Dr. Nguyen Khac Vien was one of the best known Vietnamese scholars of modern times. In 1992, he was awarded the Prix de la Francophonie given by the Academie Française. Between 1975 and 1995, he spent two to three months each year in Ho Chi Minh City. Here are some of Dr. Nguyen Khac Vien's observations about Ho Chi Minh City made in 1995, two years before he died. His observations are as relevant today as they were then.
Opposite or Supplementary? The south and the north of Viet Nam have many geographic and historic differences. Objectively speaking, they form a bi-polarity. Subjectively, there are two possibilities, that they are either opposite or supplementary to each other. Sai Gon is materially richer than Hanoi. For that reason, some parochial people have wanted to split the south from the north, turning the south into its own state. The French tried to set up such a system in 1946 as the "State of Cochinchina." They appointed Dr. Nguyen Van Thinh, a Sai Gon intellectual, as prime minister. After some months, Dr. Thinh realized his erroneous act and committed suicide. The United States poured in billions of dollars and sent half a million troops into the south yet could not maintain the separate Republic of Viet Nam. Viet Nam as a single, unified country is a well established concept in the minds of Vietnamese. The question now is how to turn the differences into a diversified but unified whole. This issue is important for Sai Gon and for the relationship between north and south, between people in the plains and those in the mountains, as well as the relationships among Viet Nam's fifty-four ethnic groups.
Social Diversities: Sai Gon accounts for only 6% of Viet Nam's population, yet the city possesses almost 40% of the country's cash in circulation. On the one hand, Sai Gon is a leading center in the economic development of the country, speeding up the development of other regions; on the other hand, it is like an octopus sucking resources from other regions. The widening gap between rich and poor is an inevitable consequence of the market economy. The differences between social strata are sharper in Sai Gon than anywhere else in the country. Can the people of Sai Gon - especially the intellectuals - clearly see this difference between their city and the country's other regions? A pressing question for the nation and particularly for Sai Gon's intellectuals is how to develop a market economy without widening the gap between the rich and the poor. Two thousand years ago, a sage said: "People are not afraid of poverty but, instead, of unfair distribution." During the war, those living in the resistance bases did not feel unhappy, no matter how poor they were. Of course, no one wants eternal poverty. Thanks to the current economic development, it is now possible for Viet Nam to produce enough food and clothes for its people. Yet even though this is so, it remains hard to avoid gaps between rich and poor.
The Year 2000: Sai Gon - Ho Chi Minh City now boasts a population of 5 million. Sai Gon faces urgent issues like those challenging Manila, Bangkok, Jakarta, Cairo, Sao Paulo, and other large cities of the developing world. First, it is impossible to prevent poor rural migrants from pouring into Sai Gon. The city applies strict rules for residential registration, but every year hundreds of thousands of migrants from Lao Cai and Yen Bai, Quang Binh, and Binh Dinh Provinces move to Sai Gon. By the year 2000, Viet Nam will not have solved the family-planning problem in the rural areas. Nevertheless, Sai Gon will find it hard to avoid the "ghost hamlets," where non-registered inhabitants stay, and the city will find it equally hard to solve the problem of street children. In Sai Gon, a hard-working person who is a little clever can earn VND 5,000 to VND10, 000 a day - an amount difficult to secure in the countryside. Money is flowing into Sai Gon. The government is aware of these issues, but whether its current efforts can address the imbalance remains to be seen because remote areas need substantial investment to counter the nation's gap between rich and poor.
Like other big cities, Sai Gon's infrastructure is inadequate. It faces shortages in water, electricity, accommodations, and communications even though this is the best equipped city in Viet Nam. How much longer will this situation continue? Today's scientific and technological developments can help Viet Nam solve the problem; within the next decades, Sai Gon, Bien Hoa, and Vung Tau will become large, modern urban centers. Saigon intellectuals interested in economics, science, and technology will easily find a lifestyle well-suited to those interests. However, in spite of their obsession with informatics and economic management, Sai Gon's intellectuals must also tackle issues such as the disintegrating family, environmental pollution, population pressures, drug addiction, juvenile delinquency, and HIV/AIDS. Some individuals wonder whether they should join a government agency to help manage the country or work for a private foreign business to double their income. Many do not care about what they do or whom they serve. Like the rest of Viet Nam, Sai Gon has been in a crisis these past few years. A way out of the crisis will most likely have been found by 2000, but leaders must consider more than just the economy.
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