Saigon to Superior: Vietnam

Stubborn Pride

“I am your pilot, Aleksander. Welcome aboard Air Asia. Please fasten your seat belt.” These were the short words of our Russian pilot as our Kuala Lumpur gate retracted and he skipped the leisurely taxi down the tarmac for a gun of the engines that sent our spanking new jet wheeling onto the runway and into the air. A Red Navy Veteran? No sooner had we hit the pavement at flight’s end than all passengers were up and about the cabin before we’d even slowed down. Welcome to Vietnam.

A buzzing and beeping mass of humanity, this country is eager to shed the bridles of communism and run full force with the world. Sixty million people; with two million motor bikes in Hanoi alone; weaving through one another in a swerving mass of six-way intersections that seem the product of a traffic cop’s mad hallucination. No traffic lights, no stopping, just millions of drivers engaged in a delicate yet riotous dance of give and take that weaves each round the other through an ever-forward-moving throng. The way the Vietnamese drive is a great metaphor for the way they live.

My high school history class and our Lonely Planet guidebook dovetail on one vivid fact: Vietnamese losses in the Vietnam War were immense. Yet time and time again during our visit, the local sentiment we came across seemed soothed by water under a collective bridge. Whenever we'd respond to an inquisitive clerk or waiter’s “Where you from?” our “America” was time and time again met with a smiling face – no lingering looks or complex thoughts churning their way behind chipper eyes – just enthusiastic Vietnamese looking to strike up friendly conversation and maybe a few sales of their wares.

We got the distinct impression that the Vietnam War lingers much more in the American conscience than it does the Vietnamese. The U.S. media seems awash in it still today; politicians continue to win or lose elections by the way they spin themselves or their opponents within its still-open chapters; analysts comb new military engagements as if they are looking for the resurgent ghost of Ho Chi Minh, while comparing jungles that once hid VC to the modern-day mountains that house the Taliban.

For this reason, Melissa and I wanted to attempt a closer look at this rough mark within our nation's history, taking a break from the scenic beauty that had attracted us to the country for our honeymoon. We decided on a visit to one of America’s most challenging battle fields - My Lai, where exhausted and war riddled U.S. troops, desperate to cut down an invisible enemy, left a village dead in their wake.

Yet our requests for the $15 taxi ride to take us from our comfortable Hoi An hotel to the rural memorial were met with tilted heads and the statements: “That’s a long way to travel, isn’t it?” or “Is that really how you want to spend your day?” Our response, “...Yes, but we’re American. Is this something we should see?" was eased with the soft words of a pretty young hotel attendant that seemed to sum up the feeling that radiates throughout Vietnam – “…It was a long time ago.”

Ironically, today, communist Vietnam may actually be one of the most capitalist countries on Earth. Nothing is free. Parents have to pay for their kids’ schooling, doctors ask for payments up front, and every major road is a toll way. Yet the communist mystique lives on. At every other street corner sit painted billboards with a style that seems borrowed from a period museum – yellow and red hammers, sickles, and stars, above farmers, laborers, soldiers and mothers carrying their respective tools while marching across austere wooden canvases in red solidarity, often with “Uncle Ho” proudly beaming from above.

While at every intersection in between, much larger BMW, Pepsi, and Nescafe ads jump out in bright neon lights and glowing logos, much more in sync with the buzzing throngs of traffic below, converging beneath the giant Samsung and Toshiba LCD screens dancing above Ben Thanh Market in Saigon, clearly revving up to take on Piccadilly Circus and Times Square.

Is there a tug of war going on for the nation’s psyche? Looking back on our two weeks of commerce-fueled immersion, it seems more likely that Vietnam’s 60 million buzzing citizens are simply giving a respectful nod to the dwindling elders of a bygone era, who marched to a political ideology that, while flawed, unshackled the country from two centuries of French and American rule; fueling an independence movement that proved much more complex than anything I’d read in my high school history books – and anchored like planets around the star that is Ho Chi Minh.
Ho Chi Minh… whose tomb I stood in front of one morning to watch a never-ending line of fans stretched thick for blocks, all waiting patiently for the 30 seconds they might get to pay their respects—to the communist leader of a country these same admirers have made capitalist in every manner but name. Clearly, my history lessons are incomplete.

Vietnamese aren’t just entrepreneurs, they’re hustlers, and along with the swelling wave of manufacturing and consumption that have sent their new free market economy afire, tourism has taken off in a manner that would make the most diligent Cancun tour operator beam. “Adventure Tours!” are everywhere, on every corner, loaded with tour managers eager to sell you in chipper English the many wonders they have in store for you in beautiful Vietnam.

And there are wonders: Mountain ranges shooting out of the South China Sea like a lunging dragon’s back, temples with clouds of incense wafting over scores of gleaming Buddhas, water puppets with fireworks flying out of dancing mouths, and a family of four veering nonchalantly on a motor scooter through the bustling hordes along the curves of Old Hanoi's thousand-year old streets, one daughter braiding the other's hair as they roll.

8/05/2007