Vietnam Afterword - Communism? What Communism?

Overall the trip to Southeast Asia is one I would suggest for anyone from the West. To see these cultures that are so vastly different in so many ways from ours is a valuable, and dare I say life-changing, experience.

To see the people in this part of the world make their way in some incredibly hard circumstances and keep so much of their kindness and grace is something I can't imagine from your average American. I've seen New Yorkers act like it is the end of the world when their subway train is rerouted for the weekend. They really need to go see the people in Cambodia who are missing limbs that were blown off by landmines (many of them from the U.S.) deal with their lot in life with a smile and without the anger that they would be completely justified in having towards Americans.

I hope we get to back someday, especially after our still gestating son or daughter is old enough to appreciate this kind of experience. Hopefully these places won't be completely overrun by McDonald's and Starbucks by then.

With Vietnam specifically, I was struck by one thing. This was my first time in a country that called itself "communist." I wasn't really sure what I expected but I certainly didn't expect to see what basically amounts to an unfettered free market everywhere we went. It seems like almost everyone has their own business in this country, from the fishermen to the rice noodle factory to the sidewalk bars and restaurants to the souvenir sellers and cyclo drivers. Everybody is free to make a buck however they can.





Yes there are high taxes, at least if the tour guide on our boat, Khoa, is to be believed. But according to him they don't really get anything for it, beyond a military. There is no unemployment insurance, no social security, no free health care and no free higher education.

So the working class pays an extremely high tax rate that goes straight to the country's war machine, none of it goes to a social safety net, capitalism runs amok with no regulation and the powerful elite reap all the benefits of this system.

Communism my ass. Looks a lot more like a Karl Rove and George Bush wet dream.

But through it all the people seem to persevere. And despite the crazy traffic, the crowds and the fact that all Vietnamese men in restaurants suck their teeth incessantly after a meal, we really loved being there.


For those of you that actually made it through all of these posts in my travelogue...um... congratulations? Thanks for indulging me and I hope you didn't get too bored. More than that, I hope I even encouraged someone to want to go to Southeast Asia. It was worth every minute and every cent of my wife's money.