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Bình Xuyên
In 1954, Việt Nam was divided in two at 17° North latitude according to the Geneva Accords, which ended the war between the Việt Minh and the French. The Communist North, or the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was based in Hà Nội and initially governed by Hồ Chí Minh and his Việt Minh. Later, in the Vietnam War, it defeated and took over the South, reuniting Việt Nam under Northern rule. Into the 21st century, the Communist government of former North Việt Nam continues to rule the reunited country.
North Việt Nam Quotes in The Best We Could Do
The The Best We Could Do quotes below are all either spoken by North Việt Nam or refer to North Việt Nam. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 4
Quotes
I had never, before researching the background of my father’s stories, imagined that these horrible events were connected to my family history…
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Chapter 5
Quotes
“But the month I spent in the Communist North had a very different effect on me.”
“It was true that the Việt Minh had won independence by winning the WAR.”
“But the new society I dreamed of didn’t EXIST.”
“Here there was no freedom of thought, no allowance for individuality.”
“I was fourteen. Sài Gòn represented a whole new world of possibility to me.”
“Who would choose a world that had become so narrow, so poor and gray?”
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Chapter 7
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The American version of this story is one of South Vietnamese cowardice, corruption, and ineptitude…
…South Vietnamese soldiers abandoning their uniforms in the street…
…Americans crying at their wasted efforts to save a country not worth saving.
But Communist forces entered Sài Gòn without a fight, and no blood was shed.
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North Việt Nam Term Timeline in The Best We Could Do
The timeline below shows where the term North Việt Nam appears in The Best We Could Do. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Preface
...II, the First Indochina War led to Việt Nam’s partition into two countries. The Communist North was run by the Việt Minh, the anti-French and anti-Japanese independence movement led byHồ Chí...
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...bombing Cambodia until 1973, when American troops fully withdrew. On Liberation Day, April 30, 1975, North Việt Nam officially captured Sài Gòn, and the South Vietnamese government surrendered.
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Chapter 5: Either, Or
...explains the political situation at this time, in 1954. Việt Nam is provisionally divided between North and South for two years, until the planned elections. There is “a MASS EXODUS” from...
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Bố’s father expects Bố to stay in the North. But, having seen the poverty and conformity of the North, Bố wants to return to...
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Chapter 7: Heroes and Losers
...about the events through their radio, worrying as they raise Thi and learn about the North Vietnamese progressively approaching Sài Gòn. They remember “the 1968 massacre in Huế” and worry that...
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Chapter 10: Ebb and Flow
...She remembers that her mother called herself Mẹ—a “weighty, serious, more elegant word” from the North—whereas her children called her by the Southern “‘Má,’ a jolly, bright sound we insisted fit...
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