[...]... and others – including Bien Hoa, Can Tho, Quy Nhon and Nam Dinh – are becoming lively centres in cultural as well as economic terms As Vietnam becomes increasingly urbanised, these sites will increase in importance We hope that future research on contemporary urban life in Vietnam will address the general and particular experiences of everyday life and culture throughout Vietnam s swelling urban hierarchy... themes in Vietnam today is that of the risks of contracting HIV/AIDS from certain dangerous activities In Chapter 7 Stephen McNally looks behind the billboards at the social location of the sex industry in Vietnam and how HIV/AIDS is changing, or not, the way in which people engage in sexual activity via the sex industry In Part III four papers examine facets of popular culture, often overlooked in favour... and Vo Van Kiet) in office until mid-term (late 1998) 22 Carlyle A Thayer During the final quarter of 1996 it became clear that growth in Vietnam s economy was in decline for the first time since doi moi was adopted in 1986 In mid-year a currency crisis in Thailand triggered a regional financial crisis At the same time Vietnam experienced mounting peasant unrest in Thai Binh province, a stronghold... educational status in the homeland are given entirely different positions in the land of settlement In the case of Vietnamese, discrimination in employment opportunities and structural change in Western economies have combined to place most Vietnamese in marginal socio-economic positions in their host societies (see Viviani 1996) Nevertheless, this marginality is invisible when examining the relations... ‘mass culture (van hoa dai chung) which is interpreted by the state as largely rural in nature Urban culture and contemporary cultural identity is examined in each of the chapters (as, in various ways, in all the chapters here) As strictures against religious practice have eased, religious rituals are resurfacing Introduction 13 in everyday life Alexander Soucy examines the engagement of young urbanites... and join, however reluctantly or restrainedly, the international community Award-winning writer Phan Thi Vang Anh reflects on her own experiences of writing and being a writer in the second paper in this section Phan Thi Vang Anh also uses interviews with other writers to examine the social role of novelists in Vietnam and the ways in which various writers tackle the social issues of transition Finally,... Identities in Art, Media and Popular Culture (2000) Her research interests are in migration and embodiment, the flows of Asian popular culture, and social and political change in Vietnam She has also been involved in numerous development consultancy projects in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia Acknowledgements This book originated from a series of energetic discussions within the Vietnam Studies... Vietnamese are decried as embodying a decline of Vietnamese moral values and contamination by the consumerist global culture, in actuality, local Vietnamese complain about this transformation within their own country For example, in discussing the contemporary northern writer, Nguyen Huy Thiep, the Vietnamese scholar Nguyen Hung Quoc writes: The majority of his short stories concentrated on one main... This has come about from a freeing up of internal travel restrictions, improvements in the transport sector, an opening up of markets and a need for labour in the newly developing urban manufacturing and service industries, as well as from the dismantling of the rationing system which kept people in their registered place of residence While some wealthy or educated urban Vietnamese have been able to... reunification, socialist reforms and economic liberalisation policies in Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong delta appears in Fragments of the Present: Searching for Modernity in Vietnam s South (Allen & Unwin 2001) He is completing a book on pilgrimages and popular religion in Vietnam and a study on ethnic and religious minority cultures in Vietnam s Mekong delta Carlyle A Thayer is Professor of Politics, . populace. Consuming Urban Culture in Contemporary Vietnam sheds new light upon the social and cultural changes presently occurring in Vietnam by exploring the realm of Vietnamese popular culture and urban. Australian National University. Consuming Urban Culture in Contemporary Vietnam Edited by Lisa B.W. Drummond and Mandy Thomas Consuming Urban Culture in Contemporary Vietnam First published 2003 by. hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication