Hence the tours of the tunnels at Cu Chi near Saigon, where the Vietcong lurked for years beneath the very feet of the Americans, occasionally emerging to kill a few before plunging back into the dank darkness. Templer meticulously describes how a Communist society works. When he arrived in Hanoi in 1994 it was the beginning of a brief period of openness. Hardliners swept back to power in 1996-97 in a way which some believe could happen in China as well. In the excellent chapter on how the Party treats the Vatican as a foreign enemy and continues to persecute Catholics as if they were traitors, the word China could have been substituted for Vietnam throughout.
China is a country which many Vietnamese despise, fear, and envy.
Templer doesn't make this comparison, but it leaps off his pages. Other examples of Party paranoia are either hilarious or sad. A German lingerie company was forbidden to run a commercial stating 'Fashion and so much more' because the commissars wanted to know what 'so much more' meant. Sony's commercial for its television sets, featuring a puppy watching the screen, was banned because 'some viewers took it as an offensive suggestion that Vietnamese were like dogs'. Templer is an acute reporter with a nose for nuance.