During the reform of 1986 – Doi Moi or “renovation” (1986 – 2000), Vietnam had encountered a shift to a market economy under the effect of the fast-growing capitalist market economy, which was associated with a burgeoning revival of religion once retrained within the Vietnam War (Taylor, 2007). The proliferation of religious beliefs and resurgence of “folk religions” (Do, 2013) countered the predictions of modern theorists that spiritual faiths would become marginal under the circumstance of modernity’s scientific and technological advances (Endres, 2011). This essay, hence, endorses Endres’ idea that far from being in decline, Vietnamese folk religious practices gained public recognition and legitimacy across the country despite the rise of modernity during the Doi Moi period.
One of the most significant portraits of Vietnamese folk religion is the worship of Mother Goddess which comprises four domains (or Four Palaces) known as Heaven, Earth, Water, and Mountains and Forests. Mother Goddess is believed to be the ancestor of “agriculture, weaving, carpentry and cooking” in Vietnamese culture (Fjelstad & Hien, 2011). As such, religion has become an important figure in Vietnamese cultural life.
During the Doi Moi era, due to the emergence of new Asian capitalism (Hefner, 1998), folk religion became popularised in the context of economic activity (Endres, 2011) through the rise of trade of religious objects (Fjelstad & Hien, 2011). The following of Four Palaces witnessed a growing number of transactions among religious agents, their followers and other industry stakeholders. Scholars coined these activities the “spirit industry” (Fjelstad & Hien, 2011; Endres, 2011) as shops selling ritual goods expanded their supplies to a wider range such as altar tables, statues, votive papers, costumes and accessories for spirit mediums. A typical sort of mediumship in the worship of Mother Goddess is len dong, a ceremony depicting the possession of spirits and often takes place in both public and private temples. In 2000, the total price for a four-hour ritual ceremony of len dong was around eight million Vietnam Dong (approximately 520 USD). Although this amount was equivalent to half the average annual income of Vietnamese working in Hanoi, the practice of len dong still showed an upsurge (Endres, 2011). Additionally, the proliferation of modernity also bolstered the growth of the transportation system, which led to an increase in mobility for mediumship trading activities (Endres, 2010). For example, sellers imported embroidered silk from Hong Kong for spirit costumes; wealthy mediums used Chinese materials for their fancy head-dresses (Endres, 2010). The growth of Four Palaces mediumship turned several temples to “service centres” with professional services to meet the mediums’ demands. Revenues from such businesses helped cover the maintenance cost of the temples and the living expenses of many families (Endres, 2010). This increase in ritual expenditure was explained in several ways: an expression of people’s sincerity, an investment to gain spiritual benefits and the effectiveness of religious worship in enhancing the economy (Endres, 2007). Therefore, instead of a decline in spiritual beliefs, the impact of modernity in the economic reform of 1986 reflected a restructure and development of folk religions in Vietnamese people’s life.
The renovation also led to the reassessment of folk culture, so folk religions were then viewed as “beautiful traditions” and a part of cultural heritage (Endres, 2011), which significantly promoted the worship of Mother Goddess. A new emphasis on the aesthetics of culture also widely recognised Four Palace mediumship as a type of folk performing art in public. Mediumship was recognized beyond the concept of superstition or false science and associated with aesthetics and style (Taylor, 2007). Len dong ceremony became popular festivals where people came to eat, socialise and spectate. Every performance was “a complex blend of sights, scents, sounds, the magnificent temple interior, the artfully arranged trays of offerings, the accessories that transform the medium into a deity, the liturgical music…” (Endres, 2011). It was also seen as a healing ritual since people can be treated for all kinds of problems in their life including social, work, family, stress and sleeplessness (Fjelstad & Hien, 2011). These performances were officially brought onto public stages such as Hanoi Opera House in the early 1990s. Audio and videotapes of mediumship performances were produced and popularised among Mother Goddess worshippers, many of which were even used by professionals for teaching purposes (Minh, 2016). Vietnamese scholars during this period also agreed that ritual festivals played a crucial role in modern life.
The series of economics and social reform since 1986 marked a loosened manipulation of Vietnamese government over practices of religion and prompted a concept of religious freedom (Fjelstad, 2010; Gillespie, 2014). Prior to Doi Moi, Vietnam’s government, on the purpose of building a “secular society”, had restricted a lot of religious activities which caused the degradation of many worshipping practices. Among the folk religious practices banned before the renovation, “len dong” was perceived as the most superstitious which came under strict prohibition (Ly, 2007). Nevertheless, since the Doi Moi policy, the advocacy of Vietnam’s leaders in religious activities contradicted the idea that communists were against practices of religion in both ideological and institutional bases (Taylor, 2007). Due to a progress “from precolonial substantive control to contemporary micromanagement”, the worship of religion in Vietnam was privatised to an extent that citizens subsequently had the freedom to manifest their religions and beliefs in everyday life (Gillespie, 2014). The Four Palaces, as a result, achieved certain benefits from the policy of religious liberalisation and was able to attract more and more worshipers and spirit mediums. Though many other ritual practices were still considered as old-fashioned by some, the worship of Mother Goddess perpetuated and found their place as a significant contributor to the economic and social transformations (Chauvet, 2011).
In fact, the early Doi Moi witnessed an unfavored attitude from some of Vietnam’s modernist intellectuals who thought of folk religions as outdated and detrimental to the demands of the modern world. Consequently, according to Gillespie (2014), mediumship was under surveillance and had not been officially given a liability by the government until Resolution No.24 on Strengthening Religious Affairs was implemented in 1990. The Resolution thereby marked an important transformation from prohibition to the valuable acknowledgement of folk religions in Vietnamese spiritual life. In the early 2000s, the country continued to issue an Ordinance on Beliefs and Religions which put religious worship into a legal framework. The Ordinance claimed that citizens have rights to adhere to their religions, and all religious organisations must have a license to function as a service or conduct ritual teaching workshops and fundraising programs. Chauvet (2011) mentioned that since the new policies were valid, the cult of Four Palaces has been considered as a part of national heritages rather than superstition. As such, the new policies have undoubtedly propelled the government management of religious activities and given the practice of folk religion a legitimate recognition.
Reference
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