Little Dragon's Peace and Growing Prosperity

Viet Nam. The name means Far South—a land that has played home to foreign conquerors for thousands of years. The Big Dragon, as China is often called, ruled these people for 1,000 years and influenced the Vietnamese for most of their history. The mighty neighbor and economic juggernaut to the north. While the American War may be the memory of most people in the West, the 85 million Vietnamese have battled more with the Chinese, the Khmers, the Chams, and the Mongols before. To many Vietnamese, the Americans were only the last in a long line of invaders, come and gone into history. Whatever was required and no matter how long, these imperialists would be defeated, sent back into the history books just like countless others. Indeed, heroes in Vietnamese culture have always been locals who have resisted foreigners. Water puppet shows demonstrate locals that rose up to stand up as martyrs and champions. Statues grace the traffic circles inspiring a new generation of patriots and heroes to expel the foreign invaders. Independence has always been a national dream, and now it’s a reality. Vietnam’s economic growth is the only Asian nation keeping pace with China, growing leaps and bounds at 8% annually. The Communist government is busy laying much needed infrastructure with roads, bridges and new buildings, trying to justify its ever more unnecessary bureaucracy, rules and policies. But only 4 million people belong to the Communist part in this large growing nation with a strong push for small, one child families. Even our interport lecturer fell victim to the hypocrisy of the socialist system—the communist government and her university supported her job aboard the ship, but the local People’s Communist Committee from her small town vetoed her. For some passengers aboard the M.V. Explorer, Vietnam was the reason they chose to teach or come aboard this voyage. For others like Dr. Peter Seel and Barry, it was their first return trip to a land they knew only as soldiers.

I ventured into the past and an old way of life in the Mekong Delta. The brown river is one of the world’s greatest river and one of the world’s largest deltas. Starting high up in the Himalayas on the Tibetan Plateau, the River of Nine Dragons snakes 4500 kilometers and the numerous branches dump into the South China Sea. Floods are both a blessing and a curse where people live on bamboo stilts and rods to avoid the rising waters. Garbage and sewage and swimming and washing all occur in this sacred river. Known as the rice bowl of the country, Song Cuu Long still clings to the old traditions, and life is alive with dazzling green rice fields and red hues like the dragon fruit, all brightening this water world. Slow boats and floating markets cover the Mekong River—both the high and low parts, the Co Chien and Bassac branches, south of Ho Chi Minh City. Women in conical bamboo hats tend to the rice patties and orchards in the rich delta silts. High population densities are throughout this region, where people live on boats, fishing and farming among the canals and monkey bridges (I crossed one 30 feet above the river on a bamboo stick!). We ate fresh mangoes and pineapples bought from small homemade boats at the Cai Ran and Cai Be floating markets. We visited noodle-making factories and rice husking mills that show the diligent production and high labor costs of rice. All the life here revolves around rice and the river—rice noodles, rice popcorn, rice cakes, rice candy, and rice paper. Canals crisscross the landscape, both for irrigation and travel during the monsoon season. Banana trees populate the landscape with palms and coconuts as chickens and roosters tend to their young running around the pigs and cows. “Xin chao (sin jow),” the children welcomed us, “ten la gi? (what’s your name)” I learned more Vietnamese than any other world language thanks to these friendly people.

Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as it used to be called, is a monument itself, and well-worth visiting. Among large French hotels like the Rex and Continental are statues of Ho Chi Minh and other national heroes. He is the revered man, almost God-like, with pictures and memorials and flags in private homes as well as most restaurants and shops. Uncle Ho is the miracle man who brought peace and prosperity to this war-weary land. Saigon was also surprisingly cosmopolitan, a city with food from around the world and nightclubs, karaoke bars, and modern conveniences. To get around town, I jumped onto the back of motorcycles without helmets while drivers smoked Hero cigarettes and whipped me around to pagodas, temples and old French buildings like the Post Office, Notre Dame Cathedral, and the old US embassy. I feared for my life in the chaotic streets of Saigon, and almost collided into buses and trucks, my skilled driver narrowly escaping at the last minute. On the back of motorcycles (there are probably more than the city population of 7 million!), I witnessed pigs, bus bumpers, wooden poles, chickens and even 8 people!

The Vietnamese, overwhelmingly under the age of 25 (65% under 25, 85% under 35), have long forgotten the American War, as it is known here. But I cannot forget it for this blog. It is a sad tale for both sides of the war, and a lasting legacy on Vietnam and American foreign policy. Our involvement in Indo-China began after World War II with the Cold War, when Vietnam was seen as a lynchpin in a worldwide struggle against communist expansion. After the expulsion of the Japanese and pro-Japanese Vichy France forces, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed Vietnamese independence in 1945 at a rally in Hanoi. He and the US Office of Strategic Services brought US arms and borrowed liberally from the American Declaration of Independence for his speech. At this time, Ho Chi Minh (Nguyen Tat Thanh who became Ho Chi Minh “Bringer of Light”) also wrote 8 letters to the US asking President Harry Truman for more aid, but nothing arrived. HCM wanted a unified people under one government, but it wasn’t to happen—just like Germany and Korea after the wars, Vietnam was divided arbitrarily at the 17th parallel by the Geneva Accords. Meanwhile, France, crippled militarily and morally, clung to its empire, and, two weeks after HCM declared independence when strikes and fighting began, the French came back and dug in for a long fight. They brought in Congoese, Senegalese and Moroccan troops from all around the French empire to fight their war, and a puppet government was installed in the south. Beginning in 1950, the first US firepower arrived and precipitated the next 25 years of US manpower on Vietnamese soil to fight “the communist aggression.” President Eisenhower, years before Kennedy and Johnson, began U.S. aid and military advice to the French, topping $2 billion annually in 1954. But the French couldn’t hold back the tide of the patient and committed Viet Minh. Like Ho Chi Minh said to the French, “You can kill 10 of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds you will lose and I will win.” The Franco-Viet Minh war proved unwinnable despite huge US aid and serious anti-communist sentiments among indigenous people. The Viet Minh surrounded the French, and after 57 days, forced the starving 10,000 French troops to surrender at Dien Bien Phu—a catastrophic defeat that totally killed French public support. The Geneva Accord signaled the end of the French rule, dividing Vietnam north and south at the 17th Parallel before nationwide elections scheduled for 1956. Ngo Dinh Diem led the anti-communist Catholic government in the south, but was horribly corrupt, tyrannical and repressive. In the 1960s, this US supported leader fell victim to his former cheerleader when the US fomented a military coup where Diem was overthrown and killed. Ho Chi Minh started a repressive, police state in the north as president until his death in 1969.

The North-South war to liberate the south began in 1959. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was expanded—1,000 miles cut through the thick tropical jungles and mountains of this land—and delivered heavy guns, shells, and supplies to the south secretly on buffalo and bikes. All North Vietnamese were drafted into the military and the National Liberation Front was created—derogatorily called the Viet Cong or VC or “Victor Charlie” but officially Viet Nam Cong San meant Vietnamese communist. The US strategy changed in 1964 at the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Instant news coverage included eager reporters who told about an “unprovoked” attack on two US destroyers, later found to be conducting secret commando raids on the north. The misled Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving Johnson the power to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the US and to prevent further aggression.” Without Congressional control, this carte blanche allowed presidents to do anything in the name of winning the war, including napalm, executions, massacres and black operations. At this time, Sweden even expelled the US ambassador in protest. By 1966, the US government was facing mounting casualties, and new programs were initiated like pacification, search and destroy, and free-fire zones. Villages were moved inside pro-government areas, with guards posted to curb the VC sympathizers. Other search and destroy units hunted VC guerillas throughout the landscape and even used tanks and napalm in free-fire zones. Booby traps, mines and ambushes were the VC weapons of choice, and people still live with the wounds of battle—arms and legs missing from more recently discovered mines laid by both sides.

The turning point in the war happened in 1968, when North Vietnamese troops launched a major attack at Khe Sanh in the Demilitarized Zone, and the Tet Offensive showed the American people the extent and ferocity by which the Vietnamese would fight for their freedom. One hundred cities were attacked, including Saigon. The gruesome stories pumped into homes at dinner time on the news also showed the infamous My Lai Massacre and other atrocities carried out against unarmed Vietnamese civilians. One US soldier explained at Ben Tre that “they had to destroy the town in order to save it.” But Nixon came in with a “secret plan” as LBJ chose not to run for re-election. Nixon and Kissinger wanted Asian nations to be self-reliant and started the Vietnamization of war, which meant making South Vietnamese replace American soldiers. The war raged on with more and more escalation of the conflict.

Meanwhile, US forces bombed Cambodia and Laos secretly amid bitter anti-war protests at home. The lies and misinformation worked its way up the chain of command to the President. Before the Tet Offensive, many believed they were “winning” the war, based on Secretary of State Robert McNamara, a Ford executive who thought his mathematical genius could determine the success of the war with statistics about death. But the war was pulling America apart by the seams with protests, including the murders at Kent State, and by 1973, the Paris Peace Accords brought about a ceasefire and total US pullout of troops. Two years later, the south fell to North Vietnamese ground assaults and American helicopters left from the US embassy roof. In total, 3.14 million Americans served in the US armed forces in Vietnam during the war, which was never officially declared. 58,183 Americans were dead after a decade in Southeast Asia. On the other side, 2 million Vietnamese were laid to rest. 2 million people! These are but the bitter costs of war, and the saddest, most memorable part of Vietnam for many Americans. I visited both the Reunification Palace and War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. Although they displayed one-sided views of the American War (the War Museum used to be called the American and Chinese War Atrocities Museum, but was changed to be respectful of tourists), even the most proud Americans could not leave embarrassed and ashamed. “Photography,” Neil Sheehan wrote for the museum, “are the images of history rescued from the oblivion of mortality.” Photos of civilians and jungle devastated by Agent Orange were displayed next to photos of American soldiers with severed Vietnamese heads and blood-stained fields full of broken bodies. It was gruesome.

I traveled Viet Nam independently. SAS trips are professional, well-organized and disciplined, but sometimes it’s good to get away. On my own, I have more adventures and meet more local people. Like many places in Asia, saving face is very important and conversations are indirect and story-like. Ask someone ‘how are you’, and they respond in Vietnamese by saying “if I was sick, I’d be still in the hospital, but I’m strong and I’m here.” I talked with college students from Hanoi at an outside game show celebration and talked to cyclos drivers who fought in the South Vietnamese Army; others wanted to practice their English with me in parks. While eating my morning pho (“phaw”—a rice noodle soup with beef and spices costing about 50 cents), I met a Cambodian guy who invited me to come with him to Phnom Penh to stay in house the next day, but I had plans. I booked a 3 day trip to the Mekong Delta early the same morning. His name was Parroth, and he was working in Ho Chi Minh City due to the poor economic conditions in Cambodia. We talked about our families and our home cities and then we parted. At night, while enjoying sashimi, nigiri and sushi at the Sushi Bar full of Japanese tourists and Vietnamese chefs (and much less than California Rolling!), I met a Norwegian man working at a NGO (non-governmental organization) helping to develop the people and community and relieve the poverty in Vietnam. We discussed Semester at Sea, but also the purpose of his NGO and altruism in general. He was happy here, but complained about the growing tourists in Vietnam. “But isn’t the growing tourism a good sign of a developing Vietnamese economy and ultimately the best for alleviating poverty?,” I argued with this polite, quiet and sophisticated European. “I guess,” he conceded, “but they’re ruining the solitude and isolation of this great country.” Only I saw the hypocrisy of his work and his meaningless altruism. The American man I met was more realistic and honest about his reasons for being here—he was in Vietnam because he didn’t want to live anymore in “Bush’s world of fear, hatred and terrorism,” and he lived like a king teaching English privately and at local schools. Saigon really is a cosmopolitan city—full of international restaurants, food stores, newspapers, people and growing skyscrapers!

I am also the director of my own destiny traveling alone—I go where I want. For lunch, I ate at Binh Noodles Soup, an old pho bo (“Phaw boaw”) restaurant 10 minutes outside of downtown Ho Chi Minh City. Binh’s restaurant has become part of the beaten path in Saigon, not because of the decent noodles, but the history behind the walls. Only 100 meters from the American Headquarters during the war, many soldiers ate here unknowingly because this also was the secret base of Viet Cong. While Americans ate downstairs, the Tet Offensive was actually planned here on the third story. Vietnam Vets often come back and remember Binh, now 86. However, Binh wasn’t completely safe during the struggle—he said he took a calculated risk for freedom and liberty. Late in the war, Americans stormed in when they discovered Binh’s true identity. One soldier held a gun to his head, but ultimately decided to send him to jail for the next 5 years. Binh survived, and came out of jail to restart his restaurant and once again serve peace noodles.

There were many sad stories here, but while on a tour of the underground Cu Chi tunnels, 100 kilometers north of Ho Chi Minh City, I heard the worst. Binh was my guide and a Vietnamese veteran of the war—he fought for the Americans. War changed Binh’s life forever, and this is the saddest story I have told to date. I will try my best to represent Binh’s passion, energy, emotion and detail, love and hatred. In this complicated and confusing time, he joined the GI’s because he was told of the “massacres and killing and torturing” that Ho Chi Minh was conducting in the north. In order to defeat this “evil man” who was ruining Viet Nam and murdering children and babies, he joined the U.S. Coast Guard in his native land. He had no options, he said. By 1963 when he enlisted, the VC controlled all the landscape and Mekong Delta, and the Americans were in the cities. Civilians were being moved to protected enclaves, given American rations and told to love America for “protecting” them from the VC. A new puppet government was installed in the south, a military man. But the Americans didn’t know how to fight here, and by 1966, 550,000 GI’s were here along with allied South Koreans, Mexicans, Australians, Malaysians, Taiwanese and others. It was a wrong war, Binh said, agreeing with many other politicians and statesmen, including Robert McNamara, Secretary of State. In the American controlled south, people lived like animals, he said. Meanwhile, Ho Chi Minh was supplied weapons by his comrades, China, Russia and Cuba, but refused troops—he said this was Vietnam’s war. HCM was Binh’s enemy, but his respect for this man was unconditional. The Tet Offensive, the night of the lunar new year, was the turning point in the war, when the VC came out of hiding and showed their true identities, taking over the U.S. embassy and controlling many new parts of the country in a matter of a few days. In 1969, he was sent to the U.S. for training, and had to the option to stay and get out of Vietnam. But this is his homeland, and he came back to take care of his ailing mother. He met John Kerry, then a Lieutenant working on the Mekong river boats with Binh in the south. Finally, in 1973, the American flags were taken down and the Americans left on helicopters before the North Vietnamese tanks rolled over the south. The VC and Ho Co Minh shook hands on April 30th in Saigon, and the boat people, over 3 million, fled Vietnam.

For Binh and most Vietnamese, the war was 150 years long, starting in 1855 and continuing until 1980, when China withdrew from the north after invasion and the Khmers were defeated in the south in the late 1970s. In the end, he served 7 years for the Americans, and paid the greatest prices of war. His grandfather was killed by a Japanese bomb in the 1940s, his son was lost in the war with Cambodia, and he was sent to defuse landmines in re-education camps or prisons in the north for 3 and a half years. Scars on his arms bear witness to the physical and emotional wounds he has suffered for decades. While at University, his girlfriend was also killed during the Tet Offensive. After the war, he even discovered that his uncle was Viet Cong. His own family. Just like the American Civil War, this was brother against brother—one people, same names. I still can’t comprehend how one man could suffer so much, and still laugh and tell jokes. “We are an honest, hardworking, welcoming people,” Binh said, “we don’t care about politics or war. We are communists only in name.” Before the Americans came, he promised his father he would become a doctor, but the war killed his life and his dreams. Now, soon to retire and trying desperately to forget the war as a poor tour guide, Binh is retiring this year. His son, a doctor, plans on taking care of him. “I wish you and your family happiness and success,” Binh finished, “and may you never see war in your country.”
I cried.

It’s not surprising that Viet Nam is distinctly different—a testament to the struggle and pain these people endured to get where they are today. Women wear conical hats, gloves and masks to protect their skin from the sun to be more pale and attractive. Motorbikes and cyclos outnumber people on the crowded, chaotic streets of the cities with HSBC bank towers and old vegetable markets on the same street. Xeo, or rice wine, and Nuoc Mam, a fish sauce, complement a rich cuisine with varied tastes from spicy chilies to delicate spring rolls to chocolate banana pancakes to sweet and sour fish in a bowl. Before Confucianism or Buddhism arrived to Vietnam and before Cao Daism sprung up in the early 1920s, ancestor worship was a strong belief that the soul lives on after death and becomes the protector of its descendants. The hot, humid, sticky air is so wet you can drink it! Another Mister Binh I met, my guide in the Mekong River Delta, was a young, handsome man from the countryside. His father lost everything to the government seizures after the war, and he still fears talking about the government, whispering to me on the back of the river boats. But his family battled back. Binh has been a rice farmer, a bellboy, a waiter, a bartender, and finally an assistant manager and tourist guide all in the 1990s. Ultimately, Viet Nam’s war scars and socialist leaders cannot hold back Viet Nam’s entrepreneurial spirit, will to survive, and the welcoming, funny, and warm Mister Binhs.