Explaining Vietnam -The Country, Not The War - To Americans
Created | Updated Dec 6, 2006
My Irish Husband Tony and I recently were privileged to sail on Semester at Sea to Asia. In addition to teaching two classes of university students, I wrote a weekly blog to my fellow Americans. This is the entry about Vietnam.
Saigon. Da Nang. Hue. Dien Bien Phu. When we were growing up these were scary places on the evening news where people were killed daily. This week they were my evening weather report.
We approached Vietnam with apprehension and excitement. It's a 'third world' communist country. We couldn't drink the water or have ice. We would have to divide every price in 'dongs' by 16,000 to convert to US dollars. But all those who had been there before said it was their favourite stop on Semester at Sea™.
My Irish Husband Tony and I both awoke at 4 am on Wednesday as we sailed up the Saigon River into the port. I shifted my head to the bottom of the bed so I could look out our balcony as lush rainforest and fishermen on little boats passed by. Tony grabbed the video camera and raced up on deck to record the whole trip.
Four hours later, when the ship finally arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, still called Saigon by everyone who loves her, it executed a 180-degree turn, sweeping past the SANYO neon billboard and construction cranes. The friendly Communist government ordered continuous shuttle buses to drive us 10 minutes into the centre of town, letting us off at the beautiful old Rex Hotel. This wasn't courtesy; it eliminates the gaggle of taxis that find our ship whenever we dock.
All I have ever known about Vietnam were stories of the war and that it was originally colonized by the French. I remember a documentary in the 1980s about life in the post-war country. The CBS reporter concluded by saying that even a victorious Communist regime from the north could not suppress Saigon's seductive southern allure. The last shot was of civilians marching in formation. One beautiful woman — and they are all beautiful — wearing traditional Vietnamese silk dress and pants, noticed the camera. She giggled and winked.
That is the city the shuttle took us to each day. And, as we had been warned, we stepped from the bus into a swarm of motorbikes. They flow through the streets like schools of fish. Not too fast; they slither at a steady pace. The only way to avoid being hit is to step off the curb into the stream and keep walking. They instinctively sweep by you, parting like the Red Sea.
There are four million motorbikes and 30 road fatalities a day in the whole country. An underestimate on both counts, if you ask me. Many of the drivers wear helmets; many don't. They carry, two, or three, or four: adults, children, infants, dogs, baskets of food, feet of wire cable, anything that has to be moved through the city.
I wonder if the Vietnamese women's traditional slit dress and pants developed to allow them to ride the necessary and ubiquitous bicycles of old French Saigon? Now that those have been traded for cheap Japanese Hondas, or even cheaper Chinese 'Rondas', the women can straddle the seats and maintain their petite yet elegant bearing. Or ride side-saddle in evening clothes and stiletto heels.
With no metro and a dirty, infrequent bus system, the motorbikes are a necessity; pedestrians, a minor obstacle. Our representative from the American consulate told the students,
'Don't even think of driving a motorbike yourself. I watched a little baby on his mother's lap weaving in and out of traffic on one. I realized that these people grow up with those traffic patterns and none of us would stand a chance. Take a taxi. They're cheap.'
So were the fabulous food, the beers (but not the wine), the handmade suits and silk dresses, and lots of presents to bring back.
As Vietnam's economy continues to improve, more American brands will join the lone western fast-food operation, Kentucky Fried Chicken. And each motorbike will be replaced by a more affordable but less environmentally-friendly car. They welcome our American brands, and our American dollars, with smiling faces. From many sources we heard, 'The Vietnamese bear no grudges.' 'But we lost!' say the Americans. 'You didn't lose,' say the Vietnamese. 'You left.'
And now we are back.
Tony and I went on Semester at Sea™-sponsored trips to meet with a former UPI war photographer at his house, where he proudly showed us the US Marine Corps jeep he had saved; to crawl, with an American Vietnam vet, through the Cu Chi Tunnels where Viet Cong laid booby traps for American soldiers; to visit the War Remnants Museum, with its grisly, one-sided presentation of 'the American War'; to sail on a series of smaller and smaller boats through the once-strategic Mekong Delta, sampling local fruits and coconut candy.
On our own we hired a van, driver and tour guide who took us, and five of our friends out into the beautiful countryside to a rubber plantation and an elegant open air restaurant for lunch1. In the evenings, in upscale dining rooms, we ate chicken grilled in lime leaves, fried rice served in a pineapple, and finally could afford to drink real (not Asian) wine with dinner. At the vendor's stall set up right outside our ship we bought our triangular straw hats, obligatory for all Semester at Sea™ participants to wear as they get off the ship back home.
Yes, there are pickpockets, and little kids in your face with postcards to sell at every stop. And yes, one student had her purse stolen by a thief flying by on a motorbike. And yes, we did feel more secure, ironically, with Vietnamese soldiers milling around. But every night we finished up at the Rex, for cheap internet, a dish of ice cream or a bottle of Tiger Beer, and a band trying to recreate ubiquitous American pop songs. With our backs turned to CNN on the wide screen TV, we could look out the big picture windows at the smiling people walking by. I did see a few sourpusses, but each one broke into a grin when he or she saw my smiling American face. And behind the people on the sidewalk, the motorbikes streamed by.
Only on the last day, when I was on the bus home from the water puppet performance, did the rains come to relieve the heat. Pelting, lashing, typhoon rains. For a moment, the motorbikes halted. Some were pulled inside shops or under overhangs. But most drivers just put on plastic ponchos, big enough to cover themselves and whatever precious family members or cargo they were transporting, and then they continued on in the rain. Blue, green, black and peach plastic triangles on motorized wheels. Sailing slowly through the Saigon streets.
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