited each other The days

of meeting or ancestral anniversaries attract many people” (Vu Khieu, 1996: 8) These positive changes contribute to the success of the movement of “all people unite to build a cultural life” and the movement

of building “cultural family” were launched by the Party and State

In addition to the positive aspects, in recent years, the practice of behavioral culture towards the deceased in the family life also has many

manifestations that are too far-fetched or deviant In the general context of

the country, behavior towards the deceased in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC)

is no exception Recently, under the impact of industrialization, modernization, globalization, international integration and market economy to the traditional culture, in which, behavior towards the deceased in the people’s family life is also changing with deviant manifestations and far away from fine habits and customs It is not a rare phenomenon that funerals organize singing through the night and take place in many days, as well as indulging in drink, playing cards, even fighting each other in the death anniversaries This fact is demanding to be thoroughly learnt by scientific methods, as a basis for setting out policies

to manage and develop society in a sustainable manner, in accordance with the times

Meanwhile, on the scientific front, studying on family culture has not kept up with what is happening in life The Japanese researcher Michio

Suenari, through his studies in Hue, noted: “Regarding ancestor worship in Vietnam, most of the essays so far are on the thought level, therefore, there is a lack of information that tells us how the ancestors are being worshiped” (Michio Suenari, 2010: 103) Thenceforth, the author conducts research project titled “Behavioral culture towards the deceased in the family life in Ho Chi Minh City today” as his doctoral dissertation, with the hope of bringing a relatively comprehensive, systematic and new understanding, contributing to solving the pending problems

2 Research purpose and tasks

2.1 Research purpose

General purpose: the study aims to bring a relatively comprehensive,

systematic and new understanding on behavioral culture towards the deceased in the family life in HCMC today

Specific purpose: theoretically, the study tries to clarify and regularize

all 3 customs including funeral, grave and worship by a common concept

of “behavioral culture towards the deceased in the family life”, in other words, the behavior between the living and the dead – besides familiar terms such as the behavior between husband and wife, parents and children and

among siblings each other Practically, the study contributes to raising

people’s awareness and providing scientific arguments for managers in mobilizing the construction of “cultural families” in residential areas

2.2 Research tasks

The author reviews previous research works and attempts to inherit the lessons learned, especially the detection of gaps to clearly see his new research direction; building a common concept that can contain all aspects

of funeral, grave and worship The common concept is “behavioral culture towards the deceased”; analyzing and evaluating the practice of behavioral culture towards the deceased in families in HCMC today, and exploring the difference among social groups in behavior with the deceased; generalizing the analytical results as a basis for recommendation to solve

the shortcomings and pending problems in practicing behavioral culture towards the deceased nowadays

3 Research subject, object and scope

3.1 Research subject: behavioral culture towards the deceased

(including 3 aspects of funeral, grave and worship) in the family life in HCMC today

3.2 Research object: families in HCMC today

3.2 Research scope: Spatially, HCMC, namely, Ward 14, District 4

and Tung An commune, Cu Chi district Regarding time, during last 5

years The surveys are conducted in 2 stages: stage 1 was January 2018,

stage 2 took place in March 2018 Regarding research issue - behavioral

culture towards the deceased in Vietnamese family life

4 Methodology and research methods

4.1 Research questions

How behavioral culture towards the deceased is taking place in families

in HCMC today? Is there anything new in this behavioral culture compared to previous periods? If there is a new development than before, what are social reasons have led to such changes? Are these changes random, immediate or normative, and how does this affect the lives of families, communities and society?

4.2 Research hypotheses

Compared to the past, behavioral culture towards the deceased in HCMC today has been changing dramatically all three aspects of funeral, grave and worship This is reflected by reconstructing the old model and adding more new features that had not existed ever These changes originate from many different reasons- that is the people’s economic life has been raised; the process of industrialization, modernization, market economy, globalization and international integration; the Party and State’s guidelines and policies, as well as local organization, management and customs These changes are not random or immediate but are normative It

is an indispensable product of Vietnamese society that is transforming from traditional agricultural civilization to modern industrial civilization,

from subsidized mechanism to market one with the influence of globalization trend and international integration

4.3 Methodology

The study relies on Marxism-Leninism, namely, the historical-specific perspectives and the relationship between social existence and social consciousness as a methodological basis to describe, analyze and explain the posing problems in the research process

4.4 Research methods

4.4.1 Reviewing literature: including more than 100 documents such

as published works, articles, theses, dissertations at home and abroad

4.4.2 Direct interview with questionnaires: including 575 cases in

HCMC Respondents play a decisive role in their family, the sample size

is distributed appropriately by gender, age, education level and so on

4.4.3 In-depth interviews: 30 cases are equally divided into 2 areas, in

which account factors such as gender, education level, age, living standards, resident place In addition, the interviewees also include 10 cultural staffs from ward and communal level to city level

4.4.4 Observation and taking notes: using camera and notebook to

record related issues and images

4.4.5 Group discussion: 2 discussions in 2 areas, each group has 8

participants, in which, account to their demographic characteristics

5 New contributions of the dissertation

By approaching perspective of sociology, the dissertation has given a relatively comprehensive, systematic and new understanding on behavior towards the deceased in the family life through 3 components including funeral, grave and worship in both theoretically and practically

6 Theoretical and practical significance of the dissertation

6.1 Theoretically

To address the research purpose and tasks as mentioned above, the study attempts to conceptualize practical activities of funeral, grave and worship into a scientific concept that is behavioral culture towards the deceased in the family life, thereby, enriching the treasure of concepts and terms of subjects such as family sociology, cultural sociology The

application of subculture theory, rational selection and modernization also contribute to verify their popularity and accuracy in the concrete condition

7 Structure of the dissertation

Besides the introduction, conclusion and recommendation, references and appendix, the dissertation includes 5 chapters In which, chapter 1 & 2 review literature and build up theoretical and practical basis Chapter 3, 4

& 5 present empirical research findings, each chapter explores one aspect that is funeral, grave and worship This structure reflects the overall and integrity of the study while simultaneously maintaining the relative independence of the components

Chapter 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Regarding published research results

1.1.1 The general conception on behavioral culture towards the deceased

By reviewing domestic research works (by Dang Nghiem Van, Tran Quoc Vuong, Pham Xuan Nam, Pham Van Dong), as well as foreign research works (by G Mancacaritadipura, T Sugiura and so on), the author points out that the humane behavior towards the deceased is a universal cultural phenomenon of all humanity However, the phrase “the deceased” needs to be understood in both ways – being a person who deserves well of the people and the country and family’s relatives in particular

1.1.2 The origin of behavioral culture towards the deceased

According to Russian researcher X.A Tocarev, behavioral culture towards the deceased has an ancient basis of all things, the instinctive fear

of death, and it is also an attachment, does not want to be far away from fellow-creature’s corpses In the primitive cultural work, E Tylor argues that such behavior stemmed from the conception of animism of the ancient people In fact, since the Shang Dynasty in China, the worship has existed

as a custom

In Vietnam, Dao Duy Anh and Dang Duc Sieu argue that, according to the Vietnamese people’s folk beliefs, people have two parts including soul and body When someone died, the soul will leave the body but still surrounds descendants to protect them, so the descendants must worship Foreign scientists studying Vietnam such as L Cadière, E Diguet and O Salemink also have similar views L Cadière also affirms that "it is believed that the deceased still live close to the livings like people believe

in sunlight or the weight of plumb-bob”

1.1.3 The basic components in behavioral culture towards the deceased

On funeral: in Thọ mai gia lễ and Gia lễ chỉ nam showed that, in the

funeral, there are many rituals such as chiêu hồn, mộc dục, phạn hàm, phạt mộc, nhập quan, thành phục, phường bát âm In modern era, there are new rituals such as death notice, celebrate the memory of the deceased, funeral ceremony Funeral associates with mourning clothes According to Phan Ke Binh “sons, daughters and daughters-in-law wear white mourning head-band and clothes with a belt by a banana yarn outside Paternal grandchild will wear mourning cap, while mourning head-band and while dress He also argues that, after the burial, descendants must also practice many rituals such

as ngu tế, chung thất (49 days), tốt khốc (100 days), tiểu tường, đại tường and burning votive paper

On grave: because of the conception of “living for graves”,

Vietnamese people attach much importance to the grave, before burying, people often invite geomancer to choose land so that after 3 years will rebury (also known as exhumation) Depending on the family’s

circumstances, graves can be covered by soil or built in brick and stone

On death anniversaries and festivities, descendants often visit to the graves, repair and burn incense on the deceased graves The graves are not only taken care by descendants but the State law (Gia Long law) also has very specific provisions to protect graves

The worshipping ceremony: Tocarev argues that, in China, Korea and

Japan, every family has an ancestor altar to celebrate the death anniversary, people who practice the ritual must be patriarchs According

to Nguyen Duy Thieu, in Laos, this work takes place during the festival Boun Pi May In Vietnam, the worship of the ancestors takes place at the ancestral temple while family death anniversary takes place in each family; burning incense on the first day and the fifteenth day of the lunar months and offering votive paper and then burning them

1.1.4 Social impacts and posing problems: Researchers believe that

behavioral culture towards the deceased has both positive and negative

impacts: Positively, because it is a social development aspect (E Quiroz),

protecting the diversity of culture (Chu A, Truong Chan Vi), turning the past power into the present power (Vu Tu Lap), as the expression of

values and the unity of the group Negatively, it contains the division (R

Janelli), easily commercialize (E Quiroz), causing trouble (Phan Ke Binh) This is not to mention the expensive banquets and feasts (Luong Van Hy, J Kleinen), environmental pollution and the deformation of beliefs (J Wang)

1.2 Preliminary comments on content and methods

In general, the previous authors have built a pretty and vivid picture on behavioral culture towards the deceased in the family life in three separate areas: funeral, grave and worship by both awareness and practice Theoretically, however, so far the concept of behavioral culture towards the deceased in family life has not been clearly defined for both internal and external aspects In terms of methods, someone uses quantitative

method, another uses qualitative method while many people just approach research objects through books and their own experiences This means that, there is still lacks of a general and unified methodology

1.3 The inheritance and research orientation

The dissertation is not only the inheritance of knowledge of previous authors, from the sociological perspective, the study also tries to contribute new knowledge to the picture

Sub-conclusion of chapter 1: the dissertation considers reviewing

literature as an indispensable work so as to withdraw lessons that not only help this study in the right direction but also avoid the situation of “trying

to push the door but actually it was opened for a long time”

Chapter 2 THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL BASIS

2.1 Definition and interpretation of concepts

2.1.1 The concept of family life: Every person, as well as community and

society is always living in 3 environments: natural environment, social environment and inner life The family life also consists of three areas: economics- material (corresponding to the natural environment), behavior among members (social environment) and spirit-spirituality-beliefs (inner life)

2.1.2 The concept of behavioral culture: in the context of society,

people need to have appropriate behavior So behavioral culture can be understood to be the way of communication, protocol and rituals, patterns

of human behavior In short, it is the objectification of the common thoughts and feelings of a group of people, whereby the community and society can operate smoothly

2.1.3 The concept of behavioral culture towards the deceased (in

general): Behavioral culture towards the deceased can be defined as behavior of the living with the dead and covering a wide range from funeral and building graves to the worshipping by the livings But behavioral culture towards the deceased also divided into many levels: family-clan, community, nation-ethnic group

2.1.4 The concept of behavioral culture towards the deceased in Vietnamese family: If considering Ego (me) as a standard, the behavior is

not only counted backwards to the predecessor generations (such as parents, grandparents, great-grandfathers) but also includes spinsters, deceased youths, or those who died prematurely

2.2 Generalizing the original concept

That is the concept of behavioral culture towards the deceased (see diagram below):

The indicator in this diagram just stops at the first level, and in the study, it is further manipulated to the experimental indicators, this means

we can observe and measure in the field

2.3 The theoretical approach of the study

This study utilizes 3 theories: first, reasonable choice theory, the

typical authors are G Homan, P Blau and J Coleman This theory shows that, in the social actions, someone often compares the advantages and

Funeral

Behavior with the deceased

disadvantages, the gain and the loss to make decisions so as to maximize

the gain and minimize the loss Second, the subculture theory with its

basic spirit is, in each culture, in addition to the overall culture, each group

has its own subculture and this can dominate their behavior Third,

modernization theory, it argues that modernization is a process in which phenomena are replaced by new and more advanced ones, thus, it is perceived to be better (G Endruweit & at al) By selecting these theories, the dissertation not only considers them as a guideline, but also an opportunity to verify their popularity and accuracy through experimental research in Vietnam

2.4 Research sites

The survey and research area of the dissertation is HCMC, namely, Ward 14, District 4 and Trung An Commune, Cu Chi District First of all, the study chooses HCMC because this is a place with a dynamic market economy, a diversified occupational structure, high urbanization rate, and

as a gateway of exchange activities of the country and international exchange Generally, this is a typical area for Vietnam’s industrialization, modernization and international integration Culturally, based on the resolutions of the Central Government, the guidelines and policies of the State, the City Party Committee and the City People's Committee have also issued many circulars, directives and organized many practical activities aiming at developing the culture of the City under the goal of building Vietnamese culture “advanced, imbued with national identity” Thus, this is a great place to examine behavioral culture towards the deceased in our country today

Trung An commune and Ward 14 are also two areas that focus on many issues related to the research subjects, sample size and population composition are large and rich enough to select sample, both areas are not too specific, so they are more or less representative of the City

2.5 Historical background of the country and analytical scheme

The historical - specific viewpoints of Marxism - Lenin affirm that we cannot understand any social phenomenon if it is separated from the historical context that it is operating Thenceforth, the dissertation has made a diagram of the relationship of the variables as follows:

Sub-conclusion of chapter 2: The above theoretical and practical basis

serves as a theoretical model of the study, which makes the empirical information obtained significantly and the explanation about them becomes logical meaning and explanation about them become rational and logical

Behavior

al culture towards the deceased