Early last Sunday morning, I was riding past the park on Truong Dinh in District 1 when I saw this performance going on. I know that children normally have activities in the mornings but this was the first time I passed by this early on a Sunday morning. I was surprised to see that the Young Pioneers were still active in Saigon.
I assumed that these type of events would have been stopped awhile ago since I only read about them. In Kazakhstan, where I served as a Peace Corps volunteer, I read about the Young Pioneers in my student’s English books. None of the schools in Kazakhstan back in 1997 ran their Young Pioneers programs anymore. The same was true in Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, former Soviet states that I visited between 1997-1999.
Hence, when I drove past this event, I felt I was transported back in time but in short, this was the first Young Pioneer event I ever saw. I am curious to see how long the Young Pioneers will remain active in Vietnam. I give them less then 5 years, then it will just be renamed into something else.
You can listen to their event on YouTube below the photo.
