Vietnam After The Saigon Fall 1975 - 2642 Words

Vietnam After the Saigon Fall 1975 Overview Many books, magazine articles, and papers have been written about the Vietnam war and its consequences, but most are written from the perspective of an outsider looking in without actually living in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Few reporters ever came back to Vietnam to live there and describe day-to-day life in Vietnam after the war. Under the control of Communist rulers and an embargo from the US, Vietnam was almost isolated from the western world between 1975 and the very late eighties (one can recognize a similar pattern in North Korea now). Western reporters were not welcome or even permitted to enter Vietnam for reporting purposes without an agreement from government†¦show more content†¦The situation in Vietnam closely parallels that of the current situation in North Korea, and demonstrates why it is very hard to find good published reliable sources about that country: officially, none exist. The only reliable source of information about North Korea one c an find is from the experience of the people who have survived and escaped from North Korea; reports from its government are simply propaganda. Introduction Vietnam lies along the eastern coast of the Indochina peninsula in an â€Å"S† shape. It is about 1,650 km long and is from 50 to 560 km wide. Its area is about 329,560 sq. km--slightly larger than Mexico (CIA World Factbook). It is bordered on the north by China and the west by Laos and Cambodia. With a population of more than 81 million, Vietnam is one of the 15 most highly populated countries in the world. It is also one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia with many problems like pollution, uneven population distribution, and a very fragile economic infrastructure. History According to archaeological discoveries, around the fourth millennium BC and during the Bronze Age the first Vietnamese civilization, called Lac Viet (People of the Valley) was established in northern Vietnam. Lac Viet reached its prime in the third century BC before it was conquered by the Chinese ruling Han Dynasty in 207 BC (Booz 20). For the next thousand years Vietnam was