MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

======

ASSIGNMENT ON
INTERCULTURE
COMMUNICATION
COMPARING VIETNAMESE NATIONAL HOLIDAYS TO THE AMERICAN COUNTERPART
( SO SÁNH NGÀY LỄ CỦA NGƯỜI VIỆT VÀ NGÀY LỄ CỦA NGƯỜI MỸ )

Supervisor: MA. Vũ Tuấn Anh

Hanoi, 2017

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support
from a number of people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Mr Vu
Tuan Anh, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me
through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and
suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic
researcher.
A special word of thanks goes to other teachers of the Faculty of English
at Hanoi Open University for their ideas, support, encouragement and help in
supplying materials and their valuable suggestion for me to have this thesis
accomplished.
Thanks for encouraging of the students in Group of English language
courses K23A1 to help me overcome difficulties to complete this thesis.
Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family for the sacrifice they
have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work.
This thesis cannot avoid limitation, so I wish to receive comments and
opinions to make it better.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENT 1
CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION . 4
CHAPTER 2 : DEVELOPMENT : 5
1. Theory background : 5
1.1 Definition of “national holiday” . 5
1.2 Classify holidays in both culture . 6
2. Comparing Vietnamese holidays to American holidays : 7
2.1 Culture holidays : 7
2.1.1 New year’s day and Tet. 7
2.1.2 Holiday with religous influence. 9
2.2 Holiday of the state : 11
2.2.1 Independence day. 11
2.2.2 The Hung Kings commemoration and Columbus day 13
CHAPTER 3: CONCLUSION. 14
CHAPTER 4: REFERENCES 15

A scientific notice

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Hanoi Open University, Ha Noi

Date: 25th November 2017

NOTICE
The Annual Scientific Research Forum of Students
On the occasion of Annual Scientific Research Forum organized by the Faculty of
English at Hanoi Open University, student Nguyen Xuan Huy, class K23A1 has
decided to present a topic:. All of students of K23 of the Faculty are requested to
attend the presentation:

in the scientific rearch conference room of FOE

on 15 Dec 2016 at 8.am
to dicuss about presentation.

Signature

(Secretary, FOE)

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 CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION
Reasonable

The word ‘holiday’ is very pleasing to our ears. We are very glad when we
get holidays like the summer vacation and vacation give us more pleasure.
Object of holidays -We work hard during the working days of the school and
work place. Just as sleep is necessary for our body similarly holidays are
important for relaxation and change – they provide relief from the monotony of
our daily routine. They are important for our mental and emotional well being.
Holidays give us a break from our routine and help us to refresh ourselves and
go back to work with renewed energy. They are not only meant for enjoying but
also for gathering of families and friends, or even to commemorated an event or
some one.
Turn back the hands of time, there are several different holidays
throughout the year, which are celebrated in a variety of ways. The holiday
represents different things to different people cause of religion, culture, or family
traditions. Holiday has very much the same meaning in both Viet Nam and the
U.S but the way Vietnamese and American celebrate their holidays are quite
different. And with the current globalization process, different cultures can
influence each other much more and people from different country can
experience another culture right in their home. This spark a need for culture
understanding and thus bring us to the decision of analyzing the similarities and
differences of holidays in Vietnamese culture and American culture.

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 PART 2 : DEVELOPMENT

1. Theory background :
1.1 The definition of “national holiday” :
The Oxford dictionary define the word as such: “A nationally recognized
day when most businesses and other institutions are closed ”. This is also can be
known as “public holiday”.
While according to Wikipedia.com, National holiday refer to:

1) National Day, a day when a nation celebrates a very important event in its

history, such as its establishment.

2) Public holiday, a holiday established by law, usually a day off for at least a

portion of the workforce, such as federal employees.

The way we refer national holiday in this assignment is closer to that of a public holiday
which is is a holiday generally established by law and is usually a non-working day during
the year. Sovereign nations and territories observe holidays based on events of significance to
their history
This could also include civic holiday which is a day that
is legally recognized and celebrated as a holiday in a particular sovereign
state or jurisdictional subdivision of such, e.g., a state or a province. It is usually
a day that the legislature, parliament, congress, or sovereign has declared
by statute, edict, or decree as a non-working day when the official arms
of government such as the court system are closed. In federal states there may
also be different holidays for the constituent states or provinces,. Such days may
or may not be counted in calculating the statute of limitations in legal actions

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and are usually days when non-custodial parents are given alternating visitation
or access to their children from a prior marriage or relationship according to a
parenting schedule.

1.2 Classify holidays in both cultures :

-In the the United State, a country with multiple people from difference
ethnic groups of the world come together, each of them have their own holidays
and culture, we can put the holidays in 2 groups:
Federal holiday which the U.S government specified which are :
 Christmas
 Thanksgiving
 Independence Day (Fourth of July)
 New Year's Day (New Year's Eve)
 Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
 Inauguration Day
 Washington's Birthday
 Memorial Day
 Labor Day
 Columbus Day
 Veterans Day
And holiday which is set by states or celebrate by a majority of the
population but the government doesn’t specified such as Valentine day,
Halloween, St.Patrick’s day, April fools, Easter, …etc

The same goes for the government of Viet Nam with 6 total holidays :
 New Year’s Day

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 Lunar New Year
 Day of Triumph ( Southern Liberation Day )
 Labor Day
 Independence Day
 The Hung Kings commemoration Day
-The major difference here is that Vietnamese also celebrate holidays in lunar calender
as well as those in the solar calender. This stem from the major influence come from the
Chinese in Classical, Feudal and Medieval era.

2. Comparing Vietnamese holidays to American holidays :

2.1 Culture holidays :
2.1.1 New year’s day and Tet:
- New year’s eve and New year’s day are very important to the people of
Western country, not only in America
In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve (also known as Old Year's Day or Saint
Sylvester's Day in many countries), the last day of the year, is on December 31 which is
the seventh day of the Christmas season. In many countries, New Year's Eve is celebrated at
evening social gatherings, where many people dance, eat, drink alcoholic beverages, and
watch or light fireworks to mark the new year. Some Christians attend a watchnight service.
The celebrations generally go on past midnight into New Year's Day, January 1.
In the United States, New Year's Eve is celebrated with formal parties, family-oriented
activities, and other large public events.
The most prominent celebration in the country is the "ball drop" held in New York
City's Times Square. Inspired by the time balls that were formerly used as a time signal.
New Year's Day, also called simply New Year's or New Year, is observed on January 1,
the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar.

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 In present day, New Year's Day is probably the most celebrated public holiday, often
observed with fireworks at the stroke of midnight as the new year starts in each time zone.
Other global New Year's Day traditions include making New Year's resolutions and calling
one's friends and family.

(New
year’s eve in the
Time Square and street of New York,)
2.1
- While Vietnamese also celebrate New Year’s Day, the biggest and most celebrate
holiday must be Tet - Vietnamese New Year, by lunar calender.
Tet is generally celebrated on the same day as Chinese New Year, except when the one-
hour time difference between Vietnam and China results in new moon occurring on different
days. It takes place from the first day of the first month of the Vietnamese calendar (around
late January or early February) until at least the third day. Many Vietnamese prepare for Tet
by cooking special holiday food and cleaning the house. These foods include banh chung or
banh day, dried young bamboo soup and sticky rice. Many customs are practices during Tet,
such as visiting a person's house on the first day of the new year , ancestor worship, wishing
New Year's greetings, giving lucky money to children and elderly people, and opening a shop.
Tet is also an occasion for pilgrims and family reunions. They start forgetting about the
troubles of the past year and hope for a better upcoming year. Vietnamese consider Tet to be
the first day of spring and throw many spring festival during this period.

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 (Vietnamese traditional decoration for Tet )
2.2
2.1.2 Holidays with religious influence:
In Viet Nam, the most influential religion is Buddhism, and holidays got influenced a lot
from it. As lots of culture festival in Viet Nam are in form of worshiping certain people that
were given the title of saint or gods and Buddah in temple and pagodas. People often
pilgrimage with possesty to pray for themself and their family. With festival such as : Phu Day
festival, Hai Ba Trung festival, Ba Chua Su festival, etc…… or it could be holiday such as :
- Vu Lan : a day to show filial to one’s parent and to pray for the lost souls wandering
around in this world to finally rest in peace
- Phat Dan : which is a day to commemorate the birth of prince of Nepal who later

founded Buddhism and was refer to as Buddah.

- Mid autumn festival : a day to celebrate childhood, meant for kids to enjoy.
- Land Genies and Stove God : a day important to the Vietnamese spiritually
as they sends of the Land Genies and Stove God to present to the god result of
their work in the mortal world.

(Vietnamese monks in Vu Lan day)

2.3
While Buddhism is the major religion in Viet Nam, Christianity and Catholicism is the
dominant religion in the U.S, so it’s nature that their holiday have traces of Christianity in
them. Some of the holiday are :

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 - New Year’s Day : As a date in the Gregorian calendar of Christendom, New Year's Day
liturgically marked the Feast of the Naming and Circumcision of Jesus.
- Easter : or Resurrection Sunday is a festival and holiday celebrating the resurrection of
Jesus from the dead, described in the New Testament as having occurred on the third day of
his burial after his crucifixion by the Romans in the Black Friday.
- Christmas : an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed most
commonly on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration.
- Thanksgiving: a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the
preceding year.

(A typical thanksgiving meal )

2.4
2.2 Holiday of the state :
2.2.1 Independence day :
In the U.S, Independence Day, also referred to as the Fourth of July or July Fourth, is
a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of
Independence on July 4, 1776. The Continental Congress declared that the thirteen American
coloniesregarded themselves as a new nation, the United States of America, and were no
longer part of the British Empire. The Congress actually voted to declare independence two
days earlier, on July 2.
Independence day is usually associated with things like festival,
fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family
reunions, and political speeches and ceremonies, in addition to various other public and
private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States.

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 In Viet Nam the independence day are observed on September 2, commemorating
the historic moment when Ho Chi Minh read’s Vietnam Declaration of Independence from
France on September 2, 1945 at Ba Dinh square. It is the country's National Day.
But there is another day which is also celebrated as much as Independence day, which is
the Day of Triumph also know as The Southern Liberation day or Reunification day 30th of
April. In which marks the capture of Sai Gon , brings an end to years of conflict and unite the
people of north and south Viet Nam.

(Independence day march in America- left and in Vietnam- right)

2.5

2.2.2 The Hung Kings commemoration and Columbus day:

As the name suggested The Hung Kings commemoration day is the way
Vietnamese remember and pay respect to the founder of the country Hung Kings
who unite the tribes and created Van Lang- the country that will became Viet
Nam today. This was done by pilgrimage to the temple and shrine of Hung
Kings in Phu Tho, where the locals throws many festivals, spiritual and sporting
events. The commemoration was done through out the years, date back from the
reign of king Khai Dinh who order the 3rd day of March to be used as
commemoration day for Hung Kings.

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 ( A pilgrimage offer gifting to Hung Kings)
2.6
On the other hand, American has Columbus day, which officially celebrates the
anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492. During
the anniversary in 1892, teachers, preachers, poets and politicians used rituals to teach ideals
of patriotism. These rituals took themes such as citizenship boundaries, the importance of
loyalty to the nation, and the celebration of social progress. But some American don’t
celebrate the day in states like Hawaii, Alaska Oregon, South Dakota, and Vermont, and some
frown upon by the act of killing and enslave Indians of Columbus when he reach America and
think this should not be celebrated.

(American celebrating columbus day)

2.7

CHAPTER 3: CONCLUSION
To sum things up, Vietnamese and American have lots of things in common
when it comes to holidays with many either have its own version in the West or
in the East. Or even holiday which have the same meaning to peoples of both
nation. The study shown that common things such as holiday have a deeper

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meaning both culturally and historical and each holiday has and will be
influenced deeply by society’s mindset and
In the day of technological and cyber information, difference culture will
eventually clash with each other. We hope that this analyzing of the differences
and similarities of Vietnamese and American National holiday would help
people from not only Viet Nam and United State under stand each other culture
but also for peoples around the globe to use it as well.

CHAPTER 4: REFERENCES
http://www.puyalluppost.com/irene-vu.htm/
https://blog.wordpress.com/2017/01/20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition
https://www.kibin.com
http://hkec.com.vn/vi/blog/242
https://www.immihelp.com/newcomer/
http://www.elleman.vn

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