Ah Vietnam- it's so good to see you again. In the six years since I saw you last, you've gotten busier and moved up the corporate ladder. Your streets are filled with cars, not just motorcycles as before. Foreigners flock to your shores to teach English and start businesses. You've even made friends with those strange and world travelling American fellows, Starbucks and McDonalds. President Obama decided to hang out with you this week, and you treated him like a superstar (even boasting to everyone that he likes Hanoi bun cha (rice noodles and bbq'd meat). Your food choices are just as dizzying as before (so far I have sampled your banh xeo, bun cha, banh mi, nuoc mía (sugar cane juice), bia hoi (draft beer) and pizza!). You have some amazing architecture but the old colonial buildings will make way for modern skyscrapers with less soul but more rental space for Korean and Chinese businesses. You banned Facebook this week to coincide with protests over toxic waste spills in the ocean which killed thousands of fish. At the same time, you are now a middle income country with an astonishing ability to grow and change.
I guess you're just as complex and contradictory as before. But that's okay , with all your flaws i still think you are pretty fabulous.
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