Viet culture, getting to grips.

I found this book to be useful:

Understanding Vietnam
by Neil L. Jamieson
goodreads.com/book/show/223183.Understanding_Vietnam

especially the first chapter "How the Vietnamese See the World"

Thank you for the recommendation. I found the book reasonably interesting, although it never really seems to address what, to most foreigners at least, is the true meat and potatoes of life in VN: ie. the chaos, corruption, poor communication, low trust, petty crime, barely functional hierarchy system, shabbiness etc. Notably enough, in one of the last chapters the author openly resents the VN lack of appreciation for US sacrifices during the war.

Can you recommend other books?

I think that everyone should check Maclean J Storer's "Forward O Peasant": it's a (hilarious) novel about mid / late 90s Vietnam.

Two other books that come to mind are:

Shadows and Wind
by Robert Templer
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123 … s_and_Wind

and

Derailed in Uncle Ho's Victory Garden: Return to Vietnam and Cambodia
by Tim Page
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/314 … ory_Garden


Both of these were published in 1999.

You could try Rising Dragon, hard to find as the govt banned the book and threw the author out of VN.

Happen to come across this some moons ago:
http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-as … -3385.html

colinoscapee wrote:

You could try Rising Dragon, hard to find as the govt banned the book and threw the author out of VN.

I've never read the book so can't say anything about it except that it's available as ebook on Amazon.  If the OP doesn't have a Kindle, he can read it on his computer or cellphone.

I have read Rising Dragon on KIndle as suggested and I found it to be very dispassionate analysis of Vietnamese political culture.  There are obviously dated references and conjecture about things that did and didn't come to pass.  I wonder if the book was being published for the first time today, instead of 2010, if the author would still be banned.  I suspect maybe not as most of the old guard are gone in the last ten years.

I have not read Understanding Vietnam but if the comment is correct that the author "openly resents the VN lack of appreciation for US sacrifices during the war" then I would be skeptical of the author's level of understanding.  If all of the people north of the 17th parallel and half of those to the south were sworn enemies of the US, that leaves a considerably smaller portion of the rest to be appreciative."  I just consider it fortunate that my wife tolerates me.