"The culture of Vietnam is one of the oldest in Southeast Asia, with the Bronze age Đông Sơn culture considered to be one of its most important progenitors for its Ancient history. Vietnamese culture was heavily influenced by Chinese culture due to the 1000 years of Northern rule. In this period of time Vietnamese was written with Chinese characters. This large impact on Vietnamese culture meant that Vietnam is often considered to be part of the East Asian cultural sphere (with China, Taiwan, South Korea, North Korea, and Japan).

Following independence from China in the 10th century, Vietnam began a southward expansion and annexed territories formerly belonging to Champa and Khmer, resulting in various influences on the Vietnamese. During the French colonial period, Catholicism and a Latin alphabet (the Vietnamese alphabet) romanizing the Vietnamese language was introduced in Vietnam. Prior to this, Vietnamese used Chinese script (Chữ Hán), and a Vietnamese script (Chữ Nôm) that was based on Chinese, but invented other characters to represent native Vietnamese words. Besides East Asian, South East Asian, French and English influences, Russia has also influenced Vietnam since 1980s.

Some elements considered to be characteristic of Vietnamese culture include ancestor veneration, respect for community & family, manual labour and living in harmony with nature. Some symbols in Vietnamese culture include bamboo, turtles, dragons and lotuses."

          (from Wikipedia)

An article:

 The Vietnamese Values System: A Blend of Oriental, Western and Socialist Values (by Nguyen)