Contains the fourth most populous country in the world and the largest islamic country in the world. They are, in fact, one and the same indonesia. A fragmentary state spread across an archipelago of 13,000 islands, indonesias motto is unity in diversity. Lately, it does not seem so unified. East timor recently broke away. Rebel forces on aceh and irian jaya threaten the same. While most of indonesia is islamic the island of bali is mostly hindu. Is this why radical muslims recently bombed a popular nightclub here . Or it is because the tropical paradise was a mecca for western tourists . In the current war against terrorism, we explore the geographical roots of the tourist economy that crashed after the violent attack in 2002; whether the influx of visitors will threaten the local indigenous culture; and how balis distinct culture fits into the complex diversity of indonesia. These balinese fishermen still use the methods passed down from their grandfathers. But life around them is changing. Its a lot greener than i thought itd be. Yeah look at all those coconut trees. Some of those roadside stalls look interesting. Yeah, might do those tomorrow. Still havent worked out the money though. people clamoring airport announcements narror bali has bn a ist mecca for more than 50 years they come from around the world. Touristsng money and jobs, but they also bring with them different cultural values. Tourist . With the headdress. Theyre hindu ladies. Whats the religion here . Uh, theyre muslims. Narrator maintaining a strong sense of identity has been a challenge for bali it embracconomicdelopmthrourism. There seem to be an awful lot of tourist buses, too. Yeah, ive seen a lot of tourists in those fourwheel drives, too. Tourist yeah . Comefr austral becae its so near. And they le the sun, the beach, the beer and so on. Welso vey nese who aroflaces awai iome inorol people who are retired who come here for the peace and quiet. Also, a of amecans come here. Narrator the balinese depend on the tourist economy but some worry that balinese culture will be overwhelme by eernal pressures. Bali is one of the islands in the Worlds Largest archipelago which forms the country of indonesia. More than 200 Million People live here, and they speak more than 300 different languages. Overcoming the barriers of language and the geographical isolation of Island Living has been a big problem for the indonesian government. Woman well, its spatially of course, a country thats in so many thousands of islands over such a large area its hard to integrate that into one economy. Until there was a satellite in orbit over indonesia, for example, all the people in the country couldnt hear the president of their country at the same time. Theres no way to connect those islands and communication until then. Its part of why they have preserved their diversity, because theres different kinds of people and religions on the different islands and the different regionalizations and while they maintain some separateness, it was very much easier to practice the unity in diversity thats their national motto, because they were spatially apart and they were in different territories and they didnt conflict with each other in everyday life. Narrator but the government has sponsored a largescale migration out of the Major Population Centers to less developed areas. The one thing that has happened with the migration and the change is that millions of people have been moved out of java, out of madura to occupy and to change the rain forest and the swamp into productive land for export into oil palm and into agriculture and as they have done this they have moved muslims from sulawesi into the spice islands. They have moved people from madura into parts of kalimantan that were animous and hill tribe and this. And moved indonesian, javanese officials into government and hotel and tourist industry in bali. And so its only in the last few. Couple decades that the ethnic and religious thing has been really scrambled into one nation, which on one level will help integration in the long term but right now means that people are losing their land to people of different religions; that people are losing their business and their jobs to people of different languages. And so its bringing the ethnic groups into daytoday conflict in a way that they havent been in the past. Narrator more than half of indonesias population lives on the relatively small island of java. The capital city jakarta is the political and Economic Center of indonesia. The island of bali is about 600 miles to the east of jakarta. Bali is just 90 miles long and 50 miles wide, but has a population of two and a half million. Bali is unique in the predominantly muslim nation of indonesia. The main religion here is hindu. Bali is indonesias premier tourist destination, and that creates otr conflicts. Man we have two properties in bali. We have ou1,30employs. Sheraton is focusing on developing the local indonesians to manage our chain of hotels. We have five hotels now. We plan to have about ten. Dont just practice your english in the class. Narrator manager tony sardjano is not a hindu. Nor is he a native balinese. He is at the cutting edge of a strategy to develop the indonesian economy through tourism. Sardjano i used to live in jakarta, the capital city of indonesia. I saw that bali was fast developing. Its the east the easterga ofasarofndonesia. Soame reouyears ago to open uphe hotel here from scratch. Narrator as parofevelopme tcd in jakarta resorts like nusa dua have changed the balinese landscape. Sardjano in t pt, the ld o be vy rr. There would be fishermens living here, but hardly anythg. So what we did was e governmentought e laom t local people, d they buifi, six,even resort hotels pladitl music sardjano the local people still live outside of the nusa dua area. Now they are working with us as cooks, waiters, stewards, security guards and so on. Narrator the jobs given to locals are often at the lower pay levels. Then again, the work may beat the alternaves. Meade theres not an awful lot of other ways to make a living. Thes intensive wet rice farming with all its very hard labor and theres some local fishing although the International Fisheries and the japanese trawlers have really hurt that. Narrator seventy percent of the locals now rely on tourism for their income. And with the new jobs comes the requirement to learn at least some english. If you met a guest in the corridor here and he asks you, where is the laundry . What would you say . How would you answer him . Sardjano most of these young people come from the villages around the hotels. At our hotel, for instance 60 of the staff are fromhe island of bali itself. Thats why they are mostly hindu. The other 40 come from java and other parts of indonesia. Thats why they are mostly muslims or christian. Excellent. Your english is very good. You should be working in the front office. Teaching Staff in local language narrator the mix of cultures within the workforce at the hotels results from a government policy encouraging people to move away from the countrys cities suffering crowded development to the new tourist areas. But that strategy presents its own problems. Sardjano the Tourism Industry also has some negative aspts. With the westerners coming then they come and they bring their westn lifestyle. If you ask an indonesian ost what comes to your mind when you think of bali . Then very innocentlyhey will y,ugs, sprostitutes. Rrator kuta is the olst tourist area in bali. Critics say s tourism gone mad, resulting in overcrowding, overdevelopment and environmental damage. Surfers first came here looking for the dream wave. They delighted in the relaxed lifestyle and the unique culture. Now its hard to find the gentle, highly rig balineseay of life they foundo attractive. But attempts are being made to balance tourism fe and the natural enviroent in places throughout indonesia. Bali, the towof u recognized the problems of tourism from the beginning. Man e problem that we have its we. Sicapaceime. Moourists, mo balinese ow and also, obviously, its so many different kind of tourist coming they all will bring different expectation from what we. We can offer. A in r fy. Its his job to protect the local culture. Restrictions have been placed on activities that clash traonifes street peddlers are noallowed here. There are no large modern neon signs. Tourists are welcome in the temples mustsseherding ocal custom. The princeelieves the banese traditiowillurvive raka but one thing, as long as we can hold on to our concept to own principle then we be able to take what best for us and to offer what best to others. Like bees and flowers they take each other but they giving each other at the same time. And thats what make, i think, bali still survive causthatof ene that kind of power that we still have. Meade a consnt onslaught of tourists, millions and millions a year this isnt new. This w going on aft world war ii. And when all the surfers. When other people in asia were throwing the hippies out and were cutting their hair at airports and. Bali was adopting them. People have been coming into bali as tourism for a long time and it comes closer to bali converting them to their culture than losing theirs to the foreigners. But its out of scale now. I mean, how many millions can you absorb as tourists . And what oer jobs that arent deadend hotel jobs can there be . So the economidevelopment issues, i think, are very serious. But i personally cant see the threat to balinese culture. They have figured that one out. Narrator malaysia is a country which is part peninsula and part island. E peninsula is home e capital city, ala lumpur and is far more developed than the land portion of malays. Yet, like indosia, e overall unity of this physically and culturally diverse socie is striking. Malaysia, which has had remarkable Economic Growth over the past 40 years is also home to a variety of ethnic and religious groups. Approximately 60 of the population is malay; 30 , Ethnic Chinese; and just under ten percent are of indian descent. Lets look at how malaysia has worked to achieve a balance between the different ethnic groups with its mticultural society as it moves through the 21st century. Malaysia is at the crossroads of maritime trade between china,ia d arn niula. One hundred years ago, it was even reo. Under British Colonial rule, cultural exchangesetween many of the wods peoples flourished on this peninsula. About 180 miles south of kuala lumpur, the Nations Capital lies the village of rengit in the southwest part of the state of johor. Nagata junji is a geographer who is studying how different ethnic groups mingle in malaysia. Ethnic makeup varies by region. This village is about 80 malay and 20 chinese. women laughing the village was settled about 90 years ago, mostly by malays. Nagata wants to find out how the malays and chinese have interacted over the years and how their society has become structured to ease relations between the two groups. Five times a day, the sound of the koran, the islamic bible, echoes throughout the village. Islam is a major influence on the lives of the malay people. Nagata visits one malay farming family. Sohot bin kamin is the son of malay settlers. He and his wife live here with their five children and four grandchildren. speaking malay translator my father came here from java. I remember him telling me how they cleared the jungle, built the roads all by themselves and planted their crops. They didnt have much to eat and rice wasnt available, so they mostly ate potatoes. Narrator most farmers in this area grow oil palms. Sowo however, even with this income he barely kes enough to feed his family. Sohot sells the oil palms that he harvests to a broker who lives in the same village. Sia yong tee, an Ethnic Chinese, is also a secondgeneration son of settlers. conversing in malay translated could i ask you what tays price is for palm oil . translated two hundredplus ringgit per ton. How much do you think is here . More than a ton and a half, id say. Narrator sia became an oil palm broker seven years ago. He and his family handle 30d 400 toil palm a month. The Family Income is now coiderably more than that of the average malay farming household. Twice a day, in the morning and in the evening sia lights incense for the spirits of his ancestors. His late father came here from china in the middle 1920s. Sia says his roots run deep in this village. speaking malay translator i hope that my sons will continue with the family business. I think that Oil Palm Cultivation will increase, and i hope that they will stay with it for a long time. Narrator in 1969, the capital, kuala lumpur, erupted in race riots after an election. Malays were pitted against Ethnic Chinese as rural mals expressed their resentment over the Rising Economic might of the urb chinese. After the riots, the government instituted social policies aimed at reducing the economic gap between the different ethnic groups. Bumiputera, or malays first, is at the heart of this policy. Itlaces controls on education and employment and extends across the entire range of social relations. After the race riots in the 60s, the government decided that they had to break that identification. They had to bring malays into the city, into the growing manufacturing into the future of the country and build one malaysia that way, that if they just left them as the poor farmers out in the countryside it was going to be nothing but trouble. And so their policies made malay the national language. They saved the university positions for the malays; they made the schools in malay; they put all the. The banking was for malay. Companies had to be malay, and then they might hire chinese subcontractors to do the actual printing. But the Printing Publishing Companies had to be malay. And so the chinese who had been wealthy a lot of them left to canada and to singapore. For the chinese who remained, however they stayed in an economy that was growing in prosperity a country that was growing. And its not as though their land or their money or anything was taken from them; its the shift in the opportunities. Its like affirmative action where the people need. In the affirmative action have the military and have the power and have the government to do it kind of affirmative action with teeth. Fangs. And it succeeded in the sense that malaysia. In my time, malaysia has gone from being only 30 urban and the malays were almost entirely rural to being a clear majority urban, when. Almost 70 overall and a majority of malays now live in the city. So this is quite a transformation. Naator efcts of the social chges extend even to the life of farm families. Sohots children are moving away from agriculture and into other occupations. Sohots only son, amerul graduated this yea from a trade school, and has begun working in a factory in a nearby ville. Factory produces d assembles electrical parts fosiorean and japanese manufacturers factories ch as this one are being builall ov malaysia. Relationships are changing as malays and nonmalays sit down next to one another on the assembly line. speaking chinese translator yes, we who manage the factory are chinese malaysians but sometimes we are not ready to understand other malay cultures. So in this factory, we set up a special counseling room where malay workers can visit and talk about whatever is on their mind if they have problems on the job or if they have ideas about their work. We would like to make the best of use of their voices for the management of our company. Narrator but bridging the cultural gulf between malay and nonmalay is no small task. Meade were not talking little differences here. I mean, Chinese Civilization indian civilization, malay civilization; different alphabets, different literatures, different philosophies. They all have their Different National holidays; they all have their different marital patterns. You can have three wives if youre malay. You cant have three wives if youre an indian. If youre christian, you cant but if youre muslim, you can. Different holidays. Muslims have to fast. Theyll go in and take malays out of restaurants during ramadan if theyre not fasting. But that doesnt mean that the europeans or the chinese or the indians have to fast. Its a truly plural society. speaking malay translator rather than one ethnic group taking on the culture of another we have people maintaining their own customs and lifestyles while living together. Another important thing is that, for instance the old framework of the chinese being the merchants and the malays being the farmers is changing. Malays are aggressively moving into employment outside of the agricultural sector. I think that big changes are on the horizon and these changes will hold great importance for the future. Narrator today, malaysia has set its sights on entering the ranks of firstwor countries by the year 2020. Under the banner of vision 2020, it is pursuing longterm Economic Development. Meade malaysias current vision is a cyber country. They want to take cybernetics, information, the future of the computer age away from singapore and to build a whole corridor in the city of the most advanced electronic state in the world. Narrator for now, malaysia has taken steps to becoming an economic tiger in Southeast Asia. Its success will be revealed in how malaysia continues to develop as a stable multicultural society. Captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org nenberg media for information about this and other annenberg media programs call 1800learner and visit us at www. Learner. Org. I think it breaks a little to the left. Uhuh. To the right. Nope. Straight. Girl come on i told you it was going right. Get up, get up, get up and be a playah get up, get up, get up get up, get up, get up and be a playah players get up and play. An hour a day. Announcer for fun playtime ideas, go online just dont stay long. Get up, get up, get up annenberg media ptioning sponsored by Annenberg Cpb narrator the geographic region of Southeast Asia and South Pacific is characterized by political and economic disparity a mosaic of small countries scattered on peninsulas and islands. We begin in laos, Southeast Asias only landlocked country. A long history of isolation has protected its Natural Resources and ingenous cultures. Laos today is beginning to court the Global Economy through e sale of hydroelecic power. Weskf laosan achieve Sustainable Development,generating ecoc growth whilmataing the tegrity of its indigenous tions d its natural environment. The mekong river traces an 1,100mile path through or along the border of laos. The river has also been a barrier between laos and its neighbors. Now there is a road, where before there was none. In 1994, the friendship bridge gave laos its first land link with the outside world through thailand to the west. The bridge may symbolize a connected future but laos in the here and now remains among the poorest countries in the world. rooster crows it is the least developed country in the lower mekong basin. Life expectancy is low about 53 years. rooster crow cn e maoushed. The potential changes brought by Economic Development are enormous. The soil here is rich and fertile. Laos remains a largely agrarian society. Lowland peoples practice wet rice farming. The capital, vientiane has a population of just half a million. The rest of the 5½ million laotians are spread over 155 million square miles of land. Itshe sonlowestpuon densiasia and the least urbanized country in the region. Around laos lie the deveping economies of thailand, china, vietnam and cambodia. The north of laos is almos entirely mountains covering 70 of the country. Much of its western border is defined by the mekong river a tural barrier to trade. The friendship bridge breached that barrier. Narrator somphavan inthavong is in the power business. He was an engineer on the first hydroelectric scheme built here in 1951. To him, these rugged mountains and flowing waters are a pot of gold. Laos produces far more electricity than it can use. The surplus, approximately 80 of the power generated is sold to thailand at a profit. The dream is on a grand scale laos emerging to the world on an electricityled boom. Inthavong narrator the hydroelectric business could make enough money to power the improveme ofheconomyand e stanrdf livi herbut laos cant pay for construction of the dams and generators. Traditionally, around the world, dam construction took the form of Massive Public projects grand symbols of national development, like egypts aswan dam. But laos is following a new model privatization. Woman globally, theres a trend towards privatization of Water Resources and in laos this is taking the form of hydroelectric power generation. Not only is laos able to export electricity in and therefore earn hard currency which is necessary for it to be involved in the Global Economy but also since the government of laos doesnt have the resources necessarily to develop largescale hydropower electric dams the. Its being increasingly carried out by private corporations. Narrator this private development is carried out through something called a boot scheme, which stands for buildoperateowntransfer. Fox a private corporation will build, operate, own a hydroelectric dam for a specified number of years, and then at the end of that time when theyve recouped an agreedupon profit, they hand it back to. Hand it back over to the lao government. Narrator its hoped that further Hydroelectric Development will provide the money needed to lift laotian living standards. The government wants to reduce poverty from 40 to ten percent by the year 2010. But it is dauntingask. The lao economy remains largely agricuural 80 of the population is rural. Only limited industry, such as cotton or silk has begun in vientiane. Literacy rates are among the worlds lowest. Health care is another area of concern. Although immunization programs have reded the threat of measles, in morliromother disease remains high. Ther ltlseweraorccs ci. Theres a very low Immunization Coverage around 30 on the national average, and this is the. Is the lowest in asia and theres only a few countries in africa that are lower. The children are dying primarily of malaria, diarrheal diseases and upper respiratory infections. Narrator for most people, the only fresh water comes from wells. Ironically, in a country that exports more electricity than it can consume, only eightercentof turalulatio is connected to the electric grid. This situation reflects an urban bias. Fox an important critique of dams is that they serve urban areas more so than rural areas. So, for example, many of the dams in laos wi be selling energy to thailand and that will go to bangkok. And, ironically, often people who are dispced by dams or who are impacted in some way in the rural areas will not see the benefits in terms of electricity. Narrator displacement of People Living in areas targeted for dam construction is only one fact of Hydroelectric Development whether privately or publicly funded. Fox all around the world tens of millions of people have been displaced by largescale dams. In laos, it does disproportionately impact ethnic minorities who live in the highland areas where the dams are being built. So theyre resettled away from the reservoir areas and theyre also resettled away from the mountains and highlands above reservoirs. Narrator anotr oblem with resettlement in laos isacy ofheamar os wasaughinssasbombede ail. X 9 io oorance droedn osanmuchf itai inanca unexpded. Atoferty soheople areesettled example from higand area where theycticeshifng cultivation to mida lowland area where they must grow wet rice or some other unfamiliar crop, not only might they be exposed to unexploded ordnance but if peoe need to sulement their food source or their income because theyre unfamiliar with the techniques required to grow lowland rice they may return to forests as familiar sites. Anese are aces ilaos thatend have veryigh levef unexodedordnance still today. Naator ere are ecological conceswland dwelle as well people here continue to depend on seasonal floodi along e meko river for their Food Production and livelihoods. Dams even out the flow of water, creating problems for people practicing floodrecession agriculture. So during the dry season the banks are exposed and people grow all sorts of vegetables on them, and during the wet season, theyre inundated and silt sediments are deposited on the banks. So a hydroelectric power dam would essentially eliminate that agricultural landscape. Narrator laos is not a democracy. Even if local people wish to protest the elimination of their landscapes and lifestyles, they have few options. Fox geographers might think of them as powerless place, and these corporations in a world of globalization and Global Finance might be thought of as placeless power. And when those come together in time and space, it can have perhaps some unprecedented geographical impacts. I think the question needs to be. Eds toe aske is this a viable longterm Development Strategy . Will it. In 30 or 40 years will these dams still be generating enough electricity to produce significant revenues, and even though it may increase the total g. N. P. Or Gross National product of laos how will it actually impact people. Narrator but for now, laoss plans for engagement in the Global Economy are focused on exploiting its Water Resources and overcoming its geographic isolation by developing its transportation infrastructure. New roads are planned to link china and thailand with seapos in vietnam. Suthernd the countrys going to open up very quickly, and thats going to bring a lot of good to the country. But theres also a danger that it will bring a lot of influences, particularly from thailand that are not so good. Fox thailand and laos are sort of analogous to the u. S. And canada. The cultures seem very similar but thailand is very dominant in a way that the u. S. Is very dominant and there is anxiety among the laos. They want to be like thailand in many ways but are also fearful of the influence of thailand. And you can see this for example, in Something Like the spread of hiv aids which is a very serious problem in thailand, and one that the lao government is, you know anxious to deal with before it becomes a serious problem in laos. Narrator for some laotians, the pull of the Global Economy is irresistible. Inthavong i think its a question of trying to make the best of that change to take the good things and leave the bad aside. And itll be interesting to see whether the social development can keep pace. Fox laos is a country that has many possible futures. It is a country that still has pristine forests and freeflowing rivers. Laos is a country that may be able to structure its development in a way that is truly Sustainable Development that actually leads to an increased standard of living but not at the expense of the environment or of a very special and distinct culture. Inthavong narrator although its history and geography have long isolated laos from its neighbors and the world, today it is increasingly connected to the Global Economy. As it generates growth through the sale of hydroelectricity the need to build more and more dams may put local cultures and biodiversity at risk. The question of Sustainable Development in laos remains. With increasing global connection, who will hear the local voices . In the region of Southeast Asia and South Pacific, vietnam is a country whose name is forever etched in the american psyche. Today, this determined nation is steadily coming to terms with its wartorn past and is experiencing rapid Economic Growth. Here we explore how vietnasphysical geograpke to icomic deen the sht omollectivomculte, and e grow of urban centers like Ho Chi Minh City. Abundant water and the silt thats been deposited here over thousands of years makes the mekong delta one of the most fertile regions on earth. speaking vietnamese translator i grow three crops of rice a year. Each yields about 1,20kilograms a total of 3,600 kilograms a year. When the price is good i sell this rice but if the price is not good en ill save it. Rrator3,0 kilograms, or nearly 8,000 pounds, is a respectable yield. Improved agriculral practices have steadily increased rice output. When the mekong river enters vietnam it fans out form a giant a. The delta land is ideally suited to growing rice. Yet in the late 1970s,ieam was onhe verge of famine. Translator i grew only one crop a year. Because there was norrigation, there wasnt enough water to grow more than one crop. So we didnt procenough. Atorngomedbywaed changes since then have turned vietnam into theorlds second rgesce expor effective irrigation Land Management and access to World Markets are helping vietnam maximize the benefits of its physical environment. Before 1988, rice in vietnam was produced by collectives. Individual farmers had little responsility for their land and virtually incentive to increase productivity. man speaking vietnamese translator in the collective system faers are just hired han. Everything they produce becomes the collectives pperty. The collecti then triesto selthe oduce to payhe farme according to their cib narrator inhe 1990sa marketoriente conact system was installed. The collectives were disnded reinstating the individual farmer as tinchpin of rice production. Translator in the contract system the farmers profit from whatever they produce; theyre wholly entitled to the fits of their labor. Narrator the move from collectiveo commercial farming also created another success story. The hillountry to the rth, between hue and saigon or Ho Chi Minh City is a perfect climate from where to growoffee. Narrator vietm is now theorssecondiggest pducer, just behind brazil. Coffee outt re w s the power aect the global price. Coffee is one of the mostimportant agricultural pducts traded on a global scale and does represent an opportunity for the vietnamese to earn a lot of export dollars. Vietnam has ideal growing conditions for a number of very importantand exotic crops and in terms of being able to produce desirable export, agricultural exports it really has a very important comparative advantage that way. Narrator farmers like le van than still dont own land. Theyre given landuse certificates, guaraneing a farmers right to usehe land. These rights are validfor at lst 20 years. Faopat t now its done on a commercial basis. When le n an needs a tractor, hires o from his neighbor. In peak periods, he employs outside help. During hvest, farmers hire machinery r shing. Each village usuallyas a machine for husk removal. But often farmers decide to sell their grain to a larger mill that serves a wider area. He, too, policy has changed. Once, all of these mills wereovernment owned and run. Now many, like this one, are in private hands. Its highly efficient; very little is wasted. Grain dust is fed to pigs. These husks are used as fuel for cooking. The rice is moved to market in a number of ways. The mekong delta has a welldeveloped road system built by the french when they controlled the country and extended by americans during the vietnam war in the 60s and 7 along with the use of road transport, half othe rice is transportedy boat. In addition to its nural waterys vietnam has a vast network of canals more than 11,000 miles in all. Given that water is so plentiful in the mekong delta, it seems ironic that when le van than began farming, he and his fellow farmers suffered water shortages. Translator before 1978 here we only grew one rice crop. From 1979 on thanks to irrigation we could grow two crops. Sincweve be growi cro. Narrator better irrigation made the increase possible. But getting water from the rivers to each rice field at the correct time requires extensive organization. man speaking vietnamese translator to bring water into the paddies, there are two ways that work. One is the stateowned system with the large pumping stations. We invest money for those stations. The other way is that some householan do the pumping themselves or they can googether with other families toorm group of peoe for pumping water in theaddies. Mondetion. This is thchf townin le s provie. Most of its 100,000 people are involved in some way in the rice growing system. Farmers come here to buy suppls such as seed and fertilizer and new machinery. ducklings peeping progressive farmers are also integrating otod or incomproducing activities into eir la translator in addition to working in the rice fields we keep some farm animals chickens and pigs and we have a fish pond. Compared to rice growing Animal Husbandry is better. Rice profits depend a lot on markeuctuation. Fish and meat prices depend on the market, too as much. Naator m 40 erlynown as saigon. It is the most densely poputed area of etnam, home to almost five Million People. The city embraced the socalled on door policy introduced by the government in 1986 to stimulate the economy. Daniere Ho Chi Minh City is the Economic Center of the country. Hanoi is the pocal, cultural, bureaucratic cente of the country located thousands of miles away. Ilding on its history of an Economic Center, saigon and Ho Chi Minh City has reemerged as a flourishing place to conduct capitalist globalization business. A mber of very large muatnal corporat for example, have located in andround Ho Chi Minh City and employ hundreds of thousands of vietnamese toork in their factories. Vietnam has tried to encourage partnerships with vietnamese Stateowned Enterprises and private multinationals to set up jointly owned factories. Shoes, clothing, pais, chemicals, radios i mean, you name it, thre doing it. Narrator Ho Chi Minh City is the rice industs center as well. Rice from the provinces arrives at places like the bi tay mill. In 199became the first mill in vietnam to supply rice to the United States where this shipment is heade other shipments go to the middle east and elsewhere in asia. Daniere its a wonderfully located city in terms oexport potential. Its ideally located to ship things in and out. Narrator vietnam has successfully transformed its rice industry by establishing clear rights of control over land by making effective use of irrigation and by ensuring ready access to World Markets. Anrhaps stmportantly its due tthe rts of Farming Families likee van thans they are changing a long history of rice farming in the mekong delta. Now they are not onlyfeeding vietnam, but helping build a major sustainable export industry. Vietnam has been one of the most rapidly growing countries of the last decade. We see this in the boomi urban ceer of Ho Chi Minh City. One key to this development has been vietnams physical geography along with a shift from collective to commercial agriculture. For now,resno reason to expec that vieams growt should not continue we ie st century. Captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org funding for this program [with captioning] was provided by additional funding is provided by and narrator each video episode has three parts. Watch the program, read your bo