Communism 101
[Note: English is not my native language, so please forgive me for possible mistakes made. You're welcome to send me any corrections you'd find important.]
How's it like living in a communist country? people often ask me. I like the shielding and famous Vietnamese answers to almost anything "same same, but different".
Saying that you live in Vietnam displays a full range of mystery and exoticism to your profile. As we did before we came for the first time in 2003, we could only associate the name of this country with all kinds of TV and magazines memories of the war. Once you're here though and you find out that the last thing people are investing their family, business and spiritual time is exactly that: The War. They moved on long time ago. They don't talk about that, not because there's a scar or a trauma or hate or other things we westerners believe they should. Vietnamese people are investing their precious time in their challenging present and their amazing future ahead. They want to grow. They want to learn new stuff. They say welcome to all tourists as if they were one. They don't care where they're from nor their religion or colors. And yes, even Americans can come safely here.
The country has embraced capitalism in such a way that it's almost impossible not to feel you're in a non-communist country almost all the time. You can start your own business anytime. You can buy and own property if you have the means to pay for it. People study and develop themselves to get better paid positions in the open market businesses. It all looks and feels quite ok. Of course there are some remnants of the Party that are hard to detach from the status quo and that still gives the government some kind of "Power" over the people.
Facebook was "half banned" a couple of months ago for about eight weeks or so. Half because you could access it some times and sometimes not. If you had enough patience you could click on refresh a couple of times until it would show up... eventually. But for many the low patience was the retribution received by the authorities. Many would give up facebook because it was difficult to access. Score for the Party. There would not be a revolution about it, nor anything on the News or the Press... because it's controlled by the same guy.
Now, over the time we have seen little by little how the communication freedom (or access to it) gets expanded and now we can enjoy having access to Cable TV through different companies that provide the service. We have CNN, BBC, NatGeo, ESPN, SuperSports, Cartoons, HBO, MAX, StarMovies and we can catch up on American Idol on StarWorld too. There are other European and Asian channels like DTV, TV5, RAI, Korean, Japanese, etc. "Wow!" many would say, "that's really opening up". And it is! Listen, I don't want to show lack of gratefulness here because that's not my nature and I wasn't raised like that. Besides, I'm a visitor in a country that is not mine and is opening its doors tome and my family. But (of course, there was one coming), it does take me back to the communist life my family use to tell me before they left Cuba every time they suspend any TV channel in mid air when they say anything about Vietnam; not only about the war... ANYTHING!. All channels are monitored and censured on the spot. On line. Live! Documentaries on National Geographic or Discovery are interrupted by a "transmission interrupted" slide for as long as whoever's turn is it to monitor it feels like is "safe" for the population to be exposed to those "dangerous" information told by "the others" in a way that is not "the" way "we want you to know it". OOOOOOOHHHH!!! Scary, isn't it? Or boring, too.
Well, besides that I can say that it's pretty cool to live here. The food is great (when you get used to it), the country itself is amazing. Security is great. No much crime and you can walk at night or ride your bike almost anywhere. The people receive you warmly everywhere. There's a lot of culture and history hidden in every village waiting to be rediscovered and... facebook is up again. Yay!!!!
How's it like living in a communist country? people often ask me. I like the shielding and famous Vietnamese answers to almost anything "same same, but different".
Saying that you live in Vietnam displays a full range of mystery and exoticism to your profile. As we did before we came for the first time in 2003, we could only associate the name of this country with all kinds of TV and magazines memories of the war. Once you're here though and you find out that the last thing people are investing their family, business and spiritual time is exactly that: The War. They moved on long time ago. They don't talk about that, not because there's a scar or a trauma or hate or other things we westerners believe they should. Vietnamese people are investing their precious time in their challenging present and their amazing future ahead. They want to grow. They want to learn new stuff. They say welcome to all tourists as if they were one. They don't care where they're from nor their religion or colors. And yes, even Americans can come safely here.
The country has embraced capitalism in such a way that it's almost impossible not to feel you're in a non-communist country almost all the time. You can start your own business anytime. You can buy and own property if you have the means to pay for it. People study and develop themselves to get better paid positions in the open market businesses. It all looks and feels quite ok. Of course there are some remnants of the Party that are hard to detach from the status quo and that still gives the government some kind of "Power" over the people.
Facebook was "half banned" a couple of months ago for about eight weeks or so. Half because you could access it some times and sometimes not. If you had enough patience you could click on refresh a couple of times until it would show up... eventually. But for many the low patience was the retribution received by the authorities. Many would give up facebook because it was difficult to access. Score for the Party. There would not be a revolution about it, nor anything on the News or the Press... because it's controlled by the same guy.
Now, over the time we have seen little by little how the communication freedom (or access to it) gets expanded and now we can enjoy having access to Cable TV through different companies that provide the service. We have CNN, BBC, NatGeo, ESPN, SuperSports, Cartoons, HBO, MAX, StarMovies and we can catch up on American Idol on StarWorld too. There are other European and Asian channels like DTV, TV5, RAI, Korean, Japanese, etc. "Wow!" many would say, "that's really opening up". And it is! Listen, I don't want to show lack of gratefulness here because that's not my nature and I wasn't raised like that. Besides, I'm a visitor in a country that is not mine and is opening its doors tome and my family. But (of course, there was one coming), it does take me back to the communist life my family use to tell me before they left Cuba every time they suspend any TV channel in mid air when they say anything about Vietnam; not only about the war... ANYTHING!. All channels are monitored and censured on the spot. On line. Live! Documentaries on National Geographic or Discovery are interrupted by a "transmission interrupted" slide for as long as whoever's turn is it to monitor it feels like is "safe" for the population to be exposed to those "dangerous" information told by "the others" in a way that is not "the" way "we want you to know it". OOOOOOOHHHH!!! Scary, isn't it? Or boring, too.
Well, besides that I can say that it's pretty cool to live here. The food is great (when you get used to it), the country itself is amazing. Security is great. No much crime and you can walk at night or ride your bike almost anywhere. The people receive you warmly everywhere. There's a lot of culture and history hidden in every village waiting to be rediscovered and... facebook is up again. Yay!!!!
Screen used to censure TV programs in Vietnam. This one is National Geographic Channel NGC. It could last seconds, minutes or hours, depending how long an information about Vietnam is broadcasted.
posted by Ro at
5:21 PM
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