Vietnamese Kids Seek Out Banned Books

The government can ban all the books they want. The young people of Vietnam will read them anyway.

From an article in the Washington Post...

“The more the government tries to ban something, the more young people try to find out why,” the 20-year-old said in the capital, Hanoi.

Vietnam’s graying Communist Party is all about control: It censors all media, squashes protests and imprisons those who dare to speak out against its one-party system. But today, as iPhone shops rub shoulders with Buddhist pagodas, cultural authorities are finding it increasingly difficult to promote their unified sense of Vietnamese culture and identity — especially among the country’s youth.

“This is a key turning point for the younger generation,” said Thaveeporn Vasavakul, a Southeast Asia scholar who consults on public sector reform in Vietnam.

“Despite one-party rule you see pluralism in the cultural and political thinking. And the younger generation is standing there, looking around, and seeing a lot of options to choose from.”