Academic writing

ENGLISH SKILLS 1
10.501

Term 2 2013

Lecturer : Nonna Danchenko

Assignment 1
Western influence on your culture
Due: Thursday 19th September 2013

Student Name: NGO, Nguyen Phuong Thao Student ID: S2133219

Western culture influence on Vietnamese culture

Each country in this world has its own unique culture, but due to the worldwide domination of the Western countries, which are famous for their unique types of entertainment, their fashionable clothes, and their delicious dishes, most cultures are affected significantly, including Viet Nam. Since Viet Nam became independent country, the government tried their best to develop the country by opening for foreigner’s investment. Therefore, the economy and the education in Viet Nam have been improved dramatically and obviously have been affected by foreign culture. Nowadays, Western culture has influenced my country in four main aspects, which are fashion, education, architecture and lifestyle.

Firstly, style in fashion of the West becomes more popular than Vietnamese traditional clothes. In the past, Vietnamese people always had to wear traditional apparel even if it is formal occasions or not. Nowadays, because of the convenience and the comfort of Western clothes, Vietnamese people prefer to wear it daily. They bring many changes to Vietnamese’s viewpoint of fashion and shorten the usage of traditional clothes. These kinds of clothes make the dressing style of Vietnamese people more fashionable and lose its unique points. However, traditional costumes of the native people, which still be remained in their core, always be worn in special occasions such as Tet holiday and Independent day. Therefore, the next Vietnamese generations should always maintain its traditional dressing style in the future in order not to lose the specialties of their country.

Secondly, Viet Nam’s educational system has turned into international standard of academic. People strongly believe that everything starts from education so that it is the top priority of all countries in the world. Besides, most of developed countries are located in the West such as England, Germany and America. That is the reason why lots of countries always want to apply educational methods of the West, including my country. Also, English is an international language that everyone in the world has been using to communicate. In Viet Nam, children are taught English at very young ages because English is a compulsory subject at schools. Beyond, parents take their children to learn English outside of school with the desire to have better working opportunities in the future. In addition, there are many open-campus programs held for teachers, students and educational staffs to visit and get more practical experiences from developed educational system in the West. For those reasons, many international schools have been opened in Viet Nam to fulfill the needs of exposing and improving education standards.

Thirdly, most of architectural works in Viet Nam are based on French’s style in design. Due to the domination of French from 1884 to 1945, Vietnamese architecture was replaced gradually by the French architectural style. As the result, in recent times, traditional architectures still exist but only in certain area such as ancient towns and some provinces. Also, mega cities and skyscrapers with the modern structure are everything we can see when entering Vietnam’s streets. This can be understood easily that most Vietnamese designers are being affected by the simplicity and the convenience when using the Western design. As a result, Vietnamese current constructions have been influenced significantly by the Western style. Some people, however, still want to keep the national identity so they use the same kind of old architecture for some of their constructions. This is a good sight for Vietnam because the Vietnamese younger generations can still see those traditional buildings.

Finally, there is another influence from Western countries on Vietnam called carefree attitude, which have affected their people’s lives dramatically. In the old times, men and women were not allowed to stand so close together because they would be against the strict viewpoint of Vietnamese people. Most Vietnamese teenagers nowadays are affected by Western way actions. As a result, they copy many bad behaviors such as over sexual skin ship. In addition, teenagers also think that they can give everything when they are in love. Therefore, teenagers involve seriously in school’s gender problems, which resulted in abortion. Teenagers do believe that approaching Western culture is totally good for their life and may also approve their ego, but unfortunately it is not a way of life that is consistent with Vietnamese culture.

In conclusion, Western culture brings both advantages and disadvantages. It is believed that Vietnamese people should approach the good aspects and try to avoid the bad effects. In fact, because of globalization, Western culture has brought many benefits such as education, economy, facilities and so on. In my point of view, there should be significant solutions to maintain traditional elements before the risk continues to affect Vietnamese culture.