Which is a decent dovetail into the government in general. I came here thinking that this country is communist, as that is the general teaching we had in school. Not correct. The war that ended in 1975 was for all intents and purposes a civil war while simultaneously a proxy Cold War between Russia and the US.
Here in the south, more so than the north, we have been visiting sites that speak to the war, from different aspects. In Saigon we visited the site commemorating the Buddhist Monk who immolated himself when Buddhism was declared by the south Vietnamese government to not be recognized.
We also visited the CuChi area where the Vietcong had created a huge series of tunnels in the forests north of Saigon. These tunnels were at the terminus of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and allowed the Vietcong to infiltrate Saigon as civilians and carry out urban guerrilla warfare. These tunnels were roughly 250 sq km with 3 levels, with kitchens, meeting rooms, hospitals and more. It was quite complex and ultimately one of the ways that clearly made the war unwinnable for the south and the US.
Our guides have more than once spoken of their own family and how one relative fought on one side and another on the other. Catholics moved to the South in hopes of avoiding repercussions, and indeed, after 1975, people were sent to re-education camps (some) and in part due to the embargo from the west as well as the support from China and Russia, things were more regulated. Russian was the foreign language taught in the schools. (Side note, we noticed that our guides are either roughly 65–meaning that they were too young to fight but still exposed to Western influences and learned English, or they are 45 or younger. Karen has hypothesized that this is because there is a whole generation of people between 45-65 who really didn’t learn English).
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the lifting of the embargo, Vietnam has progressively and increasingly loosened its restrictions. Yes the posters in Saigon are there, and in several places. There are these interesting ‘news bulletins’ on loudspeakers at 8AM and 5PM in Hanoi and in Hoi An. Supposedly these are news broadcast in a holdover from when most people didn’t have access to TV news or other sources. But one has to suspect that the news is also a bit of government messaging, right? It seems to persist in some urban areas despite the fact that MOST people, nearly 90% now have cell phones. So access to news is nearly unfettered. We were watching CNN in a bar the other day. Yes, when certain ads came on there was a brief pop up noting that the content was considered inappropriate but neither did it censor it.
Social media sites are widely available.
And back to government: Vietnam is a socialist republic and one party state. Officially the foundations is Marxist-Leninist and Ho Chi Minh. However, since the reforms in the 1980’s it has transitioned from a centralled planned economy to a socialist oriented market economy. There is encouragement of private ownership. On festival days there is a strong push to fly the Vietnamese flags, but this seems more regionally prevalent in some areas and less in others. So Hanoi, lots of flags flying all the time, and nearly none in Saigon.
In looking up the state owned industries, the largest ones are still majority owned by the government (energy, telecommunications, defense, banking). To which Karen reminded me that such practices are common in many other Western countries as well, like the US, Japan, Germany, UK and so on. And same goes for individual states, in fact the top 25 US states which have state owned investment portfolios is a list of (surprise surprise) states . Not the least of which is Alaska. There are others.
At the end of the day, the birth rate is dropping dramatically, the life expectancy is rising, literacy is over 90% and the overall poverty level is dropping. There is real wealth in Vietnam, and you can see the super fancy stores signifying that people have a LOT of money to drop. DOn’t get me wrong, we saw some homeless people in Saigon too, and there are hidden homeless people but nothing on the order of what is visible in the US. The environmental progress is happening: e-cars, solar energy, and more, but there is also a ways to go.
My sense is that in 20 years it will be another huge step forward. Overall, a great thought exercise.
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