Beauty and Folly of French Colonial Legacy in the Developing World
Walking down the streets of central Saigon has a tendency to bring one to other places in the (ex-) Francophone world. At times, the shady boulevards littered with Neoclassical masterpieces, turned into museums, bars, and political institutions, reminded of the French Concession in Shanghai. Some of these buildings feel so dilapidated that their plain sight brings one back the rundown yet previously elegant main streets of Casablanca. Yet the well-manicured parks and horticultural street exhibits are just like those found in the central parts of Montpelier...
The similarities of these cities says much about the French colonial legacy. While the British can claim that their former colonies became more developed (Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, just to name a few on this side of the world), wherever the French went, they left behind much more than just institutions for economic development. They left behind vestiges of their own culture that became so well-mingled with the local cultures, so much as to have locals claim that this half-baked, much modified French-ness is now part of their own identity.
The architecture is but the most superficial and obvious of this French cultural legacy. Indeed, in Morocco and Senegal, French is the "high language" to be used for communication with all foreigners in a clear and fluent diglossia with native tongues. In Vietnam, while the French language is no longer used much, French tastes remained. It remains the top coffee-producer and consumer in a tea-obsessed Asia, and the local street food scene is definitely not complete without Vietnamese sandwiches made with French baguette-style baked bread loaves.
Yet, even as the locals continue to see the French cultural influence as positive enough to not require specific purges from their homelands, at the same time, it is important to duly note that such French colonial legacy was essentially an elitist one. After all, the locals want to have that French element because France, then and now, represent elegance, luxury, fashion, and style, all of which associated with wealth and status, something only a tiny percentage of France's colonial subjects ever had the chance to attain...
That is why, despite the widespread elements of French culture in its former colonies, France never managed to gain full-hearted support of locals beyond that tiny "French-educated elite" from Morocco to Algeria to Lebanon to here in Vietnam. And as French rule progressed, the French authorities became more and more dependent on such French-educated local elite, creating distinctive two-level societies that are unequal not only in wealth but language and lifestyle, with one actively discriminated by the culturally nationalistic French...
The resulting shallowness of French influence becomes evident just after a quick talk with Vietnamese rural villagers migrating to Saigon for work. For them, French colonial rule was the beginning of massive urban-rural divide that threatened the very foundation of traditional Vietnamese agricultural society. One rural woman kept noting that there is absolutely no work in the villages, and any manual labor she can find in the city (such her current job of hand-knitting souvenir scarves) is better than being back at the village.
The woman's plea is quite ironic considering that agribusiness in Vietnam is quite a big deal, with the country being not only a major exporter of coffee (as previously mentioned) but also many other agricultural goods, notably rice. Such cash crops are labor-intensive and certainly cannot be grown in densely populated urban areas. Perhaps the woman's notion of "there is no work to be done" in the villages is much more of a mentality reflecting her over-inflated image of urban life, combined with sense of rural inferiority, rather than genuine lack of income in the villages.
And that glamour of urban Vietnam, just like they are in other former French areas, are created at least partially in the French era. They created beautiful cities full of grace from Casablanca to Saigon, educated a whole group of sophisticated urbanites that acquired a taste for French culture. That French-created facade of prosperity, inherited by various national governments, is bound to lure countless migrants from rural areas, seeking a better, emm, more French-like life. When they did show up, they found physical and cultural beauty of East-meets-West, only to be overshadowed by the folly of institutionalized social inequality...
The similarities of these cities says much about the French colonial legacy. While the British can claim that their former colonies became more developed (Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, just to name a few on this side of the world), wherever the French went, they left behind much more than just institutions for economic development. They left behind vestiges of their own culture that became so well-mingled with the local cultures, so much as to have locals claim that this half-baked, much modified French-ness is now part of their own identity.
The architecture is but the most superficial and obvious of this French cultural legacy. Indeed, in Morocco and Senegal, French is the "high language" to be used for communication with all foreigners in a clear and fluent diglossia with native tongues. In Vietnam, while the French language is no longer used much, French tastes remained. It remains the top coffee-producer and consumer in a tea-obsessed Asia, and the local street food scene is definitely not complete without Vietnamese sandwiches made with French baguette-style baked bread loaves.
Yet, even as the locals continue to see the French cultural influence as positive enough to not require specific purges from their homelands, at the same time, it is important to duly note that such French colonial legacy was essentially an elitist one. After all, the locals want to have that French element because France, then and now, represent elegance, luxury, fashion, and style, all of which associated with wealth and status, something only a tiny percentage of France's colonial subjects ever had the chance to attain...
That is why, despite the widespread elements of French culture in its former colonies, France never managed to gain full-hearted support of locals beyond that tiny "French-educated elite" from Morocco to Algeria to Lebanon to here in Vietnam. And as French rule progressed, the French authorities became more and more dependent on such French-educated local elite, creating distinctive two-level societies that are unequal not only in wealth but language and lifestyle, with one actively discriminated by the culturally nationalistic French...
The resulting shallowness of French influence becomes evident just after a quick talk with Vietnamese rural villagers migrating to Saigon for work. For them, French colonial rule was the beginning of massive urban-rural divide that threatened the very foundation of traditional Vietnamese agricultural society. One rural woman kept noting that there is absolutely no work in the villages, and any manual labor she can find in the city (such her current job of hand-knitting souvenir scarves) is better than being back at the village.
The woman's plea is quite ironic considering that agribusiness in Vietnam is quite a big deal, with the country being not only a major exporter of coffee (as previously mentioned) but also many other agricultural goods, notably rice. Such cash crops are labor-intensive and certainly cannot be grown in densely populated urban areas. Perhaps the woman's notion of "there is no work to be done" in the villages is much more of a mentality reflecting her over-inflated image of urban life, combined with sense of rural inferiority, rather than genuine lack of income in the villages.
And that glamour of urban Vietnam, just like they are in other former French areas, are created at least partially in the French era. They created beautiful cities full of grace from Casablanca to Saigon, educated a whole group of sophisticated urbanites that acquired a taste for French culture. That French-created facade of prosperity, inherited by various national governments, is bound to lure countless migrants from rural areas, seeking a better, emm, more French-like life. When they did show up, they found physical and cultural beauty of East-meets-West, only to be overshadowed by the folly of institutionalized social inequality...
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