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It has been 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War.
Most of the country’s 100 million people were born after the fighting stopped. They've seen Vietnam transform.
Poverty has dramatically declined. Globalization has added pressure and opportunity.
Vietnam today is young, ambitious and changing fast.
How much does the war even matter anymore?
On April 30, 1975, Vu Dang Toan commanded the first tank to smash through the main gate of Saigon’s Independence Palace. After seeing so many die — after grinding away his youth battling the Americans and the forces of South Vietnam — he was there, alive and surprised, for the war’s weary end.
It was a full surrender. At the United States Embassy nearby, helicopters had already carried away the last Americans as the South’s fighters disappeared, ditching their uniforms and boots in the streets.
“I’m proud,” Mr. Toan said, “that as a soldier, I completed the mission.”
Fifty years later, he was a long way from that moment, sitting in his comfortable home north of Hanoi, encircled by rice fields, not far from factories pumping out Apple Watches.
Photos on the wall showed his tank on the palace lawn. Wearing his military uniform, he sipped tea in a dark wood chair beside his grandson Dang Hoang Anh, 14, a bright-eyed soccer fan wearing a school uniform in Chelsea blue.
The boy pictured his life in different terms.
His goal? “To study in Canada.”
His mission? “To make money.”
“My grandparents’ generation, they had to go to war and people died,” Hoang Anh said. “Now we don’t worry about that. We worry about school and jobs.”
Prosperity and Poison
Globalization and capitalism have lifted Vietnam to new heights. But there are pitfalls too.
Vietnam's approach favors big foreign and state-run firms. The connected soar. Many struggle.
Complaints about inequality, development and environmental dangers are increasing.
Seeking Spiritual Calm
Optimistic but occasionally unmoored: That is how a lot of Vietnam’s young people feel.
Many are reaching not just for social media but also for communities of faith and culture.
Karl Marx called religion “the opiate of the masses.” Today, traditional rituals and religions are seeing a revival of interest.
Now what?
Today’s Vietnam, above all, wants to work and earn.
Outside Hanoi, past bridges that B-52s once bombed, factories and dorms hug a wide highway.
A family-friendly U.S. suburb this is not. Nor is it as orderly as China’s industrial hubs.
English (US) ·