Exclusive web column by NBR Washington Bureau Chief Darren Gersh

Before the road came, Thuy said not much happened in this farming community outside Ho Chi Minh City. People lived, as they have for centuries, on farms. Now, pointing to the fresh blacktop being laid in front of her roadside beer stand, Thuy tells me a real estate boom is underway.

We’re sitting near the famous Cu Chi tunnels. This area was once jungle but is now, due to heavy bombing by American B-52s, as flat and empty as Kansas. While Thuy talks, her 7 year-old daughter, Uyen, plays Pokemon by her side. Thuy tells me shops like hers are popping up along the road. Not far away factories are coming, bringing with them jobs.

Thuy’s story is just one example of the changes, large and small, that I found in Vietnam. This is a country that has come a long way and is determined to go further. It is also a place where it is easy to see what is good and what is troubling about the global economy.

Vietnam is one of the poorest nations in the world. Income per person is officially about $400 a year. But because people hide so much of their earnings from the government, real income is certainly higher, although still impossibly low by U.S. standards. Still, it is important to measure progress here the way many Vietnamese measure it. That is, against the job 80% of the population still holds: farmer.

Farming in Vietnam means getting up before the sun comes up and working stooped over in rice fields in 90 plus degree heat until the sun goes down. A tractor here is usually a water buffalo. Farming is still done pretty much as it has been for thousands of years. It is tough, backbreaking work that earns about a dollar a day. Compare that with factory work. A Nike worker makes about $100 a month for 48 hours of work a week. Hard as it is to believe, that’s more than a doctor or a teacher makes in Vietnam.

To be sure, working in a Nike factory is tough work. It is mundane work. Under intense pressure from activists in the US and around the world, Nike has made clear improvements in its factories in Vietnam. Fans suck heat away from the molds that make sneaker soles. Water based solvents have replaced harsher chemicals. Workers can take night courses. Even so, the factory work I saw at Nike and elsewhere remains what it is – very tough work for very low pay.

It is also easy to see here how the United States and other Western nations benefit from the low wages here. One hundred fifty pairs of hands touch the sneakers that leave Vietnamese factories and end up on our feet in the U.S. Many people also work long hours at low pay in Vietnam to sew the shirts we pick up at the mall.

Rich nations benefit in another way. We sell the advanced services and products Vietnam needs to develop. In a Vinatex factory in Hanoi, I saw a $6 million German spinning machine making denim. It is a state of the art masterpiece of engineering filling a room the size of a hockey rink. Just imagine how many people must work at $2 a day making shirts and shoes to pay for that machine, and you begin to see how rich nation’s benefit from trade.

Now the Vietnamese understand all this. They know they are a poor nation, but they are determined to do better. And they are proud. In Thuy’s words, “we are poor, but rich in hospitality.” And as so many people told me over and over again, they are determined to do better. (One example: the factory workers in Hanoi learned to operate and program that German machinery in half the time their European trainers thought it would take.)

This is also a young nation – 60% of the population is under 25. Again and again, the people here told me they are focused on the future. They don’t want to remain poor forever. Factory work is a step up, but only the first step.

For now Vietnam must compete with low wages to win jobs from China and the Philippines. But this is a country where Internet cafes are booming and software engineers have more prestige than doctors and lawyers.

Pressure from American activists has clearly made a difference in the conditions for many Vietnamese workers. Foreign factories have also brought better jobs as well. But as we debate globalization in this country, we should understand that the Vietnamese don’t want to remain poor.

There are new roads coming to Thuy’s front door and the rest of Vietnam, and the people here are determined to take those roads as far as they can go.