From: mday@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu (Mark Day)
Subject: Re: The Great Caucasian Blunder Pt. I
Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
	<1993Jan18.182721.28505@nynexst.com> <C12ML6.LBy@acsu.buffalo.edu>
	<0fLqrTa00iV3491Zxm@andrew.cmu.edu>
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 05:45:34 GMT

   ra01+@andrew.cmu.edu (Rikiya Asano) writes:

   [discussing Caucasian imperialism]

   Let's take Vietnam as an example.

OK.

   After those vile Japanese who called themselves "imperialists" lost the
   war. France "received" the people of Veitnam through the Marshal Plan.

Bzzzzt!  Wrong.  But thanks for playing.  Parts of modern Vietnam had
been a French colony for roughly 100 years before WWII, and French and
European influence had been important there before the French actually
moved in to establish a formal "Departmente".

   In the war game, winner takes all. It wasn't important to these
   Men/Women of great learning who were for the most part Caucasian that
   the Veitnamese need a break from oppression, France needed to rebuild
   her "empire"!

Well, I think it's very nice that you think it was time for the
Vietnamese to have a break from oppression.  I think I'd go along with
that.  As far as the Caucasian bit though, you ought to be careful --
the worst famines happened during the brief Japanese occupation,
because the Japanese took all the Vietnamese rice to support their
failing war efforts.  One advantage of the French as rulers is that
they weren't interested in eating all that rice.

   So, the poor Japanese beaten Veitnamese were handed from the American to
   the French. The French gave them an alphabet(let it be known that the
   Veitnamese were a 2000+ year old culture)(descendants of the Yuer
   people. Around South East/Middle  Zhong Gou{China})so that the people
   could understand how to serve
   them better.(by the way where are the Vietnamese-Americans in the
   Group?)(and, other southeast Asain-Americans?). 

You are getting pretty badly confused here.  The Vietnamese alphabet
is definitely Western in origin, introduced by Christian missionaries,
but I believe the prevailing theory is that it was introduced by a
Portugese monk, not a French one.  I don't know Portugese, but
Vietnamese sure doesn't seem like the writing system was invented by a
French person.  For example, the Vietnamese d is pronounced like a
French z, but z isn't used in the Vietnamese alphabet.

The alphabet (quo^'c ngu*~) was introduced before the French had any
formal influence over Vietnam.  It was successful because it was
useful: Vietnamese had been written in Chinese characters (a system
called chu*~ no^m), but Vietnamese is structurally quite different
from Chinese, and the system was very awkward.  Also, the Chinese were
(and always have been) the main imperialist threat to Vietnam.  The
French, Japanese, and American periods were mere moments compared to
the hundreds of years of off-and-on Chinese domination of Vietnam.
Given that history, it's not too hard to see why the Vietnamese would
like a writing system that let them avoid writing Chinese.

Ethnically, the Vietnamese seem to be unrelated to the Chinese except
insofar as there have been numerous intermarriages over the millenia.
Linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that the Viet people
were probably seagoers from Melanesia who landed in SE Asia several
millenia ago.  [If anyone is keen on details, I think this is covered
in Keith Taylor's book The Birth of Vietnam.]

   The Cauasian French
   literally worked the Vietmanese to stavation and even death. Think about
   it, the Vietnamese were to send their food to France and while they
   themselves straved to death while working- to send food, goods and
   services to France. 

Well, as I pointed out, the French were not exactly kind, but they did
have the advantage that they weren't very keen on rice.  The
non-Caucasian Japanese were much worse for their brief dominion, and
the non-Caucasian Chinese were not benevolent rulers during their very
long rule.

   Enter: HO CHI MIN! 

That's Ho Chi Minh, if you please.  You seem to be a little confused
about exactly when "Ba'c Ho^`" showed up on the scene, implying that
he came to save the day when the French took Vietnam back.  It's
actually a little more complicated.  If I remember correctly, Ho Chi
Minh and the Viet Minh actually took over control of the country when
the Japanese withdrew and ran it during part of 1945.  In a very real
sense, the French took the country away from the Viet Minh, who then
had to fight for another nine years to get it back from the French,
followed by another 21 years to get it back from the Americans.

   I think that the war between the
   Veitnamese and the French/ Americans is another sudject. 

Yes.  Hopefully you won't address that subject until you learn more
about it than you know about this one.

   But you can
   best believe that alot of innocent and naive peoples dies horrorible
   deaths because of the ruthlessness of this culture. Why? So, clothes can
   go on the backs of another? Food in another's belly? Ego? Their are many
   examples of this culture reaping the goods and life of earth people so
   that they themselfves live in luxury. Where is that Luxury? for hundreds
   of centuries this culture has taken and taken and taken while giving
   very little even death. What do they have to show for it? A bunch of old
   broken down castles? economic repression? Just a few elite? This is
   ashame! The live that was lost! The life that was taken, stolen, and
   raped! I am ashamed that the Japanese follow the route, those who called
   themselves "imperialist"! Talk about acting "White"!
   Anyway, Cauasian Europe. Example: The Zulu Nation! Well I have to now.
   So, this will concluded the pt.1 Of the introduction! 

Rant and rave, rant and rave... maybe you should spend more time
learning and less time flaming.

Mark Day

mday@lcs.mit.edu
Xref: sparky soc.culture.asian.american:11927 ucb.general:257