We left a package in the Bangkok airport of things we didn't want to carry through Indochina. In the bag I put a book I have been devouring ever since opening it and reading the first page. The book is called The Girl in the Picture by Denise Chong and is about Kim Phuc, a young villager in South Vietnam who was hit by a burning ball of napalm during the "American War" (as the Vietnamese call it) and photographed shortly afterwards as she was running away. The photograph was instrumental in increasing the protest against American involvement in the war. I left the book in Bangkok because I was nervous that the Vietnamese officials would take it away from me, or worse- that I would get in trouble for carrying it. Though the bomb was dropped by the South Vietnamese army in a freak accident, the book details the struggles that many South Vietnamese endured at the hands of the Viet Cong. Moreover, Kim Phuc has defected and now lives in Toronto (the author of the book is from Ottawa) and defectors from Communist countries are not usually celebrated in their native land (no kidding). To see the famous photograph that won a Pulitzer Prize and read a good, short article about Kim Phuc by the photographer Nick Ut click here. (I highly recommend the book to anyone who is interested in learning much more, not only about Kim Phuc but about life in Vietnam before, during, and after the war.)
When we landed at the airport I was expecting something a little more...um... soviet. Instead we were greeted by a huge, modern airport and an array of smiling (gasp!) immigration officials. Our bags were not searched and I groaned to myself because I could have kept the book with me. The taxi driver sang and honked his way into the city along a road we shared with cows and their whipping masters, bicycles, motorcycles, and some huge trucks whose drivers were completely ignoring the fact that there were others on the road. The (mostly) paved road was surrounded on both sides with wide expanses of green fields and people with broad conical hats tilled the soil and plucked vegetables from the ground to put in large wicker baskets.
I'm surprised to find we have CNN, MTV, and BBC in our hotel. Excuse my ignorance but aren't Communist countries cold, totalitarian, and closed to outside influence? I really began to forget we were in a Communist country until we went to a couple of museums today. First we went to "The Women's Museum" which is Vietnamese "herstory" told in a series of exhibitions and photographs. The museum was surprisingly well put together and the displays were explained well and wonderful to look at (by comparison the Laos National Museum in Vientiane was a pitiful and dusty array of artifacts in cases without explanations). The second museum we went to used to be the Hoa Lo prison and was built by the French to house Vietnamese rebels during their occupation and was later used in the American War to keep American POWs and consequently dubbed "The Hanoi Hilton". Propagandistic phrases such as "the American aggressors and their lackeys" and referring to the Communist revolution as "the struggle" were commonplace in both museums. In the Women's Museum, a lot of time was given to the heroic roles women played in "the struggle"- everything from cooking meals for soldiers to bearing arms themselves. The Hoa Lo Prison museum was quite moving as you were able to walk in and out of the cells where the walls were lined with wooden slabs as beds and fixed with shackles for each male prisoner (but in contrast, the women's cells were just concrete rooms with nowhere to sleep). The text on the walls in the prison museum detailed where the national heroes were housed and referred to them in passionately brave terms but the Americans were described as "the enemy" (which they were but the language seemed too harsh and biased). The propaganda here is quite striking but I can't say that it feels much different than watching Bush give pep talks about bombing Saddam on CNN.
Tonight we went to a performance at the Water Puppet Theatre. It was quite bizarre but interesting. The puppets are manipulated by poles held by people who stand in thigh-deep water behind a screen. The music that accompanied the performance was wonderful though we had no idea what was going on in the story that was played out with puppets as people, fish, dragons, and a tortoise.
Hanoi is hectic, colourful, and unique. Crossing the streets is cause enough for an ulcer. In the first 24 hours of being here, we've already witnessed three accidents. We leave tomorrow for Hue and that's probably a good thing because chances are we'll be struck by a scooter if we linger in this town any longer.
tothesea,
k&m
p.s. Does anyone remember the band Hanoi Rocks from the 80s? Nah, didn't think so.
p.p.s. Happy Halloween!