The Song Of The South; Hanoi's communists won the Vietnam War, but southern-born reformers are leading an economic boom as the country opens up to the world.

Byline: Michael Hastings and George Wehrfritz

Grainy black-and-white photos show thin men riding bicycles along streets devoid of cars. A prominent chart tracks paltry monthly rice allotments to every category of Vietnamese, even communist cadres. Assorted ration cards and food stamps fill a display case above the stilted caption queuing to rice was always a suffering. These bits of recent history--part of a new exhibit staged in Hanoi's popular Museum of Ethnology through next month--chronicle the painful decade after North Vietnam's communist armies toppled the U.S.-backed government in Saigon in 1975. An introductory message describes the period as one of ...