Viet Nam

Viet Nam is proving to be very interesting indeed, but that's true in large part to our local guide Giang ("Zang" but the language has no F, J, W or Z). She is pretty much the perfect guide, not only giving facts about places and history, but an excellent insight into social and cultural matters and issues facing her nation. This gives a much richer experience to us, and I'll relay selected highlights.

On the subject of names, Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language, so it's Viet Nam, Ha Noi, Ha Long, etc. Westerners don't have this constraint and so run names together. Apparently, Viet Nam has asked to be spelled that way in offical references by foreign governments; that might get ignored, or we might cope as with Beijing and Chennai.

Viet Nam = People of the South (w.r.t. China).
Ha Noi = (city in the) River Bend
Ha Long = Dragon Descending (and spitting out pearls that became the thousand-plus islands in the Bay)

The traffic in Ha Noi (Hanoi - seems worse than that in Cambodia. In both vehicles will:
a) drive down the wrong side of the road if that's their quickest route,
b) turn diagonally across the opposite carriageway and stop there until their exit is clear,
c) generate as many extra lanes as they fancy, including driving on the wrong side of the road whenever passing slower traffic.
All of that seems to work in Cambodia, because it feels like they're prepared to cut each other enough slack. It might be the same in rural Viet Nam. However, Hanoi has the big-city urgency thing, and people push on hard until maybe too late. Doesn't feel the same at all.

A striking thing is the "take" here on the Vietnam War (or the American War, as the locals call it, to distinguish from the French War). Viewpoints expressed (not necessarily contradictory) include:
Nobody won, because so many people died.
The Americans "won" because they achieved their objective of stopping the spread of communism - without the war there may have been up to 5 further communist countries.

My ignorant interpretation is that the North Vietnamese must have seen themselves as freedom fighters, having lifted the yoke of French colonial rule from half of their country. My visit to the "Hanoi Hilton" prison detailed the way that the French originally claimed to be bringing civilisation, but actually closed schools to suppress resistance and tortured and killed prisoners. The Americans would therefore simply be involved to continue imperialist occupation. That's not the way I've thought about it before.