At some point in our lives, we may have gone against all odds to try and achieve a seemingly impossible dream!
Ho Chi Minh's impossible dream however, lasted 50 years, and even when he died in 1969 he had still not achieved it - to see a free, independent and united Vietnam.
I don’t want this to sound like a boring History lesson but the Vietnam story is truly a David versus Goliath tale, except that it lasted 1,000 years! Yes, that's how long the Vietnamese have been fighting for freedom. In that time Vietnam defeated China, then lost to China, then defeated them again, etc, etc, etc… right through a few centuries.
HO CHI MINH was an extraordinary human being. Rising from a cook's assistant to becoming President of North Vietnam, and leading his country to beat TWO superpowers.
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He was brilliant and totally committed to the Vietnamese cause from age 17 when the seeds of anger against the French were first sown.
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He spoke 5 languages - Vietnamese, English, French, Mandarin and Russian.
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He was the son of a Mandarin scholar and so all his life practiced the altruistic form of Confucianism.
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Ho Chi Minh was not his real name. He went by more than 70 names in his lifetime, and faked his identity countless times to fool his enemies.
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He left Vietnam in 1911 at age 20, working as a cook's assistant and cleaner on a French liner.
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In 1919, at the Paris Peace Conference after WW1, Ho Chi Minh at only 29, audaciously walked into the conference venue and personally handed over an 8-point demand for Vietnamese autonomy to the US and French Presidents.
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Ho Chi Minh escaped execution many times although he was caught and imprisoned by the French, the British and the Chinese in the 1930s and 40s. He even escaped execution by Josef Stalin in Moscow in 1935. Perhaps, it was his destiny...
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While being President of North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh pleaded with FIVE American Presidents to help his country and end the wars. None of them bothered to listen.
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