Illuminating–


Sino-Vietnamese relations deteriorated in the late 1970s and Vietnam was forced to increase its economic and military reliance upon the Soviet Union. T is period of dependency is most visible in modern Vietnam in the form of the two stroke Russian Minsk 125 motorcycle, many of which still clog the roads and atmosphere and are easily recognisable even in the hectic Vietnamese traffi c.


Aſt er the Reunifi cation of Vietnam in 1976 (the North and South had been separated for 12 years in line with the Geneva Accords) a policy of widespread collectivisation was implemented throughout the country with devastating economic consequences. A decade later the reformation was still painfully slow and reformers at the National Congress replaced the old leadership and began the implementation of Doi Moi. T is initially controversial economic policy would allow certain levels of privatisation and take Vietnam into the free-market. While the state-owned conglomerates are still in existence this dramatic shiſt in policy has allowed the economy to grow by around 8% almost every year for the past decade and poverty levels have considerably dropped. However the gap between rich and poor is ever widening and there is a massive disparity in wealth and living conditions between rural and urban areas. On the other hand Doi Moi has helped improve Vietnam’s international relationships. Former enemies China and the US are now two of the biggest investors in the Vietnamese economy.


Far from feeling resentment towards the US most Vietnamese (especially the predominant youth) idolise them as an economic superpower. T e Westernising infl uence of this relationship and the impact of a booming tourist industry is best demonstrated at the beach resorts of Vietnam. Just off the coast of Nha Trang is a small island which has been turned entirely into a theme park (a dubious choice for a nation of people who fi nd it hard to take the


bus without seeing their lunch again) and the island’s name Vin Pearl can be seen from the mainland in Hollywood-style letters. Just another, albeit slightly more bizarre, Vietnamese surprise. Expect the unexpected, as Sam Manicom says in the next article.


Sitting on the fi rst fl oor of a café in Hanoi, in a room decorated completely in red and yellow stars, hammers and sickles and the ubiquitous portraits of leader Ho Chi Minh, you look out onto a small leafy square which is dominated by the beautiful St Joseph’s Cathedral. It is the invariable existence of juxtapositions like this that makes Vietnam such an extraordinary country to experience. At every turn you are reminded of its rich and troubled history, of its people’s ability to take all of these contrasting infl uxes and make them seem perfectly at home with each other. Posters reminiscent of Soviet Russia plaster the walls of buildings that you’d expect to see in some square in a corner of old Paris, Confucianist pagodas covered in Chinese symbols stand on the same street as a Jazz Café that wouldn’t look out of place in downtown New Orleans and in a country where everything is for sale, a country with a booming economy that has embraced capitalism, it is impossible to escape the symbols of communism: a red fl ag emblazoned with a yellow star, the hammer and sickle fl ying alongside. At times it even feels as though the country is haunted by Ho Chi Minh, so omnipresent is his image. I wonder how he would feel, this icon of communist leadership, if he knew that now, as with Che Guevara, his own face had become a commodity, on a postcard, a t-shirt or key-ring. T is, in a way, is the very essence of Vietnam. In a history of foreign rule, repression and battles for liberty, Vietnam has always overcome, made it out the other side by taking everything it could from what came before in order to carry on aſt er. ◆


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15