Korean Job Discussion Forums

[flummuxt]

I was looking at an article about Vietnam, and it got me wondering.

What would it be like as an American to teach in Vietnam? What would it be like for a person who lived during the Vietnam war era, and who protested that war?

I wonder if it would be good karma, sort of a way to make amends for that foreign policy fiasco?

I wonder if the Vietnamese would be hostile to Americans, or at least view such a move as patronizing?

I don't know that I could do it. It was such a traumatic period for many young Americans. And it was certainly traumatic for the Vietnamese.

Anyone every consider it seriously?

[ajgeddes]

I think they have got over it. As a foreigner in Vietnam, you are a walking, talking $ sign. They don't discriminate about who's money they take. Nobody seems to have adapted so well to capitalism as the Vietnamese have.

[jinju]

[the eye]

Just traveling the length of the country, it was easy to tell the Vietnamese have moved on.
Money is more important now.
A Vietnamese father will practically push his daughter into the arms of an american who is able to provide her with a green card.

[twg]

No, that's not true at all Jinju. Stop getting your history lessons from Hannity and open a book sometime.

[jinju]

[Tjames426]

I think they have got over it. As a foreigner in Vietnam, you are a walking, talking $ sign. They don't discriminate about who's money they take. Nobody seems to have adapted so well to capitalism as the Vietnamese have.

____

Got over what???

When the Americans came back to Vietnam after normalization, there were loud cheers. Yeah! The boys are back in town!!! The Southern Vietnamese have always been capitalistic. They were jumping with joy
at the return of capitalism and $$$$.

There is a lot good going on between the USA and Vietnam right now. The Vietnamese have come to realize they need protection from their historical foe and colonizer - China.

China really messed up when it invaded Vietnam in 1980.

[pkang0202]

I like Pho.

[ajgeddes]

[Bibbitybop]

Actually, the US military failed because they fought a ground war in Vietnam. The Vietnamese had historically beaten their invaders. Many countries tried it and failed. The US military went in there with a false sense of power and didn't adopt new tactics, they just fought a ground war.

Thank goodness the hippies protested and saved American lives by getting out of Vietnam. It's funny, historically, people who recently said America shouldn't go to Iraq were called cowards, traitors or hippies. They were right, and now finally the American people and even Republicans are realizing it was a huge mistake.

[itaewonguy]

[Saxiif]

America lost the Vietnam war because they had a completely warped (and rather stupid) understanding of their enemy. There was the idea that America was up against a monolithic international communist organization that all worked together to make the world communist. What they were really up against were nationalists who didn't have all that much love for fellow communists or communist ideology but thought that the idea of themselves getting all the power in the country sounded kind of cool and because the communists where the only ones who'd give them the money they needed to further their nationalistic goals with.

Let's see:
1. People blaming anyone who disagree with for their military *beep*-ups.
2. People thinking that the enemy is a monolithic and powerful international organization bent on their destruction, when they're really a bunch of small squabbling local groups.
3. People not understanding that its mostly about nationalism, not ideology.
4. The whole thing ending in a gigantic clusterfuck.

Hmm, maybe Bush is right and Iraq IS a lot like Vietnam.

Probably the only way that the US could've gotten peace in Vietnam is to do threaten to send the American ground forces tearing through N. Vietnam to the Chinese border and provoking a Chinese intervention. Probably the only thing that the N. Vietnamese would've liked less than Americans in the South would be the Chinese army in Hanoi.

[contrarian]

I have talked to two people who have taught in Viet Nam, both of them ex US Military who had served in Nam. The said it was interesting and they had a great time swapping war stories with the Viet Namese.

[Ya-ta Boy]

The OP is guilty of wishful thinking. I spent a week in Vietnam a couple of years back and was warmly welcomed everywhere I went. Granted it was a short trip, but if the Vietnamese were holding a grudge, I think I would have run across at least one manifestation.

[jaganath69]

Most Vietnamese alive today were born after the war. Oh, and Jinju is a raving lunatic who deserves to be castrated for the good of humanity. That is all.