Language of love: Vietnamese or Chinese or Universal?
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Several cases of audacious public display of affection in China recently have caused quite an uproar among the internet community.
From China
In August 2010, a video clip of a young couple making out at a public canteen in China spread all over the web like wildfire, sending a shock wave through its millions of netizens.
Not long after that, news of a rich Chinese youth confessing his love with a giant heart made from 1999 roses became a much-discussed topic both on internet chat rooms and in the print media.
In December last year, the internet community once again was fumed over the clip of a teenage couple displaying too much affection on a public bus, prompting the driver to stop and force them off the bus.
And most recently, after a 1:20 minute long video clip that captures two young students, allegedly from Fujian Province, kissing each other passionately in their class made its way onto youtube, it has brought about much public outrage. Soon angry words began to fly thick and fast among those who criticized their “indecency” and those who rallied behind them.
The flaming love confession of a young Chinese couple
…To Vietnam
The young Vietnamese have proved to be no less bold in their public display of affection, with several video clips of teenagers kissing in class widely circulated on the internet.
In the early morning of April 10, 2010, students at the Academy of Journalism and Communication’s dormitory became witnesses, reluctant or not, to a highly romantic love confession of student to his girlfriend -- this, not long after a traffic-stopping demonstrative act of love by another student at Dich Vong Hau park in Hanoi, with 1,000 candles and 100 roses on March 19.
Another case, a student from Phan Huy Chu high school in Hanoi confessed his love by making a heart from rose petals in the middle of the schoolyard.
The love confession with 150 roses at Hanoi’s Noi Bai Airport last year by a young man from Vinh Phuc (who was, despite the heroic effort, turned down) draws some parallels to the one by a wealthy young man in Wang Fu Jing shopping complex in Beijing two years before (who also suffered from the same unhappy ending).
The most recent public display of affection scandal is a video clip posted on the internet last week showing a young couple--the girl still wearing her school uniform--petting and necking in a class on Nguyen Chi Thanh Street, Hanoi.
Couples in Hanoi express their love at public places, also with flowers and candles
For or against?
According to Nguyen Thi Chinh, a consultant at Psychology Consulting Center in Hanoi, it is a normal psychological trait among teenagers to mimic what they think will assert themselves as adults or simply make them different from others.
Dr. Trinh Hoa Binh from the Institute of Sociology considers this phenomenon as deviation from the norm. “Of course, as a rule, what is inappropriate and temporary will eventually be discarded. Young people nowadays have access to a large amount of information, yet they can be quite vulnerable when faced with these overwhelming, vehement waves of information,” he said.
Others, however, express their understanding and support for this social phenomenon.
Pham Thinh, an Education and Youth columnist for VTC News online newspaper, thinks that those who exhibit such behaviors are often people possessing strong character, with a zealous passion for life. “Those young people are likely to do great things in the future. I’ll give them my support, if what they do is not out of bounds with their family circumstances,” he said.
Dr. Do Thi Thu Hang, lecturer at the Academy of Journalism and Communication, thinks teenagers mimic these impudent expressions of love because they appeal to them and speak to their needs. She also says that if similar things are to happen in other countries, not necessarily China, Vietnamese youngsters will also “import” those things immediately.
Is the media to blame?
A question was raised over whether this is the result of how the media have been exploiting sensational news to attract more viewers. Dr. Do Thi Thu Hang said that might not be the case, because although the media can lower the bar a bit at times, it does not seem to have caused much harm.
Pham Thinh, however, seems to disagree, believing that the media do play some role in this. “This type of news attracts a lot of viewers, most of whom are young people, all newspaper editors know this, so in publishing such information, they partly aim to draw more attraction,” he said.
However, online newspapers cannot be the only source of such attention-grabbing, crowd-exciting news, which is also widely spread through social networks and various information sharing websites. Thus, the journalist continues to analyze further, “While the newspapers only do their job, which is to report such events to the readers, in many cases their reports somehow cross the line.”
For this reason, according to Hang, we need to filter the news provided to the public carefully to prevent the mimicking of behaviors that go against our traditions and culture, and at the same time encourage gracious romantic and other love-related behaviors.
Pham Thinh expressed a similar view, though more firmly, “Newspapers’ managers and editors should consider carefully before publishing these shocking contents because young people, still in an impressionable psychological state and in the process of developing an identity, will be quick to mimic. And an additional undesirable effect is that the older generations will also lose their trust in the young.”
