HansenName ______
VietnamPer ______
Review of Early Vietnamese History(Prep for Unit One Test)
Vietnam is a country that is bordered by ___China_____ (a country) to the north, and Laos and __Cambodia____ (a country) to the ___West______(a direction). To the East is the ___South China_Sea. Vietnam itself is shaped like a giant ‘S’ and has two ‘rice bowls’ where all the food is produced. The northern ‘rice bowl’ centers around the _____Red River_ (a geographic feature) and its largest present day city is called __Hanoi__. The southern ‘rice bowl’ is centeredon the _Mekong _River and has a large modern city known as __Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City______.
The earliest Vietnamese civilization started in the __Northern__ (a direction) part of the country, but before it really had a chance to get off the ground, the early Viet were conquered by the __Chinese__ (a nationality) and ruled for __1000______years. The Vietnamese often rebelled against these foreign invaders. In fact, many of the heroes of Vietnamese culture are these very same rebels. When the Vietnamese finally won their freedom, they still retained elements of their earlier masters in both their form of government: ______Mandarinism/Meritocracy (with an emperor)___ (a description of this form of government) and in a cultural/religious tradition known as ____Confucianism __. This faith tradition emphasized a rigid set of rules and was particularly intense on maintaining proper social relationships between those who were __superior____ (say, a teacher) and those who were ___inferior______(say, Alex Nelson).
After winning their independence, the Vietnamese themselves imperialized others as they expanded ___southward___ (a direction). For example, they conquered the Cham people whohad come originally from the country of __India __, and the Khmer/Angorians, who fled before the Vietnamese expansion and moved to the present day country of ___Cambodia__. The Vietnamese took the land of these people, but were in turn influenced by their culture. For example, the Vietnamese were influenced by the religious traditions of the Cham, clear today because of the large numbers of __Buddhists__ (a religion) in Vietnam. According to this religion, people could reach nirvana, a term meaning ‘oneness with the universe’, by ______releasing human desire and meditation__. This religion,along with both Confucianism and the lifestyle of rice farming in general, all contributed to Vietnam’s development of a very non-Western emphasis on the importance of the _community__over the importance of the _____individual__.
In the 1500s, early Europeans began to arrive in Vietnam. This caused a culture clash between European or ‘_Western__’ civilization and Asian or ‘__Eastern_’ civilization. The clash was especially powerful, because before the journeys of the Italian explorer ___Marco Polo______, the two cultures had had very little contact for a thousand years. European traders were interesting in the riches of Asia, but originally they were unable to demand them, because they were vulnerable to __diseases/local weapons, hostile trade routes, etc.___ (there are several appropriate things you might write in this blank). The low status of the Europeans in the eyes of Asians might be best seen through a Chinese Emperor’s ‘Letter to a __Barbarian__King’ in the year 1793. From this letter, it is clear that the Chinese Emperor thought he had little to gain by __trade__with the Europeans. However, this letter was not such a great idea. The Chinese Emperor (Quin Long) couldn’t have known it at the time, but events transpiring in Europe at the time, most importantly the ___Industrial Revolution__ (a historical transformation), would soon make the Europeans a much more potent force to be reckoned with. European susceptibility to diseases was soon greatly decreased with the discovery of __quinine______(a medicine).
Europeans were soon able to dominate Africa and Asia, and quickly did so in a historical event that has been termed ‘New Imperialism’ to distinguish it from the early conquest of the Americas after Columbus. During the New Imperialism, France conquered three countries: Vietnam, __Cambodia__, and Laos, and named them as a group ____FrenchIndochina__. The French were mainly interested in this area because of the wealth that it could bring them, but they convinced themselves that they were actually there to _____help the Vietnamese______, an idea that the British would refer to as ‘White Man’s Burden’ and the French termed the ____mission civilatrice__. The Vietnamese were unable to resist the superior French weapons, and were soon reduced to slavery in all but name. As a matter of fact, some were referred to as ___fertilizer______for rubber trees because of the working conditions they endured. The later leader of North Vietnam during the French and American wars there, a man named ____Ho Chi Minh______, was greatly influenced by the treatment of his people by the French. Although he left Vietnam in his early adulthood, he was always eager to winhis native country its independence.
World War I brought the first realistic opportunity for this independence. The three main victors of the war (the U.S., _France_____ (2nd country) and ___Britain______(3rd country) had seemed to promise freedom for the colonies as part of Woodrow Wilson’s plan known as __self-determination______. However, it soon became apparent that this president, an unabashed racist, had never meant to include __non-whites______in his policies, and moreover, the other victors in the war were strictly opposed to Asian or African independence because they saw these colonies as ____sources of revenues to rebuild after WWI______(I’m looking for the main reason the colonies weren’t going to be freed.) At the ___Paris Peace Conference/Treaty of Versailles_, the name of the post-World-War-I conference, the victorious parties decided on a colonial policy known as the Mandate System, which basically said ___Colonies would be freed when they were ‘ready’ (which would be never, as determined by the imperial masters)_____.
The future North Vietnamese leader, living in Paris at this time, had tried to meet with Wilson, but was turned away. This greatly changed the life of this future leader, who soon after joined the __Communists______(a political group), which he saw as more responsive to _____the needs of the Imperialized__.This leader toured Europe, Asia, and America, waiting for just the right moment to reenter Vietnam. This moment came in the early 1940s with the start of World War I. This time period was perfect, because Vichy France, the __French puppet government under the Nazis______(a definition of VichyFrance), was in power, which was a clear opportunity, since __this gov was unlikely to mount a serious defense of Vietnam______. Japan eventually conquered Vietnam during the war. The Vietnamese leader who had recently reentered the country, decided to support the __U.S.____ (Japan or U.S.?) over __Japan______(Japan or U.S.? during World War II because ___he felt that the Japanese would be much harder to evict later___ ( his rationale for his choice of allies). The O.S.S., an earlier version of the _CIA__, declared that this Vietnamese leader was a _nationalist_____ first and a _ccommunist_ second, an assessment that the U.S. would seem to forget later when it saw Vietnam as a Communist puppet. At the end of the war, there seemed to be several reasons for the U.S. and Vietnam to be pals. First of all, the great American wartime president __FDR_ (his name) believed the country deserved its independence. Also, Ho Chi Minh, in declaring his country’s independence, clearly sought America’s support, which is clear in his decision to __quote extensively from the American Declaration of Independence___.
Oh, by the way, currently Vietnam is culturally divided between north and south, with the ______half of the country the more traditional, conservative half. Also, for about six months of every year in Vietnam, there are torrents of rain known as ______(couldn’t think of where else to stick these facts). Also J_ke McCartney sucks.