Book discusses Vietnamese people's jealousy and greed for fame

In the book "Vietnamese Value System", Professor - Doctor Tran Ngoc Them devoted many pages to analyzing bad habits in the typical personality of Vietnamese people.

The book Vietnamese Value System - From Tradition to Modernity and the Road to the Future has just been introduced to readers at the ninth Ho Chi Minh City Book Fair. The book is 16x24cm in size, more than 580 pages thick, and is the result of three years of research by Professor - Doctor Tran Ngoc Them.

The book has four chapters. In the first two chapters, the author focuses on academic concepts, methods, and theoretical tools so that readers can rely on them to learn about common cultural values. The good qualities of Vietnamese people such as: modesty, optimism, cheerfulness, love of life, gratitude, respect for dignity, respect for women... are mentioned in detail. These universal values ​​are selected by Mr. Tran Ngoc Them, drawn from the traditional foundation and cultural depth of the nation.

Book "Vietnamese value system from tradition to modernity and the path to the future".

Chapter three is quite an interesting part when Professor Tran Ngoc Them frankly discusses "The changes of the traditional Vietnamese value system in the modern period". Accordingly, the rapid and strong changes in space, time, social context, the speed of change of the economy... have caused many "ugly" characteristics of Vietnamese people to be clearly revealed.

On pages 310-311, the Professor wrote, "The communal character of the village is one of the two most important and typical characteristics of traditional Vietnamese agricultural and rural culture, so it is also one of the two characteristics that have changed the most strongly when entering the modern period. There are also many non-values ​​arising from this characteristic. Among them, the most typical are the following 11 bad habits: Dependence, reliance, leveling, jealousy, narrow-mindedness, selfishness, factionalism, vanity, fame-seeking, achievement-seeking, movement-seeking, formalism, back-biting, insensitivity, cutting corners, pleasure-seeking, liking to "gossip", and individualism...".

For each bad habit cited, the author has explanations that combine academics, scientific data with examples from real life through current and social issues to illustrate the arguments.

Professor Tran Ngoc Them devoted the last chapter of the book to "The Path to a New Vietnamese Value System", emphasizing the role of culture in the goal of sustainable development for the nation. National culture does not lie far away but is formed from the culture of each individual, then extended to the family, community, and society. Political, economic, and educational factors all play a role in molding and shaping culture.

Professor Tran Ngoc Them (right) at the exchange. Ms. Huynh Thi Xuan Hanh (left) - Director, Editor-in-Chief of Ho Chi Minh City Culture and Arts Publishing House - hopes that the book will not only attract the attention of researchers but also reach young readers.

On March 25, the Culture - Literature Publishing House organized an exchange between Professor Tran Ngoc Them and readers on the occasion of the new book. In addition to a general introduction to the book, the author also spent a lot of time talking about the "bad habits" of Vietnamese people in general. He told a story about a time he was on a business trip abroad with several young people, all of whom had proper degrees, but when introducing themselves to the locals, some people still wanted to call themselves Thai to avoid trouble because they thought that Vietnamese people did not create a good impression. Professor Tran Ngoc Them believes that if each person behaves well, through each individual, the image and culture of the people in the country will improve. If one refuses to accept or criticizes in a non-constructive manner, then that person himself is an "ugly" Vietnamese person.

Regarding Professor Tran Ngoc Them's book, Professor - Doctor Phung Huu Phu commented: "The topic is a meticulous, serious research work, highly academic, with new contributions in research methods and theoretical generalizations".

According to VNE