| By Llewellyn Campbell Douglass (llewie2) on Tuesday, December 04, 2001 - 6:22 pm: Edit Post |
Another excellent idea !
| By Alan Robinson on Wednesday, January 30, 2002 - 4:25 pm: Edit Post |
As a late-60's Nigeria PCV, and much more recently an NGO conservation adviser in Viet Nam, I would strongly support the opening of a PC Viet Nam program. There is a remarkable hunger for practical skills in that country, particularly among the young, and in categories which seem quite appropriate to Peace Corps skills. There is an even more remarkable attitude among many Vietnamese to look forward rather than backward, thus welcoming and appreciating the presence and contributions from Westerners, including Americans.
| By Phillip B. Olsen (pbolsen) on Wednesday, January 30, 2002 - 10:08 pm: Edit Post |
If Vietnam wants PCVs, why not?
| By anonymous (d-ip-129-15-111-40.lab.ou.edu - 129.15.111.40) on Tuesday, October 07, 2003 - 6:07 pm: Edit Post |
Why would an expatriated Vietnamese American (Viet Kieu) return to help Vietnam when essentially it's hatred for their own homeland that drove them to fight a war for the US against their own people and then to flee the country in the first place? 99% of Vietnamese Americans look at the Vietnamese flag and automatically want to shoot it and shout VC Go to Hell!
Vietnam has been calling Vietnamese Americans back to help rebuild what they left behind for decades, and do you think any of them has came back there to work? not hardly. I think you would be pooling mostly non Vietnamese Americans to go into Vietnam who don't have a pre-disposition against the government and an over determined assumption that Vietnam is a place where the "red flag's waving in the bitter cold."
I hope the peace corps does make it into Vietnam if the Vietnamese ask for it. I also think US relations with Vietnam will get better if it happens. Right now US relations with Vietnam are a perfect example of how not to run a government..our biggest concern with them is digging up 30 year old bones of GIs out in the jungles of the central highlands while the US Consulate General and Embassy frequently close for days at a time without warning to American citizens there. Maybe America needs the Peace Corps in Vietnam right now. I speak as an AMerican who has taken trips to Vietnam in the past for several months and also am married to a Vietnamese national. What a good idea but be careful with your Viet Kieu recruits!