DANANG, VIETNAM – I’ve been seeing red this past week.
No, I’m not angry.
What I mean is I’ve been seeing red flags all over.
They’re not the figurative ‘red flags’ you see mentally when something seems amiss.
No, I’m talking about literal red flags, as in the national flag of Vietnam. The simple bright red banner with a brilliant yellow five-pointed star in the center.
We often see flags flying around town
We often see flags flying here and there as we travel around town. But this week the flags are everywhere. Hanging on government buildings, on businesses, restaurants, houses, apartments and hotels.
I even saw one mounted on a banh bao seller’s motorbike as he zipped past, hawking his tasty wares. Fluttering in the breeze, the miniature flag was attached to the top of the smoke-belching, wood-burning bun warmer mounted over the motorcycle’s back wheel.
So why, you may ask, are there flags flying all over the city?
What’s with all the flags?
The legions of red flags are not only on display here in Danang, where we live. They’re flying all over Vietnam in honor of Reunification Day.
On April 30, 1975, Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, was captured by North Vietnamese forces, bringing an end to the long military conflict between the north and the south, and reuniting them once again into a single country.
This year is the 46th anniversary of the event, and across the country Vietnamese citizens are celebrating the occasion with a four-day national holiday – Reunification Day on Friday (April 30), International Labor Day on Saturday (May 1), and a couple more days thrown in for good measure. (Hey, it fell on a weekend this year, so why not?)
So, wondering “What’s up with all the flags?” has given us another opportunity to learn more about the history of this fascinating Southeast Asian country.