THE COMPARISON OF READING CULTURE AMONG JAPANESE AND VIETNAMESE PEOPLE.

TABLE OF CONTENT
PART A: INTRODUCTION
I: Rationale
II: Aims of the study
III: Objectives of the study
IV: Scope of the study
V: Methods of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
I: Reading culture review 1: Definition of book 2: Definition of reading culture
II: Reading culture of Japanese people 1: History of reading culture 1.1: In the past 1.2: At present 2: The importance of reading culture to Japanese people 3: The development of reading culture
III: Reading culture of Vietnamese people 1: History of reading culture 2: The importance of reading culture to Vietnamese people 3: The development of reading culture
IV: Intercultural communication in reading culture among Japanese and Vietnamese people
PART C: CONCLUSION

PART A: INTRODUCTION
I: Rationale
With the trend of globalization and integration, many traditional values have been forgotten. Computer, telephone appears more and more frequent. Of course, they have many advantages but frankly, book always is a biggest resources of knowledge. And reading is a crucial thing to do if we want to get the better future.

I am a student, who always want to learn and explore about the differences between the culture of Japan and Vietnam. I realized reading culture is one of characteristics need to mentioned. Besides that, I am also love reading book. As a result, I decided to choose this study.

2: Aim of the study
The aim of study are:
- To point out the importance of reading culture .
- To analyse or compare reading culture between Japan and Vietnam.

3: Objectives of the study
I wish to invite reflection on reading or, more precisely on reading culture. I naturally want to use my thoughts knowledge and I propose to do so by mean of reading culture. Reading culture can help to sharpen considerably our perspective on reading culture generally-including our comtemporary technological driven one
Besides that, our life become modern than before. The appearance of many appliances technology make people becoming passive. They rely too much on them and forget traditional values. Therefore I want to explore deeply about one of traditional values- reading culture to preserving and promoting the beauty of oriental cultures, especially in Japan and Vietnam. Thereby, geared people to the beautiful of elegant pleasure – reading book.

4: Scope of the study
Two countries: Japan and Vietnam.

V: Methods of the study
The main methods that I use are analysis, interpretive, comparative, descriptive and contrastive. Therewith, I will refer from some sources through Internet and newspaper. Finally, I can choose and propose the most important issue of myself about the study “The comparison of reading culture among Japanese and Vietnamese”

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
I: Reading culture review
1: Definition of book. Marcus Tullius Cicero, a Roman philosopher, statesman, layer, political theorist and Roman constitutionalist said “A room without books is like a body without soul”. He was right. This quotes make we understand the importance of book. No one can count how many book we have in the world. We have a huge amount of book and each book is the treasure of human. Human always use it to make a better life. Why books can help people to have this big thing? Firstly, we need to understand the definition of book. According to the definition from Wikipedia: A book is a set of written, printed, illustrated or blank sheets, made of ink, paper, parchment or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf and each side of a leaf is called a page. A set of text-filled or illustrated pages produces in electronic format is known as an electronic book, or e-book. But it is literally.
In my view, books are huge resources of knowledge. We can improve our intelligence though reading books. Books are a store which contain the great grounding in many field: science, technology, biology, physics, psychology, religion, culture, society… Everything we need or want to study which were all on the books. Not only do we have a big understanding from books, but also useful lessons. Book like a screen which show us everything about the world, countries, ocean, mountain… and even the moral stories that teach us how to be a good person, how to behave, how to live peacefully with each other and how to face with problems in our life. Additionally, books also teach the first lesson for children when they star go to school.

2: Definition of reading culture
We all know that reading is one of the skills of learning a language, acquiring knowledge. While culture maybe defined as the total of inherited ideals, beliefs, values and knowledge, a reading culture should simply be an engagement of readers with words, visually. Reading is said to be nourishment for the mind, body and soul, depending on who is speaking.
Even with the current situation where we can’t really tell whether there’s a reading culture or not. We may conclude there is a reading culture that is less intense. I speak deliberately of “reading culture” rather than of “literacy” or of “writing technologies” both because that is my preferred focus. That reading involves many variables that there are in fact many types of reading, that reading is a complex cultural system, may seem very obvious propositions. But the point have been so willfully neglected by such a long and distinguished line of researchers that I don’t think they can be overemphasized here at the start of reflection.

II: Reading culture of Japanese people.
1: History of reading culture
1.1: In the past Darwin said that Japan is a wonder of the world. For the Japanese people, reading is a way to enlightenment, to reach or to par with other countries. Reading is an attribute of ethnic cultural awareness. Edo-period Japan (1615 – 1868) was an age of great social, political change and of epic book consumption. An expanding emphasis on knowledge and creativity gave rise to sophisticated network of artists, writer and publishers. People say when they were defeated in the World War II, when the only thing left was just heap of rubble because of the bomb struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when this cherry country was mourning, the emperor Hirohito immediately asked the center of Nippon information “How many teachers are still alive?” Image, Hirohito didn’t ask the number of soldiers they had, the fighters which could still be flown, the warships which were still seaworthy or the ammunitions which could be fired but again what came out from the emperor’s mouth at that time was “How many teachers are still alive?”

Habit reading of ancient Japanese people…

In the Meiji Restoration, many Western books was translated into Japanese has sold million of copies. For example, Self-Help by Samuel Smiles, On Liberty by John Stuart Mill or the book named Atlantic was compiled by Fukuzawa talk about the Western civilization. Those are terrible number if we understand that Japan’s population at that time just over 30 million people. Book was fundamental knowledge to revive the country. 300 years ago, Japan had a number “terrible” about education and reading culture, two things have been linked closely together. In the Genruko period ( 1688-1704), Japan had a surprising modern book publishing system with many publishers, illustrator and famous writers. The number of book was sold usually up to 10.000 copies, a figure “terrible” 300 years ago. The education in Tokugawa period began, school system served multiple audiences and different levels: school for noble, school for poor civilians (terakoya), private school (privat academy) for samurais and commoners (shijuku)
1.2: At present We know how amazing Japanese people are in their reading culture. Wherever they are, in the airport, parks, on the bus, subway or in waiting room, etc, they are busy with their reading activities. No matter where they go, they always reading and studying. Their love for knowledge, science, information and education on the whole deservers to be taken as role model.

…and now.

This is the measurement how well they are aware about the importance of the education for a nation. No wonder we can see how great Japan is now. Due to their education is more quality than others and also spread evenly throughout their nation. Thus it makes their country very independent. They don’t depend themselves too much on other countries.

2: The importance of reading culture to Japanese people I was mentioned above, for Japanese people book was fundamental knowledge to revive their country and reading is a way to enlightenment, to reach or to par with other countries. Knowing Japan’s reading culture and education was developed 300 years ago, we must no longer taken aback by strong rise and abrupt of Japan but still extremely surprised this ethnic culture. A thousand years ago, Japan learned Chinese. A thousand years later, they learned Western. They aren’t afraid to learning from the enemy. They just scare ignorance. Everything Japanese people built from past to present always based on their knowledge and sức mạnh dân tộc. Teachers in Japan usually said to student that Japan is a country without resources. Their country is poor than other countries. The only thing they can do is reading and learning as more as possible to built and revive country from wars. A country was destroyed in war by America, especially after of the bomb struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How they can do that magic? Only one key to answer this question, it is “knowledge”. They read to get their knowledge, they read to make yourself become intelligent and importance, they read to reach with other countries.

3: The development of reading culture This cherry nation, the number of books published annually, ranks the first position in Asia, and ranks the third in the world after United Kingdom and Germany. One of reasons make reading culture in Japan become famous in the world is they have a lot of interesting materials to read. Japanese student enjoy reading different type of reading materials. There are many reading materials that can be read and used by students which involved not only education but also non education books. For example, Japanese enjoy reading manga, a type of comic cartoon that entertain them. They also enjoy reading other books. Manga however has brought a great influence and has become a phenomenon among the Japanese teenagers. The content of the manga tells about the story of the struggle between good and evils and the characters in the story might be a mix of things for example human, animals, robot and also gods and goodness. But the most interesting part in manga is it has a main quality when it emphasis on a story about the Japanese culture and their traditional custom. This is a good factor in creating reading society among the Japanese youngster in their country. Walking around bookshops in Tokyo, we can see the number of people in each shop. In each shop always crowd , especially in Sunday.

Although, technology very develop in Japan, they also created a lot of high-tech products but it does not mean they give up their habit reading. Bookshops in Japan is full of genres, from scientific books, political books, textbooks to manga, newspaper or magazine. Japan government is also focusing on reading culture. They opened a lot of library besides Nation Diet Library. III: Reading culture of Vietnamese people 1: History of reading culture 1.1 In the past Reading culture in Vietnam has been divided into four stages. Firstly, our reading culture in the per 1858 stages was influenced by Chinese educated culture. In the second stage, from 1858 to 1945 and to 1975 in the southern religion, Western civilization, especially French civilization, began to appear. For this reason, a new reading culture was started in this stages. In the third stages, from 1945 in the north and 1075 in the south to 1989, most of the knowledge and books from Eastern Europe and Russia entered Vietnam, which feature mostly revolutionary literature and not books on business, the economy and new thinking. Only in the fourth stage alone, from 1989 to present date, has the publishing market show the vast diversity of book genres. Initially, almost all book titles in this stage ran after a field of vision, such as books teaching the reader how to earn money. However, during recent years, the development of reading culture gradually shifting to be a knowledge source. A series of books by Vietnamese authors were published while book genres were diversified, now including book on the economy, politics and history.
1.2: At present Accordingly, compared to other countries in Southeast Asia, the proportion of people reading books in Vietnam is quite low. On average, Vietnamese people read 0.8 book per year. Meanwhile in a standard reading culture an average person need to read five book per year. Frankly, Vietnamese people don’t have habit of reading. There are many reasons causing this sad trend. We do not yet have an academic environment or a serious education system, and that has caused the intellectual standard of the people to remain low. Additionally, the reading culture of each country always appropriates the civilization of the country. However, our civilization have been broken many time throughout history and it only began to stabilize during recent decades. In develop societies cognitive development is a prerequisites for socio – economic development, which helps people avoid mistake in their life, their studies and their business dealings. But in Vietnam, the cognitive development is slower than development of the economic is contrary to this principle. Besides that, most Vietnamese people don’t know how to read properly as they don’t know skim and screen to catch the main idea or summasire the contend of a book after reading it to learn the lesion it is teaching. The number of bars in Hanoi is much higher than the number of bookshops and libraries.

2: The importance of reading culture to Vietnamese people Recently, many said that the reading culture in Vietnam have been fading but in my view the country has a reading culture precisely because there are so few readers. Something recognised as a culture should attract the participation of the majority of the population, like using chopstick at meals. It unreasonable to state that Vietnam has a reading culture based on such a small group of readers. When a new bookshop is opened, it would put an to end of a hospital or a prison. This is because more people would read and learn much from books, so they would change their behaviour for a better life style. They would no longer go to bars or start fight or cause accident or commit crimes or be jailed. The explosion of the Internet, along with electronic book (e-books) and audio books has provided cheap and fast media that offers knowledge to readers and create an important watershed in developing of reading culture. The young generation has a command of foreign language and the price of e-book is lower than that of paper book, allowing them to access directly and fully diverse sources of knowledge, then add the quintessential class of Vietnam.

3: The development of reading culture Second-hand bookshop still survive as source supplying rare and precious books, which keeps Vietnam reading culture. For years, book lovers across the nation have visited old bookshops in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city to hunt for precious and rare books. From 1990 to 2000, the rare book industry was in its heyday. In the past decades, because of poverty , many people had to sell their books. Today, as people’s living standards improve, many people prefer to keep their book in their family libraries and rarely sell them. Although not many people are able to predict the future of the rare book industry, the old bookshop are still there like libraries along pavement. The prime Minister and Government announced their interest in our country’s knowledge, which have created the premise for the developing reading culture in Vietnam. In the short term, we can organise a series of programmes to promote reading and publishing such as book fairs, book festivals, book weeks or books ambassadors. In the long term, developing knowledge require comprehensive measures such as education reform, increase exercise taxes on wine, beer products to ensure the health and mental power of the people and building a good environment for scientific research, which lays the foundation for the development of a modern civilization.

A Book and Reading Festival in Vietnam in 2008

IV: Intercultural communication in reading culture among Japanese and Vietnamese people In the lifestyle of Japanese and Vietnamese, reading not only entertainment but also acquire knowledge. Both Japanese and Vietnamese also reading in free time. But I think Vietnam should learn from Japan and other modern countries in reading culture if we want to catch up with them. Due to the essence of this temporary life is nothing but continuous learning. This is a core of our life journey and never ending. This is human nature. It is our nature as a human being, the main purpose of our existence in the world. From the reading and research, it is clearly seen that Japanese have a better reading culture compared to Vietnamese people because they have a strong reading motivation due to personal interest, society support from the government and non government and also a availability of reading material in their country. The identity of the country is reflected by its citizen. A reading society will make each individual in the country more updated and informative. It is still not too late to nurture and instil reading habit among the citizens of our country. It is the facts, which should made us stimulated to improve our love toward reading. Since just through the reading quality books, we can bring this country to a better future, a richer and more quality life. I agree with Tantowi Yahya , an Indonesian reading envoy. He advised “Someone who never read is someone who does not know much, someone who does not know much is so close to the stupidity and stupidity is so close to poverty.” A reading culture is a very important ingredient for us in becoming a developed nation. Although it will be a challenging journey with willingness and commitment, we can definitely achieve this dream. And in the future, Vietnamese people reading books on buses, trains, at airports and during recreation will be common sight every day in our country.

PART C: CONCLUSION A reading culture is not one where almost everyone who is reading motivational, management books or religious texts. A reading culture is one where people engaging with fiction and non - fiction. To become a country that innovates and creates, rather than one that simple received, it is necessary for us to feed the part ò brain where only possible scenarios can be thought about and developed. The history of everywhere else that works has show us that reading good books and reading them regularly, reading good stories and reading them is a good start.

References
1: Paul Valey. Japanese Culture (4th edition)
2: Paul Norbury. Japan – Culture Smart: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
3: Interview of Alpha Book director Nguyen Canh Binh on magazine “Nhan Dan”, published on 2014, April, 23nd.
4: McWhorter, Kathllen, T-Efficient and Flexible Reading, Forth Edition – New York: Logman 1998