1. Vietnam ( i
/ˌviːətˈnaːm/;[7] Vietnamese: [viət˨ næm˧] ( listen)), officially the Socialist Republic
of Vietnam (SRV; Cộng hòa Xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam ( listen)), is the easternmost country
on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With an estimated 90.5 million inhabitants as of
2014, it is the world's 13th-most-populous country, and the eighth-most-populous Asian country.
The name Vietnam translates as "Southern Viet" (synonymous with the much older term Nam
Viet); it was first officially adopted in 1802 by Emperor Gia Long, and was adopted again in
1945 with the founding of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh. The country
is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the
South China Sea to the east.[8] Its capital city has been Hanoi since the reunification of North and
South Vietnam in 1976.
Vietnam was part of Imperial China for over a millennium, from 111 BC to AD 938. The
Vietnamese became independent from Imperial China in 938, following the Vietnamese victory
in the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Successive Vietnamese royal dynasties flourished as the nation
expanded geographically and politically into Southeast Asia, until the Indochina Peninsula was
colonized by the French in the mid-19th century. Following a Japanese occupation in the 1940s,
the Vietnamese fought French rule in the First Indochina War, eventually expelling the French in
1954. Thereafter, Vietnam was divided politically into two rival states, North and South
Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified, with heavy intervention from the United
States, in what is known as the Vietnam War. The war ended with a North Vietnamese victory in
1975.
The Traditional Family:
A patriarchal family, with the man as the head of the household, is the traditional structure of the
Vietnamese family.Confucianists framed their cultural norm in terms of the duties and
obligations of a family to father, a child to parent, a wife to husband, and a younger brother to an
older brother. They believed that the welfare and the solidity of the family were far more
important than individual interests of any one member of a family. The individual was less
independent than a member of a family that included not only living members but also a long
line of ancestors and of those yet to be born. Members of the same household lived together,
worked together, and gathered together for marriages, funerals, celebrations, and rituals marking
the anniversary of an ancestor's death. Family members looked first to other family members for
help and counsel in times of personal crisis and guarded the interests of the family in making
personal or household decisions. They were less likely to seek support outside the confines of the
family.
The extended family rather than the nuclear one was the dominant family structure, often
including three or even four generations, and typically consisting of grandparents, father and
mother, children, and grandchildren, all living under the same roof. Vietnamese people often
give special reverence to ancestors who have deceased. They most often believe that the dead
influence the living.
After 1954, the Vietnamese family structure changed . The notion that the family was the most
important and number one focus of individual allegiance was criticized as feudal by the
communists, who also criticized the traditional concept that the family as an entity is a “self-

2. contained socioeconomic unit.” In 1959, there was major family reform. Under the new law,
which was enacted and put into effect in 1960, the law's intent was to protect the rights of
women and children by prohibiting polygyny forced marriage, concubinage, and abuse. It was
designed to make women equal to men, in regards to rights and obligations, within the family
and to enable women to enjoy equal status with men in social and work-related activities.
In December 1986, the government enacted a new family law that incorporated the 1959 law and
added some new provisions. The law explicitly defined the "socialist family" as one in which
"the wife and husband are equals who love each other, who help each other to make progress,
who actively participate in building socialism and defending the fatherland and work together to
raise their children to be productive citizens for society." The law also accounted for population
control. The new law states that there is a parental obligation to practice family planning or in
other words reduce the amount of children a couple may have. This goes against Confucian
ideologies of having a large family (Source 24) .