YeinJee's Asian Journal

7 Responses to “Statue of Emperor Ly Thai To, Hanoi”

1. kyon on July 29th, 2008 at 1:27am

   the statue looks like a chinese emperor.

2. Anonymous on July 29th, 2008 at 4:46am

   Vietnam used to be called Indo ‘China’.

3. bb on July 29th, 2008 at 10:37am

   agree with kyon, lol.

4. Yein Jee on July 29th, 2008 at 12:48pm

   Indochina is just a geographic reference… the China-Vietnam relationship could be dated far back before the name Indochina was coined.

   Both nations have been interacting for thousand of years… if it’s not for the bravery of the ancient Vietnamese, we could very well be seeing Vietnam as part of China now. It has been a love-hate relationship for centuries.

   Lots of the Southeast Asian culture are influenced by both China and India, and later the Islamic influence… and Hanoi being that close to the Chinese border, will certainly see lots of similarities with the Chinese in terms of lifestyle and tradition.

5. John Smith on August 24th, 2008 at 2:59pm

   It’s not just Hanoi’s culture but Vietnam’s as a whole. That’s what happens after 1,000 years of rule.
   And that costume the emperor is wearing looks Chinese but it is accurate, in fact pretty much the exact same costume was also worn by emperors in Japan and Korea.

6. John Smith on August 24th, 2008 at 2:59pm

   Vietnamese culture has many of its indigenous distinctions however. Much of the Chinese influence is surface-level.

7. Yein Jee on August 24th, 2008 at 6:32pm

   Thanks for the note John. I guess the Chinese influence in just the basic; the Vietnamese culture must have evolved quite a lot over the years.

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