How
do you end up needing to declare independence from two very different
nations? Well, France had colonized Vietnam in the 1800s and
maintained control of the Indochina area until World War II. During
that war, Japan invaded Vietnam. Vietnam went through a lot of
especially tough times, and a leader named Ho Chi Minh helped wrest
control of the city of Hanoi from the Japanese. More fighting during
WWII and afterwords resulted in a divided Vietnam, with Hanoi and the
rest of North Vietnam being Communist under Ho Chi Minh, and the
south being ruled by some not-very-democratic leaders. And this
division, of course, led to the long, grisly Vietnam War.
The
war finally ended in 1975 and was unified under a Communist
government. The nation has undergone a series of reforms and a period
of great economic growth, although it still faces some pretty huge
problems.
Vietnam's
story is incredibly sad, and yet there are wonderful things to know
about the land and the people. The Belgian singer Pham Quynh Ahn
sings about her Vietnamese ancestry, saying that she knows her
parents' homeland only through movies—only “the sights of war.”
But, she sings, “One day I'll touch your soil / One day I'll
finally know my soul.” Check out this lovely singer and her
wonderful song—and enjoy some beautiful sights of Vietnam.
To
learn more about Vietnam, check
out this and this other earlier post.
Also
on this date:
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