Bou Rai Ne: My Story Of China

SAM KILEY: [voice-over] As it turned out, winning the war in Iraq was the easy part. Liberating the country from Saddams brutal legacy of ethnic hatred is something else. Of course, Saddam always claimed his way was the only way to hold Iraq together. That daunting task now belongs to the Bush administration, which is betting, against history, that it can find a way to heal this fractured land.

We Vietnamese always stay connected to the past-- customs, history, the dead. Just outside of town, Ive found my grandparents graves. Im not exactly a traditional man, but as you grow older, some things become important. I light the incense and bow, hoping they know Im back, that I carry memories.

Bou Rai Ne: My Story of China

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UNCLE: [subtitles] Today the books, the schools all teach one-sided history. They only teach that Vietnam was colonized by France and America and that the Vietnamese, led by the Communist Party, rose up to evict both of these enemies and build this independent nation. They never talk about the civil war, so young people end up with a distorted version of history.

NGUYEN QUI DUC: Gold coins, a hope for prosperity in a city with so much history, so much suffering in the last 100 years. American planes dropped tons of bombs here. You wonder whether the survivors still have nightmares.

This ancient art entertained villagers for thousands of years. The water puppets tell the stories of farmers, scholars and kings, history and memory, but only for foreigners now. Water. Thats the word we Vietnamese use for "nation."

ANNOUNCER: Theres more of the world to explore on our Web site, including more on the history of the Kurds, plus reporter Sam Kileys harrowing account of being robbed by bandits in Iraq, interviews with our other reporters and streaming video of all segments. Discuss the world and tell us what you think of our Stories From a Small Planet at pbs.org.

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