I like the central ones as it sounds "imperial" but I talk to my folks and they tell me it's an accent associated with "stinginess". I've never heard this. WTH?

Is it fair to say that the Northerners dominate politics and business while the Southerners dominate the arts and cinema? Where do the "Hue" peoples fit in to this power scheme?

yeah central sounds cool, especially Nghệ-Tĩnh-Nam.

What is nghe tinh nam?

Nghệ An - Hà Tĩnh - Quảng Nam, Quảng Nam accent sounds like Nghệ-Tĩnh though its located in Southern-Central, at least more than Quảng Bình-Quảng Trị.

Hue accent is just one of the collective of Central accents. It's sad but the truth is Central accents pretty much got no place in the dominant Viet culture nowadays.

Ehh...businesses and politics are dominated by Northerners? Not really


Walk into a supermarket in Hanoi and you'll hear a commercial playing on the big TV and they're all in Saigon accent (well maybe not all but most of them).
Saigonese is pretty much the accent of businesses and commercials

Politics?
I don't know what you're trying to say but most top political leaders of Vietnam are Southerners and speak with Southern accent. Shocked? Yea well everyone got the impression that Vietnam is ruled by Northern politicians. Well reality check.
- The Prime Minister of Vietnam, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, is a Southerner.
- The current president of Vietnam, Nguyễn Tấn Sang, is also a southerner.
- The former one, Nguyễn Minh Triết, is also a Southerner.
- All presidents of Vietnam since 1975 are from the South (if not then somewhere in South Central)


Songs
Most are sung in Northern accent

Films and drama
Predominantly in Southern accent since they're produced in the South


----

But usually the Northern accents are considered to be more sophisticated and accurate. Standard Hanoian is associated with the educated. (Not sure about high class).

Southern accents may be considered to be sweet (depends, some people in the Central think Southern accent is sour and harsh)

Usually, I hear people say Thanh-Nghe-Tinh (Thanh Hoa - Nghe An - Ha Tinh).

In general, the Central region are battered by natural disasters. Hence, the Central folks have to be very frugal in order to squeeze out a sustainable life. Many of their practices, thus, are deemed stingy by the Southern standard (though you may not agree so). For instant, central folks don't have the habit of treating their colleagues meals after works, etc ...

yes the northern politicians were pro-chinese so the southerners cleansed them, at least that's how it was in the 70's.

I like Hanoi weather girl accent because it sounds very fierce and it overwhelms me.

I think northern is more government and state-owned, south is more business and free enterprise. Politicians have southerners because the northern Han-viets are easily dominated.


this guy



beat this guy

Boron u seem to know a lot about vietnam i thought you were chinese?

^a lot I just learned from hanging out on AF.

Hm...let's look at all the presidents of Vietnam since Ho Chi Minh

Hồ Chí Minh - Born in Nghệ An, North Central


Tôn Đức Thắng - Born in Long Xuyên, An Giang province


Nguyễn Hữu Thọ - Born in Saigon

Võ Chí Công - born in Quảng Nam


Lê Đức Anh - Born in Hue

Trần Đức Lương - Born in Quãng Ngãi


Nguyễn Minh Triết - Born in Bình Dương


[Current] Trương Tấn Sang - Born in Long An



Now the only president from Northern Vietnam for the past century is Trường Chinh



The reality is that Đông Kinh, 東京, the cradle of Vietnamese, has left the political stage of Vietnam for centuries.

Ever since the fall of the Mac dynasty, the power center shifted from Northern Vietnam down to North Central, Central, South Central, then eventually to Southern Vietnam.

The first king to ever rule the entire Vietnamese-speaking world (Nguyễn Ánh) had origin in the South (Saigon), and he "conquered" the whole Vietnamese-speaking world by marching northward. Unfortunately he set the capital in the Central, Hue, (to honor his ancestors) instead of the South (should have made Saigon his capital), and the history of Vietnam has proven that unless you control one of the two deltas of Vietnam, you can't rule the country. This was why the Nguyen dynasty was plagued with rebels and unrest for most of its reign. The Nguyen set their capital in such an isolated region where people spoke (and still speak) such a strange dialect that average Đông Kinh folks and Cochin folks didn't even understand.

Đông Kinh is Hanoi?

do you realize Vietnam's president is not the top politician? the two photos I posted were the two contenders for top leadership after Ho Chi Minh. Truong Chinh was a northerner and preferred a conservative strategy after unification. The other guy wanted to get all of Indochina.

Đông Kinh is the term for all Northern Vietnam in general.

Well it was originally the former name of Hanoi, but later foreigners often used it to refer to the entire region of Northern Vietnam. That's where you got Tonkin and Gulf of Tonkin from.

It's also probably where the ethnic name Kinh came from.

so northern vietnam got called "eastern capital city"?? french can be such worms on culture.

Actually all Vietnam and the capital was once in the East, after the expansion to the south we can safely says that we are from the south east.

And 東京 Đông Kinh is used since Lê Dynasty in 15th century which means that it is the capital of the East, i don't know what the Emperors thought, but the name Đông Kinh or Tonkin(english)-Tongking-Tonking(French)-Tunqin(portugese)-...(westerner romanised ver) is used since 15th century and it has nothing to do with the french, spanish and english but well if it does they really are... worms in culture.

Hanoi was originally known as ThangLong. However, into the 15th century, Ho Quy Ly overthrew the Tran Dynasty and established the Ho Dynasty (1400 - 1407). With the new dynasty came the new capital; Ho Quy Ly moved the capital to Thanh Hoa and named the new capital Tay Do (western capital). Hanoi is to the northeast of Thanh Hoa and automatically got renamed to Dong Do. Then came Dong Kinh with Kinh = Do in Vietnamese.

Ho Chi Minh and the communist government moved the capital back to Hanoi in accordance with Ly Cong Uan's (the first Emperor of the Ly Dynasty 1010-1225) prophecy of 10 000 years of prosperity (correct me on this). According to the prophecy, as long as the Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam, the country will prosper and its glorious days will see no end. Since the day Ho Emperor upset the prophecy, the country barely saw any day of peace and was plagued by continuous foreign invasions as well as civil struggles.

Now Hanoi is back and the country moves onwards. Nonetheless, I don't doubt Saigon's ability to lead the country if tasked to. Not Hue though please.

Talking about Saigon. it has always irked me whenever the Cambodians say Saigon belong to them. Prey Nokor was, but not Saigon. If there wasn't because of Vietnamese builders, Saigon as we known would have never come into existence.

good explanation.

why do you think Saigon can be a national center but Hue cannot be?

hey whats about Nghệ An? can Vinh be a capital city?

if so i want to be a politician and move our capital there.

Its poor but the land's structure is strong it can hold all kind of modern buildings and advance technologies like space tech, nuclear tech,...

plus Nghệ An have quite a beautiful sea in the summer and many others incredible natural scenes, it fit to be the capital of Vietnam.



Nguyen dynasty capital city is Hue, and Nguyen Dynasty is nothing but a bunch of loser, they've lost to French. And as he said Nguyen Dynasty just like Ho Dynasty, The country barely saw any day of peace and was plagued by continuous foreign invasions (dutch-english-french-japan-us) as well as civil struggles.

I see.
I wonder if outside world events have some to do with Nguyen's weakness. Its time history is almost the same as China's century of humiliation. There was also a lot of population growth in Asia from 17th-19th century so that probably caused instability on top of the Europeans coming over.

What is the current dynamics in the Viet Com. Party? Is it divided into two factions, if so what are the policies of each side? Pro-Chinese is not good and I think it was wise for the communist government to kick out all the Chinese in the 80s. I am shocked to learn that most of the current leaders are Southerners. Perhaps, this is a good trend since they must understood how those Cholon Chinese controlled the price of grain and starved our Southern people. Call me crazy but I think Cambodia and Laos should be part of Vietnam. We should also attempt to control the Northern part of Thailand so they don't link up with the Chinese, which for historical consideration should always be regarded as our arch enemy. I hope the current government invest in the Navy since we're very much like Iran in that we are positioned to regulate regional economic development.

^I hoping you are kidding. This is the age of integration not isolation.

I am not a superstitious individual, but I have gotten enough respect for Ly Cong Uan to heed his prophecy. Therefore, for me the capital is at the right location as of now. Vinh can be a capital of tourism with its scenery, like the way Versailles is to France, if you pump enough money into it. However, I don't support any more relocation of the political capital city.

I personally felt that the Southward Expansion while brought new found wealth and expanded the Vietnamese realm also created upon the nation a curse of instability. Prior to the expansion, there had never been any lasting civil war recorded; even the chaotic Twelve Forces period was short-lived. This was because there was only 1 central Dong Kinh plain, whoever controlled the plain won the war, period. With the expansion came new found land able to sustain large force of opposition; and indeed the longest civil struggle ever recorded was the Trinh-Nguyen War which lasted for nearly two centuries - a war between one force controlling the Dong Kinh plain and the other controlling the newly annexed land.

I agree with you that annexation causes civil strives but I still believe that war is natural for social progress, sort of like how a fire is needed to rejuvenate a forest. Invasion of Mexico is an indirect factor that caused the American Civil War but look at how the US came together after the war. Cambodia is a mess, without any strong leadership, so too is Laos. Thailand is too divided geographically, and it's political climate doesn't provide a good case for future stability. When the US declines militarily, and she will, then the Chinese leadership will once again bring up the 2000 years old question-when to expand south. The Hanoian peoples are naturally anti-Chinese but their leaders share the belief that "they take from us; we take from others". If VN were to be a prosperous nation, we must defend our border and strengthen our navy to guard our own economic interests. I think it's good to incorporate Khmers into Viet nationhood since they'll be to us what the Scotts are to the English, a source of frontier settlers who have more in common with Viets then Chinese.

We have to strengthen our border and improve our navy, true. However, that can be done within the context of the already existing Vietnam. No need for further expansion and incorporation of other group. The Khmers don't like us, and most of our people are oblivious about them. Let's them be them and us be us, that serve the best interest of the two nations (The Scotts didn't blame the English for virtually everything that went wrong in their history).

The US could afford a civil war because it was off the reach of its powerful enemies at the time. Vietnam didn't have such luxury. Moreover, the US came out stronger because the North was way out-industrialized and was much more populous than the South. It could easily absorb and revitalize the South's economy. Moreover, the war was not too long and the outcome was decisive. Last but not least, the northern elites had already had a vision for a united country prior to declaring war on the South. The Trinh-Nguyen Period was vastly different. It lasts from 1592 to 1789 with no clear development. In the end, it was the Tay Son rebellion that swooped them both; thanks to the people already lost hope in the two houses of power. Legacy of it is still obvious nowadays, when was the last time you heard a southerner commenting on how obnoxious a northerner sounds? It's hard to find such wide-spread contempt among Americans of different regions.

I think current VCP is middle road and factionless, much like CCP. There was some news they were raising the level of free elections, progressing ahead of CCP's own reforms (there's been a lot of inter-party exchange between them since late 90's). Not sure what has been happening with those elections?

we needs immigrants, especially from high tech country like Japan, U.S, Russia,... we should make some place for them to live and co-exist with us.

Because we need advance technologies, we should improve our infrastructure and accelerate our nuclear energy forming process, have a boost in advance military equipments.

We should focus more on heavy industry, precisely industry and privatized defense industry, we should apply most of modern advance technology in Agriculture, we may go as far as grow rice in salt water and sand.

And to do that we need:
+Immigrant from advanced countries like U.S, Japan, Russia, in europe like Norway, Sweden, Britain, France, ....
+funds, we should sell all things we don't need and try to invest in invent something useful for ourself like improve our agriculture and industries product quality to sell at a higher price.
+propagate that we are still a poor country and needs more improvements (but we are not a weak country propangate more about our people incredible abilities), force the students to study, enforce the law and make the law harsher, force the worker work at least 15hrs a day.
...
in about 10 years we'll become a much much stronger....

and i believe it is what our gov is doing... it just that they didn't make the law any harsher and don't even try to strictly enforce it .

If there was ever a free election and they allow oversea Vietnamese to vote, I would consider voting for Vietnam Quốc Dân Đảng. The record of of Nguyễn Thái Học (阮太學) and 13 other nationalists being beheaded by the French colonizers left a huge impression in me. Unfortunately for the Quốc Dân Đảng, the Communist party was hugely popular among the farmers which made up the bulk of Vietnamese population back then. After taking power, the Communist party started to push other groups sideline, and modern history fails to capture these groups contribution and only celebrates the Communist party at the sole driver to independence. They sure played a huge role, but they weren't the only ones fighting the French.

This is another similar point between Chinese and Vietnamese history, except the Chinese Kuomintang still had Taiwan to run to.

ugh not the koumintang, actually i feel sad for those poor people but i don't believe that Quốc Dân Đảng can change our country, what we need now is a genius, not a party.

i vote for Duy Tân Đảng - Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội (Đảng Đổi Mới), which led by Phan Bội Châu, they have quite an insane ideal, to study from an advanced country and then return to the fatherland to serve with all their heart. Sadly, even that "advanced" country couldn't help him escape the French reach.

ugh, every time i talked about him my tears drop fack that "advanced" country, fack france, fack all stupid Vietnamese who followed France...

There's no need for "immigrants" from advanced countries. We already have students and settlers in all parts of the world--one benefit of the Civil War. I've met Viet students as far North as Norway and Sweden and as far South as Argentina and Cuba and as far East as Japan and Korea. They all long for a prosperous homeland that welcomes their contribution. Sadly, many tried to stay in their host countries precisely because of the lack of economic incentives to return home. Economic transition needs to happen step by step. The only thing the government can do is to speed up this process through sound policies. Most of China's noveau wealth was driven by foreigners with exports designed and purchased by foreigners, while the majority of the country is still underdeveloped and rural. VN can avoid this fate by stimulating a strong service sector and that requires solid investment in higher education. Human capital is still the most important factor in developing a strong economy, and that requires both innovative people and the environment that rewards innovation. It's sad to read so many stories about a business person growing rich from a sandal making enterprise only to be tagged with corruption charges and executed.

I know that you all had heard this so many times before but "God damn it, only if the Nguyens court didn't drain its treasury fighting over Cambodia and was willing to listen to Nguyen Truong To to tech chase the Japanese".

Even after missing the crucial time to tech up, they could still save the country by playing the game that the Thai did with the Europeans. All they had to do was to open up and interact, gather intelligence to know who is on the move and provoke others to interfere with the advancing one. But no, they really believed that outsiders were barbarians (including the French) and that we had nothing to learn from anyone. In the end, they were mortally wrong, but didn't have to pay for their mistake. Saved for Ham Nghi, all of the Nguyen kings still get royal treatment and lived a luxurious life removed from that of the miserable Vietnamese, who had to exhaust their bodies paying for a mistake they didn't commit.

Talking about Thailand ( http://forum.vietyo.com/topic/nam-ca-si-vi...han-262725.html ) lol. His original look is what I thought of a well mix between original Vietnamese and native folks in the South.

After Ham Nghi all are Nguyens but not Nguyen, they are just puppets of French, they don't even have any relation to the emperor family.

there is only one mistake in the previous ideal that the communist party has found, that is the poor people, that is why the Communist party also focus on poor people (phong trào đầu tố), most of the rebel base in the intellectual and petty bourgeois, cos they think that if those guys follow, the people also follow too, but they are wrong, they arent strong enough to make people change their mind.

The fundamental flaw of Communism in Vietnam and pretty much everywhere else is that the original ideology didn't promote a leadership comprised of the very poors as well as farmers. As Karl explicitly stated, Communist movement was to be led by workers who are well acquainted with industrialism and capitalism. Farmers were to be led not to be in the leading position. When crafting the theory, he intended Communism to first occur in Germany, an industrialized country with a large population of workers. Unfortunately, pretty much all industrialized countries rejected the idea. The first to pick it up was Russia, a semi-industrialized country at the time with a small worker population. An economy spearheaded by farmers is one suffering many crippling effects. It tends to overemphasize agriculture and the self-sustaining policy. While overemphasizing agriculture isn't too bad, the self-sustaining policy is hugely detrimental to development. Doing what you do best and trading with others for things you can't make is the best policy. Farmers, without training, wasn't cut out to be policymakers. And because of putting them in leading position, Russian economy collapsed, while the Chinese and Vietnamese ones suffered long periods of economic stagnation.

Of course, I am not a huge fan of Communism to begin with, but my point is Communism led by farmers is even more economically crippling than had it been led by workers.

but what i want is not just communism-socialism alone, but a mixture of coso and nationalism. I don't want our country become something so so... i want it to be the best, we have our own ideals and technologies which made others country become jelly.

well talking about something that does not exist...yet here is useless, but that is what i think... and i'll try my best to make it come true.

The reason the communist party developed into the main force is because of the skills in organization and communications by its core leadership. Another useful skill in such a struggle is to ensure the core leadership not be captured and decapitated.

So, why would you want to vote for a party that failed all the key tests?

All those skills were needed during war time. I thought we are voting for a party to lead the country economically? I vote for the presence, not the past. Having said that, I posted that I would "consider" not absolutely will vote for them. Who know if there is a new arising party that would do the job better than the ones we have heard of?

I have the right to choose whatever party I want to vote for, just like you have the right to vote for your Kill-all-those-Catholics party.

Minh chi lo mat may cai hai dao vao tay TC chu dam da tren dat lien thi so thang deo nao. Chong giac tau da in vao mau con ng Viet, cho du la cong san hay khong no' cung tu bung chay khi can chien dau. Khi nuoc ta con ti' hon con dam danh, huong chi bay gio. cac nuoc tren the gio rat ung ho vn , khong giong nhu luc chiem Mien.

Cai co*' tot de hoan thanh dongduong. Nhung cach em dem va tot nhat la dung nguoi tao anh huong. Vn co rat nhieu projects lam ben nuoc ban, nen dem nguoi theo lam cong tac de khai thac van de ? Vn co rat nhieu trai cao su, mia, khai thac mo ben 2 nuoc, v.v. can rat nhieu nhan cong, khong can nhieu kinh nghiem.

Well here's one thing that made the "expansion to the south" of Vietnamese different and complicated.

The English, the American, the Mongolians...they had a central authority when they expanded, all their expansion were done for the glory of their "heartland".

The Vietnamese didn't have a "heartland" in their mind when they expanded. They didn't take land for the glory of "Đông Kinh" or the Northern court.

The nation had several centers of authority at that time. First, the Mạc dynasty (based in Đông Kinh, Northern plain) and the Lê dynasty (based in Thanh-nghệ, North Central, and moved to Đông Kinh after they defeated the Mac). Most Vietnamese migrants who would carry out the process of "southern expansion" for Vietnam had origin in the North Central. To be honest, at that time they would possibly think of Northern Vietnam (ruled by the Mac) almost like a foreign state. So whatever they did, they didn't do it for a "heartland".

Furthermore, the reason Nguyễn Hoàng "fled" to the South was to seek shelter from the growing power of the Trịnh in North Central. Nguyễn Hoàng and his people most likely considered their "new land" in Thuận Quảng to be their "new homeland", the land that protected them from the tyranny of the Trịnh. They wouldn't considered either Đông Kinh or Thanh Nghệ to be the "heartland" of their nation. In the first few decades, they would still submit to the court in the North, but by the time Nguyễn Hoàng's son took over, the Nguyễn really wanted to assert independence from the Northerners.

Of course these "migrants" to the South still considered themselves to be "Viet", but they found a new way of being Vietnamese (like a new definition of Vietnamese) "new way of doing Vietnamese" (new practices and cultures), ways that are different from the Northerners. But none of them considered themselves to be "less Vietnamese".

Through the course of history, a new "Vietnamese" power of Bình Định (South Central) would emerge and take over all other Vietnamese power houses in Thuận Quảng (Central), Thanh Nghệ (North Central), and Đông Kinh (Northern plain).

But that wasn't the last. Within a few decades, another "Vietnamese" power would emerge in Gia Định (Saigon) and crush the Bình Định-based power. That was the first time in history when Vietnam appeared as it is today, a united one from North to South.


The point is, as Vietnamese moved southward, they found new ways of being/doing Vietnamese, one that is separate from their further North counterparts, but they all claimed to Vietnamese and none of them thought of themselves to be less Viet than others. They will struggle, fight against others to control the "Vietnamese-speaking world". That's what makes the expansion of Vietnamese so complicated.

Those who are useless in war are useless in peace.
I resent your suggestion that my favorite party is called that.

It's called 'Expose all hypocritical Catholicists'

Useless in war is useless in peace? More like the opposite; those who are more adept in war tend to be useless in peace. Mongolians are great examples. They arguably make the best fighters in the world, yet they struggle to run an efficient civil government. (Example of useful in war, useless in peace).

The Swiss is another counterexample. They are vulnerable to warfare but thrive in the presence of peace. (Example of useless in war, useful in peace).

The warring faction is only needed during peace time if you are using this time to scheme for the next war. I doubt Vietnamese are down for more warfare. This current generation is the first one after centuries (arguably since Mac Dang Dung overthrew the Later Le Dynasty in the 15th century) that were fully born and grew up in peace. And I want to see them eventually part this world in peace after living a long life of tranquility. Anyone who dare to disturb their peace deserves to be crushed and incinerate into ashes.

In the end, the warring faction may still present a part of the government, but it has to be drastically scaled down and should not be in the leading position. The power to make economic decisions, especially, must be removed from these people and assigned to more deserving individuals.

In Asia the bourgeoisie (and capitalists) knew how to handle commerce, but they were mainly interested in exploitation, they were short on even basic patriotism. There was no technical industrial class in Asia, it had to be force-made from farmers and literati. Communist revolution was alliance between farmers, and small numbers of workers and idealistic intellectuals; this group failed to do well both in industry and commerce (and in China even had massive failure in agriculture). To have truly successful modernization there was a need to create new classes and reform old ones. Intellectuals had to be made into science-technicians, farmers plucked for industrial workers and small business owners, bourgeoisie capitalists reformed into patriotic business leaders, and the original worker-peasant alliance had to mature politically, in order to ably oversee all of this.

You are as insightful as pile of elephant dung under the Dubai sun.

This a universal Asian trait that led us to fall behind the white men. I was told that many species of crabs when thrown inside a bucket tend to step on each other to scale the wall of the bucket. In every national struggle, as far as European powers are involved, the Asian countries tend to split among factions to fight each other. The modern success stories of Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, applicable to Kenya, Belize, South Africa, and other ex-colonies, make me wonder why Asians (and other native peoples) often prosper under white leadership? Why not the other way around? Specifically, what is it about white leadership that democratize infrastructures for a vibrant economy? Is it based on easier access to education for the most disenfranchised? Social mobility is a marked feature of many wealthy Western countries. What I am convinced of is that it takes a very short time for a country to completely alter its economic fate. It takes about two generations for a country to go from poor to wealthy.

Back to the topic.

Northern easily takes the win for high-class for me.

I think in Vietnam that's the accent that's associated with sophisticated or intelligent.

Maybe that's why at a social level, when southerners speak with northerners it feels like
northerners are obnoxious or stuck up. Cause compared to them southerners are more
simple and straightforward.

The accent itself just sounds more high-class, cool, cute, sophisticated when you hear it.
Other accents I don't get that same feel, I just get warm, cute, soft, deep etc. Kinda like when
Americans hear the British accent.

Maybe that's why even on overseas Vietnamese news channels, most of the news anchors
speak in the northern accent. Cause everyone takes the northern accent more seriously.

Yes, peace is always a good thing. I remember reading a passage from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables where a man wistfully yearn for life as a peasant's dog in peace than a wealthy man in war.

I have question for you guys:

Why is the advanced technology attained through military build up often do not get transferred to commerce? I understand that the Viet Com. Party traded a lot of timber, fishery products, and other natural resources for their Migs but why can't they reverse engineer their fancy toys for commercial applications? What's more puzzling is Russia, where their military products are highly coveted around the world but their basic products such as watches and clocks (I collect a lot of clocks) fall so far behind in technology? Even some Chinese clocks are now better made than the Russian ones. During the Romanov days, Russian quality was very high.

A country can definitely change very quickly if the right elements are in place. For Vietnam, I think the military power it had in 1975 was not even imaginable in 1945. Ideology, leadership, organization, training, these things can turn a world upside down as we saw many times during 20th century. I think during colonial times, Western Europeans did bring some fresh air to Asia, it showed to Asians the benefits of looking at things mechanically based on pursuing results, rather than the over-emphasis on tradition, personal-relations, and nonconstructive personal competition. But the problems is that colonies were ultimately designed to serve western commerce and resource interests, not to empower Asian culture itself. That is why Asians fought so hard to be able to take the reins into our own hands.

Another insightful post. This is why I value Vietnamese poets and philosophers so much when their efforts are often under appreciated in our own culture. We need these people to create a conscious awareness of what is home and what is land and how the two are inseparably joint. The Jews, for example, have a very strong cultural awareness of this concept. Most Vietnamese tend to identify with a "Vietnamese people" concept but not a "Vietnamese land" concept, perhaps this was a necessary adaptation to the recent wars. I could be wrong on this. My parents for example came from the North but their concept of home is Southern Vietnam since they were raised there. They don't really inquire too much about where and how their fathers and grandfathers or extended family who had lived and are still living in the North, so that knowledge is now lost to me. I live in the US but my concept of homeland is still very much Vietnam and I am trying to learn as much about it as possible.

Can u give some youtube examples of classy "northern accent"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEQm5D_GsJc...feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilR3ve6WvcU...feature=related

I'm sorry but she's hot so this is not an objective assessment. Can you give a regular person speaking this high class "northern accent"? Besides, it's hard to concentrate on the accent.


edit: I saw the second video. I don't think his accent sounds "high class" as it is his demeanor and manners of expression. Any accent would give the same effect.

Say if you're a fisherman, just because you have caught the best and biggest fish in Washington state, doesn't mean you can easily do so in Baja California. Every region has its own characteristics and logistically issues. If you have several brothers however, and they spend time down south while you're up north, then maybe as a family you can get fish in both regions.

Technology is kind in a similar way. You have to apply skill, talent, and experience to each region in order to excel at it. There aren't many shortcut ways to suddenly gobble up a huge swath of the ocean. Take for example fighter aircraft, every time they design a new model, even though so many basic things are still the same, ten years is needed to perfect the new model. That's because each design change takes you into a new unexplored region.

So, the ability to organize an efficient, talented, persistent team to conduct this exploration over long periods of time, in the right places, for the right targets, is key to a modern technical economy. Western europe is very good at this because 1) they've been doing it for a long time and 2) culturally they're very systems minded and results oriented.

Which accents do you think is "high class" then?

That pretty much means no accent is high class and it all depends on the way they express themselves.

But it might just be on personal opinion.

If you noticed, northerners are more serious than southerners. Maybe that's got something to do with
it. Southerners are more relaxed and comedic. Not sure about Central.