Modern Vietnamese Culture and Society – MVCS is one of the five Core course at Fulbright. This course equips students with an understanding of modern Vietnam, from cultural, social, political aspects to international relations in the regional and global context.
“Studying MVCS is like constantly seeking the answer “why” of what is happening in Vietnam – things that I used to take for granted and have never questioned to understand the process and significance of those things,” Truc Anh, a student of the 2024 cohort, shared.
At the end of the semester, students will implement final projects to research various but practical topics, such as: why our grandparents and parents listened to bolero; why young people no longer like Cai luong as their grandparents do; why the word “Hieu” ranks first; why we sing the National Anthem on Monday morning; why our country is called Vietnam,…
Let’s explore this class through the experiences and perspectives of Truc Anh!
At Fulbright, the method of studying history always encourages student’s initiative. The hard-to-remember events in the textbooks from high school become lively and interconnected between periods when I study MVCS. History becomes more interesting when I get to “live” fully in the story instead of just seeing snippets.
One valuable skill I learned from the MVCS is objective assessment by opening up multiple perspectives and viewpoints from domestic to international. Through deep analysis of the context, listening to diverse perspectives, interacting with scholars who dedicated their careers to studying the S-shaped country, I understood why the same “reality” can have different perspectives.
Studying history objectively is also like learning to become a citizen who is empathetic to the worries and difficulties of our ancestors when they made important decisions in history, from the past and even now. Therefore, when looking at the strengths or limitations of the country, I still feel proud because that is the beauty of a rising nation.
Thanks to this, I have maintained my historical stance while also having a more sympathetic view of history from various aspects. From there, if I see something not good, I will investigate the situation behind that choice, to understand and have a more accurate assessment.
The image I remember most in the MVCS class is when students chat with people who are much older or younger, or have different living conditions and circumstances. The only commonality to connect us is that we are all Vietnamese. These conversations took us through different pages of life: street vendors, overseas Vietnamese away from their homeland, ancient artisans,… From there, we grew up with more empathy in this land.
Each day is an “a-ha” moment when exploring deep perspectives for topics that I thought were extremely ordinary. When really studying, I understand that to have such a “ordinary” reality, there have been many “extraordinary” efforts taking place.
Especially the way students convey those conversations into documentary films for final projects. I greatly admire the way the documentaries of the groups show respect to everyone, every subject. Take a lottery ticket seller on the street for example, they may just feel they are “chattering” with some kids. However, their words have actually become a source of learning, valuable data, and are reproduced with a lot of respect in our final projects.
MVCS actually covers many aspects of a country, not just the history of armed battles. The MVCS final project topics are freely choosing, depending on the level of interest and expertise of the students. Therefore, knowledge used for analysis ranges from economics, technology, psychology, literature, arts,…
In the second year, when studying Exploratory courses, I realized that professors also often ask application questions with the context of Vietnam. This has formed my thinking pattern until now. If any subject has an assignment type that allows choosing the topic, I will intentionally ask questions about Vietnam.
Furthermore, social issues in Vietnam also need much attention in science to search for suitable solutions. I believe that people who were born and grew up in Vietnam like us are the pioneering group who dare to do that.
