Tourism and the irony of colonial underdevelopment in Nhất Linh’s “Going to the West”
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15086615 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Duy Lap Nguyen (0009-0001-4239-9174, University of Houston, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 371-388 |
| Publication date | 2018-10-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Studies in Travel Writing (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1364-5145 • E-ISSN: 1755-7550 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13645145.2019.1621037 |
| OpenAlex | W2949959129 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 14 |
This essay proposes a reading of Nhất Linh’s “Going to the West” (Đi Tây, 1935). The travelogue presents a critique of colonialism that was prevalent among the interwar Vietnamese elite. In the narrative, the voyage to France provides the pretext for a political comedy, ironising an imperialism that proclaimed equality in the metropole, while perpetuating colonial underdevelopment. This irony is highlighted in a series of contrasts between the condition of Vietnamese servants or “boys” and that of their metropolitan counterparts: waiters in the restaurant industry. In the travelogue, this commodified form of consumption, which colonised everyday life in France, becomes the occasion for a critique of underdevelopment. This critique, however, presupposes the same European ideal of modernity, used to justify the colonial project. The essay concludes with a history of the “boy” as a symbol of colonial oppression, created, ironically, by the attempt to impose the Republican ideal of equality
Art · Colonialism · Commodification · Economics · Economy · Irony · Literature · Modernity · Neocolonialism · Oppression · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Underdevelopment · Gender Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
Overturned Chariot
Syndicalism in France
Blindness and Insight
The Colonizer and the Colonized
Understanding Vietnam
Leftward Journey
National Identity and Shifting Imperial Frontiers
Tradition and revolution in Vietnam
A Theory of Tourism
A Right to Be Lazy
"Introduction to Enzensberger's "A Theory of Tourism
Writing Home, Writing Travel
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |