Vietnamese Dreamers
Nha Trang, August 23, 2014
Vietnam is a country that I successfully avoided over 40 years ago. A student deferment and later a high lottery number in the draft meant that I didn’t have to choose between going to jail or coming over here to fight in a war I didn’t believe in. That war was a nightmare for the Vietnamese and the Americans, a terrible mistake by well-intentioned people on both sides. Vietnam won the war and lost it. And now they have a vision for the future that is understandably ambitious, if possibly unwise.
Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City) is a boomtown, far more developed than I had imagined. I had thought of Vietnam as a third world country shackled by communism, and it is both of those. But it’s also hell-bent on developing as quickly as possible. Highrise office buildings and midrise apartment blocks are rapidly transforming the skyline, and if present trends continue, Vietnam’s largest city will probably look like Hong Kong, Shanghai, or Tokyo in 20 or 30 years. Does Asia or the world really need another mega-city, a brave new world of concrete, glass, and steel? Vietnam obviously believes the answer is yes, and it wants to join the club of rich, developed nations. Now. And after the hardship and misery they’ve endured for so long, I can’t really blame them.
Ho Chi Minh was a brilliant leader, a nationalist who dreamed of independence for his long-suffering people. Unfortunately he concluded that communism would liberate his nation and create a worker’s utopia. I believe that had he just been a nationalist and not a communist, the U.S. probably wouldn’t have tried to stop his reunification of the country. But his communist ambitions were backed by the Soviet Union and China, so cold war politics led the U.S. to its ill-fated decision to oppose him.
Ho didn’t live to see the victory of North over South in 1975; he died in 1969 during the civil war. Maybe had he lived after the war he would have been a Nelson Mandela or Abraham Lincoln and helped heal the wounds caused by the bitter conflict. But Vietnam didn’t have a Lincoln-esque figure in 1975 to urge “With malice toward none, with charity toward all.” So the vengeful communists decided to crush all opposition and punish those who had opposed them. This caused the flight of some 800,000 boat people, many of whom live in the U.S. today.
Of the people who remained behind, the winners were the communist party officials who won power and government jobs. The losers were the workers and farmers who found out what a worker’s utopia really meant. Our tour guide remembers the war years and their aftermath. He explained that after the war the new government seized all the farmland and turned it into farming collectives, so the farmers had to work for the government and endure its regimentation. Early in the morning a government worker would bang on a metal drum, and the farmers had to march to work in the fields. At the end of the day the drum would sound again, and the farmers would march home. He remembers how sad the people were during those years.
So people kept escaping Vietnam by boat, and food production was declining. Finally in 1986 the government realized that Marxism was bankrupting the country. So they allowed farmers to own and farm their own land again and – surprise! – rice production skyrocketed, and Vietnam is now the number one rice exporter in the world. The government also opened the country to foreign investment and loosened many restrictions on people’s personal lives. So Vietnam is becoming more westernized, though the government still keeps tight political control.
On my flight to Saigon I sat next to Minh, a young Vietnamese college student returning home for a visit from studying in Taiwan. He said he’s not political because it’s too risky to question the communist party. As it is, the government is suspicious of him for studying abroad and for associating with foreigners. One time he was accompanied by a Taiwanese friend in Saigon, and the police followed them around. Minh told me his phone will almost certainly be bugged while he’s visiting his family. He likes living in Taiwan because there’s so much personal freedom, and he would love to live permanently in a country with such freedoms. But he did say that Vietnam is slowly getting better in that regard, and that it has more freedoms than China. Vietnam censors Facebook because of the possibility of online communities forming that the government can’t control, but it doesn’t censor YouTube because that’s not seen as a threat to the government. He added that most Vietnamese don’t care whether their government is communist or capitalist; they only care about the quality of their lives. And they’re enjoying their new-found materialism.
It’s the American dream that calls to Miss Nguyen. A lovely petite young woman, Miss Nguyen was our local guide in the Mekong Delta. When she found out where I’m from, she told me that she wants to move to America. Surprised, I asked her why she’d want to leave the beautiful tropical paradise where she lives. She looked at me in disbelief, as if the answer was so obvious, before finally saying, “For better opportunities.” I tried to explain that life isn’t perfect in America, but she was unfazed. She has her dream, and she’s sticking with it.
As for me, Vietnam thus far is a traveler’s dream come true. From stimulating Saigon to the rivers and flowers of the Mekong Delta to the cool alpine mountains of the Central Highlands to our present stay in the gorgeous seaside resort of Nha Trang, life is very, very good. I’m so glad that I didn’t come here 40 years ago. And I’m so appreciative of the opportunity to be here now.
Friends and Enemies
Hoi An, August 28, 2014
I’ve seen lots of government billboards here exhorting the people to unite for the cause of building a modern future. Usually there are smiling and/or determined faces of workers in the foreground, and in the background might be images of skyscrapers, factories, or power plants. But there’s another kind of government billboard with a very different theme: China is our enemy.
China isn’t mentioned by name. It doesn’t have to be. Everyone here knows that China has long occupied islands claimed by Vietnam, and the Vietnamese are angry about it. There have been clashes at sea between Chinese and Vietnamese ships and fishing boats, and earlier this summer there were violent anti-Chinese riots here. Our tour guide Thanh says that the anti-Chinese billboards are recent. The first one I saw showed a square-jawed Vietnamese sailor brandishing a rifle and looking fiercely at an unseen foe, while a Vietnamese navy ship stands guard in the background. The slogan: “We must protect our nation!” Another version shows Ho Chi Minh smiling down from heaven upon Vietnamese sailors.
China helped Vietnam in its war with the Americans, but the two countries have had an adversarial relationship for over 1,000 years. China has invaded and occupied Vietnam many times, most recently for a few days in 1979. Vietnam is definitely an underdog in any military encounter with their huge neighbor, but they were also underdogs against the Mongols, Khmer empire, Japanese, French, and Americans, and they eventually prevailed every time.
Interestingly, one translation of the name Viet Nam is “We are not China.” Viet refers to the largest ethnic group in the country, and Nam means south. South of what? China. So the Viet people define themselves as being a distinct culture from Chinese culture, and even though they’ve learned much from the Chinese, they refuse to be absorbed by them.
I’m told that the Vietnamese are a forgiving people, and that that’s the reason they’re so friendly toward Americans. And if and when they ever get their islands back, they’ll probably forgive the Chinese too. We Americans have a lot to be forgiven for. So do the Chinese. But the U.S. is helping its former Vietnamese enemy to clean the Agent Orange-contaminated soil poisoned by the U.S. Air Force, and helping to clear landmines left behind by both sides. After being allies against the Japanese in World War II, then enemies during the Vietnam War, the U.S. and Vietnam are friends again.
In my youth I learned a Buddhist concept that I’m still trying to understand. Akuchishiki soku zenchishiki means that with wisdom, one realizes that an enemy is actually your friend. That is, so-called enemies or opponents can be our teachers, forcing us to face our limitations or our shortcomings. It’s a profound idea from the lofty perspective of many lifetimes. But in the here and now it’s not easy to be so compassionate toward those with whom we differ.
I don’t see the Vietnamese and Chinese resolving their differences anytime soon. Sometimes you just have to live with people or countries you don’t like. As our guide Tranh says, countries or governments may not get along, but as individuals all we can do is treat people kindly, and trust that such good deeds will be rewarded one way or another.
David Wigginton 