Every country and culture, whether it's as ancient as India or as young as the Czech Republic, has a history that will greatly affect both market and the marketer. A market that has been heavily exploited in the past by foreigners (or even colonized) will turn a predictably skeptical eye toward any overseas company seeking new sales territory. It may even refuse products that could greatly benefit the society. Understanding that history will enable a marketeer to approach the culture in a more subtle manner, and it will certainly cause an adjustment of schedule. On the other end of the spectrum, a culture that has been marked by independence for some time will have few fears of foreign operations and may find the subtle approach far too lackluster (枯燥乏味的) and slow.
Marketeers may bring their own burdens to the process and should take care to separate themselves, at least emotionally, from their personal and cultural history. Oftentimes, this includes racial prejudices that are difficult to shake, earlier political disagreements that have never been fully settled, or old, unhealed war wounds.
Let's look at the race issue first. Companies with Caucasian (白人) marketing personnel returning to post apartheid (种族歧视) South Africa are generally plagued with a feeling that they "owe" something to the new black majority government. It's a completely self generated debt as the government is, in reality, overjoyed that investment has returned after the long embargo. However, this joy doesn't prevent South African companies from taking advantage of their counterparts' guilty feeling when it's time to cut a deal.
On the political front, the relationship between Vietnam and United States is a prime example of two sets of marketeers misinterpreting each other's history and culture when it was time to do business. Following in the wake of the bloody two-decade war that ended in 1975, the United States and Vietnam finally reopened trade in 1994. The Vietnamese assumed that the American business community would heap investment on them to make up for past wrongs, while the Americans thought they would be welcomed as the saviors (救世主) of Vietnam's floundering (困顿的) economy. Most of America's marketeers sent to Vietnam's were small children during the war, and the conflict had little bearing on their lives. Vietnam's decision markers, on the other hand, were primarily veterans of the conflict and saw it as the key element of the relationship. Neither side paid attention to the other's view of history and the results have been decidedly disappointing for almost everyone.
This passage mainly discusses that ______.

A. cultural differences force companies to adjust schedule
B. marketing success and failure are much like history
C. developing countries are hostile to developed countries
D. the history of a country or culture influences the market