Bird play: raising red-whiskered bulbuls and (re)inventing urban ‘nature’ in contemporary Vietnam

A socially recognisable signifier for wealth and class in Southeast Asian consciousness, ornamental birdkeeping often focuses on exotic avian species to enhance the status symbolism of this practice. For the past five years, contemporary Vietnamese urbanites have renewed interest in and refocused birdkeeping on a non-exotic avian native to the region: the red-whiskered bulbuls, widely considered a ‘bird of the people’ (chim bình dân) in the words of participants. Popular media have recognised the return of ornamental birdkeeping as a healthy cultural practice that encourages mental stimulation, yet the favouring of a native, non-exotic species quite amenable to a variety of living and economic situations (dễ nuôi), I argue, is remarkable in its reimagination of the high society associations of this tradition. Further, this article will demonstrate that the increased popularity of raising red-whiskered bulbuls reflects a rapidly urbanising Vietnam wherein holistic ideals of nature, characteristic of and integral to Vietnamese consciousness, underline human-nonhuman interactions from city to country, and are caught amid a transition from industrial modernity, with its nature-culture binarism, to a postmodern period fraught with uncertainties.