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Right, so my story is that about 15 years ago, back in 2002, I went to work for a new company, still in the semi-conductor equipment manufacturing business, but my new boss was Vietnamese ... she had been a boat person and she her mother and 6 other siblings had left right after the collapse and had somehow gotten to the Philippines and then ultimately to Kansas City. Later, somehow, her father also was able to get to Kansas City. She grew up in KC and did all her grade school in KC, but then family moved to the Bay Area, where she went to school and got CSE degree and got a job as a programmer. I don't think it is too relevant, but maybe someone will, but her family was and is catholic. Ultimately she got promoted up the ranks and became a Senior Director. After the merger of our companies, I was also a senior director coming from my company, but her company was the acquiring company, so she was the boss. She really wanted to set up a Vietnam Team, in Vietnam, I think for two reasons, one, because the manpower would be lower cost, but perhaps more important to her personally was to feel like she was helping the kids in the country where she was born.
So, we did. It was her strategy, but I was a key in execution and I setup and ran the technology teams. Others were involved in setting up finance and HR teams. By the time the next merger came along, we had around 150 employees in Hanoi.
After I left that company, I have repeated the strategy in my new company and now we have a team of nine engineers in our new Vietnam team. Over the years we had some turn over and had to replace people, hence the total number of people I've known and worked with in Hanoi is around 200.
For years, my attitude was that I would never forgive the VN for the savagery they displayed during the war. And I feel the same about the moozlums now. But, I've surprised myself. And, fundamentally, I think we would've been better off with the Vietnamese as "friends" since 1946, than going down the path we went down. Right now, against China, I would say VN is the most useful "friend" we have. Because I believe they will never allow the Chinese to rule them. Their history for 2000 years is the evidence.
I cannot praise their gubermint. I don't praise our gubermint. But the regular people on the street, the people I work with, are like us, they want the same things and they don't trust their gubermint either. In fact they ask me to tell them the truth about the VN war because they don't believe what they learned in school. The main difference between the people I've worked with in Vietnam and in USA, is the VN people HATE the Chinese 1000 times more than the average USA person does. And that is worth noting.
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Go trumpf Go !!!
(will the resident return to being the President?)
(will the rainbow shack return to being the White House?)
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