Word: minh
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Nguyen Gia Thieu's neighbors rarely saw him, except when they glimpsed his silver Mercedes gliding through the gates of his three-story villa in Ho Chi Minh City. His lifestyle?the house, the servants, the beauty-queen wife?befitted one of Vietnam's top entrepreneurs, but it infuriated the community. One neighbor snarls, "They are too rich to even look at ordinary people." So there was no sympathy on Jan. 7 when police arrested Thieu, 38, then raided his house, hauling off reams of documents and more than $250,000 in cash. The charge: his Dong Nam Telecom Trade...
...Western business and technical expertise. The Hanoi government courts them with preferential tax rates, relaxed visa requirements, even low-interest loans. "It's the best of both worlds," says David Thai, 30, who returned in 1995 and now runs Viet Thai International, a coffee business in Ho Chi Minh City. "In business terms, it's pretty much a license to kill...
...Less traveled is the northeastern loop, where the nascent tourist industry could take "Ho Chi Minh slept here" as its motto. Cao Bang province near the Chinese border is where the founder of independent Vietnam and his Viet Minh guerrillas hid from the French colonial army in the 1940s. The provincial government has turned the village of Pac Bo, said to be the site of the exact cave where Uncle Ho hid for four long years, into a communist-themed tourist attraction, complete with signs pointing out Karl Marx Mountain and Lenin Stream...
...combines all the major world religions and counts Julius Caesar, Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin among its saints. Since its recognition by Vietnam's communist government in 1997, Caodaism has flourished, and now tourists flock to its mecca in Tay Ninh province, about 90 kilometers northwest of Ho Chi Minh City. Visitors can wander the gaudy halls of the Holy See in search of enlightenment?or an eyeful. Murals depict the sacred eye of God in a triangle and recreate the signing of the Third Alliance between God and man, witnessed by Caodaism's most revered saints: Vietnamese poet Trang...
...communicate with spirits via s?ances. Communist leaders replaced the church's ruling hierarchy with a government-supervised council after the fall of Saigon in 1975, but the faith endures for millions of Vietnamese. "God teaches us that everyone is equal and there are many paths," says Doan Tuong Minh, 77, who has followed Caodaism since she was 18. "If you open your heart, your third eye will open, and God will give you peace." In the halls of the Holy See, it seems to make sense. Then again, maybe it's all those pink lotuses...