Asian totalitarian despots used to provide for much of the world’s misery (think Pol Pot, Mao Tse Dung, Hirorito, Ho Chi Minh, Suharto and around 100 million killed in the last 75 years). While many of the regimes of these losers have faded away, some, such as North Korea, China and Vietnam still remain. In the case of Vietnam today, it is hard to believe this country is still communist and authoritarian as life seems quite free and good for the citizens as you walk around. While I am sure this is not always the case and there are still real examples of despotism in Vietnam, I thought I would make light of my perceptions of the many improvements in Vietnam in the entry below.
Dear Ho Chi Minh,
I feel the need to inform you regarding the alarming condition of your country after visiting the largest city in it which also happens to be named after you.
I am sure you were ecstatic following the triumph of your communist forces over South Vietnam in 1975 and the removal of all Imperialist (religious and capitalist influences) elements from your country with violence and wholesale re education of all those deemed threats to your new utopia.
When I first visited your country in 1990, things seemed to have slipped a bit. While still a rigidly and dogmatically a communist country, there were small scale businesses popping up everywhere, so much so that my professor, who had traveled to almost every communist country, was amazed at the entrepreneurial spirit of Vietnam and the tolerance of it by your government.
When I returned this year, I found even more un communist influences. On top of small scale industries, foreign multinational companies now exist everywhere—Toyota, Ford, Pizza Hut, Yamaha, Sony, etc….). While I was there, the local communist english newspaper even interviewed the Japanese trade minister and criticized his country’s companies… for not investing enough capital, I mean CAPITAL, in Vietnam!
Also unlike 1990, religious life seems vibrant. When I visited in 1990, the group I was in had to smuggle Bibles and a keyboard into the country for Christians there, who were in hiding. Other religious influences were not present. Now, religious things seemed everywhere. Buddhist shrines were at almost every business, catholic saints were spotted on the dashboards of many cars and mass was conducted at churches. The largest statue of Jesus in Asia, which was completed in 1993, even stands over the city of Vung Tau. I believe it is even larger than any statue of you in the country!
Christ of Vung Tau
I hope you know that if this continues, your legacy is in doubt.
Just thought you should know,
Sweeda
