Americans and the Vietnam War

• Texas Tech University's Vietnam Center offers one of
  the most extensive repositories of historical and
  contemporary events in Vietnam. http://www.ttu.edu/~vietnam
• The Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (http://www.vvaf.org/) is working on many outreach programs in Vietnam and the United States
• The Vietnam Veterans homepage (http://www.vietvet.org) offers a clearinghouse of information, reminiscences, and services for vets and their families
• Those interested in learning more about the POW/MIA issue can check out the POW Network at http://www.pownetwork.org/
• The Library of Congress POW/MIA Database has over 130,000 searchable records which can be viewed at http://memory.loc.gov/pow/powhome.html
• Visit this the Sixties Project website (http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/ ) to read personal accounts of the protest years in the U.S.

Vietnamese and the “American War”

• For a balanced overview of the war and contemporary documents relating to the conflict, check out Vassar College professor Robert Brigham’s site at http://www.vassar.edu/vietnam/overview.html. A website developed around the course materials used by Robert Brigham on his course on the Vietnam War at Vassar College.
• Army photographer E. Kenneth Hoffman took thousands of pictures of ordinary Vietnamese people during the war. Check out his online gallery at http://icarus.shu.edu/gallery/V_Portfolio/
• For more information on “Agent Orange” and chemical weapons sprayed over Vietnam during the war, see http://www.lewispublishing.com/orange.htm and the University of Wisconsin’s http://whyfiles.org/025chem_weap/dioxin.html
• A US-based site called http://www.vietworld.com is dedicated to the memory of those interned in re-education camps after the war in Vietnam.
• The American NGO Peace Trees Vietnam is working to remove landmines from the central province of Quang Tri. Check out their website (http://www.peacetreesvietnam.org) for more information on usage of mines during the war.

Vietnamese-Americans

• With tens of thousands of links, Vietgate (http://www.vietgate.net) has been called the "Yahoo of the Vietnamese online community.”
• Two Vietnamese refugees have created http://www.boatpeople.com as a clearinghouse for information about the Vietnamese diaspora. Visitors can read moving accounts of escapes from Vietnam, and even try to locate friends and relatives.
• So many Vietnamese-Americans live in Orange County, California that the city of Westminster is now commonly known as Little Saigon. The http://www.littlesaigon.com website is a portal to the services and activities in this community.
• For a look at one of the US-based organizations which oppose the current government in Vietnam, check out http://www.fva.org

Vietnam Today

Culture and daily life

• Read about the latest Vietnam happenings at the website of the state-owned English language daily, the Vietnam News (http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Home.htm)
• This page (http://www.vietnamadventures.com/language_culture/culture.html) offers a guide to everything from tipping to Vietnamese beer to marriage ceremonies
• Ever wondered if it’s proper to slurp your soup in Vietnam? Check out Fun with Pho (http://www.best.com/~phohoa/phun.html)
• The San Jose, California-based Vietnam Entertainment Network (http://www.vietscape.com) offers excellent information on Vietnamese singers and movies featuring Vietnamese actors in English
• Anyone interested in Vietnamese art, architecture, philately, literature or traditional music should check out the beautifully-designed http://www.viettouch.com.

Business

• A useful set of links to pages relating to doing business in Vietnam can be found at http://www.business-in-asia.com/vietnam.htm
• There is an American Chamber of Commerce (http://www.amchamvn.com) in Vietnam thatpromotes US ventures in Vietnam and the opening up of trade between the two countries.
• An interesting archive of articles about business and the free market in Vietnam can be accessed courtesy of the Vietnam Business Journal (http://www.viam.com)
• For the full text of the recently-signed Bilateral Trade Agreement between the US and Vietnam, go to http://www.ustr.gov/regions/asia-pacific/text.html

Visiting Vietnam

• Destination Vietnam (http://www.thingsasian.com/destination/vietnam/index.htm) is a good entry point for those planning a Vietnam trip, with travel stories posted by recent visitors plus useful listings
• Asiatravel (http://asiatravel.com/vietinfo.html) offers weather forecasts, information on visas and passports, sightseeing, dining, even a glossary of Vietnamese phrases.
• For one cyclist’s journey from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, check out Ted Ritter’s http://www.adventurecycling.net/cyclevietnam.html
• Check the status of the latest monsoon or other weather pattern at http://weather.yahoo.com/regional/Asia/Vietnam.html
• Ann Tran’s HCM City-based travel agency Ann Tours (http://www.anntours.com) can help arrange vacations and sightseeing
• For more information about the visas needed for any trip to Vietnam, go to the Vietnam Embassy website at http://www.vietnamembassy-usa.org

Reference:

• Links to primary materials such as the 1992 Vietnamese constitution, as well as links to publications in Vietnam, can be found at http://www.politicalresources.net/vietnam.htm.
• The University of Michigan’s excellent Southeast Asian Studies department has collected useful research links at http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Area.Programs/Southeast.Asia
• Find basic information and statistics pertaining to Vietnam in the CIA’s World Fact Book at http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/vm.html