Home Truths in Hanoi
HANOI -- Vietnam's capital city is abuzz with an unusual spectacle: a museum exhibit that offers a pointed critique of the country's socialist past. The multimedia show, housed at the Museum of Ethnology, shows the extent of Vietnam's openness since its embrace of market reforms two decades ago. Little wonder that people are flocking to see it.
Titled "Hanoi Life under the Subsidy Economy, 1975-1986," the exhibit occupies three rooms in a modern, two-story building at the edge of Vietnam's ever-expanding capital. Visitors are greeted by a recreated rice depot -- a simulated scene showing how the Vietnamese lined up to collect rations. Other scenes follow, such as a recreation of the interior of a cramped residential quarter, complete with a fake pig squealing in the bathroom. Authentic voucher coupons (treasured household items from those days), old photos, and videos of people talking about their experiences add original, real-life touches to the show.
It's a fascinating glimpse into an era when Vietnamese life was micromanaged under an elaborate system of coupons that controlled the allocation of virtually all resources, from rice to sewing needles. Beginning during the war against the French from 1945-54, the subsidy system was first implemented in the north. After the Vietnam War, it was extended to the south. What began as an efficient way to guarantee resources for the war effort became a harsh institutionalization of the central-plan ideology.
It was an unsustainable policy. Far from ensuring a classless society, the Vietnamese subsidy period spawned an intricate system of social classification. Government ministers, for example, belonged to the "A category," and could collect 4.2 kilograms of meat a month. The lowest level of state workers made do with 400 grams over the same period. Average Vietnamese longed for impossible commodities like an electric fan or a bicycle. As the exhibit frankly notes, the subsidy economy, "has been known as a time of hardship, when mechanisms for socioeconomic management were inappropriate, causing privations in people's material and spiritual life."
The exhibit provides an overview of the dissent and debate that coalesced in the early 1980s, during the years preceding the adoption of doi moi, the policy that gradually shifted Vietnam toward a market-based economy and greater interaction with the outside world. It's a rich period to examine given the outpouring of novels, films and plays at that time that received enormous public attention -- and state condemnation. Once again, the show's curators don't mince words, stating that when the doi moi policy was finally implemented in 1986, "the energy of the people virtually exploded, creating a boom in socioeconomic development."
Until now, this kind of historical self-examination was aired mostly in private, among friends and family. The state rarely publicly addressed the harsh social conditions of the decades before doi moi. But this exhibit, organized by two state-run institutions -- the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology and the Vietnam Revolutionary Museum -- indicates the government's confidence in reviewing the past more objectively today. That's probably due to Vietnam's remarkable economic success and greater global integration, two decades after doi moi.
With about half of the population of some 80 million born after 1975, the exhibit provides a history lesson to young Vietnamese, many of whom aren't personally familiar with the war and the hardship of the subsidy period. Their lives are taking shape within a radically different Vietnam, which has a more open relationship with the U.S. and the rest of the world. They are conversant in the global language of information technology and energized by the opportunities that Vietnam's more open economic policies have afforded them.
This is the new Vietnam that seeks to gain WTO membership later this year, and which the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit participants will visit in November. As the exhibit demonstrates, none of these newfound opportunities came easily.
Ms. Ninh is the Hanoi-based country representative of Vietnam for The Asia Foundation.
温故知新：1975-1986河内生活现实
在越南首都河内，一场不同寻常的展览吸引了很多人的关注。在越南人类学博物馆(Museum of Ethnology)举行的这场采用了多媒体方式的展览，对这个曾经的社会主义国家过去的一段历史提出了尖锐的批评和反思，向人们展示了二十年市场化改革后这个国家如今的开放程度。对这样一个展览，越南人不用说是趋之若鹜。
这次展览的主题是：“1975-1986，定量供应期间的河内生活”。展览地点在河内市区边缘一座现代化的两层楼上，占了整整三个展馆。参观者进入展馆首先看到的是一座仿造的粮库，再现了当年越南人排队领取定量供应的大米的情景。
接下来是当年其他一些场景的复制，比如拥挤的住房内部，卫生间里甚至还有一只模型猪，发出模拟的叫声。另外，展室里还展出了当时用过的购物券（当年那可是每个家庭的珍贵财产）、老照片以及人们叙述当年生活经历的录像带，增添了这场展览原汁原味的感受。
这次展览是对越南历史上那个特殊年代的一次极好回顾：当年，越南人的日常生活供应实行严格的定量供应制度，从粮食到缝衣针，几乎所有生活用品都要凭票购买。这种定量制度最早是在1945-54年的越南反法战争一开始在越南北部实行的。越战结束后，定量供应制扩大到南方。这种最早为保障战争时期物资供应而采取的做法后来变成中央计划经济政策下的一种严格制度。
但这是一种难以维持的制度。定量供应制并未造就一个没有阶级差别的社会，相反却孕育出一种复杂的社会分级体系。比如，政府部长享受“A类”待遇，每个月可以购买4.2公斤肉，而级别最低的工人一个月的指标只有400克。
普通越南人希望拥有电风扇或自行车等生活用品，但在那个时候这几乎是不可能的事。就像展览坦率指出的那样，定量供应时期很艰苦，社会经济管理机制很不合理，造成人们物质和精神生活的极度匮乏。
展览还展示了八十年代初、也就是越南实行经济革新政策(doi moi)之前各派不同意见相互争论的情形。在后来的革新政策的推动下，越南开始逐渐向市场经济过渡，且与外部世界有了更多的交流。
在这方面，展览的主办方直言不讳地指出，在1986年最终开始实施革新政策之后，民众的能量几乎是爆发式地释放出来，为越南社会经济发展带来了极大繁荣。
直到最近，对那段历史的这种自我反思大多还都限于朋友或家人中间。政府很少公开讨论实行革新政策前几十年的严酷社会现实。
但这次由两家官方机构──越南人类学博物馆和越南革命博物馆(Vietnam Revolutionary Museum)──主办的展览表明，越南政府已能自信且比较客观地反思过去的历史了。这或许可以归结为实行革新政策二十年后越南经济取得的巨大成就和日益深入的全球一体化带来的变化。
在越南现在的大约8,000万人口中，约有一半是1975年之后出生的。就这一点而言，这次展览给年轻一代上了一堂历史课。许多年轻人对那场战争和定量供应制时期的历史都很陌生。他们与迅速变化的越南一起成长，而它正日益向美国和世界其他地区敞开大门。
这些年轻人在这个信息科技时代对外部世界了如指掌，而日益开放的经济政策也给他们提供了大量机遇。
这是一个正在争取加入世贸组织(WTO)的崭新的越南，今年11月，亚太经济合作组织(APEC)峰会也将在这里举行。而这次展览正可以告诉人们，每一个这样的新机遇都来之不易。
Kim Ninh
