The incident, which occurred on June 4 during a birthday party on Le Duan Street, in the Soc Trang district of Can Tho, was initially deemed inappropriate and detrimental to public order and road safety by local authorities. However, this inappropriate behavior raises serious questions about the community’s values, cultural norms and cultural resilience in the face of international integration and the rise of digital media.
From a cultural perspective, this is no longer an isolated incident or a thoughtless joke. The use of coffins as entertainment props and their display in the streets reveal a perversion of values; a confusion between individual freedom and social responsibility, between creativity and outrage, between the need for expression and respect for cultural values established and preserved by the community for generations. In Vietnamese spirituality, funeral objects and coffins are inseparable from meditation, filial piety and respect for the deceased. “Filial piety is the supreme duty” is not just a simple expression, but a moral value passed down from generation to generation. When coffins are paraded in the streets for rowdy shows, it is no longer a simple joke in bad taste, but a manifestation of a distortion of cultural perception.
In recent years, many shocking phenomena that have appeared in social life have one thing in common: the more shocking they are – especially on the Internet – the more attention they attract. This has created a mentality among many to adopt unusual, even anticultural, behaviors to gain recognition and fame. When shock and anticultural behavior are seen as the shortest path to glory, cultural norms are easily violated. It is a manifestation of the degradation of cultural values, where fame takes precedence over dignity and attention over respect.
Carrying a coffin in public through the streets also reflects a decline in the sense of responsibility towards the community. Organizing a birthday party is an individual right, but when this activity spills onto public roads, encroaches on public space, disrupts traffic and provokes negative reactions within society, it is no longer a private matter. Freedom does not rhyme with arbitrariness. A civilized society is measured not only by what each person can do, but also by the capacity of each person to stop so as not to harm the common good. Even more worrying, such behavior reveals a weakening of the cultural resilience of the community; Fundamental values such as respect, compassion, community spirit and responsibility are overshadowed by a thirst for fleeting glory, glory at all costs, without regard for cultural norms.
The public spectacle of the funeral procession crossing the streets will eventually fade. Videos circulating on social networks will be replaced by new information. But what really matters is not these few minutes of chaos in the streets, but the following question: how will we react to the increasingly frequent manifestations of cultural deviations in our society? To respond, the absolute priority is to strengthen education in cultural values within families, schools and society; to build a healthy cultural environment online; to promote the role of the community in preserving standards; and to develop the aesthetic sense of society. At the same time, we must strive to develop positive and human cultural activities so that beauty can spread; and transform positive traditional cultural values into concrete standards of action for modern life.
A civilized society is not only defined by its pace of economic development, but also by its ability to preserve its cultural norms in the face of ever more sophisticated and complex deviations. If today we tolerate offensive behavior, tomorrow we may call it creative. If today we remain silent in the face of deviations, tomorrow they will become habits. Preserving culture means knowing how to protect the boundaries that deserve respect and knowing how to say no to ridicule, offensiveness and cultural deviance.
Politburo Resolution No. 80-NQ/TW, dated January 7, 2026, “related to the development of Vietnamese culture,” highlights the need to “build a healthy cultural environment, from family and school to society and space “digital”. With this in mind, the exploitation of funeral symbols to attract attention and create buzz on social media not only constitutes a deviation from cultural norms, but also contravenes the requirement of building a healthy cultural environment as defined by our Party. A nation that aspires to progress in this new era of development cannot allow its core cultural values to be eroded by deviant entertainment. We cannot invoke creativity or individual freedom to justify actions that undermine the cultural norms that countless generations of Vietnamese have patiently cultivated, preserved and transmitted.
GIA HUY
