I took pictures at the sites of some of the grisliest scenes of mass murder and torture in Cambodia and posted them on Twitter. Some of the photographs on display in Pnomh Penh were so gruesome that I could not look at them, other than to recognize what they were and look away. Nor did I enter the glass-walled monument at the Killing Fields, about 20 miles from Phomn Penh, stacked high with skulls, arrayed by age and gender. I couldn’t.

The Cambodian genocide is especially puzzling because it was directed by Cambodians against Cambodians, not against a particular religion or ethnic group. Pol Pot wanted to abolish all religions, all educated people. He wanted to reduce the country to an agrarian society, with no engineers or teachers or doctors. He came from a privileged family. He had a good education. He went to Paris and was influenced by the radical Communists he met. He went to China and met Mao at the height of the Cultural Revolution, when Mao was persecuting teachers and other educated people and sending them to the countryside to force them to work as  peasants. When PolPot took power in 1975, he drove everyone out of the cities within days by warning that American B-52s were about to bomb then. The cities were completely empty. Then he began a systematic campaign to wipe out every vestige of modernity. He killed between 1/3 and 1/4 of the entire population between 1975 and 1979.

Cambodians are a Buddhist people. Thousands of Buddhist monks were executed. Pol Pot was a madman but he found followers to do his bidding. He killed most of his top advisors , convinced that they were conspiring against him.

How does a country recover from a tragedy of this magnitude? As our guide explained, people with any education taught those with less. Those with a twelfth grade education taught thise with an 11th or 10th grade education. So on down the line. Those with only a sixth grade education taught the youngest children. And that s how the next generation was educated in a country where most of the teachers were killed.

There was no punishment for Pol Pot or his henchmen. In his paranoia, he sent troops into Vietnam, convinced that Vietnam was conspiring against him. The Vietnamese retaliated and deposed him. He died of natural causes while hiding out in the jungle in Thailand.

Cambodia decided not to prosecute the mass murderers. They wanted reconciliation,  or retribution. No one was punished for the mass murders of more than a million people.

The crimes of the Pol Pot regime are acknowledged.  There is no denial or obfuscation. Just a stark reminder of brutality and madness.

Our tour guide’s family did not suffer. They were poor farmers, Pol Pot’s ideal. But he hates Pol Pot, and he hates Communism, which he associates with mass murder.

This new book about the future of Russia received a super-positive review in the Washington Post. The book is Masha Gessen’s “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.” The reviewer is Susan B. Glasser, who served as Moscow Bureau chief for the Washington Post.

She writes:

“Gessen is a Russian-born journalist and author who returned to Moscow to cover its brief democratic opening after the collapse of the Soviet Union, only to emigrate once again to the United States amid Putin’s crackdown. She has already written several chronicles of Putin and his era, including a best-selling biography, “The Man Without a Face.” Her scathing essays in the New York Review of Books warning of President Trump’s flirtation with Putin and his creeping authoritarianism have made her a public intellectual with a viral following.
But this is by far Gessen’s best book, a sweeping intellectual history of Russia over the past four decades, told through a Tolstoyan gallery of characters. It makes a convincing if depressing case that Homo Sovieticus, that unique species created a century ago with the Bolshevik Revolution, did not die out along with the Soviet Union.

Putin has now been in charge of Russia longer than anyone but Stalin. He is sure to win another six-year term, and he is only 47.

This next piece is a review of Masha Gessen’s bestseller about Putin. The book review was written in 2012, five years ago. It was published in the New York Review of Books. It was written by Anne Applebaum, a specialist on Russia who writes for the Washington Post.

It gives you a valuable perspective on the life and times of Vladimir Putin.

Both books are useful background in relation to the current investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. Did he do it? We will wait for the Mueller report. Was he capable of doing it? Of course.

I make no pretense at being an expert on Southeast Asia, specifically Vietnam and Cambodia, where I am now concluding a two-week trip. But I love to learn, and I enjoy sharing what I have learned, at risk of being corrected by people far more knowledgeable than I.

I loved Cambodia. I loved the warmth and gentleness of everyone I met. I quickly fell into the habit of greeting everyone with my hands clasped in front of me, almost in prayer. The heat and humidity were intense, with the temperature in the high 80s every day, possibly the 90s. The ancient ruins were impressive. I would urge everyone to visit Cambodia at least once in your life. I have posted my pictures of Cambodia on Twitter. One series tells the story of a family “noodle factory,” where the factory consisted of homemade implements, operated by the matriarch, the children, and grandchildren. As the family pounded and ground and boiled the rice into noodles, the littlest ones sold souvenirs. I bought a handmade flute for $1, and Mary bought a silk scarf for $5.

Today we did a whirlwind tour of Hanoi. We drove through the city, which to my surprise, contains beautiful parks, lakes, fountains, and trees. The climate was ten degrees cooler than Cambodia and very agreeable. First we  stopped at the Temple of Literacy, a beautiful park in central Hanoi, where there was a school ceremony in progress (it seems to be a daily or near daily occurrence). Several hundred young children in uniforms were gathered at a shrine to Confucius, where a few were singled out for their excellent academic performance. The honorees came to the front of the audience, where a teacher tied a red kerchief around their necks. To the side of the open-air seating area were huge stone tablets, engraved with the names of the nation’s students who had achieved the highest test scores in past years. I looked on the event as a giant test prep rally. Who wouldn’t want to be recognized for such public honor?

Then we went to the Hanoi Hilton to see the rooms where captured American pilots were imprisoned. The guide warned us that the exhibit was one-sided. We saw pictures of some of the pilots who had been imprisoned, including a young John McCain. So handsome. The captions emphasized the humane treatment of the prisoners, making their captivity sound almost like a summer camp, with letters and gifts from home, basketball games, wholesome food, and other amenities. And of course we were reminded of the terrible deeds of the American invaders and the heroics of the Vietnamese defenders.

Then we switched to electric carts, about the size of golf carts, which maneuvered through the narrow streets of the Old City. This district is a teeming marketplace of every kind of marketable goods, cafes, coffee shops, flower markets, carpet shops, fruit vendors, jewelry stores, furniture stores, clothing stores, toy stores—and I have barely scratched the surface. The streets and sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians, vendors, bicycles, and especially motorbikes. Seldom was there a traffic light. Traffic and people weaved in and around and through each other. Somehow, miraculously, there were no collisions.

Whenever our group crossed a street, the tour guides told us to be “sticky rice,” moving in a solid clump, never pausing for oncoming traffic, which always flowed around us. I developed this axiom: “He who hesitates never crosses the street.”

We switched back to tour buses and headed to a restaurant for wonderful Vietnamese food.

In the afternoon, we visited the beautiful grounds of Ho Chi Minh’s Residence, where he lies in state. The trees and grounds were gorgeous, and it was fun to see the elegant autobiles that the Soviet Union had given him.

Our tour guide told us that the economy of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam is a free market and capitalist. At the same time, we saw many signs with the hammer and sickle, the symbol of Communism. Aside from the symbols, it was difficult to see what made Vietnam a Communist State. There are many luxury apartments buildings for rich Vietnamese and expatriates. There are stores representing the luxury brands of the West, like Louis Vuitton, Brooks Brothers, Estee Lauter, Rolls Royce, Porsche, and Mercedes Benz. There is MacDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Many new office buildings are under construction, as are huge residential complexes for the super-rich. Ho Chi Minh must be spinning in his elaborate mausoleum. The only thing “Communist”about Vietnam is the occasional sign of a hammer and sickle. It is a capitalist country with huge wealth and income inequality.

In talking to our Vietnamese guides, I learned that there are no labor unions, no Social Security, no pensions. Medical care is not free. Even public schools costs money. The public elementary schools cost $60 a month, the lower secondary schools cost somewhat less because they don’t provide lunch. In the public s hoops, classes may be as large as 50, while the private schools have classes of only 25, but they cost about $1,000 a month. Every parent saves to pay for education because they know it is the path to a better life. Every young man, beginning in high school, spends 7-10 days of compulsory military service.

The Vietnamese are a practical people. They hold no ill feelings towards Americans. They want tourism and economic development and hotels are everywhere, especially new luxury hotels, financed largely by other Asians, from Japan, South Korea, Singapore.

We then went to a performance of the celebrated Vietnamese water puppets, a show that I cannot describe. It was delightful and performed in water with puppets and unseen puppeteers, accompanied by traditional Vietnamese music.

We had dinner at a traditional Vietnamese restaurant, where we were entertained by an extraordinary troupe of musicians who played instruments unknown to westerners. One is a one-string instrument, plucked with one hand and modulated with the other. Another was an elaborate set of bamboo reeds, tied together and played with great skill to produce beautiful music using percussion tools.

As I put this altogether, I first express my admiration for the people of both countries, who are proud of their history, heritage, and culture.

However, I wondered whether our countries are converging. Vietnam and Cambodia have embraced free market economics. They are unabashedly capitalistic. The Republicans in the U.S. want to get rid of social security, pensions, and government-guaranteed health care. It is a curious irony of history that they are copying us, and we want to copy them.

Consider visiting these countries, if you can find the time and can afford it. The best time to go is Christmas or Easter. Between May and September, I heard, the heat is intolerable. It is a long journey but I promise you will learn a lot and enjoy it. We took a cruise organized by Uniworld, which was e extremely well planned. I recommend it..

we flew today from Siem Reap, Cambodia, to Hanoi on Vietnam Airlines. The airplane was new, and most of the signage was in English. Every seat had a head rest that said “Vietnam Airlines.”

We arrived at Hanoi’s super modern new airport. Again, plenty of English signage. The entry hall had a Burger King and Popeye’s. We were whisked to the Intercontinemtal, a splendid hotel. The guide explained on the way to the hotel that Russian was a required second language until 1993. That year, English became the mandatory second language, starting at age 8. However, he said, most children already know English from watching the Disney Channel and playing video games. He described the economy as “capitalistic.”

The sinks in the bathroom are made by “American Standard.”

We tour tomorrow and will learn more.

The highlight today was meeting two key figures in the development of a new American-style University, which will be the Fulbright University Vietnam.

A reader of this Blog put me in touch with the university vice-president, Ted Osius, who served as Ambassador to Vietnam for three years and speaks fluent Vietnamese. We met today, along with the chief academic officer, and they discussed their plans to open a new University next year, incorporating critical thinking, multidisciplinary projects, and academic freedom. One of their models is the multidisciplinary undergraduate program at Colorado College. They have been interviewing faculty, aiming for a 2019 opening. They have already had great interest from students, many of whom have participated in faculty interviews.

During his years as a career foreign service officer, Osius fell in love with Vietnam and its people. He wants to do what he can to develop a new leadership group of people to build the country. He pointed out that eight of the 18 people on the national governing council were graduates of a Fulbright economics program started in Vietnam by Harvard after the war. Today, Vietnam has a vibrant and growing economy.

The Vietnamese Government has provided land. The US government and individual Americans have contributed funding. It is an exciting venture.