Vietnam.
David Churchman, Los Angeles, USA.
On arrival in Hanoi I was told that my visa, from the embassy in Washington, was no good. It lacked one of several necessary stamps and as anyone could surely tell~if they read Vietnamese~did not become valid but expired the day I arrived.
After waiting about fifteen minutes I was called into an office. The explanation was spun out over another fifteen minutes. Knowing from the start there eventually would be an offer to give me a new visa, I worked on keeping the price low. Whether or not it worked I do not know: what I do know is that after about thirty more minutes I had a new visa for $25 and a fine of $25. On return to the US I wrote to the Vietnamese consulate and in due time received a refund of the $50. It is good to know that the Vietnamese government was willing to correct this mistake.
Hanoi is made lovely by its park-surrounded lakes and tree-lined streets and dreary by its Soviet-inspired architecture. It is dominated by bicycles interspersed with cars driven by people who do not know what they are doing. Vehicles of all kinds come at you from all directions, especially at intersections. Crossing streets is a matter of advancing into empty spaces and halting till another one develops, hoping meanwhile not to be bit (but then this is the same technique one uses in much of Europe).
Almost as ubiquitous as bicycles are the sellers of postcards, stamps, and hats. The latter are either white conical straw peasant hats or green army pith helmets. Life goes on in the street, cooking, eating, nursing babies, socialising, changing money, begging, selling, picking pockets, soliciting.
My First Contact with Confucianism.
Hanoi marked my first contact with Confucianism, at Van Mieu-Quoc Tu Giam, a combination temple, cultural centre, and university founded in the 11th century.
The temple forecourt is a large garden, perhaps two hundred yards long and fifty wide, including lily ponds and ancient Banyan and Frangipani trees. Beyond the garden is a much smaller patio. In the patio, statues of elephants and dragons. To the right, a library and a room listing the names of the doctoral laureates across ten centuries. To the left, the names of the doctoral laureate, again, this time on stelas on the backs of turtles, and a pricey souvenir shop.
I bought a jade pendant and got a lacquer box thrown in free, but started the haggling too high to get a good price-an embarrassing mistake for someone Who writes books on negotiation. Opposite the gate is a small room where traditional music is performed, and the sanctuary. Westerners who think God the only possible source of higher morals would do well to contemplate Confucian societies.
Water Puppetry.
Water puppetry is a Vietnamese art dating back to about the twelfth century. Originally it must have been staged in paddy fields, although I saw it in an air-conditioned theatre full of westerners, indicative of just how tourism has become in Vietnam.
The surface of a pool serves as the stage on which the brightly painted puppets are manoeuvred and under which the manoeuvring apparatus is hidden. A curtain hides the puppeteers, who waded into the pool at the end for curtain calls, proving it about two feet deep. The plot-less performance consists of about 20 mostly bucolic scenes such as "rearing ducks and catching foxes", "lions play with bail", "boat racing" and "children playing in the water" but the most colourful was a fight between two dragons complete with fireworks that filled the theatre with acrid smoke. Much like a silent movie, there is music but no words.
A large park contains the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, the stilt house where Ho Chi Minh lived for about a decade, the old French colonial headquarters, and the Ho Chi Minh museum, The museum is cleverly laid out, basically a circle with the life of Ho Chi Minh unfolding to the left and contemporary world events to the right. It ends with US "crimes".
But it does not mention that the NVA shot, beheaded and burnt alive thousands of civil servants, police, and teachers nor does mention that unification was achieved when North Vietnam violated the 1972 peace treaty it had signed.
Hue, Capital Of Vietnam During The Nguyen Dynasty.
Hue, on the central coast, was the capital of Vietnam during the Nguyen dynasty (1802-1945, much of that time under I French or Japanese thumbs). This was the first time the country was united, an important fact to keep in mind when listening to communist claims they were fighting a civil war. Even today there is no institution that I could identify that brings people together from all parts of the country, the northerners seem still to mistrust the southerners, and the old tripartite division still seems strong.
Hue is dominated by the citadel and the river. The citadel is about a quarter mile square and is surrounded by a moat and walls that must be 30 feet thick. Inside is a public park (now), another moat, and another wall Inside that wall are pavilions, courtyards gardens, a temple and distinctive dynastic urns standing about seven feet tall and the emperor's palace.
A riverboat is good way to see the city and get to Thien Mu Pagoda, the cities best. One evening I had a nine course meal on a boat anchored in mid-river. We ~ about a dozen tourists ~ listened to traditional music by musicians in traditional costume. I tried playing a one stringed instrument that I made sound like a hippo in labour. We ended the evening by launching candles in paper boats, which floated across the river with dozens of others, a pretty sight.
As we headed back to the dock the musicians stripped off their traditional costumes to reveal the jeans and T-shirts underneath. Another restaurant special interest is run by a family of at least ten, eight of whom are deaf and mute. The food is not much different than anywhere else, but the spirit and showmanship make it a joyful stop.
Apparently the money to open it came from the modelling career of the mother of many of the children, a charming woman who mugged for my camera but made sure her restaurant was in the background, a true professional. We of course could not talk, as she could neither hear nor speak, and I am ignorant of any form of sign language. But she could SMILE!
A Taste of Rural Vietnam.
South of Hue along the coast road, the only time I did not fly between coastal cities, I got a taste of rural Vietnam, at least in its Costa form. Paddy fields in every state of cultivation from fallow to harvest. Productivity has vastly increased since collectivism was abandoned and the agricultural co-operatives that treated agricultural as an assembly line process were dismembered about five years ago.
Fields were reassigned to individuals and with no change in skills or inputs, just in motivation, rice yields first doubled then tripled. Instead of being on the brink of starvation, Vietnam now exports rice. I ventured down a dirt road to the mouth of a river emptying into the South China Sea, where I met several families living in houses and on boats. The usual effort at making friends by smiles and gestures followed, helped by a couple of postcards of Los Angeles.
In the 16th- 17th centuries Hoi An was a major port, with annual fairs and traders from Asia and Europe. But ships got larger and its river silted up, so now it is a Vietnamese Williamsburg where one buys a combination ticket for admission to assembly halls, houses, pagodas, shrines, temples, a museum I never found and the Japanese covered bridge which can be crossed without the ticket. Busy markets along the river, friendly people, shops that will make shirts to order overnight for $5 and a town small enough to explore thoroughly on foot make the entire town a trip highlight.
One thing everyone does in Hoi An is an hour boat ride on the river but apparently only some boats are licensed for this trade. The one I picked was not, for it soon was being harassed by a larger boat circling it, with one of the people aboard trying to convince me he was a policeman of some sort till I said this is no fun and ordered my boat to shore.
The silver lining was having to walk back to town through a couple of villages. Two more of the ever-diminishing but still formidable supply of pens, and one of the postcards of Los Angeles, went to sisters who thought everything I said was the funniest thing they had ever beard, without understanding word of it. Took a lunch at a restaurant that was permanently anchored to the riverbed, but was good enough to come back to that night with some people I met around town.
Saigon.
Saigon seemed too western, too frenetic, and not very interesting, even on our, but not their, New Year. Given what we hear of average incomes of less than $300, it seems impossible that so many shops full of expensive goods can survive. My bet is that they do so on savings from decades of socialism when there was nothing to buy and on remittances from overseas Vietnamese.
As this phenomenon is not limited to Vietnam, but extends to eastern Europe, Russia, Israel, Cuba, and who knows where else, I wonder if there ever has been a study of the economics of all this informal aid. The two main tourist sights are out of town. Cao Dai is a religion and a nationalist movement combined, dating from the 1920s. The unlikely combination of Brahma, Joan of Are, Moses, Sun Yat Sen, Victor Hugo, Winston Churchill, and the Vietnamese poet Nguyen Binh Khiem provide its saints: I can understand all of them except Victor Hugo. As Cao Dai promises to restore traditional Vietnamese values and the monarchy as well, it is not popular with the current government, but is tolerated perhaps for its touristic value.
This is considerable. The main cathedral in Tay Ninh is basically Romanesque, but is washed in pastels, its dome a globe of the world, its main symbol an all-seeing eye, its decor high relief dragons in the brightly painted style of Tiger Balm Gardens in Singapore. Services are held four times a day, visitors are welcome and photography is allowed. The women wear white, the men red (symbolising Confucianism), Blue (symbolising Taoism), or yellow (symbolising Buddhism), all of which have contributed to the rituals and doctrine.
The Chu Chi Tunnel Complex
During the war, thousands of North Vietnamese troops were bivouacked in the Chu Chi tunnel complex, which covered several hundred square miles and sometimes was three stories deep. They have been partially reconstructed for school field trips and for tourists.
The stop was a fitting close to my stay in the country. So much of what one sees is related to the war that it is hard to remember that there is a lot more to the country and its history than those few years when Americans were most aware of its existence.
The brevity of our involvement compared to wars with the Chinese and the imperialism of Prance was the reason one north Vietnamese gave me as to why we could be so easily forgiven and now be seen as friends. Not to mention that they want aid and that victors can afford to be generous.