a brief history

Viet Nam has been etched in the American national conscious as a War. Think "Viet Nam" and "war" immediately comes to mind. Go to a bookstore, look up Vietnam, and you're bound to find a litany of books on the Vietnam War, the American response to the Vietnam War, the mistakes of the war, the changes the war made, etc etc. A frequent response when I told people about going to Viet Nam was a story from their fighting days in Viet Nam or what they were doing during the early '70s. And this makes sense. I don't want to diminish the impact that the war had because it was the living daily reality for so many.

But Viet Nam is much more than a failed attempt to contain communism. Viet Nam is a country with a long history and diverse people. Even though this place is seldom in the news back home, it has changed and developed, grown and prospered. So I want to give you a brief overview of where Viet Nam has been since it left the headlines of the '60s and '70s.

1975 brought the end of the war and reunification under the Communist Party. It wasn't an immediate turn-around, however, into post-war euphoria. America imposed trade embargoes and Viet Nam soon became isolated from the rest of the world. The Communists sent many Southerners to re-education camps to train them in the ways of communism, but many of them fled on small boats to escape the hardships (these are the so-called "boat people"). These were hard times for all the Vietnamese people, north and south. Food and other items were purchased by stamps issued by the government, but those were scarce. Land was redistributed to the peasants on communes, but drought and deceased motivation led to small crops. In those days, it was a seldom-realized dream to own a bike or a television.

In 1986, however, this all changed with the introduction of doi moi--free-market economy. Viet Nam gradually opened up to the West and released its iron-fist on the economy, allowing foreigners to come in and make investments. Food and other commodities slowly became more available, construction began to boom as demand for housing and shops exploded in the cities, poverty took a turn downwards, and the gray colors of old Communism were infused with the bright pinks and bold oranges of a new Viet Nam. Of course this process wasn't overnight, but the '90s were an exciting time in this country.

The late '90s brought some deflation to overly-optimistic investors as they ran into blocks from the government and cross-cultural conflicts. But in general, the country is still growing rapidly and changing every day. The skyline contains numerous construction cranes that keep buildings growing higher and higher. The streets are changing too, or so I've been told. There are more chain restaurants (KFC, anyone?), glassed-in stores, and regular buses. Tourists walk the streets without anyone taking a second glance at them--it's not a big deal to have bazungu/foreigners around. This suites me fine! It's nice not to be stared at a lot, like I was in Uganda and Papua New Guinea.

So that's my brief little history. I should write a disclaimer that I have only been here for a week, so I really have no authority on these matters, but I'm just writing what I've heard and observed. This past week I've been like a sponge, soaking in all this new information, new sights and sounds and smells. Rachel and I have started biking, which is a really great way to become familiar with the twisting streets of Ha Noi. I've gone running several times--sometimes around a little lake nearby, sometimes on the roads, blending into the flow of cars, trucks, motorbikes, and bikes. It all just flows around me as I sweat through every pore of my body! We've been to the Temple of Literature, the History Museum, the Ethnography Museum, National Opera House, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, the Old Quarter, and many different restaurants around the city. Tonight we're off to Da Nang in the central provinces with the MCC office staff.

All for now. I'll try to get pictures up soon.