Tag: Vietnam stamp

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State of Viet Nam, Annamite Emperors try to provide a Keeper of Greatness solution

Pre colonial Indo China had many feudal Emperors. The French and Japanese left them in place. In a way so did Ho Chi Minh but not Diem in the south. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The stamp shows the Pagoda of learning in Hanoi. Part of the fallacy that Vietnam had one government. The other fallacy was that the Emperor was not the Emperor but a Head of State in the South and Supreme Advisor in the North. Makes a learned man want to move to Monaco and buy a fancy watch.

During the French phase the area of central Vietnam around Hue was called Annamite. The Nguyen Dynasty ruled from the Purple Forbidden City there. The last of these Emperors was Bao Dai (Keeper of Greatness), who trained in France and chose as his Empress a well off Catholic commoner Vietnamese girl as his Empress Nam Phuong, (Direction of South). Bao Dai was a big believer in marriage and married 2 further Vietnamese, a North Vietnamese from his time in the North, a Hong Kong Chinese girl from an exile there and 2 French girls from his long exile there. Monique, the last is still alive and an Imperial Princess. There were 11 children so plenty of heirs if Vietnam gets the itch.

Bao Dai when he was Emperor of the Annamites.

Toward the end of the Japanese period the area was declared the Vietnamese Empire under Bao Dai. The large armed independence force under Ho Chi Minh convinced the Emperor to abdicate in return for being named Supreme Advisor to the North Vietnam government. Bao Dai did it claiming he would rather be a citizen  of a free people that an Emperor of an enslaved one. A year in Hanoi however convinced him that his advice was viewed as something less than supreme and so he moved first to Hong Kong and then to Paris. The French then saw the Emperor as a way to add legitimacy to the South Government and named him a non Royal Head of State. Again his advise was not followed and his French suggested Prime Minister Diem was openly trying to subvert him. Back to France and Monaco. He separated from Empress Nam Phuong who also moved to France but a Chateau her family maintained there.

Empress Nam Phuong on her wedding day in 1934

As Vietnam sunk into war Bao Dai lived the good life in France/Switzerland/Monaco. He had a special Rolex watch made for him that sold in 2017 for over 5 million dollars. His yacht was one of the largest in Monaco. In 1972 he tried one last time to have an influence on his country. He condemned foreign soldiers fighting on both sides and suggested that both sides put down their weapons and form a unity government that he would be willing to chair. The North sent emissaries to discuss the proposal but not the South Vietnamese. After the war he did not return to Vietnam where he has been cast as tool of the French.

Well my drink is empty and maybe I will check out some fancy watches. Keeping greatness can’t be left to just the Emperors. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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East Germany 1970, How much is the Vietnam war costing us? Surely more than 5 Pfennig

1970 was a strange time in both Germanys. They were both being ruled by those who had spent much time in exile. For East Germany that meant making large donations to the North’s war effort in Vietnam. This fit the former exiles view of Germany’s need to support internationalists movements that the exiles were a part of. It must have seemed strange to the average East German seeing Ho Chi Minh memorialized and have to pay extra for privilege. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Notice the presentation of Ho Chi Minh as a simple peasant leader. This was wrong. He was a world traveler who had received free to him training in France, the USA, China, and the Soviet Union. So the reality was he bore more of a strong resemblance to Germany’s long exile leaders than the peasants in the rice field.

Todays stamp is issue SP23, a semi postal 25 +5 Pfennig stamp issued by East Germany on September 2nd, 1970. It was a single stamp issue in memorial for Ho Chi Mihn, the Vietnamese leader. The 5 Pfennig extra was a donation to North Vietnam’s war effort. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

East Germany had been helping the communist North as early as the 1950s. At first it was mostly scholarships for Vietnamese to study in East German Universities. When the war in South East Asia heated up  so did East German aid. Germany did not sent combat troops but between 1966-1972 there were usually about 200 members of the East German military in North Vietnam acting as trainers. Where their presence was most felt was allowing the Stasi to organize the North Vietnamese secret police. This force still exists as North Vietnam won the war and the communists never lost power in Vietnam.

Oddly, the East German aid for the secret police sort of backfired. Communists in North Vietnam were divided among those who followed the Soviet Union and those that followed China. Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the pro Soviet faction. The secret police were more a tool of the pro Chinese side in the days after the death of Ho Chi Minh in the purging of the pro Soviets.

East Germany was not done helping out Vietnam. In the 1980s there were as many as 59,000 guest workers in East Germany. They were paid 400 Marks a month, of which 50 Marks was paid to the government of Vietnam. After reunification, united Germany tried to get the Vietnamese guest workers to leave. They offered free travel and 3,000 Marks to go home. Most stayed however and their numbers actually rose from Vietnamese guest workers coming in from other eastern European countries.

There was another German involvement in Vietnam wars though it was earlier and on the other side. Many veterans of Germany’s World War II war effort served in the French Foreign Legion post war. Some were from German areas of France that would not be welcome at home post war and some just wanted to continue the struggle against the communists. 37,000 Germans fought with the French Foreign Legion in French Indo China up to the time of the French defeat there in 1954. No stamps for them of course, they were now in exile.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast an American General named Ridgeway. He tried to warn on the futility of getting involved in an Asian land war, but was not listened to. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Viet Cong 1964, Better blow up the Canberra bombers that the USA wasn’t supposed to send

Here we have a fake stamp covering a real attack on bombers that were not supposed to be there. I will try to get to the bottom of the creation of this unique stamp. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp is rather hard to identify. It looks North Vietnamese and indeed is printed there. Notice the rough state of the perforations. Instead though it is an issue of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, the Viet Cong. The stamp is also a little confusing because the plane blowing up on the stamp is the well known British Canberra bomber. The USA used them as well, repackaged as the B-57 and used them extensively in Vietnam, including before they were supposed to.

The Scott catalog does not recognize the issues of the Viet Cong. For a stamp to be considered real there has to be a postal system. If the Viet Cong had one, they never convinced the stamp collecting world of it.

In 1964, the USA was doing much to help prop up the government of South Vietnam. The mostly communist National Liberation Front was receiving support from North Vietnam and trying to overthrow the South government, which was left by the French when they left in 1954. Under the terms of the Geneva Protocol, outsiders were not allowed to deploy jets to Vietnam. Thus the early bombers sent were old B26 piston engine bombers. In early 1964, a B26 crashed in the USA and the fleet was grounded. It was decided to then get around the ban by deploying B57 Canberra jet bombers, but claim they were out of the Philippines. The idea was to operate them with South Vietnamese markings and joint crews. This just did not work out. In late 1964 48 B57s arrived at Bien Hoa airbase. Four of the aircraft crashed on arrival. The airfield was also not secure from Viet Cong attack. On Halloween night 1964 the base came under a 30 minute long mortar barrage. The base was crowded and many of the bombers were parked in the open air. Five B57s were destroyed that night and 13 more were damaged. This is the attack depicted on the stamp. The idea of joint manning with the South Vietnamese did not work out as the South Vietnamese crews thought the plane was beyond their capabilities. There was another disaster involving the B-57 in early 1965 when a fully loaded bomber exploded while waiting in line to take off that set up chain reaction explosions on over a dozen additional bombers.

The B57 Canberra eventually proved useful in Vietnam with it’s long range and war load allowing it to fly up and down the Ho Chi Minh  trail for hours at a time hunting supply trucks. The B57 was one of the last American plane units to leave Vietnam in 1972. The Bien Hoa airbase  was directly attacked during the Tet offensive and nearly fell with many planes damaged. However the South Vietnamese managed to hold on to it until the surrender in 1975. The air base is still operational and Vietnam operate SU 30 fighter bombers from there.

North Vietnamese Army capturing Bien Hoa Airbase in 1975. The B57s were gone by then but it looks like they got some F5s

One interesting issue that arose as South Vietnam fell was who runs it post war. Viet Cong officials tried to set themselves up in the government offices in Saigon after the fall. This did not last and quickly South Vietnam was being run directly from Hanoi. It is now the official position of Vietnam that Viet Cong units were part of the North Vietnamese Army.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Vietnam veterans. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.

 

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French Indochina 1945, Vichy fights on for French empire in IndoChina

This is a sort of weird story where a puppet government tries to hold on to an Empire when the homeland is lost. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The stamp today is a French Indo China issue from the period when it was being administered by the region of France that had some autonomy after German occupation. This government was centered in Vichy rather than Paris. They did hold sway in some French colonies including French Indo China. The admiral on the stamp was central to the French formalizing control of several areas of Vietnam and in honoring him they are making it pretty clear they intend to stay.

Todays issue is A45, a 5 cent stamp issued by French Indo China in 1945. The stamp features French Admiral Pierre de la Grandiere. It was part of a two stamp issue. According to the Scott Catalog, it is worth 35 cents in its much more common mint version.

When French Indo China was brought under the Vichy government, there was an effort to retain French control. France had gradually firmed up control over Indo China in the 19th century. The pretext of their arrival was to protect French Catholic missionaries. The missionaries were considered a threat to the feudal system still in place there. The Catholic concepts of monogamy were quite threatening to the courtesans and  the Catholic church did make some inroads in the area. The missionaries were of course a pretext to get the nose under the tent and Admiral Grandiere had his fleet and 300 Filipino troops loaned by the Spanish  to bully and coerce ever more land concessions from the local royals. It continually amazes me how much the European powers were able to do with so few resources. By the dawn of the 20th century, the territorial expansion had reached Siam.

Tonkinese Colonial troops with their French officers

Hoping to take advantage of the chaos of the Vichy takeover, Siam launched a war to retake earlier French seized territory. Their troops did well on the ground but Vichy sent the fleet to defeat the Siamese Navy and force Siam to give up there retaken land. Vichy had come to terms with Japan allowing port access but the French were still in charge in Indo China.

British designed, Japanese built Siamese battleship HTMS Tonburi that ran aground in battle with the Vichy French. It was later refloated and refurbished in Japan and still exists as a museum ship

It is this perspective with which to view todays stamp. By the time it was issued the Vichy government was over in France but out in the colonies they are still reminding of their presence, staking their claim and reminding of past conquerors like the Admiral. It seems the stamp is talking to everyone, Siam, stay out, to Japan, we can still run things whatever happens in Europe, to the Free French, on this don’t we agree, and to the Americans, forget stripping the French of their colonies post war. Japan was first to not listen to Vichy. They arraigned Laos to declare independence and then took the opportunity to take control in March 1945. In August, Chang Kai-sheck forces crossed the border to accept Japanese surrender. By now the Communist Viet Minh controlled much of the countryside and the new French government had to work hard to overcome American objections and now North Vietnamese and Cambodian independence.

Well my drink is empty. The Americans at the end of World War II  tried to make the French see that they did not have the right to stay as they had not made the place better during their rule. I wish the USA later had remembered their own advice to a friend. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

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Vietnam 1978, Defining down the concept of a Palace

With 1977 Hanoi being bereft of impressive buildings the victorious communist regime could take credit for. A building built by the French during colonial times and then recently refurbished with help from the Czechs substituted. Well the regime did think of the idea of designating it a Palace. Imagine the level to which the cupboard was bare. So slip on your Ao Dai, fill your canteen from the river and sit cross-legged on the ground. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp is from the period before peaceful, united Vietnam farmed out it’s stamp design to Cuba. So we get to see a less professional printing. Ignoring the chunk missing from my copy. notice how badly handled were the perforations.

Todays stamp is issue A303, a 10 Xu stamp issued by united Vietnam on May 29th, 1978. It was a single stamp issue for Children’s Day. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents used. 10 Xu would be .00043 of an American penny now.

The Young Pioneer groups were started by the Soviets in the 1920s. To house the young peoples’ scouting like activities, grand mansions were allocated from those confiscated from the former aristocrats of the old regime. The stately homes were renamed youth palaces to emphasize the importance of the youth to the new regime. Through the 1950s as the organization spread to new places, Pioneer Palaces were built new in the traditional style. By the 1960s, newly built palaces more resembled YMCAs.

A Soviet former Young Pioneer youth palace. Now that is a palace!

The Young Pioneer movement got a start in Vietnam all the way back in 1941 under the auspices of the illegal communist party. The slogan of the Vietnamese group is “For the ideals of socialism and the legacy of Uncle Ho. Be Prepared.” Having been a member of the Young Pioneers is a requisite to belong to the older youth Communist Youth Organization which is itself a prerequisite to join the Vietnamese Communist Party. The Pioneers still have 12 million members.

Vietnamese Young Pioneers

After communism fell most of the Pioneer Palaces became for profit health centers. A few even became casinos and strip clubs. As of now there are three that still function as Young Pioneer Palaces. This one in Hanoi, another in Pyongyang in North Korea and one in Havana, Cuba.

The building on the stamp was built by the French  and originally one side hosted a kindergarten and the other a club exclusively for French in Hanoi. The building was taken in 1954 to act as a Young Pioneer Youth Palace, but it was not till 1973 when the building got a Czech paid for refurbishment to better fit it’s new role, including a large library.

The Hanoi Pioneer Palace in more modern times.
A youth organization must have an emblem

Many countries still have Young Pioneer youth organizations as part of their country’s communist party. There is still an international governing organization under the acronym ICCAM based out of Budapest, Hungary.

Well I decided not to touch the river water and I am far to old to sit long in this ridiculous position. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

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Vietnam 1984, Enjoying the Yunnan lar gibbon, for a little while longer

There is a risk doing an endangered species stamp issue. Even near valueless stamps like this one last and so later generations can measure how important maintaining species, even cute ones, was to Vietnam. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Vietnam is not going to come across very well in this article. That does not mean this is an unattractive stamp. Even here though there is Vietnamese shirking. During the 1980s, Vietnam outsourced their stamp printing to Cuba, so it is perhaps them to whom we should thank. In an earlier period of chaos, stamp printing quality declined to the point they couldn’t perforate the stamps. Since those became more valuable, Vietnam dutifully offered the collector imperforate versions of later stamps, even for this issue having Cuba print some imperforates.

Todays stamp is issue A392, a one Dong stamp issued by Vietnam on February 26th,1984. It was a seven stamp issue in various denominations. The Scott catalog only values this issue as a set, but if you divide by seven you get a value of 14 cents cancelled to order. The current value of 1 Dong is 4.3 one/thousands of an American penny. This stamp imperferate rises in value to $1.70. That is over 39,000 Dongs.

The animal on this stamp is the Yunnan lar gibbon. Lar gibbons are all endangered but still exist in zoos and in small numbers in the wild in the Malay peninsula and northern Borneo. Vietnam no longer is home to any as theirs were the Chinese Yunnan variety. It was thought that a game preserve in Yunnan Province, China held the last of these. However there was a survey done of the park in 2007 and none were found and the sub species was declared extinct. The gibbons were not hunted much for food but their habitats were wrecked by logging and it was common to kill a gibbon mother so that the litter  could be sold as pets.

Not Vietnamese baby lar gibbon

What to do when a country is so worthless as to let this stuff happen? Well in Vietnam’s case, they now accept much foreign aid from their old rival the USA. Among the myriad of aid programs is the USAID Saving Species Project. They encourage enforcement of wildlife protections and put out public relations materials trying to discourage local human consumption of illegal wildlife. American aid to Vietnam was over 200 million dollars in 2020. I would wear out the zero button on my computer if I converted that to Dongs. The aid program currently targets endangered pangolins, elephants, and rhinos. May I suggest a new Cuban/Vietnamese stamp issue, imperforate for old times sake, of these animals, so future generations can determine if the American aid was well spent?

USAID celebrates a new phone ap for quicker payments for habitat preservation. I am not kidding!

Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow for a hopefully more upbeat story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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North Vietnam 1965, Remembering Nguyen Du for his epic poem of romance and corruption

North Vietnam in 1965 was in a struggle arguing their Soviet and Chinese influenced system would be better and less corrupt than the South’s western, colonial, and Catholic influenced system. What better time to remember Nguyen Du’s epic poem that was Chinese influenced and told of Northern Vietnamese corrupted by their Southern rulers. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Nguyen Du was a figure from 200 years before in a country that was not doing much to record it’s history. This works well for this stamp as his work and in this case his northern birthplace is cast as mythic and  which proports to show a very different Hanoi.

Todays stamp is issue A158, a 12 Xu stamp issued by North Vietnam on November 25th, 1965. It was a four stamp issue in different denominations celebrating Du and especially the epic poem The Tale of  Kieu. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used.

Nguyen Du was the seventh son by the third wife of a Vietnamese Prime Minister. His mother was a poetic songstress which at the time was considered disreputable. Du was well off and well educated and after completing his studies he was employed as a government advisor  called a Mandarin. He also married his own songstress which was still considered disreputable. The dynasty he worked for and swore loyalty to was overthrown and Du was out of a job. 6 years later the new guys were out and a new group of Southern rulers were in. This time Du accepted his job back as a Mandarin and eventually was promoted to Ambassador to China. Working for the new people was thought a betrayal. In China Du found a minor romance novel that he thought under a pen name he could translate into Vietnamese verse and it would serve as an allegory to trying to keep your honor while serving a corrupt government.

The Tale of Kieu is the story of an attractive young educated girl named Kieu who travels to visit the graves of her ancestors with her younger sister. Kieu meets and falls in love with a young man. Before they can marry he is called back to his home village for 6 months to mourn the death of his uncle. While at home herself awaiting reunification her family gets cheated in a business deal and losses all their money and the government is threatening to jail Kieu’s father and brother. To buy their way out of trouble, Kieu sells herself into marriage with a middle age man and tells her younger sister to fulfill her previous promise of marraige. The older man Kieu married turns out to be a pimp and delivers Kieu to an upscale brothel. There she attempts suicide but is instead forced into the life of a prostitute. She is especially popular and degraded as she is of higher class than the other prostitutes. One of her clients is a government Mandarin who takes pity on her and buys her out of the brothel and makes Kieu his wife. When her first husband hears of this  he tries to force her back to the brothel as he is still her husband. Kieu runs away and hides out with Nuns. At the Nunnery her first love finds her, but Kieu thinks herself too debased to take up again with him.

The epic runs to 3254 verses and is delivered in a six-eight meter. There are some in Vietnam who can recite it in full. In 2007 there was a movie version called Saigon Eclipse that moved the story to the present day and had Kieu working in a massage parlor in San Francisco to pay off her family’s debt in Vietnam. No fault of North Vietnam in that one. Well maybe a little.

Film Poster for Saigon Eclipse. The producers seem to have forgotten that Kieu is not supposed to look like the other prostitutes.

Well my drink is empty. I can see how the south can be accused of debasing corruption but perhaps those up north should check if they themselves are throwing stones from glass houses. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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People’s Republic of Kampuchea 1984, Vietnam has things well in hand, relax and listen to some music

During the 1980s, Cambodia had two governments, the Pol Pot regime of Democratic Kampuchea was internationally recognized. On the ground and in the post offices though, Vietnam had conquered Cambodia. You might think after the genocide of Pol Pot, a Vietnamese takeover would be welcome. The USA and China were long tired of a militarily aggressive North Vietnam and Thailand surely did not want them on the border. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Vietnam had farmed out their stamps to Cuba so most of the stamp issues of their client state were fairly generic topical stamps on animals or Mercedes automobiles or international meetings of no relevance to Cambodia. Occasionally though there was an issue like this showing traditional Khmer musical instruments. The Pol Pot regime did not bother with stamps at all between 1975 and 1980.

Todays stamp is issue A120, a 10 cent stamp issued by the occupying Peoples Republic of Kampuchea on October 10th, 1984. Cambodia was known as Kampuchea between 1970 and 1990. It was a 7 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents cancelled to order.

The Khmer Rouge had received help from North Vietnam during it’s long struggle against the pro western governments in Cambodia. After the last pro west government of Lon Nol fell in 1975, Pol Pot turned some of his attention to the government of North Vietnam. He believed it was their intent to turn Kampuchea into a client state. Members of the Khmer Rouge that had received training from Vietnam were purged. His military also became aggressive toward Vietnam. 24 hours after the fall of Saigon, Kampuchea attacked the island of Phu Quoc. All during Pol Pot’s regime there were numerous clashes with Vietnam. In this Kampuchea had Chinese support although officially all three countries were friendly.

In late 1978, Vietnam started their “Counteroffensive on the southwest border”. Vietnam invaded with over 150,000 soldiers and Kampuchea fought back with arms airlifted from China. Surprising both sides fought in a conventional set piece manner. Kampuchea fell in a few weeks and the Cambodians purged from the Khmer Rouge for their Vietnam ties assumed leadership in the new People’s Republic of Kampuchea. The world was just not having this. China fought a short unsuccessful war with Vietnam  and the Vietnam government was ostracized from all but the eastern bloc.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Vietnam had tired of the situation. Old Prince Sihanouk, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/04/11/968-cambodia-the-human-rights-flame-burns-bright-at-least-on-the-stamp/ . came back to what was again the Cambodian Kingdom. There would be a coalition government with two Prime Ministers, one from the pro Vietnam party and one from the pro royalist. Left out was Pol Pot  who tried to reenergize his guerilla war. Instead he was captured and killed himself after a show trial and being sentenced to a long prison term.

The instrument on the stamp is a Sra Lai. You can hear one here, https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Sra+lai+musical+instrument&view=detail&mid=D86EFDB1DE8956744D89D86EFDB1DE8956744D89&FORM=VIRE    .

Well my drink is empty and I can see why the world in the 1980s just got tired of the area. Perhaps that was for the best allowing the Khmer people to work it out for themselves. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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North Vietnam 1962, we have hitched our boat to someone going places

North Vietnam’s best argument during the then upcoming Vietnam war was that the conflict should be settled amongst the Vietnamese without outside influence. If you examine their stamps of the period, it was no secret that North Vietnam was a satellite of the Soviet Union. Bet the Soviets were glad they didn’t send troops. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

There was a worldwide excitement to the early space race somewhat akin to a dangerous sport. You had records falling and stories of careful training of individuals that are obviously among a countries best. With the USA and the USSR involved, there were even teams to rout for.

Todays stamp is issue A97, a 30 Xu stamp issued by the Democratic Peoples Republic of North Vietnam in December 28th. 1962. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations that honor the simultaneous flight of Soviet spacecraft Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 in August 1962. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used. The issue also exists in imperforate form, which raises the value 10 fold.

The Soviets were hard at work on the problems of putting men in space which of course had not been done before. One unknown issue was how the human body would react to extended time in weightlessness. To find out the Vostok 3 and 4 missions were scheduled. It would be the first time that two spacecraft would be in orbit at the same time. The idea was that the two ships would orbit together with their Cosmonauts life signs carefully monitored to see if there was any variation as to how the bodies coped. The missions were scheduled to last 4 days. The two spacecraft would also be able to communicate with each other by radio, a first.

The missions were successful with both Cosmonauts surviving well. The were a few hiccups. Vostok 4’s life support system malfunctioned sending the temperature in the capsule dropping precipitously. The radio contact with Vostok 4 was garbled with ground control misunderstanding Cosmonaut Pavel Popovich as giving the code word to get me home now. Thus his mission ended early.

Cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev, callsign Falcon, flew on Vostok 3 and later again on Soyuz 9. When he died in 2004 the breakup and disunity of modern Russia intruded. Nikolayev was a Chuvash, an ethnic group of Turks that live near the Volga river. Nikolayev’s daughter, a prominent Moscow Doctor, wanted her father buried in a heroes cemetery in Moscow. This was not allowed as the local Chuvash leader required that he be buried in his hometown where he no longer had family. Well he did die there, so it must have meant something to him.

Cosmonaut Pavel Popovich, callsign Golden Eagle, flew on Vostok 4 and later again on Soyuz 14. He stayed on in the Soviet Air Force until 1993 rising to be a Major General. Popovitch was Ukrainian but the breaking apart did not effect him as directly. He was from the Crimea so ethnically Russian. He died in 2009.

Both of todays Cosmonauts had prominent wives. Nikolayev’s wife was Velentina Tereshkova, the first and youngest female to go to space.  Popovich’s wife was Marina Popovich, test pilot and the first Soviet woman to break the sound barrier, which she did in 1964. She was known affectionately as Madame Mig. She got some notoriety late in her life by writing a book called UFO Glasnost claiming the Soviet Air Force had many interactions with UFO and that the KGB guarded 5 UFO crash sites. Both marriages ended in divorce.

Well my drink is empty and I will join with our now North Vietnamese friends in toasting the Soviet Cosmonauts. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Vietnam 1993, After a renovation, wondering about becoming an Asian Tiger

As the memory of war with the South, the USA, Cambodia and even China faded, Vietnamese wondered why their economy hadn’t taken off like the Asian tigers. Perhaps it was time for a renovation. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp promotes Asian architecture, in this case a Malaysian Buddhist Temple. The stamps didn’t go far and wide though, just countries close in to Vietnam. Whether Malaysia or Thailand, they were showing Asian tigers, inviting a comparison of how neighboring countries were doing in comparison. Pretty bold for a Communist country and traditional, calling to mind the even better done stamps from the Royal period in Laos, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/04/30/laos-1959-the-last-royal-succession/  .

Todays stamp is issue A608, a 2000 Dong stamp issued by united Vietnam on July 10th,1993. It was a seven stamp issue in various denominations that also came as a souvenir sheet. According to the Scott catalog, This individual used stamp is worth 21 cents. This is the lowest value for any stamp I have done on this website. While the printing and artistry are below Royal Laos similar stamps. This is still a big colorful stamp with a building many in Asia will recognize. This stamp, now 26 years old, deserves a higher valuation. We need more Vietnamese stamp collectors.

The Vietnamese economy was in a terrible shape after the wars. The south had been wealthier than the north but was economically destroyed post war. Over a million from the north had been relocated south. Many of the southern people had been relocated to the countryside. To try to turn this around former Viet Cong leader Nguyen Van Linh was made Communist General Secretary in 1986.

Linh, not his real name, was born in North Vietnam but was assigned to Saigon in 1936 by the communist party. His job was to set up secret cells. He was more of an organizer that a military leader. His triumph was the Tet offensive in 1968 when Linh proved the Viet Cong was everywhere in South Vietnam. Southerners or adopted southerners in Linh’s case, were tossed aside after the war. Despite being in the Politburo, Linh’s arguments to better take advantage of southern capabilities fell on deaf ears.

In 1986 Vietnam revisited Linh’s ideas. He wanted to improve relations with China, the USA, and other Asian neighbors. He wanted to allow peasants to cultivate small private fields next to the collectives, he allowed people to start businesses and was more open to foreign investment. He worked to end the discrimination of those with southern backgrounds. None of this included more political freedom and all was done within the communist system. His program was called Doi Moi, meaning renovation.

The renovation was less than successful. Per capita GNP in Vietnam is about 25% that of China and a third that of Thailand. Thailand economically and politically most resembles the old South Vietnam so might well demonstrate what a southern victory might have achieved. One of the most vocal critics of the renovation economy was Linh himself. In his last years in retirement he wrote a scathing series of newspaper columns  complaining about the distance between the haves and the have nots and the corruption and subservience caused by the foreign investment. Lucky for Vietnam he was too old to get back to his true talent of organizing secret cells of disadents.

Well my drink is empty and so I will patiently await tomorrows new story that can be learned from stamp collecting.