As my Vietnamese housemate left the house, I wrote down things I
learned about Vietnam. My interested started when we talked about
Middle East history and I mentioned the six days war. His reaction
was: What? In six days you can have a battle, not a war. Normally wars
are told from the perspective of the winner. Vietnam is an exception.
It does have, though, a Vietnamese angle, which explains why they
teach how to operate guns at school.
Asian countries have long history, and I am picking only some details.
The French came to Vietnam at the 19th century to spread the bible.
Most Vietnamese had no religion, but followed Buddhist customs. The
French changed their writing to Latin letters, and ruled via
subordinate kings. One king arose against them, but the rebellion was
suppressed. During the Second World War, the French forced the people
to grow plants for industrial production instead of rice. As a result,
in a half a year, two million Vietnamese (10% of the population) died
of hunger. The Japanese took over Vietnam without any battle and
appointed a puppet government. Ho Chi Minh, support by the CIA and the
Vietnamese Alliance, threw the government and declared independence in
1945. Four month later the French demanded re-colonization, and
invaded Vietnam. The Vietnamese Alliance moved to guerrilla tactics,
and getting support from Russia and China, defeated the French by 1954
(that's 9 years). The Chinese forced Vietnam to sign the Geneva
accord, allowing the French troops to stay in the south waiting for
their ships. That was a plan made by the superpowers to divide Vietnam
like Korea. There were supposed to be general elections, but a
Christian Vietnamese supported by the US, arranged elections in the
south, and won by cheating. At the north the communists came to power
without elections. The Christian government of the south started to
execute communists and lost popularity, and the US sent troops for
support. The north invaded the south, and the Vietnam War started,
until 1975 (that's 18 years). Naturally, the war made many
heroes.
The Americans lost due to incompetence and corruption at the south
government, as well as their sensitivity to casualties. Americans
would say they lost only 55,000 soldiers, whereas the north lost 2
million people. The Vietnamese would say that south Vietnam lost 2.3
Million people. At any rate, 1.7 millions are still suffering from
chemicals used by the Americans to destroy the forests and expose the
guerrilla. Four years after the war, China was afraid of Vietnam
dominating south-east Asia. They sent support to Cambodia, and
Cambodia's leader Pol Pot invaded south Vietnam. In response, Vietnam
occupied Cambodia, until 1989. In an effort to help Pol Pot, in 1979
China invaded north Vietnam. Fights along the border continued until
1984.
Today, with 87 million people, Vietnam is one of the poorest
countries. Only recently they started to develop industry, because
before they didn't produce enough food. They also have problems to get
visas to the US. The question I was asking is why they had to fight
all this wars. If they surrendered to the US they could have been like
South Korea today. According to my housemate, this was "not possible".
I'll end with some lines that sound better in Vietnamese:
Everybody has a job, but nobody really works
Nobody really works, but everybody gets paid
Everybody gets paid, but no one gets enough
No one gets enough, but everyone survives
Everyone survives, but no one is satisfied
No one is satisfied, yet everyone raises his hand when asked to vote.
