Sounding Out Heritage: Cultural Politics and the Social Practice of Quan Họ Folk Song in Northern Vietnam by Lauren Meeker (review)

Anthropologist Lauren Meeker’s study of northern Vietnamese folk song (quan họ) in Sounding Out Heritage adds to scholarship on cultural heritage in Asia by balancing detailed evaluations of historical sources with poignant ethnographic description. Meeker adroitly plots rapid changes in practice, keeping her observations relevant and supported by current anthropological research on Vietnam. She tells the story of quan họ’s development from embodied social practice in rural village settings to a national art form deployed in various media settings throughout Vietnam. In the introductory chapter, she skillfully sets up the complicated spaces of music production in northern Vietnam where policy writers and implementers, memories of performers, domestic consumers, and international protectors uneasily coexist. With the increasing predilection of state actors to pursue international recognition through cultural heritage, quan họ now “radiate[s] out beyond its local origins to promote cultural dialogue regionally, nationally, and internationally” (2).

The first chapter investigates the governmental policies implemented after the 1945 August Revolution in Vietnam, including those in place until 1975 in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and those implemented after 1975 in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. These policies led to the collection of folk songs, the composition of new national music, and methods of educating the population on appropriate music practice. The crux of the chapter, and the crux of the book itself, involves the use of “sentiment” (tình cảm)—as distinct from “emotion” (cảm xúc)—to imbue authenticity into quan họ practice. “To have sentiment implies engaging in correct social behavior that is a reflection of proper values and feelings towards others” (33). One finds sentiment in village-level “pure” practice, and it is also found deployed in nationalizing music.

Meaning in quan họ social practice emerges through the embodied organization of social interaction. In the second chapter, Meeker draws on anthropologist Thomas Csordas’s work in cultural phenomenology to arrange her observations on the body in quan họ performance and focuses on methods used by the village “gathering of singers” (canh hát) to cultivate platonic intimacy between performers. This chapter also features one of the few discussions of music practice: she briefly describes the proper ordering of “tune categories” (giọng) in the canh hát (50–51); mentions that proper “ways of practicing” (lối chơi or lề lối) or embellishing phrases (câu) exist (52); and reveals that village quan họ singers view singing as “playing an instrument in the throat,” whereby certain timbral aesthetics, such as “bouncing” in the throat, are revered (54–57). The third chapter describes the transformation of the village style to nationalized and modernized quan họ. Meeker focuses on narratives disseminated by performers and state actors through professional troupes, schools, and competitions. Changes in practice, such as how singers of modern quan họ represent unattainable romantic love rather than attainable platonic love in performance, are made very clear.

Meeker directs subsequent analyses using the words of a fieldwork consultant who highlights the difference between listening to (nghe) and watching (xem) quan họ—the latter of which now often structures engagement with the genre (94). The fourth chapter evaluates the ways that watching quan họ on television stirs the “social” or “contemporary cultural” imaginations of viewers and forms new social relationships between viewers (95–96). Staged performances simultaneously make visible what is heard in lyrical content and serve the goals of postrevolutionary cultural policy. Content visually represented becomes more accessible to members of the Vietnamese population. With new access to this “insider” knowledge disseminated through television programs, quan họ becomes part of the national imagination. The fifth chapter investigates the impact of policy and the representation of televised quan họ on village festivals. Ideas concerning national representation...