Like most of us, I knew little more about Vietnam when I went there in August of this year. I was in for many a surprise. The Vietnam of today, nearly ten years after its reunification, is a desperately poor and struggling country, isolated, surrounded by hostile neighbours and cut off from most foreign countries outside of the Communist bloc. It lacks consumer goods; its buildings and equipment are shabby and dilapidated, its technology outdated, backward and constantly falling behind; and its citizens ill-clothed and poorly housed. Thirty years of almost continuous war have taken their toll.