A Joke On Facebook Puts American Expatriate At Odds With Vietnam

NPR ^ | February 1, 2018

[ThanhPhero]

I think I understand the problem. He is probably a very good English teacher and is used to saying things among hí colleagues that won’t fly in a public venue. People here talk about most anything in sometimes highly irreverent ways but don’t write those things. Unlike in the normal actually communist state people do not fear that their neighbors will report them to the authorities for slight or even some major verbal síns.

[ThanhPhero]

Hardly a sh!thole. Việt Nam is prospering. The difference year to year is pretty apparent. The government is "Communist" rather than communist. It is an authoritarian system but no worse than many others and much more amenable to capitalism and actually a lot less corrupt. The society is still too much clan based for a parliamentary democracy to work and there is not the regional differentiation of origins that makes our sort of federal system work. The government here is actually quite good for the society. It is nominally Communist but the Communists are Vietnamese and after the fanatic generation of revolutionaries has passed they are practical people. They know that Việt Nam has to be economically strong - the people have to be prosperous in order to avoid becoming a province of China.

[ThanhPhero]

To these western eyes Vietnamese women are exquisite but except for those in ads few qualify as what Americans call “hot.”

[x]

How much work would he have needed to do?

Old Giap already looked like a xxxxxxxx.

[miss marmelstein]

Because the women’s haters club here at FR say they’re hot, easy and don’t speak English...er, I mean, don’t nag.

[nopardons]

Oh yes, that IS what they always claim. ;^)

[miss marmelstein]

In fact, I was corrected here by a bitter divorced freeper for using Thai women as an example of the Perfect Doll. He said I should use Vietnamese women. So I’m sticking with the expert opinion.

[nopardons]

ROTFLMSO!

The thing is...those who post about how awful American woman are, are no "prizes" themselves! And I'm not talking about looks...I'm talking about personality and expectations.

[Billthedrill]

Puts the "amp" back into "re-education camp". Sure hope they don't deport him, though. That'd mean he'd be coming back here.

[nickcarraway]

What makes him an expert? Maybe he should move to Vietnam.

[nickcarraway]

The Perfect Doll?

[miss marmelstein]

Yes, the Perfect Doll. I’m just passing on bitter, divorced freeper fantasies. Don’t blame the messenger.

[ThanhPhero]

Hardly a sh!thole. Việt Nam is prospering. The difference year to year is pretty apparent. The government is "Communist" rather than communist. It is an authoritarian system but no worse than many others and much more amenable to capitalism and actually a lot less corrupt. The society is still too much clan based for a parliamentary democracy to work and there is not the regional differentiation of origins that makes our sort of federal system work. The government here is actually quite good for the society. It is nominally Communist but the Communists are Vietnamese and after the fanatic generation of revolutionaries has passed they are practical people. They know that Việt Nam has to be economically strong - the people have to be prosperous in order to avoid becoming a province of China.

[Dilbert San Diego]

My interpretation or understanding, is that Vietnam is a totalitarian country. Is that a fair statement? I understand they have made some free market reforms to their economic system. But I have been led to believe that concepts such as freedom of speech, or political satire or jokes against government officials, are not tolerated there.

Correct me if I’m wrong.

[ThanhPhero]

The people still refer to the government as Veecee the origin of which is just as it sounds. You don't walk up to a constable and say that Uncle Hô was a traitorous ignoramus. I have had a few what should have been dangerous political discussions with people I did not know well enough to know if they were Veecee or not, but that includes also one official in my town there. The country is still on paper totalitarian. In practice they are pretty loose with that and respond well to American pressure which was constant during Clinton's and Bush's terms but sorely lacking in the Obama years. If you would like to vacation in a not-so-third world place that is cheap and has the most fantastic bay in the world (Hà Lòng), take a couple of weeks, or better, a month, and go. Everyone loves Americans, especially older American men but my young daughter was treated like a celebrity when she went with me twice. She will carry my ashes back there at the appropriate time.