Chained To The Keyboard

There are some places that you are absolutely certain you’ll get around to visiting in your lifetime. Vietnam was never one of mine. I’m going to be living in a country with a political system completely antithetical to anything I’ve ever known; a place which, when I thought about it before, carried only images of war and burning forests… [I always thought] Ho Chi Minh… was simply a lesser Mao or Stalin, his murders numbered in thousands rather than millions.

I wrote those words over two months ago. I’ve come a long way since then.

Perhaps there’s little point in apologising for comments made on a blog with a combined readership I can count on my fingers, but I’d like to retract the above statements. They were made in ignorance, and as a (armchair) student of history I should know better.

When I came to this country I didn’t know the first thing about it. First, and most surprising, was the forehead-slapping realisation that the ‘Domino Theory’ was pretty much the worst foreign policy idea in the history of the White House. For one thing, the Vietnamese and Chinese vehemently despise each other. Admittedly so do most other countries bordering China, but it sort of puts a damper on the idea that Maoists were going to start streaming down into the country on their way to the rest of South-East Asia (Cambodia and Laos, by the way, despise the Vietnamese).

It’s also unlikely that the borderline-xenophobic Vietnamese would have allowed their country to be used for Russian military efforts. In fact, the few thousand Soviets and their families who came in after 1975 to help rebuild the country’s infrastructure were apparently ridiculed and ostracised to a large degree. It didn’t much matter; Russia was too preoccupied with Eastern Europe and the vagaries of the Cold War.

So the Second Indochina War was far less a proxy war than anyone in the United States believed. Ho Chi Minh – who was at various times a spy, a monk, a sailor, a general, an author (in five languages), a film reviewer, a wandering revolutionary and a pastry chef – was so fervently devoted to nationalism that he would bend his policies and beliefs in any direction in order to further the cause of his country’s freedom from the colonial French. As he said, “Better to sniff American shit once than eat French shit for the rest of our lives.”

Chameleonic, he ranged the political and diplomatic spectrum to suit his needs, appealing to the United States on countless occasions, writing letters and even attempting to sneak into a diplomatic gathering in order to personally deliver a plea to Roosevelt. The letters apparently never reached any American President, whose advisors stubbornly continued to pigeonhole Uncle Ho as a Maoist stooge. The President also managed to ignore the opinions of the OSS, his overseas intelligence network which had grave doubts about the purported ideological links between Ho and the Chinese (the OSS would later be rebranded as the CIA, a far less competent organisation with far fewer moral and ethical qualms).

In short, like the Americans before me, I came here clueless as to the political and historical realities of Vietnam. I had no idea, for example, that there used to be a bloody enormous South Indian-derived Hindu kingdom in what is now central Vietnam, and that it lasted for an incredible 13 centuries before the Vietnamese razed it, Carthage-like, to the ground. I didn’t know that the southern Viet tribes were the only people in the 12th and 13th centuries to successfully repel the unstoppable might of Khublai Khan’s Golden Horde, and they did it not once, not twice, but three times in a thirty year period.

I had not a clue about the pioneering guerilla warfare techniques of General Vo Nguyen Giap, or the complex political planning that went into the systematic Buddhist self-immolations of 1962, or the American complicity in the military decapitation of the Diem regime, or the astonishing fact that the official in charge of the much-reviled ‘strategic hamlet’ program was later discovered to be a Communist agent. Most criminally I had never even heard the name of Dien Bien Phu, the greatest and most decisive siege battle of the 20th century, during which the fearless paratroopers of the Foreign Legion actually volunteered to jump at low altitudes, at night, into a garrison that had become a blazing inferno of artillery and anti-aircraft fire in order to fight an enemy that had them completely surrounded.

I had no idea what I was getting into, but at least now I know better. Someone once asked Winston Churchill what three pieces of advice he’d give a man to help him succeed in any field of endeavour. Churchill replied: “Study history, study history, study history.” I tried this quote out on my travelling companions recently and they didn’t buy it. “But Churchill was a politician,” they complained. “They need to know about history.”

In my opinion so do plumbers, carpenters, musicians and just about anyone else. Perhaps not at the lowest, rote-learning level of their profession, but I can’t think of any craft in which mastery can be attained without reference to the accumulated knowledge of the past. I imagine that knowledge of the Roman aqueducts would greatly benefit any plumber, unless he really doesn’t care for his job at all.

It’s the same with writing. Modern storytelling has been refined by thousands of years of adaptation and evolution and in a sense, all human history is a story. The writer who is ignorant of the history of other people cannot put himself in their shoes; cannot change his mind. And the ability to change our minds has to be our most powerful storytelling tool. Without it, we would forever write characters who are nothing but pale reflections of ourselves.

So whatever you do for a living, give it a shot: Study history, study history, study history.

Or just mess about on the internet. That’s good too.

I’ll be in Hanoi very soon, where the body of Ho Chi Minh is still encased in glass, Lenin-style, and sequestered in a monumental tomb for all to visit (his friends and followers in the Party having betrayed his last wishes, which were for his body to be cremated and buried in his home village). I look forward to having a chat with the softly-spoken former pastry chef. Perhaps he’ll accept my apology.

Some pictures of our journey so far.

I know, I know; when did this turn into a travel blog, right? My apologies to all of you who are utterly bored by this, but I promise I’ll get back to writing about writing soon.

First off, here’s a photo of the pagoda ceremony, as described in my previous post.

And this is the beautiful altar from the same pagoda, complete with friendly gong-lady.

On the roof of the ‘Reunification’ Palace, former seat of the Republic of South Vietnam, President Ngo Dinh Diem’s private UH-1 helicopter still sits.

On the palace grounds, a replica of one of the Soviet-made North Vietnamese tanks that crashed through the palace gates in April 1975.

At the nearby War Remnants Museum, the U.S. Air Force symbol on a captured F-5 has been delicately crossed out.

A store offers a discount for ‘Women’s Day’ earlier this month — basically, Valentine’s Day just for women. The Vietnamese are an extremely romantic people.

The Pepsi corporation has moved in here, where even McDonald’s still fears to tread. KFC restaurants (owned by Pepsi) are now all over Saigon. It is a mark of station to be able to afford to eat at one.

The Vietnamese adore motorbikes. Virtually every shop is equipped with a small ramp to allow customers to drive their bike directly into the store, and every house has a small bike-port inside the front door.

A very odd political billboard near our house. The men in dark green are police. We have dubbed it the ‘Inform On Your Neighbors’ billboard.

Finally, a lone fisherman paddles his bucket-boat along the coast of Mui Ne, a fishing village turned resort town.

That’s all, folks. Hope you enjoyed it!

In this place, nothing is certain.

It’s not just the language barrier, although that certainly creates its own set of problems. It’s the people themselves. Ask any ex-pat Westerner in Saigon and they’ll tell you: The Vietnamese are an unpredictable and confusing lot.

They say one thing when they mean another; they act inexplicably, according to unseen forces. Time to them is ‘rubber’, elastic, meaning appointments and dates are hopeless before you set them. The very streets appear to change configuration overnight, and no store or roadside is exactly the same as it was yesterday.

The Vietnamese always seem to be preoccupied with something else. Perhaps this is why I’ve found it so difficult to speak to them about their history. Whenever I ask our hosts about the American War, or what this or that local shrine represents, I am at best given a curt, cursory response. People find it incredibly hard to speak about anything before 1975. This contrasted greatly with my experiences of Europe, where it seemed like every person we met knew the history of their local town by heart, and was proud to speak of it.

Gradually, I grew to suspect that the Vietnamese cared little for their own history. Clearly it was the fault of the Communist government. History was suppressed and hidden in order to keep the people in line. The ‘Reunification Palace’ was filled with Party-sponsored faux history; so too the War Remnants Museum, in which crowds of schoolchildren laughed and strolled between American helicopters and artillery pieces. This nation, I thought, had not healed its war wounds; it had hidden them beneath a cloud of ignorance.

Two days ago, I was forced to rethink my conclusions.

We were awakened at 6.00am by an incredible noise from the local Buddhist pagoda across the street: jangling guitars, wailing voices and pulse-pounding drums. The noise went on all morning, and eventually we went to investigate. It was a festival of some kind, with many of the neighbourhood people attending, but we didn’t go inside for fear of causing offense (our travels in Italy had instilled a healthy sense of respect for other peoples’ sacred spaces).

The music went on all afternoon and into the night. We learned from our hosts that the festival was in honour of a local woman who had rebelled against the Chinese in centuries past. Late that night we ventured out onto the street again, cameras in hand, hoping to snap a few shots from a safe, respectful distance.

But no sooner had we reached the pagoda than we were swept up in a tide of smiling, happy locals. Insistent, they ushered us inside. The temple was beautiful, bedecked in blood-red and gold, filled with offerings of fruit and heady with the smell of incense. More than a hundred people, from the very young to the very old, were crowded around a brilliantly-decorated stage, on which stood actors in elaborate Chinese-style costume and make-up. They played the parts of the rebel woman and her compatriots, hamming it up to the delight of the audience. Opposite the stage, children burned incense sticks and bowed in front of statues of ancient warrior-heroes, patriots who had fought the Chinese invaders.

Far from being outsiders in that ceremony, we felt like celebrities. Every face was warm and kind. They all but demanded we take photos, even rushing to bring us stools to stand on for a better shot. One toothless old lady, in charge of ringing the temple’s bell, virtually manhandled us into the prime viewing positions. Smiling all the while, she implored us to pray before the altar, but we excused ourselves on the grounds that we didn’t know how. All the while I was thinking one thing: This woman is old enough to remember the War. What happened to her? To her family? After that horror, that Holocaust, how can she be so kind to a bunch of Westerners she’s never met?

That experience opened my eyes. Far from being ignorant of their history, the Vietnamese are fiercely patriotic, stoic, fatalistic and proud. The Americans were only one in a long chain of invaders to be repelled; they were not the first nor last empire to threaten this country. The Communist government might twist the facts, repress the real history, but the people do not forget. They do, however, forgive. After all, they won the war. And whatever historic pride they cannot express in public, they can celebrate within the sanctity of a pagoda, surrounded by their community, even welcoming in outsiders to share in the experience.

At least, that’s what I think.

But in this place, I can’t be certain.

I have found myself in a very strange place. In the past few days, I have seen inconceivable things. This culture is so alien, this history so opaque, that I am just now beginning to understand how little I understand.

The traffic here flows like water. Step into it and it flows around you, barely noticing. Babies and dogs cling to the handlebars of speeding motorbikes. Tiny children clutching school backpacks step gingerly through thousands of hurtling vehicles. The horns never stop, but the noise isn’t angry or violent; just a part of the background.

Dogs wander from restaurant to restaurant, poking in garbage, being kicked away. Clouds of finches settle on untended bags of rice. Painted turtles poke their heads up from a fishpond. An elephant stands chained on the sidewalk, spitting on itself to stay cool. Children roll tiny red berries towards it, and it scoops them up with its trunk.

We watched the police raid a street-side coffee seller. Once they left, she walked to a nearby park and pulled a back-up set of cups and bottles out of a pot-plant. “They’re clever. No wonder the Americans lost the War”, said our guide.

They can sell you anything you could ever want. Marijuana, DVDs, coconuts and chewing gum, everyone has something to sell. All they want is a second of your time, just a glance, a pause; but you keep walking.

Restaurants are everywhere: Mexican, Italian, vegetarian (for the Buddhists). You know what the alley behind a Vietnamese restaurant smells like? The entire city smells that way: a mix of fish sauce, rubble and sweat. Mostly fish sauce.

The people who run our hotel asked us to help them with their English studies. Many see English as a way out, a ticket to a better place. They eagerly questioned us about Australia. Was the cost of living high? How much for a good university? The next day we met a cyclo driver who spoke excellent English. We told him we were going to a nearby department store. “Crazy prices there,” he said, tapping his forehead. “Vietnamese no can afford. Maybe in my next life, huh?” He smiled warmly, and we knew he was sincere.

I came here knowing nothing but the basics about the Vietnam War, but from the moment we landed, I knew I had to try to understand. After our plane touched down, we taxied past row after row of rusted old military hangars, bare airfields and forlorn control towers. Some even contained old helicopters, symbol of our side in the War. This was not what I had expected.

Tiny incongruities have struck me since then. The people here call their home ‘Saigon’; but we spoke to a Northerner and he insisted the city was called ‘Ho Chi Minh’. On another day, we asked our guide about the police. What do the people think of them? “Northerners,” he said. “That’s the kind of people who become police.”

Foolishly, I had brought no historical material with me. I tried tracking down books on the War, but all the large bookstores were government-run. Finally I found a hole-in-the-wall place selling photocopied and used paperbacks. I asked for books on Vietnamese history, and the owner whispered the words back to me, as if to see if I was sure. Then she reached under the counter and carefully pulled out a dozen or so photocopied books, mostly written by Americans: Dispatches, If I Die In A Combat Zone, A Bright Shining Lie, Four Hours In My Lai, The Quiet American.

Dan Sinh market was next. Rumour was that the Americans left behind warehouses of military equipment and clothing when they pulled out, and much of it was on sale at this underground marketplace. The rumours were true, but Dan Sinh only left us confused. The place was filled with U.S. military clothing: boots, belts, hats, shirts, gas masks, bags, surgical equipment, shovels. But, as in a vivid dream, it was impossible to tell what was real and what was fake. The rows of shiny metal Zippo lighters, badly engraved, were obvious fakes. The clothes could have been either. But what about the dog-tags? I combed through dozens, trying to find repeated names, poor craftmanship, some proof of forgery, but I found none. I bought three (one Marine and two GIs), and I plan to research the names of these men at the first opportunity.

There were also cases of old medals at Dan Sinh, but either they were Viet Cong, or they were American and obviously fake. I asked around, asking for Australian medals. Eventually I met one stall-owner who spoke excellent English. He took me into the back of the shop, away from the walkway, and opened a black plastic bag full of medals and military patches. He knew every one of them, listing off the battalion names, explaining the military acronyms. Like a proud father. He had one medal, a Republic of South Vietnam Service award, given by the United States to Southern soldiers. He was very proud of it, but simply possessing that medal must have been dangerous for him. The government here may be corrupt, ineffectual and bloated with bureaucracy – and the people may forget about it most of the time – but it casts a long shadow.

Perhaps it’s just me, but I feel I have a duty as an Australian to try to understand what my countrymen wrought here. Maybe some Westerners can visit this place and not see the War, bubbling there under the skin of the culture. But I can’t ignore it. I look forward to visiting Cu Chi, Danang, Hue and the Mekong, to shed some light on it all. Perhaps I’ll even see My Lai.

I have a lot of understanding to do.

That title is funny because it’s the name of our hotel (for the moment), and it’s pronounced ’sin’. Okay, it’s not that funny. But I haven’t slept for a very long time.

Let me try to describe Saigon.

Imagine Paris gets hit by a nuclear warhead. Most of the beautiful buildings fall down.

Now imagine 8 million Asian people building an anarchic shanty-town in the ruins. Then give every one of them a motorcycle. Think Akira meets Rwanda.

That’s almost close.

I have absolutely no idea how I’m going to live and work here, but I plan to find out. More news as it comes to hand.