The Communists AGHHHHHHHHHH… not so much
I entered grade school just as the Berlin wall fell, so I missed out on all the “red scare” propaganda that my father’s generation had to put up with. Now the fear mongers have recognized that it is those damned terrorists that we need to worry about and we can’t carry toothpaste on the airplane. Now it seems the Vietnamese commies don’t pose that much of threat, as if this third world country could have ever mounted an offensive attack against the US. As most intelligent Americans know, we have nothing to fear from the allegedly communist countries out there. China is the best example of this. China is growing at an astronomical rate and the government, though openly communist, knows that it must continue to do so if it’s people are to prosper. I recently befriended a Vietnamese stockbroker and he told me that Vietnam is actually right behind China in growth of GDP (Though the 7 year old Vietnamese stock market is still very unstable, kinda like *cough* Wall Street *cough*).
That being said, Vietnam is officially a Socialist Republic, though I would say that the people here are communist like Jon Stewart is Jewish. I guess you could say that they are “culturally communist.” I will deal with religion in a later post but I think it is a good example to use for this case. Many “Christians” in the US only go to church on Christmas and Easter and certainly do not live to the standards that religion demands, yet when they are asked their religion, they say “Christian“ without missing a beat. The same is true for economic philosophy here; the government and the people are obviously not communist but they still claim to be.
Because the country is so capitalist, seeing all the communist stuff here is pretty funny. For example all of the government officials wear uniforms that look like the ones the communists wore in 1980’s spy movies. Next to beer corner is a school that pumps out communist propaganda and songs from a loud speaker. The songs are especially funny because no one can understand the words because they are not using the tones correctly when they sing. The flag of Vietnam is red with a big gold star in the middle, bringing communist imagery to mind (I also find it very amusing that there are many street vendors that sell t shirts with the flag and even Ho Chi Mihn’s picture).
My favorite so far has been the Christmas decorations. Over one of the main streets here there are banner-like Christmas lights with different Christmas objects in the middle. One is a snowflake (by the way it doesn’t snow in Vietnam), one is a Santa Clause, one is a Christmas tree, and one is a hammer and sickle. Now really think about that… communist symbolism to celebrate a Christian holiday that has turned into a secular holiday based around the buying of goods. If that isn’t a sign of “cultural communism” I don’t know what is.
