Why Vietnam is the only country in East Asia that writes in Latin Characters

Vietnam is the only country in East Asia that uses the Latin alphabet. The man who gets credit for inventing it didn't. The man who did drowned before he could finish. France weaponized the script to erase Vietnam's past. Vietnamese nationalists turned it into the engine of independence. Ho Chi Minh made three million people literate in one year — using the colonizer's script. The cost: fewer than 100 people alive today can read Vietnam's greatest poem in the original language it was written in. This is the story of chữ Quốc ngữ. --- 0:00 Vietnam writes in the Latin alphabet. Why? 0:57 Vietnam before writing — the oral culture 2:12 A thousand years under China 8:05 Independent, but still writing in Chinese 10:03 Chữ Nôm — Vietnam's own script 12:08 The Jesuits arrive in Hội An 16:04 The dictionary that erased its own authors 17:20 France weaponizes the script 18:34 Nationalists flip it 20:41 Independence and three million readers in one year 21:27 The cost: fewer than 100 people can read Truyện Kiều in the original 22:02 Liberation or amputation?