Letter from Ho Chi Minh City: The contrast could not have been more stark.
On the streets of the city formerly known as Saigon, red flags emblazoned with the hammer-and-sickle motif and the five-pointed star of communism were draped from every lamp-post and tree trunk.
Massive paintings of Vietnam's beloved revolutionary leader, Ho Chi Minh, graced the facades of every public building, and large red banners were draped across the city's boulevards and avenues touting socialist catchphrases appropriately heroic for last Saturday's 30th anniversary of the "liberation" of South Vietnam by the communist North on April 30th, 1975.
The mood was patriotic and militaristic as thousands of troops, civil servants, veterans of the war, relatives of the many that died, students and young children took part in a formidable street parade to the former presidential palace of the South Vietnamese regime where three decades ago the defeat of the US-backed Gen Duong Van Minh was sealed by communist T-34 tanks crashing through the palace's wrought-iron gates and the arrest at gunpoint of the president and the entire South Vietnamese government. But that was on the streets of Saigon.
Inside the trendy chrome, glass and granite multistorey Diamond shopping centre, located a stone's throw from the palace and the VIP seating area where Vietnam's Old Guard, and generally geriatric, communist leaders had gathered on Saturday to view the parade, the children of Vietnam's revolution were engaged in another communal event - shopping.
In due deference to "Reunification Day", as April 30th is officially known, the shopping centre stayed closed in the morning as the parade passed by on Le Duan Boulevard outside. But by early afternoon gaggles of teenagers in Converse sneakers and Levi jeans rode escalators alongside hip twenty- and thirty-something couples wearing sharp sunglasses and slick, gelled hairstyles.
Among the floors of Western designer label clothing, Italian handbags, Swiss watches and high-tech Japanese and Korean electronic gadgetry, the only red to be seen was on a large flat-screen plasma TV where Britney Spears gyrated in black PVC trousers and a blood-red spandex bodice which she later removed to reveal a red sparkling brassiere.
On the 30th anniversary, two celebrations were taking place: one for those who fought for Vietnam's independence against the might of the US army and the so-called running-dogs of capitalism; the other for the country's growing middle class who - thanks to phased economic liberalisation - are allowed the luxuries of the free market, private enterprise and to spend as conspicuously as they please.
Growing at some 7 per cent annually, the Vietnamese economy has registered one of the world's highest growth rates in recent years, and tourism is booming.
With Saigon's wide tree-lined boulevards, built by Vietnam's French colonial rulers, colonial-era architecture and plush five-star hotels, it is easy to see why Vietnam has become a hot destination in southeast Asia.
Though an estimated three million Vietnamese and some 58,000 Americans died in the Vietnam War - it is know locally as the American War - the conflict is largely a historical fact for most of the country's 80 million population, 60 per cent of whom were born after April 30th, 1975.
With the passing of time and growing tourism, some political stances have apparently softened, too. The exhibition once known as the American War Crimes Museum on Vo Van Tan Street has been renamed the War Remnants Museum. Apparently the original name upset visitors from the US.
And the rising economic tide is also raising boats. Poverty has reduced throughout Vietnam in the past decade. In 1990 more than 85 per cent of the population lived on less that $2 per day. That figure has now dropped to just over 50 per cent. But there is a growing divide between the rich city dwellers and the majority of the largely rural and poor population.
One of the few instances of mass defiance in this tightly controlled communist party state took place in 2001, and again in 2004, in the ethnic minority areas of the Central Highlands where troops were sent to quash protests over landlessness, religious repression and growing poverty.
Vietnam's cosying-up to capitalism has also not meant social or political freedoms, and the politburo in Hanoi rules the country with a rod of iron akin to eastern bloc countries during the Cold War, a job which it carries out with the help of an Orwellian-style state media.
"We are only free in our mind," said Nghia, a 28-year-old Saigonese who works in tourism, sports the latest model Nokia mobile phone and like many in this city had parents who once worked for the deposed southern regime. When it comes to the economy, Vietnamese people are allowed far more freedoms than ever before, but that's were the line is drawn, Nghia said.
"It's not like they say on television or in the newspaper. We all don't like communism, and not all celebrate the 30th anniversary. But I only say this with my friends," said Nghia, whose first name was used for fear of him being identified by authorities.
His concerns are legitimate.
In 2003, journalist Nguyen Vu Binh was sentenced to seven years in jail and three years' house arrest for an article critical of the government that was distributed over the internet. Human rights and religious freedom rank low on the list of reforms the government is pursuing to become a developed country.
Vietnam has "continued its exceptionally repressive policies, imprisoning and persecuting believers of religions who attempt to peacefully and independently practise their faiths," the New York-based Human Rights Watch wrote in February.
"The government brands all unauthorised religious activities - particularly those that it fears may attract large followings - as potentially subversive," the organisation said.
Buddhists, Protestants, Catholics and Mennonites have been imprisoned for not toeing the party line.
On Saturday and on Sunday's May Day celebrations in Saigon, the mood was festive and hybrid. The young thronged into the Diamond shopping centre, and hundreds of aged war veterans posed at the presidential palace for a group photo.
Nghia explained what he and many of his friends feel: "We are communist because they tell us we are communist. But that is all."