vietnam

dear friends, vietnam went through war & peace, socialism & capitalism, planned economy & free markets, democracy & one party system, poverty & beginning wealth, destruction & economic growth like no other country in the world in the last few decades. the contrasts are omnipresent all around, you know? why not to bundle my thoughts about economy, politics, peace, war, socialism, capitalism, society, people and the like as moving forward? enjoy + do not hesitate to comment  (i.e. discuss with me + others) these socio-economic issues :-)

in order to make complicated stuff easy, let's present my hypothesis first and explain it later if at all 😄

• GOOD LIFE (for the most people) = peace + free market economy + freedom
• BAD LIFE = war, political ('democratical') steered economy, tyranny, ...

it is as easy as that, my dears :-). any additional questions out there? and yes, why the hell are our still wealthy + more or less free western nations transiting to political steered societies which massively reduce the democratic rights of its own citizens and kill thousands of innocent people who never ever threatened us all over the world (iraq, afghanistan, pakistan, libya, syria, somalia, mali, soon probably also iran, ...)? why can't we live peaceful in fair societies or even in reliable, resource based societies free of domination as suggested by jörg bergstedt?

vietnam:

• a young country with so many children
• reminds me often on my native socialist czechoslovakia as it was 25 years ago probably because many things are worn-out and because there are so many soviet flags and socialist pictures / sculptures / symbols of working class heroes :)
• one party system but provides its people at least a freedom of choice to go abroad wherever they want to
• multi-nations country with 55 nations, the major group viet makes up approximately 88% of the population
• geography similar to those we have in germany: almost the same size + population + highest mountain. even the long north-south form of the country and the north-south differences in economy + culture are very similar to those in germany ...
• full of water (rivers, lakes, canals, swampland, rain and of course there is the sea
• full of waste, there is plastic trash all over the country... dear vietnamese, please value your environment a little bit more, it is the most important 'asset' you posses :-)
• huge gap between poor and rich, but not as huge as in malaysia, greece, brasil, india, ...
• mopeds, mopeds, mopeds ... and many japanese or south korean cars, busses, trucks
• very bad infrastructure: no underground/metro in hanoi, no highways or at least i didn't see any between hanoi and hoi an, no fast trains, ...
• very friendly people even if the most folks we have met outside the tourist area couldn't speak any foriegn language
• etc

night train from hanoi to hue

 there was a small cute mouse below our bed :o)

my other blog posts from vietnam, mostly sightseeing + pictures:

• hanoi
• on the road
• ha long bay (halong bay) ~ unesco heritage
• hue ~ unesco heritage
• hoi an ~ unesco heritage
• hue ~ 1 week beach holiday 
• etc

btw, did you know that vietnam translates as "south Viet" and therefore should the country be called vietland if they asked me 😇

eof