WEBVTT

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I was a war child.

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I grew up during the war and
did my high school diploma in North Vietnam.

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The war was all over the country,

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but the main theatre was in the South.

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We were were in the communist 
youth organization, of course.

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Like everything, education and
training in a communist country

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was thoroughly planned and organized.
One or two percent

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of the best students were
sent to study abroad.

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Anyone working in the social sciences,
for example,

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has to be ideologically reliable,
of course.

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I don’t think it was like that
for the natural sciences. 

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I was so young and can barely remember
how I felt at the time.

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My parents celebrated. 
It was a lucky break for us.

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Everyone dreams of going abroad.

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We were only told who was going
to which country shortly before our departure. 

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I didn’t know anything about the GDR.

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I only knew it from a children’s song
that was well-known for a time.

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In the song, a child from South Vietnam
sings of the amazing fruits Vietnam has,

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like coconut, pineapple and mango, which
we in the North didn’t even have,

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and then asks his uncle: when will it be
time to send these amazing fruits

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to our friends in East Germany?