vietnam is a country … not a war

Faculty/staff/life-long learners keep commenting that the students here are too young to really understand what it means to be sailing down the Saigon River. Truth be told, I'm a little too young also. My father served in the war here, but I really know very little. Born in 1971 … other than history books, it's not really internalized for me either.

I woke up early, mostly because I couldn’t sleep, and we had yet to start down the river. I watched on and off during the morning, taking some pictures, sitting in the faculty/staff lounge, sitting far away from everyone in attempt not to spread my cold. Dr. Matt gave me cold medicine, since I had finished what I had and Robin’s Chinese healing oil didn’t seem to do the trick. It’s a very busy waterfront here. Lots of fishing, lots of industry. I’m going to post this blog without too many photos, because it takes a long time to get them all uploaded together. I’ll let you know when the images are up, but I didn’t want to hold up the blog post.

During Global Studies this week and at last night’s pre-port, Bob -- the guitarist -- has been singing anti-war songs. Everyone in the audience knew all the words even though we weren’t born back then to protest. All those songs are American standards now.

Day 1 in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) was shopping day. In Vietnam, the thing to do is to have clothes made for you. Especially silk. You obviously need time for that, so it can’t wait until the last day. The idea was to get measured on day 1, go out of town for the trip days 2-4, and then pick it up on day 5. So, the shopping team -- David, Phoebe, Robin, and I -- headed to Tailor Row. May 4^th is the Ambassador’s Ball on the ship. Rather prom-like in more ways than one. Formal attire required. We bought tickets last week (me, under a certain amount of duress) -- it’s a charity event. So, now we were all of need in formal attire. See how this works? SAS helps to stimulate the local economy everywhere we go … 700 students in need of formal attire. Lots of men get suits made in Vietnam (several of the male students have commented that this is their first suit ever) and the women, fancy dresses. Phoebe got measured for a traditional Vietnamese dress, in amazing royal blue silk. Robin bought a fabulous silk black skirt and grey jacket off the rack (‘cause she’s smaller than the rest of us …). She’s going to look beautiful. I couldn’t find anything I liked. All the Vietnamese dresses had very high collars which always make me feel strangled. And not being able to try on a style made me nervous. Even if the cost was only $42 total for the fabric and the making, like Phoebe’s. One student said that she’s heard only about 50% of the time are people happy with how their dress turns out. So, I’m still in need of something to wear. If I buy heels somewhere, I might be able to get away with the dress I brought for the Captain’s Dinner. Otherwise I need to keep looking. I did, though, buy a silk robe and a few silk gifts. Then the four of us met a bunch of others for a drink on the rooftop of the Rex Hotel. Clearly, the hotel bore some sort of importance but I had no idea what it was. Giles told me that all the American reporters in Saigon would gather there for drinks during the war. It was a beautiful night overlooking a beautiful city, lit up and neon, and looking both totally elegant and perfectly modern. To think about my dad in Vietnam, even if he wasn’t yet a reporter back then ...

I was by far the youngest person in the group of us that night and I just sat and listened as they all exchanged stories about the war. They had so many stories even though none of them served here. I just sat and listened to them talk. Then dinner and a harrowing walk back to the ship. The traffic in Vietnam is deserving of its very own blog post, so I’ll come back to that story later.

Day 2. Got up early for a 4-hour bus ride to Phan Thiet (pronounced Fan Thee-it). I had hoped we’d see more countryside than we actually did, though we did pass through many villages which was cool. We stayed in a resort-place on the beach, about ½ hour away from the small fishing village that is actually Phan Thiet. We took a boat ride and a cyclo tour in the town, both feeling rather touristy. They gave us all the traditional Vietnamese hats, which I have to say don’t seem so practical. They kept blowing away, for one thing. One stop was a pagoda where a religious ceremony theatre performance was going on. It was packed. And we were the only non-Asians to be seen. Everybody stopped watching the performance and stared at us. They were very kind -- brought us chairs and a fan (it was stifling hot) but otherwise mostly stared. We were clearly very distracting and, despite their graciousness, we felt badly for interrupting their ceremony. The cyclos are the same as what Indians call a rickshaw and Malaysians call a tricycle. You sit, someone pushes you or pulls you (it varies, but always in blistering heat) on a bicycle. We saw a bunch of sites in town and then went to the market, where we were pounced on to buy things, t-shirts, fake Rolexes, whatever. After dinner, I sat on the beach for awhile. I had a high-school-flashback-moment (well, there was already the prom-thing) of Natasha and I hanging out at night on the lifeguard stands in Stone Harbor. Which we used to do all the time, just sit up there and talk. I love the beach at night. It might be my favorite time -- windy, listening to the waves crash and only now and then seeing the white foam. I sat on a chaise lounge for a while and jotted down notes on what I’d tell you all when I got back to the ship to post. Sitting with my feet in the sand on the other side of the world. When I was a kid, we’d also do the digging-the-hole-to-China-thing. Next week, I’m gonna be in China ...

Day 3. We woke up early and took "old Russian vans" (jeeps) along the beach and then up to some beautiful sand dunes. It was quite beautiful and peaceful.

I picked up some shells – we’ll see if they make it all the way home. After lunch, Phoebe and David and I went back into town. We found a part of the market where we noticed the sales pressure was much less intense. Food, household goods, etc. Less swarming of the white Americans. We were more mostly a curiosity. It was difficult to ascertain the level of tourism in this fishing village. Clearly the beach resort area was heavily touristy (with mostly European tourists), but the fishing village itself was a ways away and there was not much tourist infrastructure. But with the previous day’s aggressive pressure to buy t-shirts and hats and knock-off Rolexes, there is definitely a tourist market. Anyways, David & Phoebe & I were roaming around an area that was clearly more local. We were attracted to some pretty bamboo baskets for very cheap and we purchased several. After that, everybody started laughing at us and pointing as we walked by their stalls. We couldn’t figure out why our baskets were so funny. I was taking pictures here and there of the market stalls. And the people walking by selling vegetables and such. As I was standing there -- for probably the 15^th time -- looking through my viewfinder, I realized what was so funny.

The baskets we thought so pretty were to them entirely utilitarian. They were the baskets that carried the fruits and vegetables. It was kind of like tourists wanting to buy a plastic shopping basket. Or maybe worse, the clear plastic bags that you put your produce in at the grocery store. Just a thing to do work. They thought it was hilarious we wanted to buy them. Lots of people stopped us to talk about them and we finally got across our question of what they were called. Significantly fewer people spoke English here than in Saigon. Our baskets were definitely a conversation starter, though, whatever our communication difficulties!

Then I went to the beach for a bit and swam in the ocean and slept in the shade. It was breezy and pleasant. Folks were kite-surfing (surf board + kite, as might make sense) and it was both beautiful and intriguing to watch. Dinner was a barbecue where we picked out which live fish we wanted and then watched them die on the grill. I really don’t have any desire to watch my food be killed. But since Toni made me promise I’d eat everything even if it was looking at me, I considered myself grateful that I could at least identify what my options were. I had delicious grilled crab and clams and calamari. And watermelon and dragonfruit (which is red and green on the outside and white with black polka dots on the inside and really delicious all around).

Day 4. Took a long walk on the beach and napped in a chaise lounge before we checked out of the hotel. We had a nice lunch and then headed back to Saigon. On the way home (oops, I typed "home", I meant "back to the ship!"), we stopped at a lacquer factory that employs victims of Agent Orange. We saw many disabled people at work lying eggshells and gold leaf and making art. Trays and rice bowls and wooden boxes and paintings. We got a super-fast tour of the factory that of course ended in the gift shop. I might try to go back there tomorrow. Tomorrow, I have an FDP to meet with a former UPI Photographer, but my morning is free. I have all kinds of goals for tomorrow morning, we’ll see where I get. (Tried to post this blog, but the Internet seems not to be working & couldn’t post …)

Day 5. This morning, I started out at the Reunification Palace. Formally called Independence Palace, it was built by the French and completed in 1870. In 1954 after the French withdrew from Vietnam, it was handed over to the South Vietnamese as the Presidential Palace. It was bombed in 1962 and then rebuilt. It looks very 1960’s. In 1975, it became the symbol of Vietnamese reunification when the Political Consulate Conference for Reunification of the Country was held there.

"We see things not as they are but as we are" (Anais Nin) ... The tourist brochure I was given this morning says:

On 07 May 1954, the French colonialists after having suffered heavy defeat in Dien Bien Phu campaign, had to sign the Geneva Accords and withdrew from Vietnam. The US Administration looked for a way to engage in order to carry out their intention to occupy Vietnam … With the Ho Chi Minh historic campaign, on 30 Apr, 1975, the tank of Liberation Forces bearing plate 390 has hit off the main gate, tank 843 hit and inclined the auxiliary gate of Independence Palace to move forwards. At 11:30 PM of the same day, 1^st Lieutenant Bui Quang Than, Commander of tank 843 lowered the flag of 3 red stripes and raised the flag of the Liberation Front of South Vietnam. This flag has flown vividly on top of the Palace concluding 30 years of hard and heroic war of Vietnamese people, carrying out the wish of President Ho Chi Minh: People of North-South Regious have been reunited.

My Lonely Planet Vietnam (2005) says:

The building, once the symbol of South Vietnamese government, is preserved almost as it was on that day in April 1975 when the Republic of Vietnam, which hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, and 58,183 Americans died trying to save, ceased to exist.

The most interesting part of the tour was the underground bomb shelter, which had actually two stories underground and a crazy network of tunnels. There were way too many tourists in there (mostly Vietnamese) and it was hot like hell and I just feel the need to say that there is no way I could live in a bomb shelter!

After that, I decided to try and find the lacquer factory from yesterday. It seemed like it had to be in the same general area and so I wanted to walk. I had the address and at each corner I would stop and hand it to someone and ask for directions which they would pantomime for me. Everyone made it clear in pantomime that I should take a moped or a taxi. But, I was positive I was in the general area and that it was walkable. Eventually I started getting conflicting directions and, finally, I realized I really didn’t have enough time to find this place and do any shopping by the time I needed to get back to the ship. I should have just taken a taxi to begin with. I was dripping with sweat by the time I made it back to the ship and my feet were killing from walking a million miles around. I took a quick, very refreshing shower and headed out on the FDP. It went first to the home of a former UPI photographer, Hoang Van Cuong, where he showed us his work and talked about his story and answered our questions. He took famous pictures of people being airlifted off the roof of the American embassy in 1975.

Although there is some argument about whether or not it was truly the embassy building. He was imprisoned for many years after the war and has many vocal opinions about the communist government. Giles & Kate took this same tour the first day and reported that their tour guide went on a long rant about the photographer when they got back on the bus and that much of what he said was not true, etc., etc. I need to go back and ask them more now that I’ve been there also. Our tour guide said he was a "very good friend" of Hoang Van Cuong and so there was no rant. Giles teaches Politics & Memory so he is really interested in how history is told and retold in different ways. He loved it. After this stop, we went to the War Remnants Museum, formally called the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes, so you might be able to guess as to its slant. It was duly horrifying -- the photos, the baby victims of Agent Orange preserved in glass jars, the reconstructed jail cells. Lots of armory, tanks, airplanes, etc.

This sign:

next to this sign:

The Vietnamese translation of the U.S. Declaration. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

It was a long, hot, intense day.

The phrase that I used for this post’s title, "Vietnam is a country … not a war" is credited to Le Van Bang, former Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States. Our interport lecturer used it in one of his Global Studies lectures. It was clear the night at the Rex Hotel, where I was sitting with folks many years older than I, that they are still very focused on the war. For me, I find myself somewhere in between. Up until this week, I was definitely seeing war first. Now, I’ve taken in those experiences, but also the beach and the 21^st century lives of the people here. For the students with us, however, they are the ones truly able to see Vietnam as a country first. It is fascinating to watch that kind of historical legacy pass through the various American generations on our ship. As befitting a voyage with Desmond Tutu, you can see truth and reconciliation before your eyes.

The Vietnamese clearly see the United States as colonizers, just like they saw the French. They talk about the war as a war of independence, not a war of communism. But they see our students now clearly as tourists and consumers. So much history and so much globalization. All smushed up together. It’s hard to figure out exactly what to do with that. How to make sense of it. And it’s causing us all to spend a lot more time talking together about Iraq than we have thus far. War and history and globalization. Violence and loss. Politics and memory. Forgiveness and peace.