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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum

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To: Thomas Haegin who wrote (769)1/13/1998 2:08:00 PM
From: Esvida  Read Replies (2) of 9980
 
Thomas,

I don't have any siblings left back home and I have lost all contacts with close friends of the past. I still have quite a few cousins and one of them wants me to participate in some business, but I'm not ready yet. I maintain very little direct contact. I still get refreshes through my parents, who maintain regular contacts. Personal computers are available and popular there. The market is not sizable yet, but enough to get on MSFT's radar. I doubt that any net connection is widely available there. Controlling information is still a government agenda. I don't know how to begin to brief you on Vietnam and its people. I myself have very little hope for it. The struggle against French colonialists and the infighting between the Communists and the Nationalists practically destroyed the right side of the IQ bell curve. What little left is now spreaded out around the globe. Vietnam needs a Mikhail Gorbachev to start the unraveling of the controlling party, but the odd for that is extremely low. A few in the US want to instigate another revolution, but the people are now too fatigued for it and they don't see any hope in any replacement since they suspect that whoever replace the Communists will just continue to mislead the country to enrich themselves. The majority of the people there are still farming with no modern farming technologies.

I read the Stratfor intelligence report for Vietnam. It was right in its reference to the riot in Thaibinh, but I think it overestimated the cause. I don't think the government was trying to tax the farmers to build infrastructure. People rioted because whatever little they had was being robbed by local officials for themselves. The level of governmental harassment there now is not much different from what it was under French colonialists according to people of my parents' generation. I'm not sure if there's any improvement in my people's dinity because they are oppressed now by their owns instead of by foreigners a little more than half a century ago. Sorry for this sad little note.

-Al
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