When I was little (2000s) the consensus seemed to be that Vietnam was a shitshow. It was sort of not talked about because it was considered an embarrassment for the west.
Lately on Boomer TV I’ve been seeing a lot of stories about gusano Vietnamese that “escaped” the “eeeevil communist north Vietnam”.
Shits weird. It’s one thing to paint a country like North Korea as evil because it’s easy to make shit up about an isolated country. But people can watch like a billion travel shows that show communist Vietnam is a normal ass country. The idea that people fled from that becomes less harrowing when you see that it’s a beautiful place that’s just as free as any other country.
The city hall of my ex-locale would circle through various national flags thay they’d fly for a few days. It was always a fun game of guess the comprador of the week. They’d often fly the South Vietnam flag to appease the small business owners.
They’d also fly the Falun Dafa flag too.
USA’s the trash heap of the world. Like a bug lamp that pulls in reactionaries across the world. Or a festering wound on the world, full of maggots. The place is cursed.