Transferred from Weibo, author: Rainier Snow Mountain 2021, invasion and deletion
When the U.S. army retreated in Saigon, some people were lucky enough to run, but many more could not run away. They were greeted by an extremely tragic fate.
The most tragic of these is the Chinese community.
In the 1960s, the Chinese made great economic achievements in South Vietnam, personal wealth soared sharply, and Chinese business further expanded into banking, shipping, import and export and other industries.
At that time, the Chinese controlled or participated in most of the economic activities in South Vietnam, including finance, food, chemical, electronics, metallurgy, wholesale and other industries. It can be said that in addition to European and American capital, South Vietnam is almost only Chinese capital. Especially in Saigon's embankment area, there are hotels, restaurants and bars opened by Chinese people. Chinese capital also entered the financial field, and private banks, except for the banks opened in Britain and France, were only banks opened by the Chinese.
On the eve of the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, it can be said that the Chinese controlled two-thirds of the economic activities in South Vietnam, and the "rice king", "gasoline king" and "scrap steel king" in Saigon were all Chinese. In South Vietnamese society, 100% of the domestic wholesale trade, 80% of the industry, 70% of the foreign trade, and 50% of the retail business are in the hands of the Chinese.
The Saigon regime collapsed immediately after the withdrawal of American troops, and the vast majority of the Chinese were unable to board planes or aircraft carriers to leave South Vietnam, and what awaited them was a tragic fate.
In 1976, Vietnam began an "economic transformation", declaring all private economy illegal and tens of thousands of private shops closed overnight. And abolish the old South Vietnamese currency and confiscate all foreign exchange. Only a small amount of property is allowed to be retained by each family, stipulating that the property of urban families cannot exceed $250 and rural households cannot exceed $150.
The Chinese community went bankrupt overnight. The Chinese were also classified as "bourgeois", and the businesses they owned were expropriated by the authorities and then forcibly sent to the "New Economic Zone" (i.e., state-run labor farms).
Beginning in 1978, Chinese Vietnamese began to flee Vietnam on a large scale, creating a surging wave of refugees.
Some of them went to the mainland, some of them drifted by boat in the South China Sea, drifted to Malaysia, Thailand, and many people lost their lives in the sea.
A large number of people also fled to Hong Kong, forming a serious problem of Hong Kong boat people.
The UNHCR has estimated that about 200,000 to 400,000 boat people who fled Vietnam have died at sea.
There is a movie "Run to the Fury Sea" Andy Lau's early films are about this story.
Later, the United States and Canada accepted many Vietnamese refugees.
Zuckerberg's wife is a Vietnamese refugee. Because of this bitter experience, the Vietnamese people are very united and very hard working overseas. In addition, refugees have limited access to crime, so Vietnamese people are also very ruthless in violent crimes. The Vietnamese gang has a place in many places. Because they don't have any way out.
Worse than the Vietnamese Chinese are the Cambodian Chinese.
The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam has also indirectly affected the situation in Cambodia. The Khmer Republic was overthrown by the Khmer Rouge in 1975, waiting for the Chinese in Cambodia to be a bloody massacre. This sensitivity, go check for yourself. There's a movie called "First They Killed My Father."
In the big times, the individual is like a flat boat rising and falling in the terrifying waves.
