Vietnam is a unique country with its diversity of culture.Throughout process of building up the country and struggling for freedom, Vietnam has not only preserved its own culture (rice culture), but also absorbed values and cultural characteristics from other civilizations such as China, France, as well as the U.S.

Vietnam is located in Southeast Asia, an area with a hot and humid climate, strong rainfall and monsoon winds. Those climatic conditions lead to the fact that Vietnam is an area of waters with quite a number of rivers, streams, ponds and lakes. These natural conditions laid the groundwork for the early development of water rice growing. The ecological system of the natural environment creates the Vietnamese rice culture. In this culture, a village is a basic unit which creates the main cultural space and environment of the Vietnamese people in which all cultural elements and phenomena are formed and developed. Each village was a separate entity with its own population, customs, and even its own deity enshrined in a communal house. The village provided the individual with security in a potentially hostile environment. Within its web of social relations, one’s place and duties were exactly defined even in the language itself: the use of kinship terms as personal pronouns in the Vietnamese languages always indicated the social, hierarchical, or age relationship of the two speakers.  Thus, when we talk about Vietnamese culture, it can be understood that we are talking about the culture of the rural village, in which each individual will have an obligation and duty to his family, kinship and village community.

Beside its own culture, Vietnam has also absorbed values and cultural characteristics from other countries. China is the country that has the biggest influence on Vietnamese culture. Vietnam was dominated by the Chinese over one thousand years from the 2nd century B.C until the 10th century A.D. During this period, the Vietnamese became familiar with Chinese political and social institutions as well as religion. The Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism (Dao Lao) and Confucianism (Dao Khong) were gradually imprinted in the Vietnamese way of thinking. By the 15th century, Vietnam modeled its system of feudal government that was similar to that of China. The administrative structures, law, literature, and writing system all followed Chinese forms. However, the feudal society in Vietnam collapsed since the French came in the mid 19th century.

French Catholic missionaries had arrived in Vietnam since the mid-17th Century to disseminate Christianity. The French arrival resulted in the collapse of Confucian government in Vietnam. Meanwhile Western values had gradually grown in the Vietnamese upper and middle classes. By the 1920’s, the Vietnamese government reached a consensus on the adoption of Quoc Ngu, a Romanised written form of Vietnamese invented by French missionaries, to replace the traditional Chinese-style characters (Chu Nom). Quoc Ngu played a critical role in spreading Western values and France’s culture in Vietnam. Christianity had also flourished in Vietnam at that time, constituting 10 percent of the population.

During the French domination, there has occured a strangest Vietnamese religion is Cao Daism (Dao Cao Dai). It was founded in 1919 in the city of Tay Ninh and had certain influence in the life of some areas in the south of Vietnam. With the authorization of the French governor of Cochinchina, Caidaism was officially recognized in 1926. This religion was established to "bring together the best of all religions", including the teaching of Buddha, Jesus, Confucius, Victor Hugo and so on. The adherents to Caodaism currently have been estimated at about one million.

After the French was defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the American came and took control the South of Vietnam. With nearly 20-year presence in the South of Vietnam, the U.S. had a certain influence on social and cultural life of the southerners. The U.S. cultural legacy in the south is that of a consumer society and American popular culture. The U.S. also created the foundation of a market economy later in the south.

Some typical Vietnamese cultural characteristics.

• Rice culture’s characteristics: a sense of obligation to the community, the obligation of individual to group, and interpersonal relationships.

• Confucian values: emphasizing on hierarchy, family, social obligation, collectivisim, harmony, loyalty and education.

• Taoist values: emphasizing  the harmony between man and man and between man and nature.

• Buddhism belief: concentrating on self improvement and the belief of more lives after death. Life is a circle (birth, living and death and continues)

• Western values: industrialization, the idea of individual importance, the equality of men and women.