A Sociological Analysis of Vietnamese Society

Now, the confusion of road traffic in big cities in Vietnam has become serious a large number of motorbikes as well as many cars run on the roads. The living standards have improved around the country. Skyscrapers have been constructed in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Hanoi has a modernized shopping mall looks like Singapore. However, the income disparities between the urban areas and the rural areas are still remarkable, though reduced. I saw squatters in Hanoi some years ago. Heavy inflation is ongoing: though the price of pho ga (chicken rice noodle soup) was 5 thousand dong in 1999, it is about 50 thousand dong in 2014 in Hanoi.

This book consists of three chapters. The first chapter describes the experience of visiting Vietnam as a tourist in the late of 1990s. Ho Chi Minh City, with its many pickpockets, motorbike robbers and street girls, was thrilling then.

The second chapter is on the “Vietnam boom” amongst Japanese people (and Japanese businesses) of the early 2000s. What effects will this boom have on the Vietnamese economy, society and culture?

The third chapter aims to apply the Japanese study of social class composition to Vietnamese society.