The Social Values of Various Nations

[William Hung]

Thanks to @FairAndUnbiased , I’ve discovered this site:

WVS Database

This was the findings back in 1996:

This was the findings back in 2008:

And this is the latest findings from 2010-2014:

Personally, as a Vietnamese, I agree with the placement of Viet Nam in these charts, relative to the other countries. (@JaiMin agree?)

What about the other countries? Is it accurate?

Absolutely no trolling please. These charts are interesting.

 

[RazorMC]

Turkey is secular, but stands next to Pakistan (largely traditional) in the last chart.
Kazakhstan is secular?

How was the data compiled and based on what?

 

[JaiMin]

Thanks to @FairAndUnbiased , I’ve discovered this site:

WVS Database

This was the findings back in 1996:

This was the findings back in 2008:

And this is the latest findings from 2010-2014:

Personally, as a Vietnamese, I agree with the placement of Viet Nam in these charts, relative to the other countries. (@JaiMin agree?)

What about the other countries? Is it accurate?

Absolutely no trolling please. These charts are interesting.

@Yorozuya

Hm, the data not quite accurate IMO, A lot of factor play around country law and history also like in Phillipine they have law ban on divorce and abortion, reference :World’s last legal ban on divorce doesn’t keep Philippines couples together - The Washington Post


Also u see most of the countries that have been French colonies before was place high on traditional values and survival values, quite oppose to those under British. Revolution and ideas of nation come from France so no surprise. France is a bit xenophobia in the past and i think some of it feature integrate with local culture of it colonies, same like British

China and S.Korea on self-rational values? S.Korea is very religious, should check data, more than half follow religion, traditional family values also place very high there, like China they also relatively authority for me and deference to authority also. China and India is very populous and different provinces place different values, so it look bullshit to me, especially India. Thailand should be place more on Self-expression values. About Vietnam, they count religion with traditional believe as religious also? Most 5 popular religion in Vietnam are Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, Hoa Hao Buddhism, Caodaism, Protestant. But not all practice fully, most of them still go to temple or shrine, i think kind of more like superstitious than religious to me

In India there are more than 400 indigenous languages, and before the British to govern and unify them by building a rail network, they are diverse groups, each group lies under a Maharaja (prince), a sultan or a nawab (leadership nobility).So, By diverse languages, you can not stand in Delhi that speak to more than 40 percent of people at once. Many languages - such as Tamil and Punjabi - no historical link, and people speak this language will not understand people speaking another language. If you speak English, 200 million of the 1.2 billion people will be able to understand you. If you speak Hindi, you communicate with about 500 million people. If you speak Tamil, you only have 60 million or so people understand themselves. It is a major obstacle to India people to just communicate with other alone cause not all can speak the language, and many ethnic place different values. And important, the caste system that prevent many diferent ethnic and people to have common values, u can read more about it online. As i understand in India, government in Delhi can not ask the state government to do what central states want if state government themselves don't want, only VIP issue, yes mb. They do not depend on Central Government to be appointed to, that depends on the votes of the people where they are ruled. So not quite authority IMO, state level mb but not at national level

Traditional family values place very high in Japan right @Nihonjin1051, and i see many Japanese follow Shinton religion but it is kind of TB(traditional believe)?

With industrialization and the rise of postindustrial society, generational replacement makes self-expression values become more wide spread and countries with authoritarian regimes come under growing mass pressure for political liberalization. This process contributed to the dramatic Third Wave Democracy in the late 1980s and early 1990s and is one of the factors contributing to more recent processes of democratization.

Depend a lot on the government ability to adopt and govern, people get smarter, government also get smarter too, since govt come from people. Author should visit police state Singapore and study about their political hierchy. Theory not always work in real life

 

[William Hung]

Turkey is secular, but stands next to Pakistan (largely traditional) in the last chart.
Kazakhstan is secular?

How was the data compiled and based on what?

The data was compiled based on global surveys using a common questionaire:

The survey, which started in 1981, seeks to use the most rigorous, high-quality research designs in each country. The WVS consists of nationally representative surveys conducted in almost 100 countries which contain almost 90 percent of the world’s population, using a common questionnaire. The WVS is the largest non-commercial, cross-national, time series investigation of human beliefs and values ever executed, currently including interviews with almost 400,000 respondents. Moreover the WVS is the only academic study covering the full range of global variations, from very poor to very rich countries, in all of the world’s major cultural zones.

 

[William Hung]

@Yorozuya

Hm, the data not quite accurate for me, A lot of factor play around country law and history also like in Phillipine they have law ban on divorce and abortion, reference :World’s last legal ban on divorce doesn’t keep Philippines couples together - The Washington Post

Those diagrams charted the values of each country based on surveys that uses a common questionaire, not by looking at the laws of each country. And we should not judge the values of each country by its national law either. Prostitution is actually illegal in Thailand but we all know what it is like in reality for Thailand. P@rnography is illegal in Viet Nam but probably 80% of the adult population watches them lol. So no, you can’t judge the values of each country by looking at their national law.

China and S.Korea on self-rational values? S.Korea is very religious, should check data, more than half follow religion, traditional family values also place very high there, like China they also relatively authority for me and deference to authority also.

I don’t think South Koreans are generally that religious. Are you refering to data such as from those surveys that ask what religion people claim they belong to? Thats not a really accurate data to gauge how religious a country is. If it is so, France and Italy would have placed lower towards the traditional value pole than Vietnam because most French and Italian still identify themselve belonging to a religion in surveys, but in practice, religion doesnt influence them much.

South Korea has many fanatic religious people, yes, but they also have many people who identify with a religion but don’t practice it in real life (I’m talking from my interactions with Korean youths). The survey only ask if they practice their religion or not, and whether religion influenced them.

As for China, they have some fundamentalist religious people too but I agree with the survey that the vast majority of them are not religious. But thats my perspective and experience, I rather let the Chinese members comment on this.

China and India is very populous and different provinces place different values, so it look bullshit to me, especially India.

You made a good point about India, but lets see what their comments are regarding this survey. Same for China.

Thailand should be place more on Self-expression values. About Vietnam, they count religion with traditional believe as religious also? Most 5 popular religion in Vietnam are Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, Hoa Hao Buddhism, Caodaism, Protestant. But not all practice fully, most of them still go to temple or shrine, i think kind of more like superstitious than religious to me

First of all, I don’t agree with how they have created the x-axis with the survival-self expression dichotomy. The “self-expression” end is primarily a liberal view on social issues while the “survival” end is about theeconomic and national security. They should have kept the x-axis as either an economic/security dimension or a social dimension, then have the conservative and liberal views of that dimension on each end. I think they have made a mistake by combining the social/economical together because people can be concerned about both the economy and self-expression (or they cared about neither). So “security” and “self-expression” is not a good dichotomy, imo.

And having said that, I don’t think the Thais should be considered as more concerned about self-expression. They are still quite conservative when it comes to things like respecting the royal family and their Buddhist tradition, etc.

As for Viet Nam, I think religion or spirituality (or if you want to call it “superstition”) still play an influencial role for many Vietnamese, even if they don’t attend religious service regularly or identify with any official religion. You can see from time to time where the super rich spend lots of money sponsoring religious related events, etc. The government don’t want to admit this or they try to suppress it but the truth is many Vietnamese people have high regards (or superstitious beliefs) for religion. I have posted a link here a while ago where rich Vietnamese CEOs make regular visit to the Dalai Lama. The Vietnamese buddhists have paid big money for to built a big temple in Nepal. This is something that state media dont talk about.

So I don’t disagree with the chart. I do think the average Thai are more religious than the average Vietnamese but this is probably balanced out by the fact that Vietnamese are probably more socially conservative than the Thai so the Chart put Viet and Thai on a similar level.

But this is my perspective. Im from the northeast and I see many religious people (mainly Buddhist and Catholics). I’m now staying abroad and I see the oversea southern Vietnamese are also quite religious.

In India there are more than 400 indigenous languages, and before the British to govern and unify them by building a rail network, they are diverse groups, each group lies under a Maharaja (prince), a sultan or a nawab (leadership nobility).So, By diverse languages, you can not stand in Delhi that speak to more than 40 percent of people at once. Many languages - such as Tamil and Punjabi - no historical link, and people speak this language will not understand people speaking another language. If you speak English, 200 million of the 1.2 billion people will be able to understand you. If you speak Hindi, you communicate with about 500 million people. If you speak Tamil, you only have 60 million or so people understand themselves. It is a major obstacle to India people to just communicate with other alone cause not all can speak the language, and many ethnic place different values. And important, the caste system that prevent many diferent ethnic and people to have common values, u can read more about it online. As i understand in India, government in Delhi can not ask the state government to do what central states want if state government themselves don't want, only VIP issue, yes mb. They do not depend on Central Government to be appointed to, that depends on the votes of the people where they are ruled. So not quite authority IMO, state level mb but not at national level

Good point, Im not sure how they have quantified India’s data.

Depend a lot on the government ability to adopt and govern, people get smarter, government also get smarter too, since govt come from people. Author should visit police state Singapore and study about their political hierchy. Kind of like double edge game ?

Not all government come from the people. Not in North Korea, China, Viet Nam, etc.

In the case of China and Viet Nam, if the government are smart enough to adopt and govern in such a way to make the majority of the people happy enough not to overthrow them, then they can remain in power. But the Chinese and Vietnamese government currently does not “come from the people”, we are only given a very very limited voice to influence them. This is an international forum and people know about our reality bro. We should be honest about it not embarrass ourselves by lying and twisting facts like several Chinese members here tend to do.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Those diagrams charted the values of each country based on surveys that uses a common questionaire, not by looking at the laws of each country. And we should not judge the values of each country by its national law either. Prostitution is actually illegal in Thailand but we all know what it is like in reality for Thailand. P@rnography is illegal in Viet Nam but probably 80% of the adult population watches them lol. So no, you can’t judge the values of each country by looking at their national law.




I don’t think South Koreans are generally that religious. Are you refering to data such as from those surveys that ask what religion people claim they belong to? Thats not a really accurate data to gauge how religious a country is. If it is so, France and Italy would have placed lower towards the traditional value pole than Vietnam because most French and Italian still identify themselve belonging to a religion in surveys, but in practice, religion doesnt influence them much.

South Korea has many fanatic religious people, yes, but they also have many people who identify with a religion but don’t practice it in real life (I’m talking from my interactions with Korean youths). The survey only ask if they practice their religion or not, and whether religion influenced them.

As for China, they have some fundamentalist religious people too but I agree with the survey that the vast majority of them are not religious. But thats my perspective and experience, I rather let the Chinese members comment on this.



You made a good point about India, but lets see what their comments are regarding this survey. Same for China.



First of all, I don’t agree with how they have created the x-axis with the survival-self expression dichotomy. The “self-expression” end is primarily a liberal view on social issues while the “survival” end is about theeconomic and national security. They should have kept the x-axis as either an economic/security dimension or a social dimension, then have the conservative and liberal views of that dimension on each end. I think they have made a mistake by combining the social/economical together because people can be concerned about both the economy and self-expression (or they cared about neither). So “security” and “self-expression” is not a good dichotomy, imo.

And having said that, I don’t think the Thais should be considered as more concerned about self-expression. They are still quite conservative when it comes to things like respecting the royal family and their Buddhist tradition, etc.

As for Viet Nam, I think religion or spirituality (or if you want to call it “superstition”) still play an influencial role for many Vietnamese, even if they don’t attend religious service regularly or identify with any official religion. You can see from time to time where the super rich spend lots of money sponsoring religious related events, etc. The government don’t want to admit this or they try to suppress it but the truth is many Vietnamese people have high regards (or superstitious beliefs) for religion. I have posted a link here a while ago where rich Vietnamese CEOs make regular visit to the Dalai Lama. The Vietnamese buddhists have paid big money for to built a big temple in Nepal. This is something that state media dont talk about.

So I don’t disagree with the chart. I do think the average Thai are more religious than the average Vietnamese but this is probably balanced out by the fact that Vietnamese are probably more socially conservative than the Thai so the Chart put Viet and Thai on a similar level.

But this is my perspective. Im from the northeast and I see many religious people (mainly Buddhist and Catholics). I’m now staying abroad and I see the oversea southern Vietnamese are also quite religious.



Good point, Im not sure how they have quantified India’s data.



Not all government come from the people. Not in North Korea, China, Viet Nam, etc.

In the case of China and Viet Nam, if the government are smart enough to adopt and govern in such a way to make the majority of the people happy enough not to overthrow them, then they can remain in power. But the Chinese and Vietnamese government currently does not “come from the people”, we are only given a very very limited voice to influence them. This is an international forum and people know about our reality bro. We should be honest about it not embarrass ourselves by lying and twisting facts like several Chinese members here tend to do.

don't go into the representativeness of governments lol. it gets real complicated real fast. I hold the belief that every country gets the government it deserves and that every non hereditary, non fascist government is representative.

in terms of traditional vs. secular, based on the criteria given Chinese are not traditional especially in terms of religion and abortion. Chinese are traditional in other aspects not measured by the survey. I mean, China has the same divorce rate as Saudi Arabia, despite divorce laws that are within international norms, and death penalty has huge public support.

I think the interesting data comes from movements. check the position of China relative to other east asian countries. all east asian countries except Japan were clustered in top left for 20 years, then they start moving towards right when China stays. China moved towards lower right during 2008 but then moved back to the same relative position as 1996.

 

[JaiMin]

Those diagrams charted the values of each country based on surveys that uses a common questionaire, not by looking at the laws of each country. And we should not judge the values of each country by its national law either. Prostitution is actually illegal in Thailand but we all know what it is like in reality for Thailand. P@rnography is illegal in Viet Nam but probably 80% of the adult population watches them lol. So no, you can’t judge the values of each country by looking at their national law.




I don’t think South Koreans are generally that religious. Are you refering to data such as from those surveys that ask what religion people claim they belong to? Thats not a really accurate data to gauge how religious a country is. If it is so, France and Italy would have placed lower towards the traditional value pole than Vietnam because most French and Italian still identify themselve belonging to a religion in surveys, but in practice, religion doesnt influence them much.

South Korea has many fanatic religious people, yes, but they also have many people who identify with a religion but don’t practice it in real life (I’m talking from my interactions with Korean youths). The survey only ask if they practice their religion or not, and whether religion influenced them.

As for China, they have some fundamentalist religious people too but I agree with the survey that the vast majority of them are not religious. But thats my perspective and experience, I rather let the Chinese members comment on this.



You made a good point about India, but lets see what their comments are regarding this survey. Same for China.



First of all, I don’t agree with how they have created the x-axis with the survival-self expression dichotomy. The “self-expression” end is primarily a liberal view on social issues while the “survival” end is about theeconomic and national security. They should have kept the x-axis as either an economic/security dimension or a social dimension, then have the conservative and liberal views of that dimension on each end. I think they have made a mistake by combining the social/economical together because people can be concerned about both the economy and self-expression (or they cared about neither). So “security” and “self-expression” is not a good dichotomy, imo.

And having said that, I don’t think the Thais should be considered as more concerned about self-expression. They are still quite conservative when it comes to things like respecting the royal family and their Buddhist tradition, etc.

As for Viet Nam, I think religion or spirituality (or if you want to call it “superstition”) still play an influencial role for many Vietnamese, even if they don’t attend religious service regularly or identify with any official religion. You can see from time to time where the super rich spend lots of money sponsoring religious related events, etc. The government don’t want to admit this or they try to suppress it but the truth is many Vietnamese people have high regards (or superstitious beliefs) for religion. I have posted a link here a while ago where rich Vietnamese CEOs make regular visit to the Dalai Lama. The Vietnamese buddhists have paid big money for to built a big temple in Nepal. This is something that state media dont talk about.

So I don’t disagree with the chart. I do think the average Thai are more religious than the average Vietnamese but this is probably balanced out by the fact that Vietnamese are probably more socially conservative than the Thai so the Chart put Viet and Thai on a similar level.

But this is my perspective. Im from the northeast and I see many religious people (mainly Buddhist and Catholics). I’m now staying abroad and I see the oversea southern Vietnamese are also quite religious.



Good point, Im not sure how they have quantified India’s data.



Not all government come from the people. Not in North Korea, China, Viet Nam, etc.

In the case of China and Viet Nam, if the government are smart enough to adopt and govern in such a way to make the majority of the people happy enough not to overthrow them, then they can remain in power. But the Chinese and Vietnamese government currently does not “come from the people”, we are only given a very very limited voice to influence them. This is an international forum and people know about our reality bro. We should be honest about it not embarrass ourselves by lying and twisting facts like several Chinese members here tend to do.

Hey 1st of all, it mention in the research article i think, here:

The WVS consists of nationally representative surveys conducted in almost 100 countries which contain almost 90 percent of the world’s population, using a common questionnaire. The WVS is the largest non-commercial, cross-national, time series investigation of human beliefs and values ever executed, currently including interviews with almost 400,000 respondents. Moreover the WVS is the only academic study covering the full range of global variations, from very poor to very rich countries, in all of the world’s major cultural zones, Samples are drawn from the entire population of 18 years and older. The minimum sample is 1000. In most countries, no upper age limit is imposed and some form of stratified random sampling is used to obtain representative national samples.

1) That meant they interview like 4000 each country, that was not quite a big sample IMO, and it will depend a lot of the people who take questionaire as sample so small but give them credit to that as they do primary research not secondary type. Law in the country depend on the capacity of government in the country to enforce it and reaction from it citizen. U must agree that a lot of habit of people are form because of the law, law in some way does influence the culture of the country.

2) About S.Korea, i don't know why u think they are not religious, all the Korean i met go to church to pray every Friday and Saturday, good example might be Korean in Malaysia, they have their own church to go to pray and Korea government in many way in the past discriminate against people who follow Buddist in the past, Same like South Vietnam, those who follow Christian in the past enjoy priviledge over other religion. Got this article: 6 facts about Christianity in South Korea | Pew Research Center

3) The reason i think Thailand will be more on self-expression value is because if according to given criteria given: high priority to environmental protection, growing tolerance of foreigners, gays and lesbians. Thai will be rank higher than current ones. Good comic reference: Imgur

4) About Vietnam, i don't think government oppressed against Buddhism, Hoa Hao Buddhism, Caodaism. They host VESAK event every year. And Dalai Lama visit Vietnam not long ago, u should check the news, he give a talk with many students in secondary and high school.

And there are 6 countries that are forbidded to go to Tibet which are United Kingdom, Norway, South Korea, Austria, Philippines and Việt Nam. As Vietnamese, u should know Thích Nhật Hạnh, he was very famous nationally and have a good reputation at home and abroad. And buddist was largest supporter of nationalist movement in Vietnam, eg: Việt Minh, Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội, Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng. True, Protestant and Roman Catholic might get oppressed, but it is because of history matter, u know they co-operate with France in believe GOD is more important than NATION right, that why French got easy time take control over Central and South Vietnam and also South Vietnamese govt in Vietnam war are supporter of Catholic and Christian, they oppress all other religion. Given all that i think u can understand the relationship. In eyes of current govt of Vietnam, they might not see form of Christian religion in positive aspect. Also in new years, regardless of religion, all people go to shrine or temple to pray. But rly, in Việt Nam now it is more like folk-religion

5) Maybe old generation, a lot of party member are of younger generation and a lot of them are not the child of officer or have relationship with current one and people start to demand more power to Congress and Central committee, so yes, in future it might change. A lot of independence and non-party member in both union above already, people demand the rate 45%-50% but VCP only want kind of between 35-40%. Also i meant all kind of govt, not appointed to some countries, like Russia they still authorian govt despite had been hit by democracy wave

 

[William Hung]

don't go into the representativeness of governments lol. it gets real complicated real fast. I hold the belief that every country gets the government it deserves and that every non hereditary, non fascist government is representative.

lol I only mentioned that bit because Jaimin said that the government comes from the people and I don’t agree that is always necessarily true.

OK so I’ll only make a brief comment on this. @JaiMin this is for you too.

For both Viet Nam and China, I agree that the people are getting the govt it deserves. But I don’t agree that the govt is necessarily representative of the people, or that the current govt “comes from” or were created by the people. I believe that currently, the people are happy enough to not overthrow them. However, it may not be representative of the people or that there may be things about the govt that the majority don’t like (and there probably are), but it is not enough for the people to think its worth it to rise up to overthrow the govt. Either it is because the issue is too minor to make a fuss and/or the govt are enforcing a sufficient policy to deter people from trying to overthrow the govt for that specific issue (e.g. harassment and imprisonment of dissenters). So I don’t think that both the CCP and VCP are necessarily representative of the people, but the differences between them and what the people wanted are not big enough for the people to rise up to overthrow the govt. However, I do believe that when the differences become big enough and the people become too unhappy, they will have the ability to overthrow the govt. Currently, they choose not to. So this is why I agree that both people are getting the govt it deserves, but it is not necessarily true that the govt are representative of them.

in terms of traditional vs. secular, based on the criteria given Chinese are not traditional especially in terms of religion and abortion. Chinese are traditional in other aspects not measured by the survey. I mean, China has the same divorce rate as Saudi Arabia, despite divorce laws that are within international norms, and death penalty has huge public support.

I think the label (traditional/rational-secular) is not really good anyway and we should just look at the description of that label, which I assume are topics that the survey have focussed on.

Chinese traditionally are mainly secular anyway (at least compared to medieval Christian Europe or Islamic Middle East) so being religious like a fundamentalist Christian is not traditional for Chinese culture.

Besides, the label implies that being family oriented, anti-abortion, etc. is not being rational? thats not true.

I think the interesting data comes from movements. check the position of China relative to other east asian countries. all east asian countries except Japan were clustered in top left for 20 years, then they start moving towards right when China stays. China moved towards lower right during 2008 but then moved back to the same relative position as 1996.

Not just east asian countries but ALL asian countries including India and Pakistan has drifted right towards self-expression while China drifted left towards survival and have stayed there since.

The Chinese dream is strong lol.

Hey 1st of all, it mention in the research article i think, here:



1) That meant they interview like 4000 each country, that was not quite a big sample IMO, and it will depend a lot of the people who take questionaire as sample so small but give them credit to that as they do primary research not secondary type.

4000 is quite a large sample size (actually it depends on the country, with 1000 being the minimum sample size while the max size could be more than 4000 for a large country). It just all depends on how they select their sample, which they haven’t explained how. They did say they have designed the research in a rigorous manner. But imo, I think their methodology is quite sound given how they still get similar results after 3 surveys across a 20 years period. If their sample size were too small or if they had some other flaws, then the result would have been all over the place after 20 years.

Law in the country depend on the capacity of government in the country to enforce it and reaction from it citizen. U must agree that a lot of habit of people are form because of the law, law in some way does influence the culture of the country.

Law may have a limited influence on culture, but personally I think it is education (in school or at home) and how kids are raised that is the main influence on culture. Like I said about p@rnography law in VN or prostitution law in Thailand, it does not affect people much, people are gonna watch p@rn anyway. Other laws may deter people from doing something, but I dont think it is influecing culture. Most people dont abuse other people because they were raised to believe that doing such things are wrong, not because the civil law has conditioned them so. Those that were not raised that way, they will most likely abuse other people regardless of what the law say.

2) About S.Korea, i don't know why u think they are not religious, all the Korean i met go to church to pray every Friday and Saturday, good example might be Korean in Malaysia, they have their own church to go to pray and Korea government in many way in the past discriminate against people who follow Buddist in the past, Same like South Vietnam, those who follow Christian in the past enjoy priviledge over other religion. Got this article: 6 facts about Christianity in South Korea | Pew Research Center

Every ethnic group have their own church/temple to worship in most foreign countries, even the Vietnamese. You talked about Koreans that go to church but do you know how many more that dont go to church? only around 30% claim to be Christian anyway..and out of that 30%, a portion of them are by name only and dont go church regularly...and even those that go to church, have you seen the ones that go church on Sunday but party and drink the nights before? I’ve met plenty of those kind. The Korean Buddhists are even more nominal than the Korean Christians. So I dont think the majority of Koreans are religious.

3) The reason i think Thailand will be more on self-expression value is because if according to given criteria given: high priority to environmental protection, growing tolerance of foreigners, gays and lesbians. Thai will be rank higher than current ones. Good comic reference: Imgur

Well the chart do show that they are drifting towards the self-expression. Although I dont like how they put “survival values” in the opposite end as it means that the Thai care less about their economy/security, which is not true, because I see them being more nationalistic/patriotic than us Vietnamese. And they seem to be more strategic than us, Im not even sure if our economy will catch up to them...our football is falling behind lol. But yes, they care more about self-expression than us.

4) About Vietnam, i don't think government oppressed against Buddhism, Hoa Hao Buddhism, Caodaism. They host VESAK event every year. And Dalai Lama visit Vietnam not long ago, u should check the news, he give a talk with many students in secondary and high school.

Where did you read this? The Dalai Lama has not visited VN and I do not recall him visiting.

And there are 6 countries that are forbidded to go to Tibet which are United Kingdom, Norway, South Korea, Austria, Philippines and Việt Nam. As Vietnamese, u should know Thích Nhật Hạnh, he was very famous nationally and have a good reputation at home and abroad. And buddist was largest supporter of nationalist movement in Vietnam, eg: Việt Minh, Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội, Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng.

Well this was what I mean, Vietnamese is more religious than what it appears to be. Religion does not appear to be important because the media hardly talks about it, but it is quite influencial to many people.

True, Protestant and Roman Catholic might get oppressed, but it is because of history matter, u know they co-operate with France in believe GOD is more important than NATION right, that why French got easy time take control over Central and South Vietnam and also South Vietnamese govt in Vietnam war are supporter of Catholic and Christian, they oppress all other religion. Given all that i think u can understand the relationship. In eyes of current govt of Vietnam, they might not see form of Christian religion in positive aspect. Also in new years, regardless of religion, all people go to shrine or temple to pray. But rly, in Việt Nam now it is more like folk-religion

Thats not true. If that is the reason then the govt would not have any issue with Prostestantism as this branch of Christianity barely existed suring the French occupation. The reason the govt is suppressing Christianity is this: Christianity has a different worldview to the communist worldview. Both the communist worldview and the Christian worldview are totalitarian and they contradict each other. Totalitarian means it tells you how you ought to live in your work life, your family life, your political life, your private life, basically your whole life. Granted that Viet communism is no longer totalitarian in such a way that it tells you how you must live your private life, family life, etc. but there will still be areas where the communist worldview and Christian worldview will collide. This is the reason why the Viet govt is suppressing Christianity. And this is also why China is suppressing religion. The reason why Buddhism get less suppressed in VN is because Buddhism is relatively more passive and easier to pacify if the govt need to.

5) Maybe old generation, a lot of party member are of younger generation and a lot of them are not the child of officer or have relationship with current one and people start to demand more power to Congress and Central committee, so yes, in future it might change. A lot of independence and non-party member in both union above already, people demand the rate 45%-50% but VCP only want kind of between 35-40%

My view is the common sense one: when the people are no longer happy with the govt, whether due to the economy, security or behavior of the govt, etc. then they will overthrow the govt or pressure it to change. Right now, the majority dont feel the govt need to change so I also doubt the govt will reform.

 

[JaiMin]

lol I only mentioned that bit because Jaimin said that the government comes from the people and I don’t agree that is always necessarily true.

OK so I’ll only make a brief comment on this. @JaiMin this is for you too.

For both Viet Nam and China, I agree that the people are getting the govt it deserves. But I don’t agree that the govt is necessarily representative of the people, or that the current govt “comes from” or were created by the people. I believe that currently, the people are happy enough to not overthrow them. However, it may not be representative of the people or that there may be things about the govt that the majority don’t like (and there probably are), but it is not enough for the people to think its worth it to rise up to overthrow the govt. Either it is because the issue is too minor to make a fuss and/or the govt are enforcing a sufficient policy to deter people from trying to overthrow the govt for that specific issue (e.g. harassment and imprisonment of dissenters). So I don’t think that both the CCP and VCP are necessarily representative of the people, but the differences between them and what the people wanted are not big enough for the people to rise up to overthrow the govt. However, I do believe that when the differences become big enough and the people become too unhappy, they will have the ability to overthrow the govt. Currently, they choose not to. So this is why I agree that both people are getting the govt it deserves, but it is not necessarily true that the govt are representative of them.



I think the label (traditional/rational-secular) is not really good anyway and we should just look at the description of that label, which I assume are topics that the survey have focussed on.

Chinese traditionally are mainly secular anyway (at least compared to medieval Christian Europe or Islamic Middle East) so being religious like a fundamentalist Christian is not traditional for Chinese culture.

Besides, the label implies that being family oriented, anti-abortion, etc. is not being rational? thats not true.



Not just east asian countries but ALL asian countries including India and Pakistan has drifted right towards self-expression while China drifted left towards survival and have stayed there since.

The Chinese dream is strong lol.



4000 is quite a large sample size (actually it depends on the country, with 1000 being the minimum sample size while the max size could be more than 4000 for a large country). It just all depends on how they select their sample, which they haven’t explained how. They did say they have designed the research in a rigorous manner. But imo, I think their methodology is quite sound given how they still get similar results after 3 surveys across a 20 years period. If their sample size were too small or if they had some other flaws, then the result would have been all over the place after 20 years.



Law may have a limited influence on culture, but personally I think it is education (in school or at home) and how kids are raised that is the main influence on culture. Like I said about p@rnography law in VN or prostitution law in Thailand, it does not affect people much, people are gonna watch p@rn anyway. Other laws may deter people from doing something, but I dont think it is influecing culture. Most people dont abuse other people because they were raised to believe that doing such things are wrong, not because the civil law has conditioned them so. Those that were not raised that way, they will most likely abuse other people regardless of what the law say.



Every ethnic group have their own church/temple to worship in most foreign countries, even the Vietnamese. You talked about Koreans that go to church but do you know how many more that dont go to church? only around 30% claim to be Christian anyway..and out of that 30%, a portion of them are by name only and dont go church regularly...and even those that go to church, have you seen the ones that go church on Sunday but party and drink the nights before? I’ve met plenty of those kind. The Korean Buddhists are even more nominal than the Korean Christians. So I dont think the majority of Koreans are religious.



Well the chart do show that they are drifting towards the self-expression. Although I dont like how they put “survival values” in the opposite end as it means that the Thai care less about their economy/security, which is not true, because I see them being more nationalistic/patriotic than us Vietnamese. And they seem to be more strategic than us, Im not even sure if our economy will catch up to them...our football is falling behind lol. But yes, they care more about self-expression than us.



Where did you read this? The Dalai Lama has not visited VN and I do not recall him visiting.



Well this was what I mean, Vietnamese is more religious than what it appears to be. Religion does not appear to be important because the media hardly talks about it, but it is quite influencial to many people.



Thats not true. If that is the reason then the govt would not have any issue with Prostestantism as this branch of Christianity barely existed suring the French occupation. The reason the govt is suppressing Christianity is this: Christianity has a different worldview to the communist worldview. Both the communist worldview and the Christian worldview are totalitarian and they contradict each other. Totalitarian means it tells you how you ought to live in your work life, your family life, your political life, your private life, basically your whole life. Granted that Viet communism is no longer totalitarian in such a way that it tells you how you must live your private life, family life, etc. but there will still be areas where the communist worldview and Christian worldview will collide. This is the reason why the Viet govt is suppressing Christianity. And this is also why China is suppressing religion. The reason why Buddhism get less suppressed in VN is because Buddhism is relatively more passive and easier to pacify if the govt need to.



My view is the common sense one: when the people are no longer happy with the govt, whether due to the economy, security or behavior of the govt, etc. then they will overthrow the govt or pressure it to change. Right now, the majority dont feel the govt need to change so I also doubt the govt will reform.

1) I no way see how 4000 is big sample size for country with population more than 10million, they don't explain how they conduct it, also people who do the questionaire might be same people or people in a family or organisation? they possibly have relatively same POV and see life in same len or some area near capital or big city only ?

2) Law i said in some way can influence culture, it is definitely one factor, you can read this, true education is important but people around them shape their habit in many way more. "Gần mực thì đen gần đèn thì sáng" as they say.Source:
http://biblio.juridicas.unam.mx/libros/1/469/3.pdf,
mối quan hệ giửa văn hóa và luật .Để... - Đại học luật Trà vinh | Facebook

3) You do know that they are 2nd largest Christian community in % to population in Asia after Philippine rigtht? In many way S.Korea IMO is religious society. There was once a senior pastor of the United States, has been constant half-century missionaries in countries in Asia, sharing her opinion: "We have missionaries in Asia more than 200 years, but except South Korea, no other country has been 10% of the population is Protestant, and most countries have less than 1% of the population is Protestant. " Also you should read this thing about South Vietnam and why CPV and many people in different religion hold hatred against them, they openly discriminate their fellow and compatriot and give priviledge to those follow Protestant and Catholic. One of the reason of their downfall despite receive relatively huge aid by U.S.A compare to N.Vietnam.
Here

In a country where surveys of the religious composition estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Ngô Đình Diệm's policies generated claims of religious bias. As a member of the Catholic minority, he pursued policies which antagonized and disenfranchised the Buddhist majority. The government was biased towards Catholics in public service and military promotions, and the allocation of land, business favors and tax concessions. Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting the man was from a Buddhist background, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the "Army of Republic of Vietnam" converted to Catholicism to better their prospects.The distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias intended to repel Việt Cộng guerrillas saw weapons only given to Catholics. Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and in some areas forced conversions occurred. Some villages converted en masse in order to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime. The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country, and its holdings were exempt from reform and given extra property acquisition rights, while restrictions against Buddhism remained in force. Catholics were also de facto exempt from the corvée labor that the government obliged all citizens to perform; U.S. aid was disproportionately distributed to Catholic majority villages. In 1959, Diem dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary.

The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam. The newly constructed Huế and Đà Lạt universities were placed under Catholic authority to foster a Catholic-influenced academic environment.

In May 1963, in the central city of Huế, where Diệm's elder brother Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục was archbishop, Buddhists were prohibited from displaying Buddhist flags during Vesak celebrations. A few days earlier, Catholics were encouraged to fly religious flags at a celebration in honour of Thục. This led to a protest against the government, which was suppressed by Diệm's forces, killing nine civilians. This led to a mass campaign against Diệm's government during the Buddhist crisis, and Diệm was deposed and assassinated on 2 November 1963.

Here also interesting Article in Vietnamese:
Tại sao nhiều người Tin Lành Việt Nam có suy nghĩ và lời xúc phạm các tôn giáo khác? | Đọt Chuối Non
Bành trướng tôn giáo và bảo vệ văn hóa bản xứ | Đọt Chuối Non

4) Thai is nationalistic? Mb, everybody all over the world does but not Thai so ultra-nationalistic. But I don't think so compare with it neighbours, they and Laos are kind of mild and peaceful..

5) Yes media is not talking about it unless event are hosted or take place. But most info you can find online, but my point is religion in our country is kind of merge with folk-religion, everyone regardless of religion still worship ancestor and go to shrine or temple in New Year, that why i think it is superficial

6) Yes that was also one reason government are not so cozy with Catholic, Protestant, but it is one of many reason only. If people whose think their religion has been suppressed, they mostly go online and raise issue -(most people do that nowaday) and the site is not block or censor by government, government don't create Firewall like the one in China and 60% of our population can have access to Internet now compare to few years ago thank to free Internet in many place. The ones that been blocked in Vietnam mostly are blog-the one with extreme view oppose to CPV, some oversea Vietnamese website that involve political issue,... Not many people watch news from TV nowaday especially New Generation, the one born after 1994, most of them watch it on Internet on their phone or computer

7) Pre-2009, before the world crisis hit our country yes, very few people raise issue with government, But after 2009, many does raise the issue and demand government a lot to change.Only recently the economy seem to recover and slowly take old part after it takes shit in 2008 and 2012. You can read this, quite interesting: Regime Critics: Democratization Advocates in Vietnam, 1990s–2014 by Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet

8) Christican and French colonalisation site, quite detail:
Vietnam and the French by Sanderson Beck

 

[William Hung]

And Dalai Lama visit Vietnam not long ago, u should check the news, he give a talk with many students in secondary and high school.

@JaiMin I will reply to your previous post later but can you provide source to back up this claim?

I do not recall the Dalai Lama visiting Viet Nam and I’ve searched the internet and nothing verifies your claim. This interests me because I am a fan of Tibetan Buddhism so I want to know.

 

[JaiMin]

@JaiMin I will reply to your previous post later but can you provide source to back up this claim?

I do not recall the Dalai Lama visiting Viet Nam and I’ve searched the internet and nothing verifies your claim. This interests me because I am a fan of Tibetan Buddhism so I want to know.

Đức Đạt Lai Lạt Ma Thăm Little Saigon | Phật giáo Việt Nam Lol op mistake he visit little Saigon, i misread it as Saigon

 

[William Hung]

Đức Đạt Lai Lạt Ma Thăm Little Saigon | Phật giáo Việt Nam Lol op mistake he visit little Saigon, i misread it as Saigon

I knew it. If he had visited Viet Nam, I would be there fighting to be the first one to shake his hand.