CAPITALISM LESSONS FROM COMMIES:

What Today's Vietnam Says About Tomorrow's Iraq: Returning to this bustling nation for the first time since the war, I discovered MTV, texting, and Obamamania. How far in the future could a Six Flags Baghdad be? (Peter Osnos, 3/03/09, Daily Beast)

Vietnam’s future depends on raising the living standards of its 86 million people, and to do that it has to make and sell products for consumption abroad. Until the global collapse of the past six months, China was both a competitor and a marketplace for Vietnam. There is a significant economic slowdown under way, but its impact (based on many conversations and detailed stories in local English-language newspapers) is less here than in China, because the pace of development was slower to begin with.

As for the US, its imperial foray lasted barely more than a decade. For all the suffering and devastation the war produced, its effects were amazingly superficial. The war relics (the “Hanoi Hilton” prison for POWs in the capital; the presidential palace in Saigon where South Vietnam finally collapsed) are musty and long since replaced by virtually every American brand name and cultural touchpoint for sale or viewing. American politics in the age of Obama are a source of interest and inspiration to the journalists, lawyers, and writers encountered in Hanoi and Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City is its official name, but little used, in the same way that the District of Columbia is always called Washington). Every bookstore or stall has stacks of Obama books in translation prominently displayed, including his memoir and manifestos. You can also buy books by Bill Gates, and there are shelves of self-help titles translated, adapted, or merely ripped-off by Vietnamese authors and publishers.

A young woman in Saigon who spent a year as a journalism student in the West and now works for a leading Vietnamese daily’s online edition said she watched Obama’s inauguration on the Bloomberg cable channel available here (along with Disney, Discovery, and MTV) and cried, as did several of her colleagues. The concern about Obama is that he leans toward protectionism as the world economy reels, reflecting the way Vietnamese define their country’s priorities: trade and commerce, first and foremost.