Lesson for Peggy’s Class #1

Any good social studies class starts with geography…so Vietnam is a country that borders the South China Sea from latitude 23N to 12N. That’s about the same as Central America from Honduras to Panama so the climate and the plants are much the same. For instance we have lots of mangos and bananas here. Right now we are at about latitude 15N on the beach at a place called Qhuy Nhon – pronounced Quinnyon.

Vietnam is now a very prosperous and happy country but it has not always been so. It was originally a French colony that produced all the rubber for Michelin tires until it was taken by the Japanese in World War 2. Being a French colony for the Vietnamese people was very much like slavery for them. After that war, when the French came back, many of the Vietnamese people decided that they no longer wanted to be a colony, so they revolted under a leader named Ho Chi Minh and after a war that lasted almost 10 years, were able to kick the French out. That was known as the 1st Indochinese War. The country was split into two halves at the center – North Vietnam was led by Bac Ho (Uncle Ho) and South was led by the traditional king Bao Dai pronounced Bow O Die. BTW, the North Vietnamese Constitution was written using the US Constitution as a model. Bac Ho and many of the people of Vietnam were unhappy that the country was split and decided that the nation should be one country. That led to the 2d Indochinese War where the US fought Bac Ho and the North Vietnamese. The 2d war lasted from 1961 to 1975 when the US left Vietnam and the nation became one country as they are now.

Today Vietnam is a growing and happy country that makes many products for America including Nike tennis shoes. Next time we’ll talk about the Vietnamese people.