Vietnamese Culture on Death

At some point in our lives, we all come to realize that death is a part of life. Cultural diversity provides a wide variety of lifestyles and traditions for each of the unique groups of people in our world. Within these different cultures, the rituals associated with death and burial can also be uniquely diverse. Many consider ritualistic traditions that differ from their own to be somewhat strange and often perceive them as unnatural. A prime example would be the burial rituals of the Native American people.

3. I believe so much of the article is dedicated to the funeral and cremation, because the writer wants us to not only see the vast differences between the two cultures, American and Chinese. But, to experience the feelings it is bringing up from the writers past, and her present. Her feelings of loss of the grandfather that died before she was born, and the loss of the “ buzz-cut grandpa” she had come to look forward to seeing. As for the cremation, in America, we as a culture would be outraged to pay extra for our loved on to be cremated alone. Never would we think it acceptable for more than one person to be cremated at the same time. The wearing of the patch of black on the sleeve, is similar to the black garters that are worn around the arms at certain funerals in the American culture; in particular that of a fallen officer or team mate. All of these descriptions are helpful to us as the reader, in order to give us a clearer mental picture of what is going on during the funeral and cremation of the “ buzz-cut grandpa”.

Death is inevitable part of human experience, which is often associated with fear of unknown, separation, and spiritual connection. Death is an individual experience, which is based on unique perceptions and beliefs. Fear of death and dying seems to be a universal phenomenon, which is closely associated with apprehension and uneasiness. Death is allied with permanent loss, thus personal experiences of grief are similar in many different cultures. There are different mourning ceremonies, traditions, and behaviors to express grief, but the concept of permanent loss remains unchanged in cross cultural setting. With this paper I will identify cross-cultural perspectives on death and dying, and will analyze

Vietnamese language is unique, a combination of phonetic inflection and tonal variations. Luan (2011), states that Vietnamese language “reflects contributions from many ethnic groups” and further describes it as “a singing and musical language”. China had a major influence in Vietnam’s language, having occupied Vietnam for 1,000 years. During Chinese rule, Vietnamese language assimilated many Chinese words, changing pronunciation to align with Vietnamese language structure. Even after the Chinese rule ended Vietnamese still used Chinese characters in writing until the 1900’s. Vietnam adopted many cultural ideas from China, the lunar New Year is celebrated in both countries. While keeping in common the celebration of the lunar New

Death is something that people must deal with every day in our world, and there are several aspects of death that sometimes the living do not consider. For example, how does one celebrate or remember passed loved ones? What happens to you when you die? How would you like to be remembered? There are multiple ways to answer these questions, and examining differing points of view can be enlightening.

As communism began to spread steadily and gain more and more attention, Americans became immensely concerned in what most saw as a detrimental threat. President Eisenhower only added to the hysteria by outlining the Domino Theory: the theory that a political event, in this case referring to the spread communism, in one country will cause a similar turn of events in neighboring countries, like a falling domino that causes an entire row to fall down. Although the Vietnam War is seen by many as the only option to try to end the spread of communism, the specious outcome of the war was not effective enough to justify the amount of unethical decisions and situations that were allowed to take place. In 1961, under President Kennedy, 100 Special Forces troops were sent to South Vietnam and by 1963, just two years later, U.S military advisors and Special Forces had increased to 21,000 troops. We will soon see that this is just the beginning and in my paper I will outline the full record of events all the way to the end of the war, including the reasons for U.S involvement, unethical decisions that were made, America 's effort to end the war, and the lasting impact the war had on the United States.

The family decorates the door of their home indicating that a death has occurred, and they also put a table outside, in front of the house, with pictures of the deceased on it. They also post notices all over town telling that a death has occurred, and about the life of the deceased. These things are the families way of letting the village knows that someone has died. After everyone has visited the deceased they all go to the church where a service is held, including a full mass. After the service the pall bearers carry the casket from the church to the cemetery, and everyone follows. As the procession passes by the people in the village

I’ve always been very uncomfortable about the modern process of death; however, I’ve always respected the process of death especially in certain Native American cultures where they place their dead on stilts high in the sky and burned them. I’ve seen pictures of dead individuals from generations back where they actually took black and white pictures of the dead at wakes, and after seeing those pictures are probably part of the reason why viewings and funerals make me uncomfortable. Going to the viewings to pay your respects and trying to make pleasantries have always made me feel awkward and nervous you never know the right thing to say.

Every culture, country, religion, and community has certain behavior and rituals that govern their actions when a loved one dies. These traditions and death rituals are based upon religious and spiritual beliefs. Belief on whether there is life after death and what happens to the body and soul after death.

America is a melting pot of different cultures. Each culture shares within its group their own beliefs, values, traditions and rituals. All cultures have their own way of handling death and expressing grief often through customs and rituals which are reflected in our understanding of death. Grieflink stated, when someone close to us dies, we mourn this loss inwardly (we might refer to this as the inner experience of grief) but we also mourn in an outward public way (the mourning customs or rituals of our particular society). According to the Cancer.net (2015), in the wake of chaos and confusion created by death customs and rituals help bring a sense of routine and normalcy as well as provide ways for the community to support the bereaved

For this week’s personal journal, I have decided to discuss Sonia Duffy’s article, Cultural Concepts at the End of Life. I thought that this article was very interesting, in addition to being imperative. I had not considered cultural considerations in relation to end of life, which I’m sure many others have not done. Of course, we understand that different cultures have different viewpoints on medical practices and interventions. However, I have not truly considered these influences – in terms of end of life care. I was intrigued to read what my own culture reflected when asked about end of life care.

On Death and Dying By Elisabeth Kubler-Ross For my book review, I read On Death and Dying, by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Dr. Kubler-Ross was the first person in her field to discuss the topic of death. Before 1969, death was considered a taboo. On Death and Dying is one of the most important psychological studies of the late twentieth century. The work grew out of her famous interdisciplinary seminar on death, life, and transition. In this paper, I give a comprehensive book review as well as integrate topics learned in class with Dr. Kubler-Ross' work. Like Piaget's look at developmental stages in children, there are also stages a person experiences on the journey toward death. These five stages are denial/isolation, anger, bargaining,

I believe one of the main reasons that we can see major differences when looking at death practices of different cultures worldwide is due to the lacking of empirical evidence of what really happens to the soul during the actual act of death, which in turn, leaves a large gap for interpretation and customized beliefs. No one has been to the next realm and returned (I guess this could be argued but for the point I’m trying to make just try to roll with it) so it just natural that a wide array of interpretations can be implemented. Death is treated differently though out different culture, some treat it with fear others with desire and anticipation. For example, some Indonesian cultures believe that the recently diseased will stay on earth till the proper resources can be harnessed in order to make the death ceremony highly lavished. During this time,

Mankind’s history of burial practices and funeral customs are as old as civilization itself. There is no specific way to planning a funeral. Every civilization and culture has provided for their dead in different ways. Religion and personal beliefs play an important role in the burial practices and funeral customs of a given culture or civilization. Furthermore, each civilization and cultured ever studied have three things in common: some type of funeral rites, rituals, and ceremonies; A sacred place for the dead; and memorialization of the dead. As far back as the time of Christ, burials have been noted to take place. In time burial and funeral customs have become very distinct, interesting and

After this fortunate door-opener, Vietnam was known as one of the most rapid- growing economies worldwide.