Query for article on Hanoi "subsidized period" exhibit

From: Matthew Steinglass <mattsteinglass@yahoo.com>

Date: Jul 29, 2006 4:58 PM

Subject: [Vsg] query for article on Hanoi "subsidized period" exhibit

All,

I’m writing a piece for the Boston Globe on the Hanoi Ethnology Museum’s excellent exhibit

on thoi bao cap, the “Subsidized Economic Period”. One thing that struck me is that there

seem to be so few exhibits, in general, worldwide, which treat the everyday tenor of social

and cultural life under Communism; and among those few that do, as far as I’m aware, none

focus on the experience of poverty and scarcity, as the Ethnology Museum does. For the

former East Germany, there are the Wende Museum in LA and the new DDR Museum in Berlin; I

haven’t been to either, but both apparently take a contemporary-anthropology approach to

everyday social life. But neither seems to pay much attention to poverty or scarcity.

(Logical, perhaps, in relatively prosperous East Germany.)

Anyway, I thought others on the list might know whether there have been earlier exhibits

more along these lines, somewhere. I’m also curious whether there’s ever been any museum

exhibit in China treating any related issues.

Best,

From: Chung Nguyen <Chung.Nguyen@umb.edu>

Date: Jul 29, 2006 5:03 AM

Subject: RE: [Vsg] query for article on Hanoi "subsidized period" exhibit

I think there may be two main reasons why such an exhibition has not been curated in Vietnam

-

1) During the colonial period, many of the best minds of the country lived in poverty

because of their resistance against collaboration. There is a tradition of this strain of

mock pride in one's own desperation in late 19th or earlier 20th century classical poetry -

as exemplified in the poems of Cao Ba Quat, Nguyen Khuyen, Tran Te Xuong, etc.

Culturally, it's an issue deeply embedded in the culture.

2) It is this tension between, ideologically, collaboration and resistance, exploitation and

justice, treason and patriotism, but more concretely between poverty and wealth (ie. ill-

begotten wealth) that lies at the root of the century-long struggle for emacipation and

independence.

When this was finally achieved, partially in 1954 and completely in 1975, the reality,

however, is that political success has not automatically translated into economic

prosperity. The noose of the embargo after 1975 was pulled even more tightly then before the

war ended. This, coupled with poor policies, exasperated the situation further.

Even now, if you go to the countryside, hardscraping poverty is still the lot of many.

The issue of poverty can thus cut many ways. It is still perhaps too early, at least for the

populace, to look at poverty purely objectively, or vicariously. Enormous works are still

required to lift millions above the miserable lot. Few, as yet, need an exhibition to find

it.

Nguyen Ba Chung

From: Frank Proschan <ProschanF@folklife.si.edu>

Date: Jul 29, 2006 5:27 AM

Subject: RE: [Vsg] query for article on Hanoi "subsidized period" exhibit

Matt,

I'm not sure that it is correct to say that the spectacular Bao cap

exhibition at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology "focus[es] on the experience

of poverty and scarcity..." during the 1975-86 period. Scarcity, to be sure,

and privation, difficulties, challenges, constraints (especially cultural

and artistic), but I'm not so sure whether "poverty" is the right word.

Indeed, in several places people are quoted (or shown in videos) recalling

that while people were often concerned with having a full meal, at the same

time nobody worried about starving. This goes to the essential question of

whether "poverty" is a socioeconomic fact susceptible to quantification and

IFI statistics, or whether it is (or is also) a cultural construction. Those

working in remote mountainous regions in Laos or Vietnam often remark that

people there don't even know they are poor--that is, they do not consider

themselves to be poor until national or international "developers" arrive to

teach them that they are poor. One of the many complex, multivocal, and

debated messages that I took from the Bao cap exhibition is that "poverty"

probably does not well convey the lived experience of people in that

period--even if some of them may well look back on it today and reframe it

in those terms.

Anybody who hasn't seen the exhibition, do whatever you can to get to Hanoi

before mid-December to see it. It's really almost unimaginable until you see

it--a few times.

Best,

Frank Proschan

From: Tai VanTa <taivanta@yahoo.com>

Date: Jul 29, 2006 2:54 PM

Subject: RE: [Vsg] query for article on Hanoi "subsidized period" exhibit

Dear all,

I agree with Nguyen Ba Chung about the beauty of the

literari class's acceptance of poverty in the

tradition of non-collaboration with the rulers (not

only in the French period but during the imperial/

monarchy period too: an ban lac dao, stay in poverty

to enjoy virtue).

But I totally disagree with Frank Proschan's

hair-splitting way of distiguishing "concern about not

having a full meal and... starving"-- because both are

starving in different degrees and both are poverty.

And a scholar should not try to justify the failure of

policies that lead to starvation to different degrees

in both North and South Vietnam after 1975--or obvious

poverty--we don't have to distinguish between the

international developer'socioeconomic criterion and

the cultural criterion of the Vietnamese, because

Vientamese are humans too,and nothing in their culture

says that starvation is all right and to say so is to

treat them as half-humans (government failures of

policies such as new economic zones, taxation to the

degree of making the peasants cut off their orchard

trees and bring their buffaloes to Saigon to sell

buffalo meat rather paying the heavy tax, as described

by Professor Ngo Vinh Long, formerly very sympathetic

to the regime but oboviously disspointed tremendously

with the wrong policies and therefore sarcastically

joking about them at a talk at Harvard.).

The embargo is also responsible for isolating and

making the situation worse in Vietnam until the silent

revolt of the peasants and the lower cadre in the

South with the improvised "xe rao" (breaking the fence

to get out of the wrong policies) to adopt the "khoan"

regime ( paying a fixed portion to the government but

keeping the rest of the production), thereby leading

the way for the top government official TO FOLLOW in

the Doi Moi program. Just ask Adam Fforde or Professor

Vo Tong Xuan, Former President of Can Tho University

and present President of An Gian University, about

this.

Tai Van Ta

From: Nhu Miller <trantnhu@gmail.com>

Date: Jul 29, 2006 4:01 PM

Subject: Re: [Vsg] query for article on Hanoi "subsidized period" exhibit

When I went to see the exhibit last month, I was struck by how

little had changed

in the reproduction of an home during the subsidized period. In fact,

many people in

Viet Nam still live the same cramped conditions. "The subsidized period lasted

from the beginning of the French war until the early 90s," my aunt who had been

a medical student/doctor at Dien Bien Phu told me. So for many, it

isn't such ancient history. They are still living it. There are some

a few really rich people in Viet Nam, but

there are lots who are still stuck in another economic zone.

I was also struck by the rather tactful absence of the reasons

why this period

existed. While I was ruminating over this, a reporter from Vietnam News, asked

me what I thought of the exhibit. "Where is mention of the wars?" I asked.

"We can't print that," she said.

Oh.

I overheard a teen-ager at the exhibit express her shock that

the high cadres

received more rations than ordinary people and that there was a

hierarchy. An elderly

gentleman explained with some exasperation that this was "natural" because some

people are more important than others. I don't know if he was a

visitor or someone who

was planted by the Museum to answer questions.

The long deprivation didn't exist in a vacuum. It came about

because of the

long and bitter resistance fought by Vietnamese of all classes. It's

odd to me that

the exhibit, despite its noble purpose, didn't mention this.

T.T.Nhu

From: Adam @ UoM <fforde@unimelb.edu.au>

Date: Jul 29, 2006 7:04 PM

Subject: RE: [Vsg] query for article on Hanoi "subsidized period" exhibit

Ask Adam?

Well, I do NOT stress the revolt of the peasants in the South - that is more

Melanie Beresford's line. I tend to stress SOEs and as I have a book coming

out on SOEs I expect to be criticised for being "far too focussed on the

North", which is fine by me as I am used to it. And for 'ignoring the

effects of the war', where I am also used to it.

Also, unfortunately for hating the US embargo, the impact was probably

positive: at least the economic logics strongly argue that the situation

usually got worse when the external resource availability improved, and got

better when it deteriorated (compare 1978-80 and 1989-90 with the early

1980s and early 1990s). What we call 'soft budgetary constraints' (such as

no embargoes) slow progress. But that is just economics, of course. The

hundreds of millions of dollars that aid programs have put into Mass

Organisation cadres' pockets clearly must have a bad impact upon

liberalisation.

The original reference to 'pha rao' is the article by Dam van Nhue and Le Si

Thiep in NCKT for 10 1981 which is all about SOEs. At least so I recall.

Adam

From: Frank Proschan <ProschanF@folklife.si.edu>

Date: Jul 29, 2006 8:17 PM

Subject: Re: [Vsg] query for article on Hanoi "subsidized period" exhibit

With all due respect to Professor Tai (who, as far as I know, was not a

Hanoi resident in this time period and has not himself seen the exhibition),

the distinctions are made by the Hanoi residents themselves who are quoted

in the exhibitions' panels and shown speaking in the exhibitions' videos.

The exhibition incorporates a wide view of opinions and perspectives and is

intended to stimulate discussion and debate among visitors. However, Nhu is

wrong to imply that the reporter for Vietnam News in any way spoke for the

museum and even more wrong to suggest that the elderly gentleman she

overheard was "someone who was planted by the Museum to answer questions."

(By the way, the chart showing how much cadre, officials, and other citizens

at various levels received in ration coupons is the first time this

information has ever been published in Vietnam in any form.)

I find it exceedingly curious that the exhibition (which is, by the way,

explicity concerned with "Ha Noi life under the subsidy economy 1975-1986,"

and not all of Vietnam, or all of the subsidy period) is now criticized for

placing the blame for Hanoi residents' privations and hardships squarely and

unequivocally on the "mechanism for socio-economic management" rather than

diffusing responsibility by invoking the legacies of colonialism, war,

embargoes, etc. Rather than a "tactful" evasion as Nhu would have it, the

exhibition avoids making excuses or pointing toward external factors. The

exhibition's title panel and brochure state that this was "a period during

which both the courage and intelligence of millions of people were

suppressed." I find no tactful evasions here.

Best,

From: Adam @ UoM <fforde@unimelb.edu.au>

Date: Jul 29, 2006 9:08 PM

Subject: RE: [Vsg] query for article on Hanoi "subsidized period" exhibit

I can echo the sentiments below. I visited the Stasi museum in Normenstrasse, Berlin, a few

months ago and was struck by how there was so little in it that related to how ordinary

people coped with them on an everyday basis. I think this is a great pity.

I am sure that most people who have lived in Vietnam are fully aware of how daily life is

adjusted to cope with the Vietnamese equivalents. In Berlin the stress was on the

‘resistance’, Stasi technical methods, and so on. But very little that I could see on the

everyday. By contrast the Berlin Jewish Museum does have rather a lot on the daily life,

both before and during Nazi period, but again to my tastes there could be far more, not

least because, like many others including the Vietnamese, the family is so very important.

On the access of higher cadres to special rations, I recall as I am sure others do from the

late 1970s and 1980s that the west side of Hoan Kiem, as well as a street near the Ministry

of Health by Cat Linh, contained Dip Shops that sold goods for hard currency and against

special ration coupons that were favoured by high cadres and their families. I am sure that

there were other private outlets, but these were quite open. It is interesting that a large

number of dachas and special resorts were closed down in the late 1980s as a sign of the

changing politics of the times. What such privileges have now been replaced by is not too

hard to see. But the trend of the times, like the proposals for ending state funding to the

Mass Organisations, are striking.

A propos of the hidden side of Hanoi, Earth Google shows very interesting very large

buildings under construction within the Citadel area.

Adam

From: Tai VanTa <taivanta@yahoo.com>

Date: Jul 29, 2006 10:18 PM

Subject: Re: [Vsg] query for article on Hanoi "subsidized period" exhibit

Dear Dr. Frank Proschan,

I apologize for being a little too emphatic in my

opinion. Maybe you would forgive me, if you know that

such tendency is due to my habit of following one of

the canons of attorneys: "strenous effort on behalf of

the clients", the clients in this case being the

Vietnamese people in both South and North Vietnam. My

heart ached when I saw my people, who later have

produced the most rice for expxort in Asia, except

Thailand, ate bo bo with rice instead of whole rice

during the the Subsidy period. I have my middle class

relatives in both part of Vietnam during these

miserable years.

In Hanoi, my cousins, who were engineers with decent

government jobs (one, a party member,fought at Dien

Bien Phu), still led a life of poverty,and when I

came back to Hanoi, not during 1975-86 but a little

later, some of them wanted to join me in hotel

breakfasts to taste the good food they never had

before. The 3-story house in which my family lived

with the cousins' family before 1954 prior to my

family moving South in 1954 (only 2 families in that

house in 1954), in the 1980's contained 6 families

with children --result: a slum kind of living in a

former middle class villa of Hanoi; for example, in

one floor, one cousin and his wife shared the living

room with his son and daughter-in-law and grandson by

having a cloth curtain hung in the middle with a

string, to make it into two bedrooms. That is the life

of the middle class families. One of the cousins (who

is now deceased) said to me: "I did not go South, so I

suffered my whole life !(" Tao kho ca mot doi !")".

At the prresent time, after Doi Moi, the standard of

living of these cousins have improved a lot , because

they can do their own business and earn business

income from the relatively free market economy. So,

Doi Moi did indeed alleviate poverty compared with the

Bao Cap Period.

In short, I did not live in Hanoi during the bao cap

period of 1975-86, but I visited there a few years

later and so, in a sense, I had lived there

vicariously through my cousins and I had a chance to

compare their poverty during 1975-86 as reported by

them with the period prior to 1954 and after Doi Moi.

As for people in the Exhibition who describe their

not eating to their full but having not really starved

yet, I think they just wnated to lighten up their

description a little bit, to be on the safe side with

the government. But the basic fact was they were

hungry during the bao cap period and suffered poverty

in other aspects of life, especially in housing. And

they knew they suffered, as exampled by my cousin's

exclamation, even they did not have comparable

standards from other countries during that

period--because they lacked the basic necessities of

life.

All my severe criticisms, stated in these emails,

of the wrong policies during the bao cap period that

made people suffer in poverty, do NOT mean I don't

applaud Doi Moi and all the good economic and social

consequences that come after that (including even some

political liberalization, and the foundation--at least

the foundation, if not the full implementation--of a

rule of law and human rights, embodied in many

statutory laws and a very good criminal procedure

code, that I have compared and found many similarities

to the US case law of 230 years,in a lecture/paper for

the 2004 workshop for attorneys in Hanoi, now on the

Internet.

Sincerely,

Tai Van Ta

From: Markus Taussig <markustaussig@mac.com>

Date: Jul 29, 2006 10:30 PM

Subject: Re: [Vsg] query for article on Hanoi "subsidized period" exhibit

The big exodus of immigrants in the late 1980s is often described as

being precipitated not only by hyperinflation, but also fairly large-

scale famine in the countryside. Is there reason to doubt these

accounts? Is it possible that the exhibition is best seen as a

reflection of the difficult times experienced by residents of Hanoi

under central planning and that some of the differences of opinions

expressed here on VSG reflect that Hanoians were relatively better

off than the rest of the country? Just a thought. In any case, I

look forward to seeing the exhibition with my own eyes quite soon.

From: Tenley Mogk <tmogk@vn.seapro.crs.org>

Date: Jul 30, 2006 2:37 PM

Subject: RE: [Vsg] query for article on Hanoi "subsidized period" exhibit

It's an interesting supposition, Markus, that Hanoians could have been better off than the

rest of the country during thoi bao cap. I have no evidence as to whether this could true

but it's interesting to note that Hanoian friends who lived through thoi bao cap have

reported to me that 'nguoi o que' during that time were better off than they because they

could grow extra food (plants, weeds, what have you) and kill field mice/rats to eat. This

could be accurate or instead an urbanite perception. Either way it's interesting.

Another brief note: as a UNHCR monitoring officer who interviewed hundreds and hundreds of

northern Vietnamese, primarily from Hai Phong and Quang Ninh, who left Vietnam for Hong Kong

after 1988, I can say that the vast majority left to, in their own words, "make a better

life" and not because of starvation - although 1988 is quite late in the game. ALL

believed, understandably, that they'd be given passage to the U.S., England, Australia, etc.

as those who went before them had been. The returnees I interviewed sounded more like

Mexican migrants to the States in their reasoning to head across the border: to find a job

in a place that had them, to educate their children, and to someday return to their home

country. Again, this was at least 3-4 years after the end of bao cap so likely not the bulks

of the folks you mean, Markus.

From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@ocf.berkeley.edu>

Date: Jul 30, 2006 3:32 PM

Subject: RE: [Vsg] query for article on Hanoi "subsidized period" exhibit

I know some people who also worked for the UNHCR in Hong Kong at the time

and I don't think they would view the Vietnamese asylum seekers there --

mostly from northern Vietnam -- as on the same level as Mexican

immigrants.

See for example, this article by Anne Wagley (then Anne Wagley Gow)

written in 1994, in which she said many Vietnamese among the hundreds she

interviewed there were "black-listed families", that is fleeing from

discrimination based on their family political background:

http://groups.google.com/group/bit.listserv.seasia

-/browse_frm/thread/e2ddd750cdf7af41/b91694fee8e688f2?

lnk=st&q=&rnum=3&hl=en#b91694fee8e688f2

Or this article by William Collins, who also worked for the UNHCR, who

said that most Vietnamese stated political reasons as their reason for

leaving:

http://groups.google.com/group/bit.listserv.seasia-

l/browse_frm/thread/463d709597719340/f466fbcc0688a587?

lnk=st&q=&rnum=1&hl=en#f466fbcc0688a587

- Steve Denney

From: Peter Hansen <phansen@ourladys.org.au>

Date: Jul 30, 2006 4:37 PM

Subject: RE: [Vsg] query for article on Hanoi "subsidized period" exhibit

Dear List,

I worked in the Refugee Camps of Hong Kong from 1990 until 1993. I was

part of a scheme sponsored by the Jesuit Refugee Service to provide

advice to asylum seekers as to the effect on their individual situations

of the so-called Comprehensive Plan of Action and its interface with the

Geneva Convention. This involved me listening to literally thousands of

stories as to why people left Vietnam, so as to make some preliminary

assessment of whether they would qualify for refugee status under the

process they referred to as 'Thanh Loc'.

The characterization of most of the Haiphong/Quang Ninh departees as

economic migrants is, I think, legitimate. Most of them mentioned such

reasons for departing (no job prospects, seeking better future for

children, etc.). Few who I can recall mentioned famine as a motivation

for leaving (unlike Southerners sent to various New Economic Zones, for

whom famine was a perennially cited reason).

But not all those seeking refuge were simply coastal dwellers with

access to boats. I also interviewed many Northerners who had

experienced various political fall-outs with Hanoi. Draft dodgers and

AWOL soldiers who didn't want to go to Cambodia were another common

group. There were some ethnic minority people from the North-West, and

even a small number of ethnic Chinese from the Northern border regions

who found their situation difficult after the Border War. As a rough

estimate, I think that such group would have constituted about 20% of

the Northern asylum seekers.

After the terrible fire in Sek Kong Camp in 1991, in which several dozen

Northerners were burnt to death (allegedly by Southern counterparts),

the northern and Southern populations were segregated. I was then sent

to Tai A Chau camp, populated entirely by asylum seekers from south of

the 17th.

Here was an entirely different situation from the northern camps.

Central Coast fishermen mixed with remnants of the RVN regime (even a

couple of lesser members of the Royal Family). But the largest group

was ethnic Chinese from Cholon, many of whom had fearful stories of

persecution in the post-1979 period. Kong Kong Immigration, doubtless

trying to prevent an influx, refused to accept these stories as being

evidence of extant persecution, contending that they represented a

period of Vietnamese political and social history which had by then

passed. Consequently, few attainted status.

Sorry if this has been a little off the original point.

Peter Hansen

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