Bac Thai is a remote province several hours north of Hanoi, Vietnam right on the border with China.I traveled there on a two-week medical mission at a small hospital in Thai Nguyen. It was a very intense, unforgettable experience.
It was here, in a tiny, rural village in Northern Vietnam that I had an epiphany – where I came up with the idea of empowering local doctors and hospitals instead of sending American volunteers on 2-week medical missions.
As we drove north from Hanoi, we passed by dozens of cemeteries, filled with endless rows of what I assumed were anonymous graves.
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- Operation Smile trip to Bac Thai
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About Vietnam:
Per Wikipedia
Vietnam was inhabited by the Paleolithic age, with states established in the first millennium BC on the Red River Delta in modern-day northern Vietnam. The Han dynasty annexed Northern and Central Vietnam under Chinese rule from 111 BC, until the first dynasty emerged in 939. Successive monarchical dynasties absorbed Chinese influences through Confucianism and Buddhism, and expanded southward to the Mekong Delta, conquering Champa. The Nguyễn—the last imperial dynasty—fell to French colonization in 1887. Following the August Revolution, the nationalist Viet Minh under the leadership of communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh proclaimed independence from France in 1945.
Vietnam went through prolonged warfare in the 20th century. After World War II, France returned to reclaim colonial power in the First Indochina War, from which Vietnam emerged victorious in 1954. The Vietnam War began shortly after, during which the nation was divided into communist North supported by the Soviet Union and China, and anti-communist South supported by the United States. Upon the North Vietnamese victory in 1975, Vietnam reunified as a unitary socialist state under the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in 1976. An ineffective planned economy, a trade embargo by the West, and wars with Cambodia and China crippled the country further. In 1986, the CPV initiated economic and political reforms similar to the Chinese economic reform, transforming the country to a market-oriented economy. The reforms facilitated Vietnamese reintegration into global economy and politics.
A developing country with a lower-middle-income economy, Vietnam is one of the fastest growing economies of the 21st century, with GDP predicted to rival developed nations by 2050, despite high levels of corruption, censorship and a poor human rights record; the country ranks among the lowest in international measurements of civil liberties, freedom of the press and freedom of religion and ethnic minorities. It is part of international and intergovernmental institutions including the ASEAN, the APEC, the CPTPP, the Non-Aligned Movement, the OIF, and the WTO. It has assumed a seat on the United Nations Security Council twice.