Vietnam: Not what you think it is

When Americans hear the word Vietnam, negative images and psychological scars are immediately associated with the 1960s Southeast Asia military conflict. 

It’s not hard to do as Hollywood movies and the media portray Vietnam through the lens of the American soldier in a gruesome war in a hard-to-understand foreign land. 

One of Ho Chi Minh City’s most famous hotels where British author Graham Greene penned The Quiet American in room 214, which later became a Hollywood movie hit.

A direct aftermath of that era is the 1980s wave of hundreds of thousands of “boat people” on rickety boats escaping poverty, communism, and discrimination in the South China sea, searching for newfound freedoms in the U.S., Canada, France, and Australia.  

On the whole, since the war’s end in 1975 Vietnam has not been seen in a good light, leaving Westerners associating the country with poverty, rice patties, and Vietcong infested jungles.

Ho Chi Minh City is Vietnam's economic engine of 10 million inhabitants where you'll find skyscrapers, luxury apartments, and a night life second to none.

You would be totally surprised if you were to visit Vietnam today. 

I lived and worked in Vietnam from 2018-2023 where I discovered a burgeoning middle class and an economically booming country on the rise.

During my 5-year stint, I lived in the seaside beach town of Danang as well as the country’s economic engine, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon).  

Hanoi: More and more cars are vying for precious street space.

As I cris-crossed the country from north to south, I witnessed new shopping centers, apartments and tourist attractions being built everywhere. In fact, the skyline was often dotted with construction cranes, resembling China’s economic boom two-decades prior.

Other infrastructure development includes the country’s two largest cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, recently receiving subways and skytrains to help alleviate Vietnam’s notorious traffic-congested streets. 

Downtown center of Ho Chi Minh City is usually lively and festive.

In Ho Chi Minh City and nearby Thao Dien, the foreign expat community, you will find modern apartment buildings outfitted with the latest electronics, including smart flat screen TVs and often swimming pools, workout gyms, and grocery stores attached.  

As Vietnam is attempts to out compete its Asian rivals and to attract foreign direct investment, internet technology centers and modern manufacturing zones are being constructed.  

Even the country’s city-streets, once synonymous with the motor-bike, are starting to give way to more and more SUVs and automobiles.

On national holidays, you will find the highways and all transportation modes—-airplanes, buses, and trains—-overwhelmed by middle-class Vietnamese vacationing in popular resorts and tourist destinations. 

All of these are indications that Vietnam today is drastically different from the Vietnam War imagery of the past. 

Japan town, Hanoi: Getting late night ramen noodles.

In fact, in a country of 100 million where 60% are under the age of 35, most young Vietnamese who were born after the war don’t have any recollection of the US-Vietnam conflict.   

Vietnam is not just a war; it's a fast-growing, lower, middle-income economically booming country with an amazing history, culture, and people.

Try it and you’ll be surprised!