What I Learned About Vietnam

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What I learned About Vietnam

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Vietnam has been a subject of controversy for over 40 years. I have been interested in it since I was a little boy and have watched many movies about it, but until this class I never thought about what Vietnam was like before the war or what the people were like. Never really cared about the politics and what I learned from the movies was that the politicians were crooks and the average soldiers worst enemy. I have since then learned otherwise.

I learned that the Vietnamese were ruled long by the Chinese long before the French. They had adopted a portion of Chinese culture and had several unsuccessful revolts against them until the 1800’s when they unified Vietnam. The French assisted had sent missionary’s to Vietnam to help cultivate Christian religion and establish a trade route in Asia, but were unable to get the ruling government to agree. The French did finally succeed in the fighting the Vietnamese government and forcing the Vietnamese to accept their rule over most of Vietnam. In the 1930’s there were several Vietnamese nationalist movements trying to force the French to leave. After the fall of France in 1940 the Japanese moved into Vietnam and ruled there until the end of World War II. Before the nationalists could take over and establish an all Vietnamese government the French returned. It was even invaded in the north by Chinese troops and the only way Ho Chi Minh could stave off the Chinese from taking over the northern half of Vietnam, Ho had to convince the Chinese that he was a socialist and would like their assistance in outing the pro-capitalist government in the south. After defeating their colonial masters they found themselves as a pawn in the cold war. I never thought about how hard Vietnam had to fight to free itself from foreign influence and maintain its own culture. (Hanh) They had been under the rule of foreign...