On Sun, 10 Sep 2017 07:27:16 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-09 21:28, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 09 Sep 2017 07:50:11 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-08 20:39, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 08 Sep 2017 11:48:38 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-07 18:10, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 07 Sep 2017 07:19:58 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-06 16:50, John B. wrote:

[...]

... Given Vietnam's history
since, say the 1850's, the average Vietnamese is probably as happy
under the present government as they were under previous regimes.


Having met a lot of Vietnamese people, including people where not all
relatives made it out, I do not think this is true. I also had relatives
who had to live in a former communist country. They would have been shot
if they had tried to leave. Nobody will ever tell me there is nothing
wrong with communism.

As a general statement, those who escaped from Vietnam were people
with a certain amount of money. Call them the middle class.


Not the ones I met. They didn't have much more than the shirt on their
backs and most didn't own real estate over there or had much in terms of
other wealth. A simple bicycle was already considered a luxury.


And tell us, how did these penniless people buy the boat, provision
the boat, acquire sufficient fuel, pay the bribes to the coast guard
and navy necessary to start the voyage?


The same way they do it in Mexiko, North Africa or the Middle East.
Scraping money and tradeable goods such as bicyles, rickety motorcycles
and whatever together. Which unfortunately also meant that not everyone
in a larger family could get a boat ticket, it was only enough for some.
Talk to people that went through this. Sometimes tears will well up in
their eyes. For example, because they had to leave mom, dad and a lot of
others behind.

Or at least read up on it.

http://www.complex.com/life/2015/12/...es-vietnam-war

Quote "He ate rice with salted potatoes most nights". Is this the fare
of a rich guy?

Then, quote "In order to pay for his spot on the boat, my dad sold his
bicycle and organized a small group of people to escape on the same
trip. He said asking his mother for money was out of the question
because "if she knew, she wouldn't let me go.""

Later, quote "But by the fourth week, they were running out of bartering
goods, so my dad and other refugees stopped along China's uninhabited
shores to search for food in the jungle. They found guava trees and
loaded up on the fruit—which ended up making everyone constipated. "Back
on the boat, everyone was helping each other poop," he said".


Ah yes, you are describing the events told by a person who, describes
herself as "a writer, speaker, creative producer, and entrepreneur"
and wasn't born when the events took place which were told to her long
after they occurred.


Are you implying they lied?

They usually don't term it "lying" but still it is adding a
connotation that implies something that wasn't true.

I've often told the story about my grandfather saying that when he and
my grandmother first moved to town he worked as a carpenter for $1,.00
a day. Which was true.

But he told the story of an example of how hard he worked and how poor
they were which wasn't true. But the facts are dollar a day was a more
or less a normal workingman's salary in the 1800's.



Her father was described as, "My dad, who lived in North Vietnam's
capital of Hanoi, remembers the government rationing food stamps for
every citizen. He ate rice with salted potatoes most nights. After the
war, there was no freedom of speech, no freedom to travel, no freedom
to protest."

Interesting, but I wonder, really, as N.Vietnam had been governed by
the Communist government of Ho Chi Minh since 1945. But your site says
that "After the war, there was no freedom of speech, no freedom to
travel, no freedom to protest."

Do you suppose that 35 years after Ho Chi Minh had beaten the French,
and more recently chased the Americans out of his country, and sorted
out the Southerners that suddenly without notice things in Hanoi got
worse? Truly?


They did. The new government started a "cleansing action". Talk to
people from there. But ones that got out, the others may be afraid to
speak freely because that can have nasty results under communist regimes.


In the North? That had supplied the soldiers to fight the war? I find
no evidence that it happened. But even more revealing, they were the
people who were the victors. They had beaten both the French and the
Americans and "freed their country".



And a diet of rice and potatoes? As the writer was raised, as far as I
can tell, in the U.S. "potato" is probably intended to mean "white
potato" which as far as I know is not raised in Vietnam in commercial
quantities... but certainly makes for a good story.

And, again the implication is only rice and potatoes... when I was in
Vietnam people ate quite a variety of things, many of which while
possibly cultivated, also grew wild.

I agree that your story is a real tear jerker" but I suspect that like
many stories that parents tell children is that there is a limited
amount of truth and a whole lot of "how we did it in spite of all the
problems".


I believe the people I talked to and their stories were similar to this one.

And I have no doubt of it. But equally, we have the "guest workers"
who came to Germany to work in the factories and when their contracts
ended they stayed as if they went back to Turkey they wouldn't get
the"big money" that they were paid in Germany.


"During that time, Vietnamese refugees sailed to neighboring countries
where they could stay in refugee camps, while waiting for sponsorship
to resettle in countries like the United States."

Ah, the penny drops. If we can get to a refugee camp we'll be fed,
clothed and sheltered, and won't have to work, while we are waiting to
go to America where everything is wonderful.


Wouldn't you do the same if you lived in an oppressed country and in
poverty that is most likely to become worse? I sure would, I'd try
everything to get out if there is no hope in changing the status quo.
And yes, then I'd try to find out what the most promising destination
could be.


Well, to an extent I live in countries that are repressed. If you were
to speak disrespectfully about the King of Thailand you will probably
be sentenced to a number of years in jail.

And guess what, the average Thai hardly thinks about it. Why should
he? It has always been that way, there is no material benefit in doing
it, so why bother?

In Singapore, if you were to get up on your orange box and advocate
communism you won't even be tried in court. They will simply lock you
up under the "Emergency Laws" that have been in force since 1948.

Do the Singaporean worry? Well, I've been living in or visiting the
country for 50 years and I've never heard one mention it.

When I lived in Indonesia if you loudly objected to the government you
could be "disappeared" and I personally know of at least one case
where it did happen.

The Indonesian population wasn't leaving the country in droves. Not at
all.


I might point out that in the mid 1800's the Chinese who came to the
U.S. already referred to it as "The land of fat pork" which is
probably a synonym for "Heaven" to a Chinese peasant who likely ate
meat once a year.... or less.

In short a story intended to elicited sympathy but very weak on truth,
or perhaps I should say, "replete with innuendos eliciting sympathy".


Nonsense. Talk to Vietnamese of your generation.

I have. In fact I met and had several long conversations with a N.
Vietnamese, or at least he was from Hanoi, and this would have been in
the 1990's. A young chap, he was in Thailand looking into the computer
business with the intent of importing computers from Thailand to
Vietnam and had been introduced to me as some sort of computer expert
as at the time I was writing a weekly newspaper column about
computers.

Strangely he gave no indication of being unhappy to live in Vietnam.

A couple of the people I've worked with over the years since the
1970's were married to Vietnamese women who had, with their American
husband's help, gotten their parents out of Vietnam. I never heard
them talk about oppression. They talked about how much better life was
here, largely because they were married to Americans who made a lot of
money.

I would emphasis that in the, admittedly few, cases where I personally
knew the facts the "poor improvised boat people" had money, and
offered to pay for supplies. One in gold bullion.

I've got a good friend who "escaped" from Hungary. He grew up and was
educated, served in the Hungarian army and graduated from collage,
under the communist government. I've asked him about live under the
communists and he had no complaints at all. His reason for leaving the
country? Well when he graduated from collage with a degree as a
chemical engineer the government had a job for him as a "food chemist"
and he wanted to work in the oil business.

In fact I firmly believe that the reason most people fled the
communists was primarily a financial one.... Ooooo I can make the big
money in the West.
--
Cheers,

John B.