VIETNAM, NEWS ANALYSIS, AUGUST 16, 2000.

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Most tourists visiting Vietnam in the last few years have seen how the cities are changing their faces. New office buildings, colorful homes, blooming businesses of all kinds - especially entertainment business including sex trade and porno materials circulation, never so rampant in the history of Vietnam even in the time when half a million American troops were in South Vietnam.

Most of visitors, however, haven't closely seen life in the countryside. Living conditions of poor farmers are the same as decades ago, much worse if compared with that in the 1954-1975 South Vietnam. Even the Vietnamese living most of their time in the cities could be unaware of the plight of the farmers and the true face of remote hamlets.

So far, very little has been invested to the development of rural areas in Vietnam, and the gap between living conditions in the cities and the rural villages is larger and larger. Efforts have been made by the Communist Party and its government to pacify the peasants. But most of the efforts are nothing but false promises.

On September 12-13, a national conference of agricultural and rural development branch was held in Hanoi and attended by the Communist Party general secretary and other top leaders. Speeches were delivered, but all seemed to be hot air.

Meanwhile, a letter written by a young Vietnamese in Vietnam sent to his friends living abroad describes realities of rural life not well-known to people outside Vietnam. It has been published in many Vietnamese language newspapers outside Vietnam.

The young man introduces himself: "I was born and grown up in a peaceful and hard working village that is like all others in Vietnam. After graduation from high school, it was lucky I could move to a city for further education and though under trying conditions I could find a job to live there. Whenever possible I would frequently return to visit my birth place."

"Once on a visit to my village, I saw two young men trying hard to hang some board on a tree at the road side in front of my gate. When they came to me for a light, I asked them what the board was for. They said, 'Nonsense, you know. We put it up as told by the village (committee) to have a little money for some cigarettes. It's not for the damned industrialization or modernization.'"

"They laughed heartily and walked away to the village committee office. Unable to understand their saying, I came to look at the board. It was a large wooden board with a slogan in red paint that read, 'Let's Push Up National Industrialization and Modernization, in the Countryside First.' I couldn't sleep that night, haunted by the board and the two young men's words."

So in the next days the young man was visiting some villagers to see how they were living and working. At last, he met one of his remote uncles who has been dubbed the "living village history book." The old man slowly related to him the plight of the villagers.

"Our village consists of nine hamlets. Most of the population are living on farming rice and potato and manioc. After each harvest, young men hastily leave to find works elsewhere. Some are working for brick kilns near by, others moved to the cities to work as coolies (porters), to wash dishes... Pretty girls would be hired as waitresses (who might be also call girls) in sumptuous restaurants, and they would return to help their families during harvest."

"Each individual farmer is allocated 1.2 sao (or 0.30 acre). If productivity is 250 to 300 kg per 1/10 hectare (0.247 acre), each year a farmer will gather 400 to 500 kg of unhusked rice to be sold for less than one million dong (US$ 71). After deduction of tax, charges, fees and farming investments, it is breaking even, sometimes minus. Trying hard to reduce expenditures, each month one could make from 10,000 to 20,000 dong (US$ 0.7 to 1.4) when the price of rice (unhusked) is 1,700 dong/kg. It would be much worse for farmers when that price falls to 1,200/kg. How farmers could live on such little income? I don't know whether there are farmers in any countries who suffer so much as our people?"

The young man argued that he thought the country is more prosperous than years ago, many families are in better shape, many 2- and 3-storied houses were built... But his uncle with a bitter tone, were going at him: "I thought you've traveled a lot and learned something better, but you are just stuffed with such groundless arguments, not different from the village propaganda cadre. Do you know who own those houses? All belong to local (Communist) leaders, each was holding power for a time... And they have money, building homes and buying motor vehicles. Some large trees make a garden good looking, but some multi-storied homes do not symbolize the prosperity of the majority of people in this village. Our peasants here are too meek. If it were in Thai Binh or Nam Dinh, the people would have revolted long ago."

The young man then asked his uncle about the so-called "Industrialization and Modernization," and the old man explained: "The superior mandarins ordered to put up the board, so the village mandarins had to carry out the task. All of them dropped out at third-grade and fourth-grade, how could they understand what are industrialization and modernization. Nobody would deign to look at it."

The uncle went on: "People have been so tired of the leaders' tempting speeches and very fed up with general slogans that stay still in the papers. You are too young to know that at first people were allowed to farm individually, then were forced into mutual aid teams, then into co-operatives from low level to high level. Next came piece-work contractual system on household basis, that means returning to individual farming under government direction. On that vicious circle, farmers have been suffering hundreds of hardships. Every time, the party and the government are boasting of motorization, mechanization, modern industrialization. But in reality, nothing is solved. It is still the scene of 'husband and wife toiling with a water bufalo.' Nowadays, farmers are saying that 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,' that is more realistic."

The old man added, "You see, the farmers suffer so much, trying every way to have food, to borrow here and there to buy books for their children. How can they do anything big? If you look at the last year flood victims in Central Vietnam, emaciated bodies standing on their boats to receive instant noodles packs from relief workers then hurriedly stuffing them into their mouths, you will have an insight into the life of the farmers. What's the darned industrialization and modernization..."

The young man concluded: "I suddenly realized that I had just woken up to realities. The last words of my uncle were so similar to that of the two young men who were putting up the slogan board. Why did an old man and the two young men grasp the matter so simply and clearly? As to me, I was still feeling irresolute and doubtful."

"I don't know whether the government has had the slogan 'Let's push up National Industrialization and Modernization..." hung everywhere in order to actually translate it into reality the wish to reduce farmers' hardships, or just to delude the people with an Utopia."

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