Vietnam: At the Crossroads

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.. . .. .. .. .. of the shape of fame of the proper dance, our determination to fight upon human rights and democracy in Vietnam. APPLAUSE Thousands of Vietnamese Americans in San Jose, California, turn out for the annual Ted Festival, which celebrates the New Year.

We gather with family, friends and veterans to commemorate our former life in what was once South Vietnam, to sing a national anthem to a country which no longer exists. Today, with a trade embargo gone, a normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam, many of us have mixed feelings about what is taking place in our former homeland. As a Vietnamese American or vid kill, I had a lot of been torn between my deep concern about what was happening to my country of birth since I left with my family in 1975 and many of the identity in the United States. War thing is really as bad as what people and my laboratories have said or was in a Mexican new path, a middle ground between socialism and capitalism, a path that many of us do not understand. As a sociologist teaching at San Jose State University,

itself with 1,600 Vietnamese students located in the heart of the second largest Vietnamese American community who is not difficult to find other people who share this concern. For me, I was very happy when the embargo was lifted because then Vietnam will open in stores. Once the economy is opened, step-by-step, the government's downfall will be inevitable. For my own experience, I heard a lot for my relatives and the people who come here on your newly. And then all of them are complaining that the life over there is very bad. It's good for those who have businesses. It's good for those who have relative over here sending money back so they can live on it. For the other who doesn't have any family over here, no relative or no businesses, it's pretty bad. Especially about human rights and civil rights,

that sort of thing. As for the conditions in Vietnam, I think that our people are very poor. There have been people who have gone home to visit but all they see is the surface, the outward appearance. With the communists, they would always want to put up the good show for the world to show that they have changed. But I don't think they've changed at all. I feel very ambivalent about the return of the United States. This is good for business and the American sense and it has portends everything bad for Vietnam. I mean, it's impossible to say that you want to stem the tide of progress and all of that. But there was a lot about Vietnam that was really wonderful while the Americans were absent. And in a way, it could have been this way all the time had the Americans not intervened in 1954,

63, 45, you picked the date. But I hate to see what happened in other countries, in Thailand and the neighboring countries of Southeast Asia happened in Vietnam. It's going to happen. It is happening. But all that was wonderful about Vietnam, all that sort of the gun, the tenderness and loving and sharing and the consideration. I'm not saying that America causes it to go by the wayside, but the seductiveness of American way of life are all of this commercialism and advertising. And 21st century hustle by so how can a country that is really steeped in the 19th century, without losing some part of its character? To see firsthand what is happening in Vietnam,

to witness the effects of its gradual westernization and shift to free market system, I returned there with fellow sociologists and documentary producer Bob Leonard in January 1994. Two weeks before the United States lifted its 18-year trade embargo. In bye! As I quickly remember, people in Vietnam spend most of their working hours in the street, eating, working, playing, and relaxing.

Everywhere one looks, there's some type of business, some type of construction. Everyone seems to be doing something, and virtually nobody is sitting around wondering what to do next. As we walk for a pedal about in the city, in bicycle driven sickles, we notice that no one is camera shy, nor are people afraid to be interviewed. A problem which had initially worried us, since some of the people had told us that Vietnamese are reluctant to talk to foreigners in public. We also entered the country without a permit to make a television program, and we're not sure of the response we would get from the police or other authorities. I have nothing against capitalism. If we speak only about the war with the Americans, then honestly, I don't like them very much. But if we're talking about opening the door for business, then I'm very anxious for the Americans to come in. I think the war between the US and Vietnam's in the past.

We should throw it away. We should put it in the past. We should do something for the future. We're all human beings, whether red blood, yellow skin, or white skin, and red blood. The US government created a lot of pain and sorrows to the Vietnamese people, when they entered the war. But after the war has ended, my home is at both the US and Vietnam, to be able to slowly become friends. In the early morning, families in Hanoi get around short tables to either breakfast of noodle soup, or alcohol, fat. Almost immediately afterward, the work they began. The first thing one notices is a number of people selling food. In fact, in Hanoi, there seems to be an abundance. The streets are filled with a variety of small shops, selling everything from clothing, to hardware, to new cars, electronic equipment.

If someone from the outside would have come to Vietnam, and specifically to Hanoi, they would see a lot of development, especially in the video in high tech fields. The goods we sell are important. For example, with today's prices for the color television, people in general can afford the prices are reasonable and not as expensive as before. The showroom has been open for about six months, although the new direction policy has been in existence since 1986. The South was much quicker to adapt since they were more experienced and have had a legacy with this capitalistic system. As for the North, it really began in 1989.

The move to free enterprise capitalism is called the policy of Hanoi, which was first conceptualized in 1982 by Harvard-educated economists who went to Hanoi as a way of dealing with the failures of the socialist economic system. When I begin to write these things, people derided me. They think I'm crazy. They think I'm a daydreamer. But after a while, the leadership of the country takes a second look at it. I thought that, well, this is something that you should try, because we were at the end of our rope. The country, as I mentioned to you, ground your home, we had almost a lot of the else to eat in the country. Any other Vietnam is very rich land down the country. But since we had nothing else to eat, we have to import price, import of staple, file, sell it for everyone. Then the leadership things that we should do something about it. What we did is to gradually apply some of the things people do in a free enterprise economy.

So from 1982, up to about 1986, that was a period of trial and error. We didn't know what to do. The government was still sort of a... No, no, really, whether this is the work or not. So this is a period of testing. Testing my own, whatever I mentioned to the government. So after a while, we found that it has produced very good results. So by and by, we think that we have done the right thing. And by the year 1986, the leadership sort of adopted a resolution, which is resolution number six, by which we put an end to the planet economy and turn ourselves into a market-oriented economy. I asked Winston Wang why he thought a pure socialist economy had failed

and why what he now called market socialism was succeed. You have to give the initiative to the people. The main thing is the initiative to the people. And after all, people don't work for their health. They work to earn income for themselves and the family, each one for their own. So if you... If every decision has been taken care of by the government, including you assign the job to the people. You don't know the people enough to do it. But if you have a market in which in which you have here a sort of a mechanism which screens the people, or determines the prices, then at least you have something, which you can believe that this is well played to everyone. If that is the case, people who strive to their utmost. If I think and need the money,

I would try to work hard or harder to get the income for my family. So by this very personal effort of everyone, you develop the country. You develop first-year-old business and then the economy. So in fact, this is what atoms with used to go with invisible hands. The shift from socialism to capitalism has had a profound effect on Vietnamese society. Everything from the way business is done to how the family functions,

to the division of economic status. The capital system rewards those who work hardest, making and selling goods. This often requires all family members, including children, to participate in family business. If they must work, then they cannot go to school. In addition, schools that were once state supported, and therefore free, not cost money to attend. We are very worried about education now. Children now in the family have to have family in production. So they especially in rural. They drop out schools a lot, because the education fees now higher. Before the test, such as everything for health, for education, and for many things, but now it's changed.

So children, many children stay at home and work for family, and they don't go to school anymore, especially for girls. I talk to family sociologists, who worries about the increasing number of children from rural areas, who don't go to school, and instead hang out on city streets. She felt more comfortable speaking to us in her native language. Many people are concerned about the children who hang out around the city. The reality is that the number of children from the city itself is relatively small. They mostly come from the countryside. One reason they hang out is because they come from poor families. These families generally do not value education.

They also see more opportunities in the city, and that's why a lot moved to the city to shine shovels, to sell newspapers and magazines, or to do other jobs. There are those who are worried that this will lead to chaos in the city, and what about their future? There are many social organizations, government agencies, that have tried to bring them to vocational schools, so that they will have skills to look for a job in the future. Schools for those who are able to attend are often overcrowded, even when they are on double or triple session, which gives the impression that kids are either constantly arriving or leaving the classroom destinations.

Recently, there has been the formation of a few schools which teach English. We arrive at one such school, which operates at night on a voluntary basis, since the students must work during the day. Konami is still a poor country, and you say that the post-war contraction is found significant to our country. Yes, there are many ways to develop, but one of the things, one of the weapons for us, is English, because they learn English to keep up with all the advancement of technology and everything in the world. After you go to college, what would you like to be? What kind of education would you like to be? I want to become an engineer or become an engineer. What would you like to become? Me? Yes. I would like to become a teacher. I like to become the musician. Because I like music very much. And what kind of music do you like? I like the guitars.

What kind of music do you like? And classical music, I don't like jazz music. Yeah. Andrew? We ask the students and their teacher, if television, now more available in Vietnam, is a distraction from their studies. If I can TV see one of the best things in our life, what you see is God, is God advantages, and is advantages for young people like this. But you can see that a lot of people are here, and normally my class, but also other classes, you see. But maybe sometimes it's God good advantages. And I think, and all the other entertainment's, and usually they still like English. Because they know, they know what their futures will be. The change to a free market system has at an impact on the family

and the role of women, sociologists from Tohang, worries that women will now have to work even harder than before. In the past, women already had many demanding responsibilities. Outside of working, they were also the main caretakers of the family. Now with the change to a free market economy, these demands have increased. Even though the money a woman makes now may not be enough to provide for her family, she still has to work as hard as everyone else.

Therefore, women's responsibilities have become even more demanding. When I was going up in Vietnam, the idea of family seems sacred. In fact, all relationships seem to revolve around family activities and concerns. Today, because of the new economic pressures in the family, as well as Western influence on how men and women should relate to each other, incidents of divorce, and other family problems are on the rise. People worry a great deal about the influence of the Western way of life on their family life. There are people who say that it is because of this way of life, that the divorce rate is increasing, that the number of delinquent children is rising, or for example, the increase in prenatal sex, or the freedom that people have within families.

There is also the lack of respect for the elderly and the family from the younger generation. As far as I know before, if a girl and a boy wanted to meet each other, or wanted to have a close relationship, they have to ask for their families for their parents' opinion first. And sometimes, their relationship was broken down by their parents, because they didn't want them to have that relationship. And people told me that in the 60 or 50, if people saw a couple kissing each other in the street, they may be brought into the police station. And it was very funny, really funny.

We run into a college student who, because of her English skills, was able to get a job with a foreign company. She tells us how things have changed between men and women wishing to have a relationship. Now, there are a lot of movies coming into Vietnam, as well as magazine and books. So I think the relationship between, so the younger generation, have better knowledge about sex, about love, and everything. So they can freely top each other. They can open their heart, open their opinion to each other. And the relationship between them is equal. Now, this man has more privileges than the woman. She tells us that both men and women are spending an increasing amount of time on their appearance, which includes foreign, latest fashion.

While traditional dresses feel common, more and more stores are selling western style wear, and are using western style menick, and to portray how women are supposed to look. I think now young people, much more modern than the 01, is the fight. And this fan, much more money. It glows and makeup, and everything, like going out, like dancing, and another entertainment. It's not difficult to thank couples, enjoying one of Hanoi's many legs. Or participating in a constant stream of weddings, which punctuate mid-age traffic on almost any day of the week. Though the happy couple may be in the car, the wedding party and guests are usually on model bikes or bicycles. Thank you.

We wondered whether the push toward the free market system and resulting cultural changes only in place in Hanoi, or whether rural areas where the majority of Vietnamese live were equally affected. Except for the occasional modern interruption, there's much here that appears unchanged for hundreds of years. In a pottery-making village, we talk to one wholesaler. In general, there are a lot of changes, but the changes in the countryside are very different from those in the city.

The way of life of country people is different from those in the city. The people in the countryside are more realistic and not as extravagant. City people are not as practical. She feels the new economic system has had mixed results. Since the state's subsidy system stopped, those households with people who have the knack for business are able to get rich. For us, we are wholesalers. We sell only products from the factories. In general, if foreign merchants want to place an order, we can accommodate and fill their order. For Vietnamese people, life in general has gotten better. However, even though it's better than before, there is still a shortage. For example, in this village, the price of materials has gone up. The price of land has increased, the price of coal has increased, everything has increased, and therefore the price of everything else also has increased.

Yet, Vietnamese people still need a lot of things. Another part of the whole seller told us that normalizing trade with the U.S. might help solve some of the employment problems in this village. If we normalize relations with the U.S., then I think we will continue to develop and grow. As we develop and grow, there will be a need for labor. It won't be like the current situation. At the moment, the unemployment rate is very high. There is an oversupply of labor. Once development occurs, there will be jobs available to people. A few miles away, in a furniture-making village, we spoke with a manufacturer who shared a similar perspective. Since 1989, there is a big change in my village that is worth noting.

A big step is taking place. We've been able to trade with other countries such as Cambodia, Laos, and Taiwan. A few countries have been doing business and have invested in us. The standard of living in this village has increased. It's very obvious. For example, if it was five, four, it's now ten. So if the U.S. normalizes relations with Vietnam, the standard of living of people in general, and our village specifically will increase because today it's already been getting better. Across the street, we get a laborist point of view. I have enough work to feed my family. In general, in this kind of work, as carpenters, we make enough to feed our families.

And I'm doing a little. The more business people we talk to, the more evidently became that both rural and urban entrepreneurs saw a need for foreign capital to enable them to prosper and grow. The reason for us to open up the economy, because we need the foreign technology, we need the foreign capital. The country is short of capital. Of course, you can print money, but that only creates inflation. So we must have the real good money here, the hard money here, to bring in, let's say, equipment, machinery, because for every sort of investment, which would create new new factories, new plants, we create at the same time jobs for the local people here.

So I think that that is important for us to have the infusion of foreign capital in this country. And mostly, I would say, the foreign technology, because you know that we have been 20 years since the end of the facilities. And I think that if the machinery and equipment have been in part of some kind of 20 years before, there are number 40 years old kind of equipment and machinery. So it's way behind. So we need all the infusion of capital, as I mentioned, to update, to modernize our equipment, to be, let's see more efficient in terms of production. Otherwise, you know, you cannot complete the world. Because of the increasing Western influence, I saw everywhere I went. I was concerned about what price traditional Vietnamese culture would pay as a result. We talked with several historians to get their perspectives.

I think that when we open the country, our people, the Vietnamese people, can receive and interact with all foreign cultures. But of course, as with all cultures, there are those aspects that are negative. Perhaps we can absorb some of the good aspects, but also there are those that are negative, or are not compatible with our culture that might penetrate. But I believe that the people have a strong enough culture and are smart enough and have the ability to filter out what's good or what is necessary for them. Historian Janduk Gung feels foreign economic influences cannot destroy the spiritual culture of the Vietnamese. This culture is exemplified in ceremonies which preserve memories of their ancestors, such as burning paper money. Let me remind you that throughout our history,

invaders from the east and the west, for example, the French have tried to lower our culture and they tried to smear our history, but they couldn't do it. They couldn't destroy the spirit of the people. So how can it be possible that these economic changes will do so? As long as that spirit is still there, as long as the roots are still there, the culture will remain. I told you that one of the cultural characteristics of the Vietnamese is our love for our country. If you look at people's houses, they all have an altar that is devoted to remembering their ancestors. Those who develop and build this country. As long as their memory has kept alive, we will always remember our country.

The manner in which Vietnamese die and the role their death plays among those who continue to live was dramatically brought home to us by folklorists we talked to about the impact of the war. I have an older sister who had two sons who went to the battle for a free year. Both of them died during the war. The most painful aspect is that we have not been able to find their bodies in order to give them a proper burial. For Southeast Asians, today is already very traumatic, but to not have a proper burial is sacrilegious. Their father took a few months' leave of absence from work to search for the bodies, but couldn't find anything. Now, my older sister has become very emotionally distressed whenever there is an anniversary, and death, or anything that reminds her of her sons.

Let me say this to the American families with a loved one missing. I greatly sympathize with them. Even today, in our own country, there are many who are still missing. We can't find them even though we have opportunities and the cooperation of the government. Despite frequent claims, the Vietnamese culture might change, but not break from Western influence, nowhere was the potential American impact more apparent than in the new North American Studies Center in Hanoi, which opened a few weeks before we arrived. In our opinion, the United States is one of the most successful nations. As a result, if we were to research the U.S., we could use the American experience to organize and develop our own economic system. Though, up the field, however, it is not only necessary to study the United States as a success story,

but to try and learn from some of the problems it faces as well. On the negative side, in the U.S. society, even though today is extremely wealthy, the question of race discrimination is still not resolved. African-Americans and people of color, for example, are still not treated equally. Even though it's very wealthy, there are still 30 million people who are living below the poverty line as defined by the government. That's some of the problem. The other problem is the total freedom that is given by the Constitution. There are certain things, for example, the use of a gun. It seems that anyone can purchase one and do as they please. That is simply not compatible with our way of life.

I was fortunate to be born into an upper middle class family in what was formerly South Vietnam. Many others were not unfortunate. At the end of the war, with the unification of the country under a socialist economic system, the middle and upper social classes were destroyed, and everyone seemed to be sure equally, though it was at a poverty level existence. Now, with the shift to capitalism and the free market system, I was disheartened to learn that only some people were benefiting, and in fact, there was a return of class divisions. I think it's a free market system that comes to certain problems within our society.

Not everyone can grasp the opportunity. Who can see it leading to the differences between the rich and the poor. That is, before, poverty was divided equally among all people. Even though everyone was poor, it was distributed across the board. Now, the differences are very pronounced. Those that are rich become rich very fast. Those who are poor are poor very quickly. That gap is very clear. This creates tension between different groups, especially among those less privileged, included are some older people. That is, the shift from the state subsidized economy to an open market economy created a certain shock for people. They were used to and depended on a system, and now it's an entirely new one. It's a difficult problem. In one hand, we want to develop the market economy. On the other hand, we want to preserve the equality between people.

It's very difficult. Historian Buding Tang spoke with us about the new problems facing those in need of healthcare. Before, everyone received healthcare the same as everyone else, without having to pay. It can't be done like that any longer. So the principle now is to encourage those with the ability to pay to contribute to a fund. This is something we have to worry about, because for those who can't afford to pay, how will they pay for hospitalization or medications? Before leaving San Jose, we were cautioned that despite Vietnam's apparent moves to the free market economic system, it was still a dictatorship unwilling to tolerate the free expression of ideas as we know them in the West. Yet experts we talked to were openly willing to criticize domestic policies and point out domestic social problems.

Clearly, one of the foundations of any democratic form of government, over lunch at the home of a journalist, we spoke about the freedom of expression with him and some of his colleagues. Today, we can cover news within Vietnam with ease. Before, there was news or issues that we were afraid to cover. For example, starvation, great losses, etc. If you follow our newspapers lately, we have reported, for example, on how many villages face starvation. If there is not enough food or how many youths are not in school and illiterate. It is rather routine now. We report the news so that the rest of the country in the world can see. As far as freedom of the press is concerned, if it is written or reported in the spirit of helping or rebuilding the country, then there is no problem. No one will prohibit that.

As for the daily news, the media can bring the news and have complete freedom to carry out our tasks and responsibilities. As with other people we interviewed, thoughts about the war and the willingness to put the past behind them frequently came up. My family has lost a great deal during the war. That's my father on top of that bookshelf. That's my parents wedding picture. My father was killed during the war against the French. They shot and killed him. My grandfather was killed during the American war because of the bombs that were dropped by the B-52s. My family and personal loss is great, but if we dwell on that, then we will always focus on the hatred and will never be able to forgive and to forget.

Therefore, we will never be able to get together. I know it is not all of Vietnam. The largest city in the nation and the place of greatest Western influence is Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. This is also where I spent many of my formative years and have the fondest memories. Much has changed.

The law American involvement left the lingering Western influence, even under the harshest post-war years, which now hopefully flourishes. The downtown is filled with large Western style hotels. The freedom to make as much as one can is rarely found along with hunger, homelessness, rising crime and prostitution. As a cyclo driver, I meet all kinds of people. I think about 50% of those who become prostitutes do so because of the money and the others because of the demands of their extravagant lifestyle. The age is about 16, 18, 20. It's usually women who have had a marriage and have a child. I think it's because they are blinded by the money and decided to follow that path and abandon their families. Unemployment, which runs about 10% of Ho Chi Minh City's population, has been largely caused by the shift from state-run enterprises to privately owned factories.

By privatizing, we simply tell the manager that now from now on no more suspension subsidies from the government. We throw you down the river, you sink or you swim. If you swim, it's fine. If you sing, it's much too bad. But we do in such a way that it should not provoke social problems. There are some of them who are thrown out in the curve, but I think tentatively I think the number is quite small. We have worked out the program by which there would be a switch from the state of the prize. By the way, the state of the prize, the number is 15,000 state of the prize in this country. We have brought it down now to about a four or five thousand. So in the process, someone is thrown out of work.

But we have the welfare program, we have a labor program, a conversation program, and we try very much to switch in such a way that all of this switching or this transition to from the planet economy to the market economy does create a minimum amount of chaos of the country. Winston Langsworth sounded similar to rhetoric about poverty I had heard in the United States. Skeptical spoke with another economist about programs recently developed in Ho Chi Minh City to help the poor. There is the program building houses with emotional ties, program designed to build houses for those in need, and there are scholarships for high school and college students. We can see that in the recent past, there have been subsidies for poor families. In fact, there have been 50 to 60,000 families receiving help, and they have been able to get the money they need to open their own small shops. They don't have to borrow or to repay anyone. Those 50 to 60,000 families know how to earn a living, but don't have the necessary capital to begin.

The level of poverty is most dramatically evidence in Vietnam's healthcare system. In Ho Chi Minh City, the largest women and children's hospital is without adequate medicines, beds, or funding. Up to 80 women a day give birth here, often having to sit or lie in corridors, waiting to turn for crowded space. The most difficult issue we face is that we have too many patients and not enough equipment to help treat them. A lot of medicines, such as those for cancer and other ailments, we don't have at the moment. Or even if we have them, they are very expensive. Our patients, most of whom are poor, will have a difficult time buying them.

Here too, a housewoman with cancer of the cervix and children with birth defects, the highest percentage in the world, caused primarily by the agent orange herbicide the United States used on Vietnam during the war. In 1969, this hospital already noticed that the cervical cancer and birth defect rate was already high. After 1975, we continued to research and monitor this and saw that there were a lot of women who had these problems. Can you imagine three to four percent of the patients who come here have those illnesses? It's the highest rate in the world. There is no place higher. We have a lot of current patients who are 18, 20, 22 years old with those illnesses.

That's why we need medication to help them. If we try to buy them, we don't have the money. The patients also cannot afford to buy them. There are some doctors around the world who think that there is a correlation between this cancer rate, birth defects, and agent orange. Ho Chi Minh City seems quite health conscious. Birth control signs and the availability of condoms remind the population to exercise prevention. Dilling with problems of health care and the increasing demands of western cell factories and workplaces will require trained personnel. At Ho Chi Minh University, 11,000 students study a wide variety of subjects, but the university has a difficult time getting sufficient funds to teach the new requirements. It is a poor country, so there is, if you will, a contradiction. On one hand, we have to grow, while at the same time, we have to do reforms in the educational fields. However, if you want to change a system, you need investment, especially in the infrastructure.

So the problem is that at the moment, the budget for the government is still very limited, but the demand regarding changing the educational system in our country, as well as our university is great. Faculty feel Ho Chi Minh University can greatly benefit the exchanges of faculty and students with the universities in the United States. Today, there are over 100 Vietnamese students who are learning in the United States in many, many top universities. I think that the educational and professional exchange is the first step of the root relationship between Vietnam and the United States. While education exchanges,

with no doubt proving important down the road, thousands of foreign tourists were already flocking to Vietnam to gain their own kind of awareness. To see what impact tourism may already be having on Vietnam, we had it to the lab, a city in the southern highlands, best known as the domestic honeymoon spot and tourist center. I had also spent a year there as a child with my grandfather who taught at the local university. Western influence had already left this mark as kids play video arcade games and shoot pool. Our pose for pictures with cowboys and Mickey Mouse.

Yet, many of that at tourist attractions were perhaps more for domestic rather than foreign travelers who came to Vietnam to experience other things about the culture. One of the good things about coming to Vietnam is to see how the people actually live in their natural environment without being ruined by tourism or anything just the way they live day to day and how open they are to the visitors to tourists and eager to talk to you. I think Vietnam is a very beautiful country and the Vietnamese people themselves seem to be doing something to improve the situation in their country. They're not just sitting around and accepting the situation. They're making an effort to better themselves and better their country. What's really nice is some of the people in some of the villages remembered who I was and they were really, really nice to me. I have an old woman like about 65 years old getting excited and remember exactly who I was and that's used to give me tea and rice and stuff.

We had some really major engagements, lots of hand to hand fighting and hitting each other with entrenching tools and I mean it was really something to come back and shake hands and be totally a piece with the man that you fought and to have him be the same is just really something really something. Thank you so much. Not only is Vietnam luring an increasing number of foreign tourists but Vietnamese Americans are returning as well.

What others do you receive as I had and if so what role might they play in Vietnam's future? The tourist we are all just released a figure for the last six months. Half a million tourists come in here and about one third is from the United States. It simply means that our expatriates have come back and they're welcome. They are in many positions now. They are even one of the closest sort of a committee which would help the prime minister which is called a committee of of shall I say advices to the government. Most of the Vietnamese living in the United States have only been there recently. So there is still the reluctance to completely part with their homeland. There is still the desire, the love of the country that is still very deep.

And I don't think that there is anyone that would not want to at least once come back to visit their homeland or that there is anyone that would not want to save a part of their lives for this country. My trip to my place of birth left me with more questions and answers. While I personally lament the passing of certain traditions, most Vietnamese seem to welcome the changes brought on by Western and renewable American influence. Most were assured that they could still maintain the central aspects of a culture that had helped for 4,000 years. I was heartened by the reception I had received and the actual end of hostilities between Vietnam and the U.S. The unsure about what role I might play in Vietnam's future. I wanted to return soon to help perhaps when Vietnam, like myself, toward some middle ground between East and West, or to road not yet traveled. I was heartened by the rest of my life.

I was heartened by the rest of my life. I was heartened by the rest of my life. Thank you.