Talking about drinking culture in Vietnam pertains to the contrasting perspectives regarding this culture’s identities — although a small minority feels that enjoying alcohol is an exquisite pleasure like a kind of art, the majority considers that alcohol is a trigger for many societal problems. Thus, the group project does not debate the essence of drinking culture; rather, it addresses the topic of why and how this culture’s identities have been transformed.
Through the theoretical basements of Communicative Memory and Counter-Hegemony, the authors show that the shift in the drinking culture’s identities is caused by the varied portrayals of this activity in the classic literary works (Nguyen Du’s The Tale of Kieu), and the media nowadays (online news). This is the consequence of excessive alcohol consumption by people in modern society. Moreover, the project proposes different approaches to shape people’s perceptions towards drinking culture to become more fair and truthful.
