The recent view of China is that it has been imitating

During my two trips to Vietnam, I tried to find the location of Vietnam - what kind of country is Vietnam in the minds of Vietnamese people? What is the image of other countries in the minds of Vietnamese? What will the future hold for Vietnam?

China is everywhere

The car approaches Hanoi. Looking out the window, I was surprised to find that some houses actually had Chinese characters on them. Some had a big word "福" on the wall, and some had door couplets. At first I thought it was a place where Chinese people live, but later I learned that there are Chinese characters everywhere in Vietnam, especially on ancient buildings.

In Hanoi, the stationery products sold in big bookstores have photos of Li Yuchun on them. I guess they are products made in China. Like many things with Chinese characters, they are using them but don't know what they mean.

In Vietnam, the most popular movies are from Hong Kong, China. The translator told me that they don’t like to watch American blockbusters. In a grocery store near Hanoi Railway Station, the owner's family was enjoying watching movies starring Chinese stars Zhao Wei, Shu Qi and others. They played Chinese TV dramas without cutting off the sound, but with a louder Vietnamese female voice explaining it.

However, Vietnam is also developing its own cultural industry, especially movies. The night I was at the Sapa Inn, Vietnam Channel 1 was broadcasting a film awards show. A Chinese actor won the award but did not go to accept it.

The Vietnamese are very friendly to the Chinese. Even when the Sino-Vietnamese War is mentioned, they seem to deliberately downplay it, thinking that "it's all over." A veteran who once worked as a logistics worker in the Vietnamese army even said, "People in Asia all think the same way. China and Vietnam are friends, and Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh are also friends." Then he sang the only lyric he remembered in Chinese: "The sea." Sailing depends on the helmsman.” A street vendor selling rice noodles heard that I was from China. His eyes showed praise and he said "China" loudly. When I went to the translator's house for dinner, she also took the initiative to introduce to the store owner that I was from China while buying things, as if it was something worth showing off.

The organizers of the NGO I visited showed a strong interest in cooperating with China. He told me that many Vietnamese people study in China. “Vietnam’s lychees are exported to China, and 80% of the rice seeds in northern Vietnam come from China. Many products used by Vietnamese also come from China.”

Every time I finish chatting with someone, I will ask the translator to say, "If you want to know about the situation in China, I will be happy to answer." But they seemed to have no questions to ask, thinking that they “understood China too well” and “no need to ask”. And when I ask some ordinary citizens about China, most of them don't know.

China’s influence is everywhere in Vietnam, but Vietnamese people may not understand the real China.

Trace of the intertwining of great powers

Vietnam has been a place for great power competition in modern history. China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States all exerted important influence on this country. French-style buildings with red and yellow as the main colors can be seen everywhere in Vietnam. If you look carefully, you can also find buildings in the Soviet-American "mixed-race" style.

After the reform and opening up, Vietnam is opening up to the world, and the culture of KFC and Coca-Cola has influenced Vietnam. The translator mentioned to me many times the APEC meeting held in Vietnam in 2006, which they were proud of, and believed that it brought great development to Vietnam's economy. While the Vietnamese don't like American blockbusters, their students can't escape learning a second language - English.

The influence of the superpower United States is obviously increasing step by step, but due to historical reasons, the United States is not as popular as China. The veteran in the square told me directly that the United States is not a good country.

An interesting thing happened in the village I went to. It was raining heavily, and a villager noticed an unexploded bomb near me from the Vietnam-American War. He excitedly pulled me to look at it and said, "American!" It seemed that he must let me, a foreigner, see it. The traces left by the United States on them.

Different countries are protecting their own history, but for a small country that has been struggled and tempered by big powers in modern history, its historical records show more of the back of a big country that cannot be erased.

On my second trip to Vietnam, I took a plane to Hanoi at Ho Chi Minh Airport. The plane was about to take off. I asked repeatedly but couldn't find the flight I was taking, so I shouted to the driver in suffocated English. The driver didn't understand my English and I didn't know why the Chinese was angry with him. Afterwards, I felt a little guilty for my gaffe.

If I were visiting a Western country, maybe I wouldn't be so rude to taxi drivers. Because Vietnam is a small country and I come from a big country, can I be so arrogant and rude?

When we think about the reforms in Vietnam and China, we may have overlooked an important factor: in the era of globalization, the survival strategies of big countries are very different from those of small countries. Without this general background, it is obvious that one side will copy the other. It's hard to succeed.

“Of course elections are useful”

As soon as I arrived in Hanoi, I saw a large propaganda poster similar to the Chinese style of the 1970s. In the painting, a woman wearing a Vietnamese long skirt was vote. Later, I saw various voting posters one after another. Some represented intellectuals wearing glasses, while others represented workers and farmers. Telephone poles on both sides of Hanoi's main roads were also filled with small red flags to promote the election.

Slogans are also a kind of political culture in Vietnam. Whether in Hanoi or the small town of Sapa, red banners can be seen everywhere, with slogans to celebrate May Day or promote elections. I went to an unknown city under Hanoi and saw many election sites on the roadside. In a small village, I found many forms with candidate information. In a quiet corner, there were small slogans such as "Cherish your vote." The investment in this kind of publicity should not be small. Wherever I go, election slogans are overwhelming in cities and can be seen in many places in rural areas.

The national flag is part of Vietnam’s political culture. It was Labor Day when I went there. As soon as I left the Friendship Gate, I found Vietnamese flags on many houses. It is said that they are issued by the government and everyone must hang them. The translator later told me that the government would take back these flags after May Day.

I had a conversation with an NGO person who could speak simple English at a candidate form posting place in rural Vietnam -

Q: If you choose, what will you choose? who?

Answer: From the Women’s Federation, vice president, and prime minister.

Question: Why?

Answer: Because they are capable and educated.

Q: Have you ever participated in an election?

Answer: Of course, everyone over 18 years old is required to participate.

Question: Did many people participate in the election? Did anyone abstain from voting or not participate in the election?

Answer: No, not in Vietnam. Elections are the citizens’ obligation and cannot be given up.

I later learned that he was going to be elected as a member of Congress. This was a major election involving nationwide mobilization. I was surprised by the meticulousness of the electoral mobilization work.

There are three election sites within about 1,000 meters of the hotel where I stayed in Hoan Kiem Lake. Each site posted a list of voters and a list of five candidates. I asked a polling station worker, "Are elections useful?" He said, "Of course they are. Only good leaders can lead everyone well... If it doesn't work, what else would we choose?" The veterans in the square mentioned above have also been Participate in elections and find them useful. In Vietnam, doubts about the role of elections are at least not widespread.

I met a Vietnamese student studying in Kunming on the train from Hanoi to Sapa. He comes from rural Vietnam and spends about 12,000 yuan a year. Most of the money is borrowed from relatives. She thinks China is very good, not only more developed than Vietnam, but also socially fairer than Vietnam. She said: "Vietnamese farmers have no money and are very hard-working. Some go out to work, but their income is very low." "Doctors receive red envelopes and only care about you if you have money. If you don't have money, they won't care about you." She believes that "doctors are more obedient, capable and smart." Only talented people can join the party. "Party members were good before, but some people will change after becoming party members." She is dissatisfied that some people can find good jobs just because their parents are good, and she hopes to find a job in Vietnam by learning Chinese. Good job.

Vietnam is a tiger cub, not a docile sheep

In the hearts of the Vietnamese, Ho Chi Minh is a pure revolutionary leader. A university professor in Vietnam told me that among leaders of socialist countries, Ho Chi Minh was respected by both the East and the West.

I went to pay my respects to Ho Chi Minh's tomb on a very ordinary day. There was a long queue and orderly. People surrounded the body to pay their respects on three sides before going out. Ho Chi Minh lay like a peaceful old man in a glass coffin, not covered with the party flag. Even Ho Chi Minh Thought, the ideological system named after an individual, was learned from China after Vietnam’s reform. Before that, Vietnam did not have a unified ideological system.

Looking back at history, there was no major famine or major "revolution" after Vietnam was founded. The revolution led by the Communist Party of Vietnam does not have heavy historical baggage, nor has it formed a huge interest group that cannot be eliminated for the time being.

Perhaps it is precisely because the historical burden is light that the pace of reform and opening up is faster.

In a small hotel in Vietnam that costs tens of dollars, you can watch CNN, National Geographic, HBO and other Western TV stations. The translator told me that as long as I pay the equivalent of RMB 15 per month, I can watch it at home. In Internet cafes in Vietnam, you can easily open some URLs from Western countries by typing in them.

An NGO led by an old professor received funds from Germany and conducted local leader training in an old classroom in the countryside. A farmer gave a fierce speech at the training site. I asked them, "Will the government interfere in these activities?" They said that the government does not care about these because they are NGO.

After returning from Vietnam, my friend asked me if Vietnam is very backward, equivalent to China's 1980s? I really don’t want to use China’s development era to compare Vietnam. If the development model is different, how can we say that Vietnam is following China’s footsteps in the 1980s? What if Vietnam has its own more harmonious development path? Among Southeast Asian countries, Vietnam has always been a little tiger, not a docile sheep. For big countries, it is a small country; for neighboring small countries, it is a big country that exerts regional influence.

Vietnam’s economy has caught the last train of the global industrial chain shift. It has the courage to reform politically, is based on its national conditions, and learns from the West; it has a sufficient educated young labor force and fertile land. As long as we work hard for decades, Vietnam's development may really not be inferior to China's.