KJC Korea
Journal Central

This paper offers a brief introduction to Vietnamese folk paintings. The discussion compares Vietnamese folk paintings with the Korean folk painting tradition. Among the main purposes of this paper is the exploration of directions for future research on Vietnamese folk paintings. Vietnamese folk paintings, although extensively influenced by their Chinese tradition of minjian nianhua (folk New Year pictures), form an independent tradition, reflecting the local lifestyle and religious practices of Vietnam. However, compared to Korea or Japan, China remains the dominant source of influence for Vietnamese folk paintings. They were either created using a combination of painting and woodblock printing techniques, which was also the case with minjian nianhua, or using multicolor woodblock printing techniques. In cities like Hang Chong, the combination of painting and woodblock printing techniques was used mainly, following the customary practice in Yangliuqing in Tianjin, China, in which colors were added to the drawing printed from the woodblock. Meanwhile, folk paintings produced in rural areas such as Dong Ho are wholly color woodblock prints, similar to minjian nianhua from Yangjiabu in Weifang. In Lang Sinh, simple drawings, intended for casual purposes, were also created using the combination of woodblock printing and painting techniques. Folk paintings produced in cities and rural areas were distinct from each other, not just in techniques, but also in terms of style and theme. Vietnamese folk paintings show a certain degree of thematic similarity with Joseon folk paintings. This is mainly due to the fact that the two countries’ folk paintings developed and evolved in parallel with their Chinese counterparts, minjian nianhua. Also noteworthy is the fact that Vietnamese folk paintings, while they share the simplicity and candidness of Joseon folk paintings, are at the same time somewhat more decorative than the latter. For best results, future research on Vietnamese folk paintings should be conducted together with research on minjian nianhua. Traditional pigments constitute an important area of research in this field. Attention should be also paid to the religious paintings of ethnic minorities in Vietnam, as they are discovered in the future.

The diversity of Southeast Asia can be also represented at the tremendous number of ethnic groups residing throughout its various regions even beyond national boundaries. What does it mean by the composite of numerous peoples? It has triggered a lot of problems in a nation or overall Southeast Asia. Among them, the most serious one seems to be ethnic conflicts having damaged national integration and caused political, economical, and social instability. In that respect, Karen people have been a minority group situated in the most chronic dispute in Myanmar. Since 1947 some of the Karen equipped with armed forces have been fighting against the military government currently ruling Myanmar. As the result, the refugees over 200,000 population had moved to the mountain camps located at neighboring Thailand, attracting a lot of attention throughout international societies. According to 1931 census by British colonial government, the Karen have the greatest numbers in population as minority and include 16 subgroups including Karenni(Kayah) and Pa-O seemingly excluded from its category in contemporary point of view. It means that Karen people should not be regarded as an ethnic group, and in fact do not show a homogeneous identity under the title of Karen. Given the situation, we need to reconsider the category of Karen. What does the Karen mean in a real sense? Previous studies on the Karen had been performed mainly by anthropologists or missionaries such as Marshall(1922), Hamilton (1976), Hanson Tadaw(1959), Smeaton(1920), Keyes(1979), Hayami (1992; 2004), etc. Most of them examined the Karen as a group and ignored the possibilities of representing the divergent identities vis-à-vis their subgroups. Therefore, they have focused on the myth to convert Karen people to Christianity, although the Christian Karens are less than 20% of total population. As a result, I argue that they would fail to define the real meaning of Karen. It has been caused us to recognize the Karen as a meaningless total entity to be accepted by all means. According to their arguments, the difference among Karen's subgroups is just dealt with the trivial matters that do not affect the ethnic boundary itself, still maintaining the ethnic identity as Karen. As we shall see on this thesis, this is never the case. My thesis aims at uncovering and scrutinizing the real meaning of the category of Karen. For the purpose of it, I will consider Karen people as a linguistic group from the beginning as shown in 1931 census. I argue that the Karen have been affected or exposed by various conditions or environments throughout the harsh history having happened on the areas of current Myanmar and Thailand, leading the vicissitudes of their ethnic identities.

In this paper, we examine the traditional culture features of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand and above this we try to find out the evidences that traditional culture features are shown up through the Constitutions of three countries. First, for Vietnam, unlike the other two countries, we could find out the traditional culture feature of strong resistance and struggle against the foreign powers like China throughout the history. Also, the loyalty for the community and country could be added as the traditional culture features as well. In contrast, for Cambodia and Thailand, we could see other aspects of traditional culture features, such as the promotion and protection of Buddhism, historically sustained Kingship and respect for the King, the opportunistic foreign policy for the foreign powers to national survive. Furthermore, we could find out the evidences that these traditional culture features are shown implicitly or explicitly in the Constitutions of the three countries in all. Although three countries have different historical backgrounds, experiences, cultures, and value systems, we could see that the Constitution of the three countries show that the traditional culture features are vigorously alive in it. Thus, we can say that this proves that the flow of traditional culture features are not easily changed or stopped by an era or ideology and still alive in the heart of the people.