Found this book, The Fall of Saigon: The End of the Vietnam War in the elementary school library of my son’s school.  Thought it would be good to read up on Saigon’s history.

I mean we’ve been living here for quite some time and I felt that in order to appreciate Saigon now is to understand it’s past.

Knowing that Vietnam has only achieved peace in late 70s makes me realize that it’s years of independence is just a little older than I am.  YIKES!  😀

Even if this book is just a summary of important dates in Vietnam’s history, it is a good source of information.  It is quite amazing actually that in such a short period of time, Vietnam is where it is now.  Vietnam literally has achieved much in leaps and bounds over the past 3 decades.

Oh and it was real interesting reading up the stories behind the street names around Vietnam and that Nguyen Tat Thanh (street in D4) is actually Ho Chi Minh’s name too.  Now whenever I pass by Dien Bien Phu, I remember that it was named after the village in Northwest Vietnam where a battle ensued between the communists and the French.

It was an eye opener too to realize that the Vietnam War was based on the Allied’s “fear” that communism will spread all over Asia.  Vietnam is a testament that certain ideologies can work out — to each his own (or in Filipino colloquial terms, “walang basagan ng trip”).

From the timeline, it was only in 1976 that a unified Vietnam was born under the socialist ideology.  Vietnam’s government is pretty young!

And this video shared by @KikiPBN is really interesting.  Wish that it had subtitles though.

That’s a dose of history for you!