Photographs by various project members

Looking ahead - A new Vietnam looks at
a future filled with changes and growth

A history of hardships and wars is replaced by hope and prosperity

Series introduction

HANOI, Vietnam – A giant electronic screen counts down the days until this capital’s 1,000th birthday, but it’s hard to believe that these streets boasting brand new skyscrapers and roaring motorbikes have existed for an entire millennium.

Hanoi’s anniversary celebration on October 10, 2010, comes as people in this rapidly changing country attempt to balance exploding economic growth, a fiercely traditional culture, and the regulation of a communist government.

Many Americans see ‘Vietnam’ and read ‘war’ and ‘communism.’ But the dozen students from the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland who traveled to Hanoi in March 2008 discovered a country drastically different than the Vietnam their parents knew.

We traveled in and around the ancient capital to find a story of development and of regulation. We chronicled how the burgeoning population, more than 60 percent of which is 30 or younger, increasingly dominates Vietnamese society while undoing the deep poverty that plagued the country during and after the Vietnam War.

Economic reforms during the 1980s, known as doi moi (“renovation”), moved the country away from its centrally-planned economy and toward privatization and globalization. Poverty has plummeted with a myriad of new economic opportunities.

Many Vietnamese we met worked multiple jobs, often more than 70 hours a week. Luxury high-rise apartment buildings sprouting around the outskirts of Hanoi stand as evidence of rising incomes. Factories from major multinational companies and the presence of tourists from all over the world are visible reminders of how open Vietnam has become. And acrobatic teenagers breakdancing in Lenin Park to Western music illustrate just how amusingly contradictory modern Vietnam can be.  

Throughout our adventures, we found hope. The Vietnamese people told us of the hardships they have endured and the sacrifices they have had to make. And then they told us about their youngest children, who attend university, and the older ones who work for a foreign factory and earn in a month what their parents make in a year. Talk with these people long enough and they give a sense that things may not be ideal in Vietnam now, but life is only going to get better.

– Brendan Lowe and Melanie Lidman

 

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Acknowledgments

Thirty-five years after the American withdrawal of troops from a misbegotten war, Vietnam retains a powerful mystique for us. For the second year of the Merrill College of Journalism’s international reporting course, we chose Vietnam as our destination, in part to try to understand that mystique. Although for the first half of the semester we read about the communist state’s rush to industrialization and Westernization, our class of twelve students and two professors arrived in Hanoi not knowing what we’d find.

Before they even boarded the plane, our five graduate and seven undergraduate students had decided to focus on the country’s future. Members of a different generation than the one that had to fight in the war, these students were attracted to the country’s rapid changes, not the past conflict which seemed as distant to them as it does to the youths of Vietnam.

We assigned students several objectives beyond the already daunting mission to find, report and deliver a piece of international journalism. They had to quickly learn how to work with an interpreter while navigating cultural differences and foreign territory. We wanted students to work in pairs to learn about storytelling in other mediums, as well as to participate in both the glory and frustrations of a group project. The students brought an arsenal of varied skills, including print, on-line, video, photography and radio experience.

What impressed me was the resourcefulness displayed by these students. They all experienced at least one disaster -- lost video footage, dead-end leads, etc. They not only persevered, but bounced back with resilience.

After the 25-hour return trip back to campus, they then had to face writing their stories, or editing video and sound into packages. They gritted their teeth during the many drafts produced, but hung in. And in the final deadline days, they stepped up to the plate with professionalism by putting in long hours and late night phone calls for the final fact-checking and copy-editing. Alia Malik deserves particular credit for her awesome fact-checking and copy-editing standards, but all of the students displayed tenacious pride in their work.

Special thanks to Associate Professor Michael Williams who initially agreed to serve as our audio/video/web advisor and travel with us to Vietnam. But he became a central part of the course, not only during the travel, but for the whole semester endeavor. His countless hours in helping students conceive of multi-media presentations as well as designing the webpage were only exceeded by his charm and grace-under-pressure.

The Vietnam trip fulfilled a personal goal of mine, which was to connect foreign journalists with American students. At the College of Journalism I direct the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, which each year brings to campus about a dozen international journalists and other professionals. This year, Humphrey Fellow Hoa Nguyen, an editor with Ho Chi Minh City Television, guided us a hundred ways in planning the trip. After we got back, he put in lots of hours translating and advising students on their stories.

Hoa also put us in touch with the formidable Thu Nguyen, a Humphrey Fellow at UC Davis three years ago, who served as our gracious host and contact in Hanoi. She found local journalists and others with English skills so that each reporting team had its own translator. Thu arranged a lot of our logistics, as well as introducing us to Angela Aggeler, the Public Information officer for the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi. Mrs. Aggeler and her husband Brian, the Embassy Counselor for Political Affairs, hosted a memorable dinner in their home for our students and the half-dozen Humphrey alumni in the Hanoi area.

Another highlight for me was seeing former Maryland Humphrey Fellow San Truong, a distinguished Vietnamese journalist for the Vietnam Economic Times in HCMC, who flew up to Hanoi to meet with us.

Bill Marimow, editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Vernon Loeb, deputy managing editor, encouraged us to think of their newspaper and website for possible publication. Foreign Editor Tom Steacy gave us invaluable feedback on story ideas and has been our liaison. This has added to our aim to produce top-quality work.

We warned students that the trip was not a holiday, but this crew managed to squeeze in lots of fun. Three of them rented bicycles to peddle around the city, and a half dozen ventured to the outlying Snaketown for a gruesome meal. Melanie Lidman and Shira Yudkoff arranged a Testudo Idol night at a local karaoke palace as well as an evening performance of Hanoi’s renowned water puppets. Brendan Lowe organized tickets for a night of symphonic music at the Hanoi Opera House.

We are all grateful to our translators who became collaborators and friends: Phuong Do, Thuy Do, Nguyen Hoang, Viet Lam Nguyen, and Minh Ha. Lien Nguyen Phuong of VTV also helped us find translators.

Washington Post reporter Marc Kaufman gave a lecture about his reporting trips to Vietnam that helped prepare us. UMD Government and Politics Professor Lois Vietri, also Director of the Maryland-Vietnam Parnership, gave a helpful guest lecture.
                              
Thanks go to Dean Tom Kunkel for his support as well as to many in the journalism college: Associate Dean Olive Reid; Assistant Deans Marchelle-Payne Gassaway and Linda Ringer; and financial specialists Joyce Hutton and Vanessa Lee. Because of help from a Carnegie Foundation grant we were able to expand our class to twelve students.

When Dean Kunkel originally suggested Vietnam as the destination for this year’s international journalism class, I immediately sensed a winner. He was right.

– Lucinda Fleeson