after independent day

DUY TRAN
ESL 100
3/4/2009
After Independence Day

There was an old saying in Vietnam:” sometime changes are bad”. My family had witnessed a lot of pains that the war brought about. My mom told me that how lucky I was that I was born after the war. There was a nightmare whenever she recalls because the socialistic government treated really bad to people who owned a lot of property as my family. The Vietnam War affected the south of Vietnam in many ways, especially my family such as family life, education, social life.

First of all, my family life had a big loss of matters and spirits because the war affected my family life generally. In addition, the war hurt every business at that time. For example, my parent’s factory almost went out of business because they didn’t have enough money to pay employees. Meanwhile, my uncle was arrested by the socialistic army because he worked for the democratic government in south of Vietnam before. Then, they were going to gather people like my uncle in the farm so that they can be ideological reeducated by and serve for the socialistic government. Nevertheless, when my uncle went back home, he was crazy because they forced him to work until he fell down because he was so tired.

During those years after the Vietnam War, education was a difficult thing to get because the socialistic government created many harsh conditions to people like my family. There were also many bombs scattered all over the city so many schools had closed. Likewise, my brother couldn’t study many years because his school was damaged. On the other hand, many students demonstrated in front of the national assembly house because the socialistic government promulgated many laws against to the studies of people. For instance, my sister was forced to study about socialistic politics although she was high school.

The other effect of the Vietnam War to my family is the social life. “Social life is miserable”, my mom said in tears, because there was a hopeless life to my family. Furthermore, the socialistic government redistributed the wealth to people who are proletarian. For example, my grandfather’s property was confiscated. And, he died two years later because of stress. In addition, many villages and farms were burned and destroyed. So, there was a big famine in 1977-1979 that killed 20.000 people. I remember that my mom told me about how she got the food for our family. At that time, each family was provided two pounds of meat and four pounds of rice for a week. Then, we had to mix rice with other foods such as cassava, corn, or sweet potato to exist.

In the conclusion, the Vietnam War brought a lot of pains to my family that my mom is still haunted whenever she thinks about it. There have been changes about policies and laws from the socialistic government since they led our country. That helps people believe in the socialism. Belief in a new country will be born in Vietnam that brings the peace and the development