You may remember too I shared that for all that kindness and
energy, any time we tried to understand its political situation, they
somehow started to forget their until-then
well-spoken English. They would pretend
not to understand, or give very confusing,
short answers about who was in power and whether there were any elections at all, “you know,” I would
explain to one of our guides, “when everyone goes on the same day and choose who
will represent you in government?” They would shake their head or mumble
something I couldn’t understand.
 |
| The Biggest Smile in Hoi An |
Last weekend, I
received a note from someone I met during my week in the country. To protect
his identity and for the purpose of this entry, let’s call this person Peter, and let’s say he works in a bar
by the beach.
Peter has been living in Vietnam for over a year. The couple
of nights we talked about life in Vietnam he told me that people were genuinely brilliant,
always so helpful. Whether it was
with something that needed to be fixed in his apartment or a puncture on his
scooter, he could always count with someone to give him a hand, “even my
landlord would look after me if I got sick; while kids are really polite and so eager to learn new things, particularly
from abroad. And they learn English so quickly too!”
We have kept in touch since and the other day he sent me a message
telling me that “after 13 months I finally could talk about 'what everyone
knows but nobody talks about'...”
“Really? Let’s hear it,” I replied.
“Basically complete ban on freedom of speech and protest,
controlled by police in street clothes.
If they hear anything about communism or multi-party it's an instant prison sentence
and more than likely lose your job if you work for a national company
(which are also corrupt and account for about 60% of the economy).”
As I was reading this I felt terrible. I knew there was
something not right when we were there a few months back. People completely
fluent in English would all of a sudden stumble on the words and expressions;
they wouldn’t look into your eyes nor
smile any more. From that to prison sentence or losing your job... that’s a
whole different world.
They suffered decades of war. We saw it in the war museums and the Cu-Chi tunnels. War is a
terrible thing and recovering from it is in itself a long, painful road.
 |
| WAR IS TERRIBLE - IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT SIDE ARE YOU ON. NOBODY WINS. WE ALL LOSE. |
Whilst
in Vietnam, we obviously saw one version of the story – but somehow, given the
energy we saw in the streets, on the surface, you thought or believed that they
hadn’t done too bad for themselves in such a short period of time.
“TV and newspapers
are all screened
or censored
by the government, any web sources they can't control are blocked (including wordpress recently!).” Not only they
cannot talk about it in the streets, they can see very little of it in the
media. It gets worse:
“Social problems
are also not
acceptable discussions, basically any requests for change are banned or seen as dissenting...
sex education is not offered in schools,
nor do parents find it acceptable to discuss sex with their kids. Due to this,
Vietnam has the highest teen abortion
rate in Asia.”
I was really disappointed reading all this. All that energy,
all that youth – it is a very young country. You see some elderly, and you can
see in their faces what they have gone through in life, but mostly you see what
is primarily a young country, below their 50s and many, many children, willing
to move on, to grow, to develop. Those memories made me wonder if one day they
will “revolt like in the Middle East recently.”
“Yeah maybe, but the corruption and fear is so high because of the
military history, revolting the government
here is a very taboo subject.”
“We talked about it for like an hour and he checked around him about every
2 mins, and whispered everything. He
tells me most of the country agrees and people sometimes discuss in private” –there is
hope
I felt- “but they're really scared to in public because of the un-uniformed
police and the consequences. It's seriously like living in George Orwell's 1984!"
1984, the great novel published in 1949 where the world is divided in
just three totalitarian states and people’s lives are constantly monitored by
the state; those tempting to go against the system, even thinking about it,
would simply vanish and even their existence would be deleted from the history
records.
Peter also shared his thoughts: “I had become quite upset with how women are treated here,
the corruption, the sex industry (underage girls are basically paid as sex slaves, prolific
prostitution etc)... what's upsetting is nobody seems to care. I couldn't
understand why nobody was speaking out to help... they're just too scared to fight it and not just heartless.”
I know Vietnam is not the only country in the world where
these things happen, but that doesn’t make it less relevant or worrying. I may
have been spoiled for having been lucky enough to be born in a free country,
Spain. Regardless of whether our democratically elected representatives are
good at their jobs or not, I always have had the freedom to express myself in public or private.
I don’t think I can change how the system works in Vietnam,
but by denouncing it here, in this public platform for the World to see, I pay tribute
to my friend Peter who lives
there and every day tries, in his own way, to improve the lives of many even
if it’s just a little. And I pay tribute to that person he spoke to, who
had the courage
to share with a foreigner what really happens, even at risk of going to
prison or losing their job.
 |
| A common sight in Saigon - people having their dinner on the street. They like to share their moments together. In private some share things they can't do in public. Maybe they will, one day. |
Feel free to share this note to your circle of friends, family or other people. It will never be too loud to help.
"They will rise, it's only a matter of when."
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