Introduction to the 3rd issue, volume one of the Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities

The third number of volume one is the first issue in English of the Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities consisting of 6 main research articles, one book review and information related to conferences held by VNU-USSH recently.

In the opening article, Carlyle Thayer sketches the 40 years of Vietnam diplomacy from 1975 to 2015 with different milestone to identify the Vietnamese strategies on foreign affairs. Such strategies make the benchmarks and steppingstones for the social development and Vietnam's position in the region as well as in the world. Coming back to the end of the Vietnam War, Do Thanh Thao Mien looks at its impacts on the political activities on the Korean Peninsula from historical perspective. By analyzing the North Vietnam-North Korea relations, her paper presents the reasons why leaders of North Korea gave up their unification-by-force policy. Instead, they sought to maintain the status quo, that is the division of the Korean Peninsula, for their own internal political interests.

Next, Emmanual Pannier, the Anthropologist currently working in EFEO in Hanoi, presents the current ideas on the non-commercial flow in Vietnam. In his research, the gift-giving practice plays an important role in the daily life interactions, and becomes a part of social capital. This analysis shows that general patterns of non-commercial flow include mutual aid (giúp đỡ), reciprocity (có đi có lại), moral obligation (tình nghĩa) and indebtedness (nợ). In the same direction to look at the daily interaction, Nguyen Trung Kien in the following paper also explained the "sacred face" in the daily urban life in Vietnam from the social interaction theory by Goffman. It found that the face in the context of social interaction is often classified into two categories: the face of the subordinate and the face of the superordinate. Due to the high status of the latter in Vietnamese hierarchical system, losing face can lead to its serious consequences while for the former losing face is often belittled.

The following paper, on the tourism in history of Vietnam by Nguyen Pham Hung, covers the development of tourism activities from the mid-tenth century of Vietnam. Its developments are similar to the current form of MICE. Tourism plays crucial role in terms of economic and cultural activities. The final paper of Tran Van Kham and Pham Van Quyet analyzed the difficulties in accessing to social services that poor migrants in the urban areas faced, and provided some suggestions for policy making.

In the book review, Phan Van Kien introduces and comments on the newly published book on the criteria for assessing the Vietnamese competencies for the international students, published by VNU-Publishing house in August 2015.

The publication of the first issue in English shows the significant efforts by editorial board, authors, contributors, reviewers, and VNU-USSH. It also represents the new strategy of USSH to make its publication to meet the international standards of a scientific journal. The next issue of the journal will be available in February 2016.

The editorial board welcomes all comments, supports and suggestions for the development of the journal. On the occasion of New Year 2016, the editorial board wishes you all good health, happiness and success, and look forward to further cooperation. 

Click here to see the table of contents and links to the articles