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On trip to US, Vietnamese prime minister visits the Parker House, where Ho Chi Minh worked

VietnamPlus reports Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh visited the Omni Parker House on May 14.

Ho Chi Minh worked as a pastry chef there in the early part of the 20th century, of course.

In the guestbook, PM Chinh expressed his emotion when visiting the Omni Parker House Hotel where great President Ho Chi Minh, the hero of national liberation and the world's cultural celebrity once worked. He sincerely thanked the hotel's managers and staff for carefully preserving the items.

No word if the PM then went on a motorcade down the Expressway to see the Ho Chi Minh Memorial Gas Tank.

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Comments

Working in the American hospitality business does that to people. Radicalizes them

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After WWII put an end to the Japanese occupation of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh wrote to US President Truman and said that he admired Western style democracy and asked for American help setting up same in Vietnam. Our response was, basically, “Nah, we think France deserves to recapture its former colony, so fuck off…” The rest, as they say, is history.

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As I recall, Ho Chi Minh worked at the Parker House in 1912. Most of the current structure dates from 1927, although one older wing survives -- which allowed the hotel to remain continuously open during the construction.

And he didn't start using the name Ho Chi Minh until about 30 years later.

[Source: Wikipedia]

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also visit the gas tank on the Southeast Expressway? You know, the one with the face?

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'the world's cultural celebrity' to me would be better used to describe someone like Che Guevara or Gandhi, where their fame exists outside of the details of their historical importance. Am I missing something with Ho Chi Minh?

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though he wasn't still living when that event finally happened.

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The CSA pretty clearly won the Civil War based on the news from the last 10 years.

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The CSA was never actually a separate country. That legal case got settled on April 9th, 1865.

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I stand corrected.

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We did not lose Vietnam. It was a tie.

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could not be reached for comment.

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I’ve never had this question answered: “what conceivable outcome could have been labeled ‘victory’ in the Vietnam war?”

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A stable South Vietnam under military dictators and juntas. With the peace respected by North Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union. Military rule would hopefully be supplanted by democracy by the late 80s. Just like South Korea. This was basically an impossible outcome for the US.

Vietnam consisted of communist use of guerrilla warfare, and eventual conventional warfare victory over South Vietnam. The porous borders of Southeast Asia also made US intervention a losing proposition. The US could not legally wage war outside of Vietnam. Even though they ended up bombing Cambodia and Laos illegally under Nixon. It’s hard to kill people who can hide and live underground. And it’s hard to damage a road/trail so much that cargo bicycles can no longer resupply the Vietcong in South Vietnam.

The Viet Minh, which became North Vietnam and the NLF (Vietcong), were masters of guerrilla warfare, as handed down by Mao. They weakened the Japanese, defeated the French with it, and wore down the US enough to cause withdrawal. Mao was not bad at guerrilla warfare either, obviously.

It’s hard or maybe even impossible to kill or suppress every committed fighter in a nation at war with a foreign power, especially an overseas power.

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and see the Red and Yellow flags flying on Dot Ave. Time to see what the Vietnamese have accomplished here and bury that hatchet.

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Time to see what the Vietnamese have accomplished here and bury that hatchet.

Who exactly do you think is still waving it?

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They (we) universally fly the flag of the defeated South Vietnam, when flags are flown in April for instance: the fall of Saigon/Black April/National Unification, depending on what POV you take.

I actually don’t care which flag is flown, but I’d rather not rock the boat. I don’t need some elderly South Vietnamese military vets calling me a communist traitor. It just feels bad and sad for any two parties involved.

Also, Vietnam is lovely to visit and the flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam doesn’t seem to deter even vets like my dad much from going. He, like his friends, are still hard core South Vietnamese nationalists, but the war is long over.

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The reference in my "wave" was to the hypothetical hatchet that allegedly needs to be buried, not to any flag.

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I got it now.

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