
Capitalist Soul Rises as Ho Chi Minh City Sheds Its Past - nyodeneD
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/world/asia/ho-chi-minh-city-finds-its-soul-in-a-voracious-capitalism.html
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DanielBMarkham
I have a passion for history. I love reading biographies and hanging out on
history forums.

As we're getting to the 50-year mark past the American involvement in Vietnam,
things are progressing in ways not anticipated at the time. Vietnam, like
several other Asian countries, is embracing capitalism and entrepreneurs. Old
enemies hug and pose for photographs.

This seems to be a pattern, at least among American conflicts (I have not
studied others very much). As the combatants grow into old age, it's not worth
carrying a grudge around. Things that were worth dying and killing for 50
years ago are still important, but they're fights for young people. It becomes
easier to see things from the other side.

I'd argue that by simply having a huge presence of Americans in Vietnam for so
many years, the two countries have become joined for the next century or so,
much the same as having kids in a marriage joins the two partners together
even if they can't stand one another. I also note that things may end up
turning out better for Vietnam in terms of economic development than if South
Vietnam had won the war -- which would have only institutionalized worse
corruption than they currently have.

This is all speculative, of course, but I seriously doubt anybody in the
mid-70s would have guessed that this is where we'd all be 40 years later. It's
been an interesting journey for both countries.

~~~
sillygeese
> _Things that were worth dying and killing for 50 years ago are still
> important, but they 're fights for young people._

So what was behind the Vietnam War that was worth dying and killing for? What
would _you_ have died and killed for, when young?

~~~
user_0001
Protecting your country, friends and family from an aggressive, invading
force?

Ridding your country of a brutal, corrupt puppet dictatorship propped up by
said aggressive, invading force?

I think most people would see that as a valid reason to kill and die for.
Hell, said aggressive, invading force even convinced _their_ young it was
worth to go kill and die to do the invading, should be a piece of cake to
convince those being attacked

~~~
sillygeese
I meant that from the American perspective, but alright.

> _Protecting your country, friends and family from an aggressive, invading
> force?_

And on the invaders' side? What exactly were the American soldiers dying and
killing for?

> _Ridding your country of a brutal, corrupt puppet dictatorship propped up by
> said aggressive, invading force?_

How about just going for the dictators specifically? The Vietnamese people
declaring that they _will_ kill any dictator the US installs there might have
done the trick, as opposed to dying by the millions fighting the vastly
superior American military.

But it's not that simple either. Think of something like North-Korea. Any sane
person there sees that what's going on is totally. fucking. fucked. up.

But even if someone thinks freeing people from the insanity there is worth
dying for, what if his death didn't actually result in the insanity ending? ..
Fear, is sadly what keeps mass-murdering tyrannical regimes in power.

~~~
logfromblammo
Many people truly believed at that time that countries re-forming into
Communist states could build a kind of momentum, like a row of dominoes
tipping over, and that allowing Vietnam to fall would inevitably lead to the
US fighting off a "Red Dawn" invasion from the rest of the world that had gone
Communist.

As with other wars, the justification was "fight them there, so we won't have
to fight them here."

This works, because young military recruits are not often skilled at the
skeptical, rational questioning of authority. Many of them _literally_ believe
that the invasion and occupation of foreign territory makes the US safer. It
isn't until much later, if ever, that they face down the cognitive dissonance
and accept that they were just pawns in the game of global politics.

~~~
sillygeese
Sure, but now you're just describing the _propaganda_ that was used to get
ordinary people to die and kill for their rulers.

~~~
logfromblammo
Every step backward along the chain of causality is an equally valid reason.

Someone believing the propaganda is as much a reason as someone writing it, or
someone ordering that it be written, or someone inventing the _casus belli_
behind it.

It is a fallacy to assert a _true root cause_ in anything, because no event is
so cleanly disconnected from the rest of history that you can definitively say
that a deciding event is truly independent of all those that came before.

~~~
sillygeese
The root cause for _any war_ is psychopath rulers wanting more power and more
wealth for themselves. The rest follows from that. Of course, the rulers will
be spewing bullshit propaganda to get their peons to go die for them.

The commenter I originally responded to seemed to suggest that there would be
a "good" reason for people to go die or kill people in a war.

But enriching his rulers is not exactly a _good_ reason for an ordinary person
to kill or die trying. What's in it for him? Wouldn't he much rather not do
it?

------
exhilaration
No mention of Cuba in the article but I think we can all agree that increased
engagement could very well lead to the same results - increased freedom and
wealth for all Cubans.

Interesting note on that topic: only 20 years after Bill Clinton normalized
relations with Vietnam it's now "one of the most pro-American countries in
Southeast Asia, with 78% of Vietnamese people viewing the U.S. favorably in
2015" according to Wikipedia:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States–Vietnam_relation...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States–Vietnam_relations)

~~~
abreu
Cuba does better than Vietnam by all measures. Education (literacy rate is 80%
in Vietnam vs 100% in Cuba), healthcare, nominal GDP (2k in Vietnam vs 6.9k in
Cuba per capita), Human Development Index etc.

Being pro-American (whatever that means) is not the holy grail or something
like that. Besides, the notion that Cubans hate the US is just wrong.

~~~
InclinedPlane
"By all measures..." No, not by all measures. By some statistics, sure. But
Cuba is an oppressive police state. Sure, humans can live long, healthy,
literate lives in captivity. Yet what value is literacy when the state
regulates what you can read and what you can say?

~~~
mercurial
> But Cuba is an oppressive police state.

So, like Vietnam? [1]

1: [http://www.ibtimes.com/vietnam-police-state-where-one-six-
wo...](http://www.ibtimes.com/vietnam-police-state-where-one-six-works-
security-forces-1401629)

------
lucasjans
Hello Saigon! I'm curious what other tech entrepreneurs/nomads we have out
here. I've met many interesting, passionate technology people here, some
expats and some locals. It's great to see the diversity in the scene here,
just like you would expect from a major US city.

There's a lot of raw talent here, thanks to the outsourcing industry,
university system, professional schools and huge number of young people
looking to exceed their parents' standards.

If you're in Saigon - what are you doing here? I have a US company and am
building the product with a relatively small team. Web focused,
microservices/React stack.

~~~
orthoganol
I'm a programmer who just left Saigon after ~ 6 weeks.

Excuse the language, but it's kind of a shit hole, even a lot of the "nice" D1
parts... One of the most polluted cities in the world, swarms of motorcycles
everywhere, always trouble walking from A to B, permanent hearing damage from
crappy vehicles' shrieking breaks or the constant honking.

The expats I met (and let's not kid ourselves, a lot of them are straight up
'sexpats'... and there are infamous bars in town for that) wanted out. YMMV.

The good parts... Vietnamese people are amazing, very friendly. There are tons
of cafes to work from. You can live in a 4 star hotel on the cheap.

Even so, I wouldn't move to Ho Chi Minh. Has a long way to go.

~~~
lucasjans
The experience you get out of something largely depends on how you approach
it.

I live in a wealthy, quiet neighborhood - where most of my neighbors are
Vietnamese and a majority of them are wealthier than me. Because of this and
good networking I've met many successful business people, startup
entrepreneurs and consulate generals. I'm also committed to here. I speak the
language, have an office and team here. That level of commitment opens more
doors than if I was just passing through. When I'm ready to move on to my next
project, it will be hard to say no to many of the opportunities here.

There are a lot of expats who are unhappy here, though you'll find that in any
expat community. A lot of them like to complain. I avoid those types if
possible - more fun to be around future oriented people than past. (And that's
one of the best things about Vietnam - it's so young. I'm sure you've read the
statistics before, 70% under 30 years old. And most of them are excited for
the future.) As for the sexpats maybe I don't see them - maybe I'm happily
married with kids and don't hang out in the backpacker areas or bars.

Completely agree with you about the pollution. It's the hardest thing for me,
which is why I live on the edge of town across from a jungle and a river and
not in District 1. (View from my office
[https://goo.gl/photos/wuMnNcKFFnAMUNsn9](https://goo.gl/photos/wuMnNcKFFnAMUNsn9))

Had my approach to Vietnam been different my opinions would be completely
different. No way is the right way, just different.

------
peterjancelis
Totally agree. Never felt so free to go about my life and business as in
Saigon. Watch out with physical businesses however, foreigners can get scammed
out of their stake.

~~~
jamra
Do you have any personal experience you can share with foreigners getting
scammed?

~~~
peterjancelis
There was a French accountant in his late 20s who came here with 50K EUR of
life savings and opened a French restaurant with a local partner. Worked 7
days a week for 6 months, restaurant was losing money, one day he gets kicked
out by his partner with the help from some of his gym friends.

That guy is now back in France in a job. He somehow managed to find a
girlfriend while starting his restaurant though. He's now engaged to the girl
but she's still here.

------
theunixbeard
Also a good place for digital nomads & bootstrappers:
[https://medium.com/digital-nomad-stories/bootstrapping-in-
sa...](https://medium.com/digital-nomad-stories/bootstrapping-in-saigon-
fc9744367386)

~~~
rktjmp
I'm about to try the same thing in Mexico but reading that made me really home
sick [sic] for Vietnam. Almost looking forward for when my visa in Mexico runs
out and I have to leave...

