For thousands of years, China has been the undisputed cultural pinnacle of East Asia, and as such, it has a profound influence on neighboring countries. For example, neighboring Vietnam has not only been the direct territory of many Chinese dynasties for more than 1,000 years, but also the Vietnamese culture that still belongs to the vassal states of the Central Plains Dynasty after the establishment of the country in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, which is still a vassal state of the Central Plains Dynasty, is also deeply influenced by China.
Even before the 20th century, the country's official script was Chinese characters. However, in today's Vietnam, it is basically difficult to see the traces of Chinese characters, because after the country's complete independence, the Vietnamese government issued an order to completely abolish Chinese characters.
Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh
The reason for this question is that although Ho Chi Minh was the leader of Vietnam, he was extremely proficient in Chinese and a communist fighter. As a teenager, he was determined to save the country, and later actively participated in the anti-fascist struggle; after the end of World War II, he led the Vietnamese people to victory in the independence struggle.
The anti-aggression struggle led by Ho Chi Minh was active in China for a long time, and he had good friends with many Chinese leaders, and he was also very familiar with Chinese culture, which can be said to be vietnam's China-friendly. Therefore, when he issued such an order, it would be so puzzling, in fact, it was related to the entire political and cultural environment at that time.
Viet Nam
First, the idea of abolishing Chinese characters was not first proposed by Ho Chi Minh, but has long existed in Vietnam. As early as the mid-19th century, as the great powers began to rampage in East Asia, Vietnam, which was also bullied by the great powers, had proposed reform plans by people of insight in China, and one of the reform plans included the abolition of Chinese characters. However, this reform plan to abolish Chinese characters has not unexpectedly failed.
Second: At that time, Vietnam was not only a choice for Chinese characters. Chinese characters were introduced to Vietnam in 204 AD, and from that time the use of Chinese characters until it was abolished, it existed in Vietnamese culture for more than 2,000 years. However, in the 13th century AD, a new type of writing emerged, which used Chinese characters as a basis to create a new type of script that belonged to the country alone. It is precisely because of the emergence of the Vietnamese script that the importance of Chinese characters has also been cut in half.
Moreover, in modern times, especially during the French colonial period, the foundation of the existence of Chinese characters, the Vietnamese imperial examination system, was gradually abolished. This also means that Vietnamese Chinese characters have completely lost the soil for survival since then, and neither ordinary Vietnamese nor the Vietnamese intellectual class have the motivation and necessity to continue to learn Chinese characters, so Vietnamese Chinese characters are becoming more and more weak in Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh and the children
Third, the abolition of Vietnamese Chinese characters is actually related to the French colonizers. As we all know, in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, with the "undefeated and defeated" of the Qing Dynasty in the Sino-French War, Vietnam, which was once a vassal state of the Qing Dynasty, became a colony of France. As with the colonial system of the great powers, the French, during the decades of rule in Vietnam, vigorously promoted the French language on the one hand, and began to restrict the circulation of Chinese characters in Vietnam on the other hand.
At the same time, some French missionaries even produced Roman Vietnamese, which became the focus of the French Colonial Authorities in Vietnam, and the purpose was naturally very simple, the French hoped that the Vietnamese would learn from Western culture and completely eliminate the influence of the Chinese imprint, so as to facilitate the French rule over Vietnam.
Fourth: Abolish Chinese characters to raise the self-esteem of the entire nation. For most of Vietnam's thousands of years of history, it has existed in subsidiary China. Now that they are an independent country, they need cultural self-confidence, and for so many years, all aspects of them have been deeply influenced by Chinese culture, coupled with the invasion of modern invaders, the confidence of the entire nation is in a downturn. For Vietnam, Chinese characters are only a foreign thing, and after the abolition of the order, it can promote the establishment of national self-esteem more quickly.
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were once French colonies
Fifth, the abolition of Chinese characters in Vietnam is also related to the foundation of Chinese characters in Vietnam. Although Chinese characters have dominated the Vietnamese language for thousands of years, like the Korean Peninsula, Chinese characters are only popular among Vietnam's ruling class, scholars, and the proportion of intellectuals who can read and hyphenate is very low in Vietnam. As a result, the abolition of Chinese characters did not have much impact in Vietnam, especially for the vast majority of ordinary Vietnamese who were illiterate.
Sixth: After the introduction of Latin to Vietnam, it spread and learned faster. When Pinyin was introduced to Vietnam, it became apparent that Latin was more convenient than Chinese characters in typing and communication. Especially after the pinyinization of characters, as long as they master the alphabet, people can quickly read articles, but Chinese characters cannot achieve this effect.
Vietnamese alphabet
At that time, Vietnam was in ruins, they needed to quickly cultivate a large number of talents, Latin is undoubtedly the best choice for learning cultural knowledge, can completely avoid the cultural faults caused by Chinese characters. If you want to make a qualitative leap in the short term, it is a wise move to abolish Chinese characters. Of course, the abolition of Chinese characters is not eradication, and today in some ancient buildings in Vietnam, chinese characters can still be seen.