Searching for Vietnam among different worlds: reading Alexander Woodside’s Vietnam and the Chinese model

Abstract

Where did Vietnam begin? What was its past identity? Which world did Minh Menh emperor and Hue elite live? Was it different from one that belonged to thousands of local peasants whose found the scripts of the Sages alien? Alexander Woodside’s Vietnam and the Chinese Model: A Comparative Study of Nguyen and Ch'ing Civil Government in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (1971 [1988]) sheds light on those questions by investigating Nguyen and Qing political cultures. He argues that early 19th century Vietnam was operated based on two cultural and political traditions, namely Southeast Asian-ness and Chinese-ness.