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THE NEW WAY: Protestantism and the Hmong in Vietnam. Critical Dialogues in Southeast Asian Studies. By Tâm T.T Ngô. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016. xi, 211 pp. (Maps, B&W photos.) US$50.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-295-99827-5.
This book on the conversion of the Vietnamese Hmong is important because, to an extent, the history of modern Vietnam is a history of contending with Christianity. French missionaries helped Gia Long, the Nguyen Dynasty founder, consolidate rule in 1802, for which he accorded them land in Tourane (Da Nang), but subsequent persecutory acts against Christians by his successors became the pretext for colonial rule. Da Nang was a gateway for American incursion in 1965, leading to another war between Communist Ho Chi Minh and American-backed Ngo Dinh Diem, a Catholic. Combine Christianity with the Hmong, a group that longs for ethnic sovereignty, and you get a volatile situation. Conversion is also a controversial topic in Hmong studies. Taking on the issue, Tam T.T. Ngô argues that beginning in the 1980s the Vietnamese Hmong, disillusioned by broken promises and oppressive developmental policies, have seized Protestantism as a route to empowerment and modernity-one which is "not connected to the Party-State and do[es] not seek the subjugation of personal interests to those of the state" (9).
Fascinatingly, Christianity came to the Hmong in their language via radio waves, almost a literal dictate from the divine. One day, a low-ranking Hmong Communist cadre was tuning the dials of his radio. To his surprise the charismatic Pastor Vam Txoov Lis (aka John Lee) was preaching the word of God in Hmong (41)....