Saigon redux

THE COMMUNISTS won in 1975. But capitalism reigns triumphant in Vietnam today. So a four-day ghee-whizz digital blur of a tour of the Saigon of old made us readily, and therefore shallowly, conclude.
Bentleys. BMWs. Benzes. Audis. Lexus and Toyotas too. Most prized shibboleths of laissez faire – the antithesis, nay, the very anathema to the socialist dogma – make their ostentatious presence in the avenues and streets of Ho Chi Minh City, sharpening the economic divide with the more proletarian motorbikes.
Where the economy goes, fashion follows. The national costume for women, the ao dai – that tight-fitting tunic worn over pantaloons – is now more a fashion understatement with the prevalence of abbreviated shorts and micro-mini skirts among women of all ages. Western influence clearly at play here.
That beauty salons and spas – deemed boudoirs of decadence in communist praxis – number more than drug stores in the city is one glaring testament to a “de-socialisted” lifestyle. And where the parlors and spas are, there the best specimens of Vietnamese pulchritude are too.
And yet another socialist curse – surplus production, excess commodities beyond the necessities of the proletariat that breed the imperialist designs to conquer foreign markets in which to dump the surplus goods – booms in the capital of the once South Vietnam.
Luxurious goods – both genuine and “Class A” imitations – from Versace to Prada, Tommy Hilfiger to Dolce & Gabanna, Lacoste to Nautica, to name just the more familiar brands, overflow from the stalls of Saigon Square and Ben Thahn Market, the Vietnamese versions of Greenhills and Divisoria respectively, as well as the perfumed sections of upscale ala Rustan’s Diamond Mall, .
A hit for tourists and locals alike is North Face – the current “god” of sporting goods. In our group of seven newsmen alone, none had lesser than ten North Face products, bags and jackets, brought home.
So McDonald’s and Starbucks are nowhere but the other symbol of American enterprise, Ford, is everywhere.
Ah, sweet decadence! Pre-communist Saigon luxuriates anew!
So what has happened to the socialist ideal?
At the façade of the opera house looms a larger-than-life portrait of Ho Chi Minh, by its side are giant posters in the old socialist style paying homage and exhortations to the working class.
Across the opera house is a building – in the classic French provençal – housing Louis Vuitton, the very embodiment of haute elitism.
The unrepentant communist in me raged at this in-your-face slur on our revered Uncle Ho. Oh, how he must be turning in his grave.
So what has happened to the socialist ideal?
But then, if the people of his eponymous city – after the ravages of a war of American aggression and the triumph of communism in 1975 – can still see no contradiction between a socialist political system and a liberal market economy, who even revel and apparently prosper in such a fusion, what ideal am I talking about.
Taking in Ho Chi Minh City for only four days and I am now wondering if it’s time I heeded the wife and burn the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital.
Maybe I should go to Pyongyang, North Korea next time, if only to try re-immersing myself in the red ideals of my bygone days.