re: #471 wheat-dogghazi

From what I can tell, the Western (and especially French) influence has never really left Vietnam, even after years of Communist rule. It’s more Western than China, certainly. My Chinese friends and students have a tough time getting acclimated to life in the States, the UK or Australia, despite their assiduous study of American movies and TV shows.

Thing is, Uncle Ho looked to America as his model. Had Truman kept FDR’s word and kept the French from going back in after the war, the Vietnamese would have never gone anywhere near the communists - especially the Chinese. There is no love between China and Vietnam - only a history of conquest and oppression.

There could be a free and prosperous Vietnam right now. It has managed to be more close to free than any other communist country - and more free than most of the right wing dictatorships we propped up over the past half century - despite us. When we were in Saigon in 2002 for our adoption, I met a former VC officer who was a Communist bureaucrat by day and a landlord by night and who had a communist decorated ancestor shrine to his mother who was also VC. As long as that kind of mix continues, they’ll be all right in the long run.