Urban Green Areas – their functions under a changing lifestyle of ...

focus on using email services (60 %) and messenger (73 %). The Internet is now the media have
sustainable growth.
The number of internet users daily (42 %) is greater than the number of people listening to the radio
(23 %), or of those who watch television, or read the newspaper (40 %). Newspapers and television
use in Vietnam is declining as the internet becomes the most commonly used media.
Figure 3.2: Share of daily -media use in Vietnam
Source: VNNIC (2011: n.p.); MHS (2009:n.p.)
3.1.4. The impact of human factors
For over one thousand years of its existence Vietnam has been an agriculture-based
country. Hanoi in particularly has been moulded by the agricultural tradition. Small-scale
farming prevented farmers from cultivating in larger scale. Moreover, agricultural products
depend on natural resources and this is reflected in the living conditions, and social
relations of smallholders (“tiểu nông”).
This has positive aspects since those behaviours such as social unity, self-reliance, and hard
work are encouraged. However a "smallholder" lifestyle also has its down side since
learning is largely restricted to a limited range of experience, and this tends to lead to
pragmatic but short-sighted thinking, and to narrow local patriotism (see THEM 1996,
VUONG 2000).
Communism and self-government have modified these Vietnamese characteristics in
numerous positive and negative ways (see THEM 1996: 219).
The Vietnamese mentality is is characterized by, community and flexibility.
Sense of community:
The successful cultivation of wet-rice requires concerted community work and for this
reason community spirit has traditionally been held very high. (VUONG 2000: 49, 92ff.).
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