…(( Behind us as the ruling party, all Party members and cadres must really imbibe morality, really need integrity, impartial work, must keep our party clean, must preserve our party in books, must conflict with the party being a healthy person of the people…))
Ho-Chi Minh

We would expect nothing else, of course. But the quote had become a mystery the instant we saw it more than thirty years ago. It was 1996. We were visiting the National Capitol complex in Hanoi, Socialist Republic of Vietnam. We were providing support to a movement to “end the War,” which had some loose ends then. The POW/MIA issue was on top, as it was in North Korea. But we would have to change tone on the nuclear “Agreed Framework.” That was the very small list of things on which there was general agreement.
In Vietnam, after concluding the official meetings, our hosts let us wander off through to find the car. This appeared on a wall in one grand corridor, and we naturally wanted to capture whatever saying of Ho Chi Minh they thought was important. It popped up occasionally over the years.

I had seen the image in the archive and instinctively moved my finger on the track screen to capture the words, paste them on a translation site and read them in English. It was not the first attempt to understand, but I looked down at my index finger. I was going to have to type it in Vietnamese to then copy and post somewhere to ask the question. We had a general idea that it might be a quote from the 1930 Party Congress speech, or perhaps the the 1945 Declaration of Independence. That was a memorable one that incorporated some of a Declaration that we used back here in 1776.

There are doubtless better translations, but we read this one and enjoyed it. It is funny to think that Uncle Ho would be one of the GOP now, you know?

– Vic
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