- ABOUT HKIHSSABOUT HKIHSS
- PEOPLE
- NEWS & EVENTSNEWS & EVENTS
- RESEARCHRESEARCH
- FELLOWSHIPS & GRANTSFELLOWSHIPS & GRANTS
- TEACHING & LEARNINGTEACHING & LEARNING
- PUBLICATIONSPUBLICATIONS
Spirituality, Religion and Society Lecture Series
Dynamic of Memory and Religious Nationalism in a Sino-Vietnamese Border Town
Dr. Tam T. Ngo
(Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, Germany)
Date: October 25, 2018 (Wednesday)
Time: 12:00 – 13:00
Venue: Room 201, 2/F, May Hall, The University of Hong Kong
Enquiry: (852) 3917-5007, ihss@hku.hk
Spirituality, Religion and Society Lecture Series
Dynamic of Memory and Religious Nationalism in a Sino-Vietnamese Border Town
Dr. Tam T. Ngo
(Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, Germany)
Date: October 25, 2018 (Wednesday)
Time: 12:00 – 13:00
Venue: Room 201, 2/F, May Hall, The University of Hong Kong
Enquiry: (852) 3917-5007, ihss@hku.hk
Title:
Dynamic of Memory and Religious Nationalism in a Sino-Vietnamese Border Town
Speaker:
Dr. Tam T. Ngo (Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, Germany)
Date:
October 25, 2018
Time:
12:00 nn – 1:00 pm
Venue:
Room 201, 2/F, May Hall, The University of Hong Kong (Map)
Language:
English
Enquiry:
(Tel) (852) 3917-5007
(Email) ihss@hku.hk
This article analyses the dynamics of official and unofficial religious nationalism in the Vietnamese border town of Lào Cai. In 1979 Lào Cai was one of many Vietnamese towns that were reduced to rubble during the short but bloody war between Vietnam and China. The normalization of Sino-Vietnamese relations in 1991 allowed a booming border trade that let Lào Cai prosper while the painful memory of this war continued to haunt the town and the daily experiences of its residents, both humans and gods. Since the Vietnamese state forbids any official remembrance of the war, Lào Cai residents have found a religious way to deal with their war memories that skillfully evades state control. By analysing narratives about the fate of the gods and goddesses that reign in the Father God Temple and the Mother Goddess Temple, two religious institutions located right next to the border, this article shows that it is in the symbolism of the supernatural that one can find memories of the war and of the changing social landscape of Lào Cai and reconstruct its history.
Dr. Tam T. Ngo is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Gottingen, Germany and member of Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. She is the author of the monograph The New Way: Protestantism and The Hmong in Vietnam (University of Washington Press, 2016) and co-editor of Atheist Secularism and Its Discontents: A Comparative Study of Religion and Communism in Eastern Europe and Asia (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015).
This is an event organized by the “Rethinking Spirituality and Religion in Asia” Cluster.
Copyright © 2023 Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong. All Rights Reserved.