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0:00
okay so I don't speak Vietnamese but I went to Vietnam and I learned how to fake it first off drink some water no no no I mean you got to drink that water hard you got to like gulp it okay good now add some consonant sounds to that gulping now add some shortstop vowels now just go crazy with the intonation and make your voice a little
0:26
higher and there you go you're on your way to joining the Vietnamese Parliament it's time to learn geography now hey everybody I'm your host barbs get your geography now merch at geography now.com like this beautiful mug that I just gulped from but also mini barbs and you can take him on your travels too get a mini barbs at figgy me.com he fits great in a geography now mug and you can take both with you on a trip and I'm putting this away so before I start this episode I just want to say
0:54
a huge thank you to all the Vietnamese joog creepers that I met when I visited Vietnam it was so cool hanging with you guys and really trying to understand your country through your eyes and even though you're not Vietnamese thank you Brad my fellow American for driving me around everywhere on your minibike he lives in Vietnam and he speaks it he's a super talented guy so we've reached our last Southeast Asian country Vietnam is definitely a rabbit hole country where
1:15
the story just gets crazier and crazier the more you dive into it how long of a dive will we take well follow me and I'll show you the way o by the way Mom how did you like Vietnam interesting it was interesting okay [Music] M so the shape of Vietnam's domain has a very unique structure and as you'll soon see there's a very advantageous yet catastrophic undertone to it as well but first let's find it on the map shall we first of all the country is located on the entire Eastern portion of the
1:46
Southeast Asian Peninsula shaped like an S boarded by China Lao and Cambodia touching the South China Sea and the Gulf of tonen to the East and the Gulf of Thailand to the Southwest the country is divided into 58 provinces and five municipalities which are the highest ranked CI and Vietnam controlled directly by the central government and one of them is the capital of the entire country Hanoi right next to another municipality Hong these are the second and third largest cities in the country
2:10
the largest city though just a bit bigger than Hanoi is actually hoochi Min City or Saigon which also hosts the largest and busiest airport as well as the largest and busiest shipping Port the port of Saigon the country has a wide network of Roads the longest one being the ql1 highway that goes about 1 1650 km from the border of China to the southernmost tip at gal otherwise if you prefer train travel you're in luck there are multiple lines including the longest
2:33
one the reunification Express that takes about 34 hours to finish traveling between Hanoi and hoochi Min finally the country has an insular region of islands mostly off their coasts about 4,000 Islands to be exact the largest one and most interestingly placed is fuk just off the coast of Cambodia it's kind of considered like the Hawaii of Vietnam and then you get to the most controversial part the spratly islands we'll explain more about this later but in a nutshell all these countries claim
2:59
at least at least part or most of it and many of them have set up stations or even military bases on these islands out of all these islands Vietnam has the most claimed at 29 including the actual island named spratley side note yes it is totally okay to call hoi Min City Saigon the original name also getting around in Vietnam you'll have to understand motorbike culture Vietnam usually ties Thailand as a number one or number two country with the highest percentage of motorbike users per capita
3:26
at over 86% using the vehicle for daily commute so back to the whole spratley islands dispute thing we've mentioned this in a few other episodes before but if you don't know anything about it basically although they've been known to be inhabited throughout various times in history it wasn't until recently when all the arguing got heated why because when you have an island in the ocean it usually gets an exclusive economic zone attached to it which in the world of
3:48
geopolitical strategy can be a very advantageous Prospect to have and have some kind of control over long story short just be careful about talking about this place I mean in 2014 the Vietnamese military literally had to sign a document stating that they were ready to die as they assumed military action against China might have been possible so anywh who as you can see Vietnam's country is kind of skinny and super long but the country didn't always look like what it is today to summarize
4:13
long ago there was the baket or the 100 ancient Viet tribes and although they were spread out as far as to what is now Southern China the heart and core of their ancestral lands lies in what is now North Vietnam and for much of Vietnamese history most Vietnamese dynasties and rulers had some kind of Capital centered around this area that is when they weren't under Chinese rulership in fact over the course of about a thousand years there were four eras of Chinese rulership that Vietnam
4:39
lands fell under but to summarize this is why you'll notice a heavy sinicized or Chinese influenced culture in Vietnam see in Asia you have two powerhouses and it kind of goes like this this is my realm of influence this is my realm of influence meanwhile I'm just going to sneak in here and sprinkle a little Islam oh while you're at we're just going to sprinkle in some Catholicism and that's how it's done in Vietnam everywhere you go even though you know it's not China you still kind of feel
5:07
like you're seeing things that look kind of Chinese is everything from the temples pagodas even the folk religious shrines all kind of Follow That traditional East Asian aesthetic like buildings with hipped tiled roofs and sharp elongated ridges but the thing is for the longest time this only applied to the northern part of Vietnam see the southern part was actually under various endosphere kingdoms most notably the kingdom of Champa what was Champa it was a Hindu based Kingdom of austronesian
5:34
peoples that were more closely related to the malaise rather than the viets they ruled the southern part of the area until the Vietnamese initiated the Namen or the March South which was a series of conquests that the Vietnamese embarked on to acquire Southern lands yeah don't remind me and at its greatest territorial extent Vietnam once occupied lots of lands in what are now Lao in Cambodia under Emperor Min mang did you not just hear what I said history is objective dude got to report it anywh
5:58
who today Vietnam looks like this and within Vietnam there are so many cool sites and places to see to explain more on that let's have one of our Vietnamese joog peeps explain shall we hello quo is here to introduce you to the top places in Vietnam that people visit just as Barb introduced to us in the regions of Vietnam episode the countries have different parts now the northern region is widely considered as the heartland of Vietnamese culture with the most famous
6:25
places being the Temple of literature and National School The tangam Citadel complex pagod there is also the Han quarter moving away from the capital you can expect to find natural sceneries such as the halom GBA Islands there is also the eye of the god mountain and town of Sapa which is one of the only places in Vietnam where it's snows moving downward from the north lots of beaches definitely recommend the beaches of or here we can also find the city of a very romantic city which is also the
7:08
old imperial capital just some distance from where is the Hoang old quarter The Culinary culture here is exquisite moving to the Highland region there is the famous city of love the city of thatl moving south from here the city of Saigon ho chiming City ho chiming city is certainly famous for the ban Market or the independence Palace you should also pay a visit to the GOI tunnel you can also check out the local museums such as the Museum of War remnants moving south again now the M the West
7:46
you can check out ecotourism centers uh because they grow a lot of fruit a lot of rice they need to trade it in the floating Market that being said have a good one Vietnam certainly hoped to receive You Someday by to bar right here somewhere thank you man I really regret not seeing the north side of Vietnam o those crazy looking mountains and caves and waterfalls man I'm probably going to have to go back at some point let's dive more into the natural side of Vietnam now shall
8:17
we so here's the deal in Vietnam you're constantly going to see this kind of like theme of water everywhere whether it's the expectation of floods the seaf fairing Coast the ponchos on motorbikes or there's like a very watery feel to Vietnam and like the water let's dive into the sea of information now shall we first of all about half of the country is hilly or mountainous mostly concentrated in the north regions by the border with China here you can also find
8:40
the tallest peak of the country fansipan from these mountains are sourced many of the main rivers that feed the country such as the black and red rivers the longest and most important rivers of the north part of the country that feed into the Red River delta heading south you'll notice the spine of Vietnam is flanked by the enom Mountains and the flatter Coastal valleys to the right as you head further south you'll notice there's one last major isolated hilly area known as
9:03
the lamen plateau this area is unique in that due to its elevation it has its own isolated microclimate set apart from the rest of the area as temperatures are typically slightly cooler here to the west of the plateau lies the central Highlands here a ton of coffee is grown in fact one of the most popular coffee chains in Vietnam is called Highlands coffee you can also find the largest Inland bodies of water here the Z or as they pronounce it in the South Yao and
9:25
chian reservoirs and finally to the South the land gets significantly flatter and turns into the Mong Delta which is the end of the mightiest and longest river in Southeast Asia and one of the most Lush areas of the country with swampy sediments that are super fertile and ideal for fruit cultivation oh my goodness Vietnam knows how to do fruit well God there's like there's Mango Steam there's jack fruit there's even a fruit called breast milk fruit and if you squeeze it like milk comes
9:50
out oh that sounds but one thing they do even better than fruit is coffee oh my goodness when I went there I could not believe how good it was and with that min barbs and I are going to have a little coffee break and uh Noah is going to fill in for the rest of this segment take it away Noah Noah what have you been up to these days uh not a lot so what's going on my joger peeps let's do this one more time Vietnam was classified as developing mixed market economy with socialist
10:19
oriented principles prior to the ' 80s Vietnam was under a heavily State centralized command economy that was heavily dependent on outside Aid so what changed well it kind of went like this can we no can we no can we no well he passed away let's do it basically it wasn't until the death of Lee dwan in 1986 that the doyo reforms implemented which allowed the country to loosen up and open up the private sector more in any case for one only about 35% of the country's population is considered Urban
10:46
which is surprisingly low for most Asian let alone the world standard this means the population of Vietnam is more dispersed throughout the rural areas of land which helps increase potential cultivation another Factor the commercial sector can sometimes fall in a sort of Gray Zone for example many people might open up household eateries or restaurants in their own homes a practice that sort of Blends residential and Commercial zoning law but almost everybody does it and it's the lifeblood
11:09
of Vietnamese food culture and finally the Vietnamese kind of just have their own way of doing things that is open to anything that works practically for example the ruling Communist party has shown that they are very open to a free market system by doing things like signing a bilateral trade deal with the USA in July 200000 they approved a 10-year economic plan that enhanced the role of the private sector in 2001 overall they maintained an average excess of 7% annual growth rate many
11:31
sectors like manufacturing have been able to boost this number up like in electronics and Automotive in fact in 2018 GM sold its Vietnamese operations to vinfast Vietnam's first domestic passenger car brand in fact a lot of brands in Vietnam have the word vet or something with vin in it to reference Vietnam vietcom Bank Vietnam milk vetex vetel vinmart and so on today they are the largest producer of cashew nuts number five in rice production number three in rubber and yes as mentioned
11:56
they are number two in coffee which is surprising because of bra Brazil is number one and they are about 25 times larger than them and they have unique specialty weasel coffee where they feed the weasel the coffee fruit the beans are met in their stomachs and after it passes through their digestive system the beans are recollected cleaned processed and researched it's called weasel poop coffee Noah this is the best coffee I've ever had in my life right on well speaking of weasels that's only one
12:19
of the types of animals you can find here in Vietnam and to talk more about the animals here's Caleb hey guys I have this stuffed animal it's not an animal it's lonstein with two eyeballs and it's not the episode we're doing today no it's not Paul gave me this and said do an intro and I'm doing it right now we've run out of ideas we're we're at the end of the Rope here so much of Vietnam lies in a lush tropical biosphere region that contains some of the most ancient ecosystems in Asia and
12:47
even up to today many species are still being discovered like the munjack deer in 1990 and the ninan blind skink which is a legless lizard that looks like an earthworm I mean if a lizard doesn't have legs wouldn't that just make it a snake I don't know just read the teleprompter Caleb and in 2023 16 new species of paracoid wasps were discovered as well they lay their eggs in other insects which hatch and kill them in any case the country has 34 national parks the largest being the
13:16
Fang nakab bang National Park which is also a UNESCO heritage site and has what is considered the world's largest cave this image right here Vietnam's warm human climate is perfect for various primate species sometimes you can witness them hanging out at temples and attacking barbs as he tries to feed them I called the big guy King
13:38
meong but the one animal that lies in the hearts of the Vietnamese would have to be the fortuitous powerful water buffalo as strong hardworking creatures they have become an iconic national symbol of the country which you can see all over especially in the countryside one little extra bonus fact in Vietnam you might notice the symbol of the lock bird a lot nobody knows exactly what the origin is or if it was even based off of a real bird just kind of showed up on an
14:05
ancient Pottery in Temple motifs and since then it has become a legendary symbol of the nation in any case this has been a bunch of fun and it's time fo me to get out of here cheers guys thank you Caleb speaking of uh Vietnamese cuisine is well known throughout the world and chances are you may have already tried some in the talk more of the cuisine of Vietnam here's Ryan uh we have like Arab noodles AR bride all kind of meat all kind of uh RWS okay the north of Vietnam is f most famous for
14:37
is well foru region I would say there are a lot of good things like while my favorite food from the south should be um we have spring rods and we also have yes is uh hotel is really good usually for the big cupy chance they have us to mix between Robusta and abrica Vietnamese coffee usually robuster okay uh so we have like black coffee we have milk coffee the condensed milk coffee uh we have sauce coffee we have coconut coffee we have egg coffee so many so many it's it's easily
15:11
hundreds of them and we even have uh coffee contest every year every now and then the Highland Central Vietnam ha the best coffee and also the biggest coffee producer in the country thank you Ryan so there you go so much this country has to offer and with that I will catch you on the next one thank you Noah side note Vietnamese food oh my goodness don't even get me started dude Vietnam is a Powerhouse of flavors and spices and colors not too different from how the
15:37
people are with that let's move on to the next segment
15:43
the so what is a Vietnamese person glad you asked mini barbs here are some answers uh my Vietnamese subscribers gave um we're very independent independent country I can trade as that we are not Chinese okay uh uh everyone is trying to walk a balance between respecting tradition and trying to uh strive for Progress uh Vietnamese people have a certain discret charm uh for me Vietnamese per person is very friendly flexible they easy to adapt uh any different uh environments uh as you know
16:22
that the history of Vietnamese uh passed a lot of War but the Vietnamese still uh develop until now we have a strong literature tradition and the literature of the Vietnamese literature tradition is very free hundreds of years ago people were discuss discussing issues that we still hold Tabo today there is a lot of emphasis on like the traditional family connection there is a lot of emphasis on keeping the Vietnamese language alive and pure but there is also a lot of Celebration when uh some
16:58
someone is able to speak many languages someone understand I I guess we're still a land of mystery so I guess that's that's what Vietnam is to me so we have the mountain area on the North and moves to the South we have Delta the landscape is uh different from the north to the South so the people also follow this shape uh so as shapes for me is very flexible and Charming where would say the one who love coffee the most yes thank you but in the meantime here is the demographics graph let's jump
17:34
into it first of all the country has a population just around 100 million and is currently the 15th most populous country on Earth in terms of ethnic groups the country is predominantly inhabited by ethnic Vietnamese people known as kin Vietnamese at somewhere around 85% the remaining 15% are mostly made up of the various 54 recognized minority ethnic groups found within the country some of the largest groups include peoples like the M Dao Thai and Nung people peoples in addition there is
17:59
a significant amount OFA or Vietnamese people of full or partial Chinese descent that live in the country as well so for money they use the Vietnamese Dong and every single bank note has a picture of hoochi Min on it they also drive on the right side of the road and they use this very interesting Fusion type c and a plug outlet it was very convenient when I visited no adapters needed now language- wise shocker Vietnam's official language is Vietnamese which is classified as an
18:27
austronesian language of the on Kamai Branch meaning it is a very very very distant cousin of Kamai or the Cambodian language but today both languages are completely unintelligible and have very little in common in fact due to the Chinese rural era it is speculated that somewhere around 30 to 60% of the Vietnamese language today is Chinese deriv on top of that there are three main dialects North South and Central in which they say the central is the hardest to understand and on that note
18:54
here's the thing Vietnamese is the only Southeast Asian country that didn't didn't have any original indigenous writing system now this is because while all the other countries like Myanmar Thailand even as far as Indonesia and the Philippines they were all freely able to develop their own scripts between the 6th and 16th centuries ad meanwhile Vietnam was under a 1,000-year rule period under the Chinese and so from its very literary beginning the Chinese script known as Chuan was
19:20
adopted before anything authentically Vietnamese could be developed over time the Vietnamese people did a sort of similar thing that people in the Middle East did with the Arabic scrip script and they changed and modified it to fit their language better so for example to an English speaker it would be like this word is dog in English but in our language the word is honed so we took your letters and we did this I mean that writing system isn't even native English
19:46
it's Latin based but but you get the point so what do they use today they use the CH it is a modified Latin script started by Portuguese missionaries later remodified by the French in order to phonetically spell out Vietnamese words with diacritic marks to indicate the tones this system made things a lot easier and faster to learn so they just kind of stuck with it and speaking of which the Vietnamese language has six tones meaning one syllable can have up to six different meanings depending on
20:11
the intonation you say it in anyway religion okay now this is a very interesting one so Vietnam is a very how can I put it they're kind of like Japan in which they have a high degree of traditional folk beliefs that they still at the very least ritually practice but if you ask people how religiously devout they are it will veryy based off of who you ask it is speculated that somewhere around half of the country will claim that they follow some form of folk religion and Vietnam has a lot of them
20:38
everywhere you go in Vietnam you will see Shrine after Shrine after Shrine many of these are devoted to traditional Vietnamese Gods Spirits ancestors venerated historical figures or deities and so on otherwise Buddhism and even Hinduism are kind of sprinkled in there and then occasionally you'll come across churches and Cathedrals which are unique because they have this like East Asian Twist to them in which they use incense sticks at the statues of Mary instead of
21:01
prayer candles although not everyone may be super religious overall there seems to be like a very noticable strong sense of kind of faith-based ritualism in Vietnam and they kind of hop around a lot and of course nothing exemplifies this sort of syncretic belief system more than gai a religion mostly concentrated in the South it fuses elements of taism Confucianism Buddhism and yes even Roman Catholicism in any case in these videos I try really hard to find ways to condense the country's
21:30
overall story and history but this is a very complicated one this is a land where they literally had a rebellion against the Chinese led by a pair of sisters riding elephants it's a place where they got bombed like really bad by my country the USA and this's a whole other topic that would take forever to explain I'm sure you guys will in the comments please go at it I'm glad our countries have kind of moved forward and since then can kind of now work together more overall Vietnam has always been
21:53
kind of like a hot bed of conflict they fought the Chinese the cambodians the French the Americans the Japanese even the themselves fun side note the Vietnamese are also really proud because they claim that they're one of only two countries apart from Japan that avoided being colonized by the Mongols H technically we should be the only country because we actually fought them while the Japanese just got lucky with those typhoons that helped sink the Mongol ships yeah a lot of my Vietnamese
22:16
subscribers told me to put that in the script in any case in the most contemporary era everything kind of boiled down to hoi Min this guy is the icon of the country fa is everywhere his quotes are in the streets and in cafes but what it comes down to is even after the war he really worked hard to unify Vietnam there's even a word that viets used to refer to their fellow viets especially those that are not of ethnic kin Vietnamese ethnicity tonpa which means of the same fetus and another
22:42
thing that unifies Vietnamese people Sports and with that art could not make it because he had a busy schedule so I'm going to fill in for him Sports part with art not being here just me sorry art so Vietnam has quite a history of Athletics and recreational activities for one let's bring it back to the traditional stuff there are lots of fun Regional activities lots of them are centered around using bamboo Thea Q found in the mikong Delta area you have to balance on a suspended bamboo stick
23:11
over a river don't fall in you have a stilt racing you have the very tall bamboo swings and probably no activity more iconic to Vietnam culturally forgive me for butchering this duen or boat racing which has elaborately decorated sea vessels that the team must row across the finish line very Vietnamese I told you these are water people so Vietnam has a ton of traditional martial arts Styles typically divided into two separate forms the north sto Vietnamese inspired
23:37
kinds and the South Cham Kingdom indigenous Styles some of the most popular Styles include things like vinam and bintin which means pacify nonetheless the most commonly practiced martial art is actually Taekwondo thanks to their old ties to Korea and a large amount of Korean migrants that come to Vietnam the martial art has gained massive popularity and speaking of which to this day Vietnam has participated in every summer olympics since 1952 only missing Montreal and Los Angeles and
24:04
they've racked up five medals as of 2021 the Tokyo Olympics including their first ever gold medal in 2016 in Brazil in shooting otherwise what is one sport you will see everywhere in every Park in every school badminton it is disputably one of if not probably the most popular sport in Vietnam they even host the Vietnam open one of the most prestigious badminton events in all of Asia I swear you go to Vietnam you see badminton everywhere I guess they love it and
24:30
they're pretty good at it so there you go that's the sports segment and uh you guys know how this goes every time after art finish his sports segment uh you know I give a little intro into Hannah's culture segment so uh I don't have to transition to myself cuz I am myself I guess that means we're going to go and move on to culture with random Hannah what's up guys it's random Hannah your favorite co-host on geography now other than Paul or maybe you like me
24:53
more than Paul who knows maybe more than me yeah comment down below let us know at this point I mean you're the token female so so as we mentioned Vietnam does have 54 recognized ethnic minorities most with their own language so let's start off by highlighting some of the largest groups the largest minority group at around 2% of the population are the Thai people not to be confused with taii they are mostly found in the Northeast they have their own flag most follow a folk religion called
25:20
Ten and they have a unique dish that uses black ant eggs second largest at 1.5% are the muong peoples closest Cousins of the Vietnamese occasionally you might see them using this flag and they are famous for their epics and literature like this one which translates to little by little next you have the Mong peoples at about 1.5% divided into Clans and three cultural divisions the white green and blue Mong famous for their colorful traditional clothing with pink horizontal lines and
25:51
fine silver jewelry they are also known for pepper dip and M style sausage finally the fourth largest group at about 1.1% the N people they often might use this autonomous region flag they are cousins to the Thai people they are masters of Terrace farming famous for their Indigo clothing basket weaving and crafts now there are a lot of traditional clothing styles that vary by region but the most common one you will probably encounter usually worn at special events is known as the AL y or
26:23
alai it usually comes with a headpiece known as a Hanan otherwise they also use these the traditional conical hats you can also wear these with the Ali now in Vietnam you'll notice a lot of people have the last name when my gynecologist's last name is when actually who delivered my child the most common theory behind this is that simply nowin was the name of the last Dynasty in Vietnam before the French took over so when the census came around many of the people registered themselves under
26:53
the wind since they didn't traditionally adhere to surname titles Vietnam is definitely an artsy country nothing is more iconically Vietnamese though than their calligraphy it's crazy because they took Latin letters yet stylized them with Eastern Asian broad brushstroke techniques isn't it really cool Vietnam is home to various styles of traditional and contemporary theater but probably the most famous one that foreigners love seeing is the water puppetry a tradition that dates back a
27:21
thousand years in many cities and specifically Saigon you will notice that many houses are super narrow this is because under French rule people were taxed by how wide their buildings or establishments were however it never put a limit on the height which incentivized them to build up rather than out Vietnam is definitely a patron of the film industry probably the most famous film directed by tronan hung who made the Vietnam Trilogy three of the best works from the 9s that have won numerous
27:52
Awards and nominations at film festivals like cans and yes even the Academy Awards and finally yes Vietnam is a land of festivals the limb Festival the mid-autumn festival the wandering souls or Ghost Festival the cold food festival Independence and reunification day and the largest and most important holiday that everyone partakes in Lunar New Year or tet the decorations are insane entire cities transform into colorful wonderlands and of course you can't have a festival without some fine tunes
28:25
playing in the background to talk more about music Keith would have done it but he is actually not here where where is Keith so um I contacted Keith and he sent me a picture of a boat I think he's on a cruise ship I don't know Keith has these weird Adventures so who should fill in probably my darling handsome husband I will do it uh I guess Ian's doing it I will do it okay guys music Vietnam let's go Vietnam has a long history of Music in fact it is said that there are over 100
28:54
instruments native to Vietnam to this day and no I'm not talking about the Chinese introduced instruments I'm talking about real Vietnamese instruments like go and the bro and the s double readed obos and clarinets mouth organs lithophones and buffalo horn trumpets which are so cool in the highlands there's even a UNESCO inscribed gong culture the people here create gongs that they believe are sacred and hold spirits that can connect them to the supernatural otherwise in
29:25
the north you have Cheo which is a s ire musical theater style that was invented by Ral peasants and the hatam or the blind person's singing in the South they have guong which is basically very intricate Vietnamese style Opera but if you really want to understand music in Vietnam every Vietnamese person will say you have to know about two colors red and yellow red music represents North Vietnam and it is revolutionary music let's just say have you ever heard those
29:56
intense military Orchestra s down to it yeah that's the kind of style then you have yellow music which is the music of the South featuring themes that focus more on suffering and romance since economic reforms Vietnam has opened up to more Western tones and now everything from vpop VH house vrock and yes even Vietnamese metal are super popular genres today stop what you're doing look it up it's nuts overall they know how to rocket cheers to Vietnam woo thank you Ian and Keith I don't know
30:28
if you got off that boat yet but if you have let's follow up cuz I miss you man so there you go that was a lot and there are so many things we missed but this video is getting super long we got to move on to the next segment so let's do it the friend
30:45
zone okay so quick little side note if you want to understand how Vietnam interacts on a global scale you have to kind of understand the four NOS in their defense policy this means that Vietnam tries their best to maintain a strict Commerce and cultural approach to their diplomacy as opposed to a getting involved in international Affairs policy if you ask actual Vietnamese people it really depends on who you encounter see each side the North and South parts of Vietnam kind of have their Western
31:12
favorites based off of where their families in diaspora moved during conflict times the north side of Vietnam was more allied with communist and socialist block countries so many of their family members moved to places like czechia when it was under the czechoslovak Republic before the Velvet Revolution or even Cuba back in the 7s and ' 80s Fidel Castro even visited three times and Cuban Minister Roberto Morales was even quoted for saying Cuba is ready to give its own blood for
31:35
Vietnam when you talk to the South Vietnamese people though they might say countries like France and the USA where a lot of their relatives moved during conflict times in fact the USA has the largest Vietnamese diaspora community in the world at over 2.1 million and France holds about 400k the Americans and French also make up large numbers of tourists that visit every year and many English and French services are offered in Vietnam to accommodate some Vietnamese people might say that Japan
31:59
and both North and South Korea are friends as well as they not only make up a huge portion of the Immigrant community that lives in Vietnam but historically they've been intertwined for centuries like when Vietnamese Prince Leong was exiled to Korea in the 13th century and eventually became a general in the Korean army and today many Koreans are actually descended from him then we get to China with these two again it's complicated politically and culturally yes they do align on many
32:24
similar values but the Vietnamese are very intent on making sure that the world sees them as Vietnam these two go way back to the first century BC they had the Chung sister Rebellion my rebellions to the more contemporary Sino Vietnamese conflicts the spratley islands dispute yet China supported them in the Vietnam War while Taiwan supported the South that's a whole other story and since the 9s they've been doing very well in terms of developing trade and development agreements their
32:48
heads of state have visited and talked numerous times but again it's complicated it's like no matter what the situation with China is they have to keep reminding themselves to be vietn Vietnamese above anything else now Vietnam might not exactly say they have a best friend however if we're talking about like PTSD support group buddies then maybe Cambodia like yes they've had conflicts and yes Cambodia kind of claims that Vietnam stole their land centuries ago but technically they are
33:14
incredibly distant cousins that have a very close shared history each country's largest diaspora lives in the other country's land and somehow some way despite any tensions they keep finding themselves back at the bar playing a game of cards and doing shots in conclusion look Vietnam all I can say is before making this video I only had a surface understanding of your country and the basic academic fact but when I actually visited your country it was likeo it's a whole universe of
33:42
complicated Beauty and if you know me I love complicated beautiful places so cheers Vietnam and with that stay tuned Yemen is coming up next hey guys so how would you like to come with me to Zimbabwe for the last episode The Tova trip has decided they want to possibly collaborate with me if enough people are interested for a group trip to Zimbabwe we're just trying to find out the logistics right now and see if anybody's even interested and if you think you might be interested take the
34:11
survey in the link below and uh we're going to try to organize and see if things can happen so yeah hopefully um I'll see you in Zimbabwe cheers
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