We visited Vietnam in early 2010 while cruising, making several stops. We experienced it as one of the most small-c capitalist places imaginable, even though scarlet and yellow communist hammer-and-sickle flags were flying everywhere and billboards of socialist realism exhortations abounded.
Everybody seemed to be in business one way or another, selling, buying, or renting space. While the government praised Communism, the people were doing private enterprise with great gusto and nobody except me and the other DrC seemed to see a conflict.
Apparently the Vietnamese government has finally figured out what their people were doing and ‘regularized’ it as “nationalism.” Good for them. Nice people, nice country, terrible climate - sweltering heat and humidity.
