♪ this is hanoi, the capitol of vietnam. high economic growth has put money in people's pockets and just like in any other bustling

asian city giant billboards inties them to buy products. but this is still a socialist nation and not all the signs sp. this one is a message from the hanoi people's committee. follow the message of the great leader and get fit. not far away is a call to celebrate national day, september 2nd. and on this corner hoechyman declares independence for the same occasion. propaganda posters appear all over the city. >> propaganda plays a very important role in our politics and also in our culture.

especially signs and posters don't need much text. you can understand them at a glance. for example a picture of a soldier with a gun. you only need the slogan to the front and people will understand the message perfectly. >> still alive and well in vietnam. luong anh dung spent half a century creating propaganda posters. >> translator: i made this during the vietnam war. it was huge. over 100 square meters. everyone worked together to set it up over there.

over his career dung produced over 800 posters in service of his country. >> translator: i have helped to protect and develop my country through my art. i am really proud of that. although my contribution may have been small. >> in this episode of "asia insight." we follow the life and career of propaganda artist luong anh dung. ♪ we start in a back street of

centr central hanoi. this is where the center of our story lives and works. he worked on his first propaganda poster en1967. he retired but he's still an active artist and a patriot. >> translator: whenever my husband's work was displayed in the city the two of us went to see it together. he's very skilled and his posters are beautiful. the women he draws are beautiful and also very strong. >> dung's studio is on the third floor.

today he's starting work on a new image. first he sketches a draft in pencil. >> translator: art to commemorate the 73rd anniversary of the foundation of our army on december 22nd. yes, i've been thinking about what to draw for some time. >> the next part of the image has to be very precise. he reaches for something in his files. it's ho chi minh's profile.

he adds tanks. and fighter planes. we leave him to his work. two days later we vizzsit the studio again. dung's painting is almost ready. just a few final touches with the brush. the last step is erasing the pencil marks. >> translator: looks good. i like it.

it's done. i believe that propaganda posters are art. they use art to convey a political message. that's the value of propaganda art. >> dung was born in 1946 in a harbor town east of hanoi. he started drawing as a child and never stopped. >> translator: i love drawing since around age 10. the house we lived in then had a huge garden with lots of bricks. i'd use soft bricks to draw in the garden. i drew so many pictures. so many.

>> in 1963 dung entered hanoi's university of industrial fine art. a professor there taught him skills that would change the course of his life. today dung is visiting his old teacher. le lam, 86 years of age. he headed the graphics course at the university. he's who inspired dung to become a propaganda artist. >> the propaganda posters you drew using the skills acquired in the soviet union were truly beautiful partnership -- i'm now

following in your foot steps. >> translator: back then i was determined to make use of what i learned in the soviet union here in vietnam. this brings back memories. >> lam was born in 1931. after graduating from art school he joined the ministry of culture as a painter. then he went to study in the ussr, the cold war heartland of propaganda art. he spent a year in moscow and four more in kiev. one image he saw in his travels shook him to his core. >> translator: when i was studying propaganda art in the soviet union there were three key images. one was from the second world

war when russia fought germany. the poster had han image of a typical russian mother holding a piece of paper in her right hand. she called out "stand up! fight for your country!" i'm vietnamese but my own country was also embroiled in war. when i saw that image i was so moved that i wanted to cry. >> here is a copy of that picture. >> rugina is homeland, much is mother. it's an authentic expression of the artist's love for his country.

>> in 1963 lam ended his five years of study and returned to vietnam. the war at home was starting to escalate. it didn't seem like the place for an artist but lam was soon caught up in the fighting. the 17th parallel divided vietnam between the north and the south. south vietnam was supported by the u.s. north by the ussr and china. in 1964 the u.s. began bombing the north. american troops landed in south vietnam the following year. more than 500,000 soldiers were stationed in the south as the vietnam war became mired in the stalemate. in response, north vietnam set up the ho chi minh trail, a

border route used to smuggle soldiers from the south. over 2,000 soldiers marched into the south. they work would the national liberation front to carry out guerilla lam was ordered to use his skills to launch a propaganda campaign in the south. lam made the grueling trek down the h he still has some of those posters.

a liberation front soldier. the slogan reads protect the people's government. >> translator: a female soldier with the revolutionary flag has stepped into the sun lite. it symbolizes the birth of a new government. fighting for the peoples' government mattered during the war. it matters today. and it will matter in the future. always. that is what i was thinking when i drew this. >> copies were distributed in south as well as north vietnam. some of lam's creations were aimed at a different audience.

>> translator: i had another job to make u.s. soldiers oppose the war in vietnam. so i added the words "hurry home." the soldier's wife is calling had him to leave vietnam and come home soon. that was the idea. >> the women in liberation front controlled vill ages handed out leaflets to soldiers. they were a quarter of this size. >> translator: once we found one of these leaflets in the pocket of a dead american soldier. the u.s. army had ordered them not to accept such items of propaganda but it was there.

in his pocket. >> the year after lam went to south havet nom, dung graduated from university. it was 1967. he took his brush and went to war. >> translator: i worked in there. we were called the information bureau. and were attached to the hanoi people's committee. >> he joined a team of around 10 artists working for the bureau. for the first year dung's job was to copy his colleague's designs on to large billboards. >> translator: my older colleagues would draw the small sized originals. once the images got the boss's approval i would copy them much larger on to billboards.

when i saw the finished billboards on the street, i felt proud because i had been part of that work. they were beautiful. looking at them helped me forget how hard life was. we had so little back then. >> march 1968 was a milestone for dung. the bureau published one of his own drawings in a newspaper. it called on people to vote in the committee elections. >> translator: although it was about the election, i added a soldier in the background to symbolize victory in the south. at the time we were all working hard to support the south. >> four months later dung's patriotism faced a much harder

test. he was sent to the front. he was embedded with the 559th transportation group which handled defense and maintenance of the ho chi minh trail. first he joined missions to central laos then to south vietnam. part of dung's job was to create a graphic record of the battle fields. here naive realism became all too real. he still has some of those images. >> translator: i drew this in quan chi province in south vietnam. this was an enemy base. these were bunkers. over here this hut was where

they kept injured soldiers. this is the same place. our group attacked the base and destroyed these tanks. when i see these pictures i remember the young faces of my friends who died. i'd be so happy if they had survived. but they're all gone. we couldn't find the bodies of many of my comrades. >> saigon, the capitol of south

vietnam fell in april 1975. the vietnam war was over. dung returned to his desk at the hanoi information bureau. the fighting had ended but there was little to celebrate. >> translator: when the war ended we were all so poor. it was really hard just getting by. everybody eked out a miserable existence on their government salaries. rice was rationed. bicycle tires and parts were rationed. cloth was also rationed. i wore my army uniform and sold our cloth rationed to buy food for our children. it was a bleak situation. >> but it was dung's job to combat despair.

he put his skills to work for a new cause, the rebuilding of vietnam. >> translator: we had no color film. just black and white. this poster urged citizens to buy government bonds. >> a worker stacks bricks. it reads a government bond is a brick to build socialism. >> translator: this is another one from that time. it calls for us to complete the government's annual plan. it features all citizens, workers, farmers, soldiers and intellectuals. i wanted to lift people up. drawing painful realities would have only discouraged them.

i thought giving them bright, inn energetic art would stir them to build a better future. i called to them and gave them heart. >> in 1986 the communist party introduced a policy known as renovation. the core changes were the introduction of a market economy and the opening of doors to the outside world. it allowed farmers to grow and sell what they wanted. that led to huge growth in agriculture and a major improvement in the food situation. >> translator: with the end of the rationing system, you were free to buy whatever you wanted in the markets. rice, side dishes, anything. many household goods became available. our lives really improved.

>> but more needed to be done, even in the mid'90s hanoi was still suffering from power blackouts and public transportation was limited. vietnam had yet to modernize from factory to farm, workers were still tied to old ways and old technology. dung wanted to rally the people. he decided they needed a new vision. >> translator: this woman is a government worker. she use as computer in an office. there are sky scrapers beyond. with lots of power. farm equipment is being used in individuals. it show as modern industrialized society. this poster shows the ideal life

in a rural area. here we have modernized farming. machines are being used. there's electricity available. factories are built ag rucultural products. a happy farmer is joyfully bringing in the harvest. when i drew these images i studied social change and new trends. i did my research and drew an image of the near future. at the time vietnamese society hadn't reached this level. i drew a computer in this poster but very few people had access to one. >> doi moy led to major changes

in diplomacy. in july 1995 vietnam formally joined the association of southeast asian nations. it also reopened dialogue with the u.s., its enemy during the vietnam war. one of the newer posters in dung's studio shows how times have changed. this is not propaganda, it's personal. he drew it in response to u.s. president barack obama's visit to hanoi in may 2016. >> translator: he went out into the streets and ate noodles. so many people lined the streets to welcome him. he said my heart has been touched by the kindness for which the vietnamese people are

known. the past is the past. what matters now is to look to the future. >> dung worked for the hanoi committee until 2006. the committee still employs nine artists to make propaganda art. they produce around 200 images every year. now they are all made using computers. >> translator: everything from figures to landscapes once had to be drawn by hand. now we have the technology to incorporate beautiful or historical photographs at the touch of a button. we can freely change the layout of colors. it's so convenient.

it can be done as fast as 15 minutes. >> fast and convenient. but you won't find dung creating posters on a printer. he continues to work by hand. >> translator: the advantage to drawing pictures by hand is that the artists talent is directly reflected in the work. and that's not all. when i draw i can pour my love into the work. that's where the value of art lies. i don't believe that machines can create art in place of human beings. >> dung completes another work.

>> translator: the cooperative bonds between vietnam, laos and cambodia. which were forged during the vietnam war. i drew a woman from each country. they have the features of each nation. >> the poster will be submitted to a contest run by the people's army of vietnam. >> translator: i chose not to draw guns in this poster. the war is in the past. what matters now are the national ties and cooperation that will help us grow. >> 50 years on the battle cry has changed. but luong anh dung is still putting out his call true to his

heart and his homeland. ♪ steves: the dramatic rock of cashel is one of ireland's most evocative sites.

this was the seat of ancient irish kings for seven centuries. st. patrick baptized king aengus here in about 450 a.d. in around 1100, an irish king gave cashel to the church, and it grew to become the ecclesiastical capital of all ireland. 800 years ago, this monastic community was just a chapel and a round tower standing high on this bluff. it looked out then, as it does today, over the plain of tipperary, called the golden vale because its rich soil makes it ireland's best farmland. on this historic rock, you stroll among these ruins in the footsteps of st. patrick, and wandering through my favorite celtic cross graveyard, i feel the soul of ireland.

jinping following the communist party's congress. the world economic forum is encouraging integrating immigrants.