North Vietnam

North Vietnam is the part of the country where most of the fighting took place during and after the Second World War. It is where Bo spent his early childhood, often with war and conflict raging around him. North Vietnam is where the communist factions fighting for Vietnamese independence were most powerful and later, it is where Vietnamese communism gained its strongest early foothold. As part of the establishment working with the French colonialists, Bo's family was in danger in the North and eventually moved South. When Bo traveled back to the North to visit his father as a teenager, he was struck with the realities of harsh life under the communist regime.

South Vietnam

South Vietnam is where Ma grew up away from much of the post-World War Two fighting. It is also where Bo moved as a teenager. There, both Ma and Bo were...