HANOI, Vietnam — More and more state-owned enterprises in Vietnam, from banks to shipbuilders, are being turned over to private hands. Government-run television stations broadcast competing commercials for consumer goods. For some urban families, weekly trips to megamalls and KFC have become de rigueur. In cafes or on social websites, the young show off branded clothes, electronic toys and photos of trips abroad — while in the streets loudspeakers blare out news of party meetings and decrees.

Communism and capitalism make awkward bedfellows, especially when it comes to culture. The government continues to monitor art exhibitions and music shows, films and TV programs, books and CDs. In classic Communist tradition, it still officially bans “offenses against the state” (an all-encompassing and ill-defined crime), violations of custom (like mannequins without underwear) or behavior it deems deviant (like hair dyed in bright colors). But the new enforcers of these old restrictions are driven less by ideological purity than by a mixed bag of political correctness and market-driven concerns — and this may be hampering artistic creation more than conventional censorship did under classically Communist governments.

For years after the Communists took power in the mid-1950s, party leaders would spell out the limits of what was culturally acceptable. Their mind-set was patriarchal, authoritarian and suspicious. Dull bureaucrats with dull minds would debate a song’s patriotic fervor or a painting’s shades of red. Artists were expected to extol the party’s determination during the war against America and portray the people of reunified Vietnam as peaceful and contented.

In reality, many Vietnamese suffered terribly during the postwar years, thanks largely to a mismanaged central economy. By the mid-1980s, even the Politburo had taken note, and it began a policy called Doi Moi, or Renovation. Some private enterprise was allowed. Farmers could set their own production rates and prices. The country opened up to tourism. Official shackles on culture were also loosened: It was now in the government’s interest to let writers and painters describe the social problems the state was professing to fix.