The western imaginery of Vietnam is built over time, influenced also by the vision of The Deer Hunter (1978), Apocalypse Now (1979), Platoon (1986), Full Metal Jacket (1987). Hard to forget the red rivers on fire by napalm bombs described by Coppola. The risk is to identify a country with war, destruction, tragedy and haunting nightmares that have mortally wounded it. Nowadays the gentle atmosphere of Hanoi is suggesting peace, some contradictions and new balances, it certainly do not show the worship of a heroic past. Crossing Vietnam you meet a mild people, lover of the little things, which has won its peaceful daily epic in the rice paddies, in the fields, and in the highlands blocks. The reconstruction of the country and the policy of doi moi, the democratic economic opening initiated in 1986 by the Sixth Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party, favored a strong commercial growth and an extraordinary social change.Vietnamese society appears in a fast mutation, the ongoing changes are still unpredictable. The words of this story by Nguyen Huy Thiep appear almost prophetic about it:

This glass is dedicated to life, the content of which is sweet and sour at the same time. Those of us who accepts life, is asked to raise his own glass. Life, even when it is cruel, it is still wonderful. All the best for the new born, all the best for his future!

Out There 01 | Vietnam

Landscape Stories 13 launches a new section and, for the first time, dedicates a publication to an entire country. In the future, through our peephole, we will open with curiosity other windows on the world.