A Different American in Vietnam
This stop has been truly unique, but they all have been unique. So why did it feel so different? Of course the difference was in my approach. More precisely, in no other place have my thoughts been so singularly dominated by one historical event. When I think of Vietnam, the first and last thoughts rest on the relatively recent and relatively short war in the name of democracy that men like my uncle found themselves fighting. By this approach I cheapen an old people's history. The Chinese, Chams, and Khmers have been doing battle with the Vietnamese for thousands of years longer than the word American had any meaning. Yet during our stay, I remained content to visit and think of only 70 years of history. Provincialism abounded - my professors would not have approved. It's OK. That's natural for an American, right? Well, yes. An other, different American that is...
So incredibly different, it's difficult to conceptualize. I am a part of a generation of Americans for most of whom the Vietnam War was something they learned about in the classroom. My parents remember watching the war brought over the television into their homes, my grandparents remember the same as a first of its kind, both knew and loved soldiers there and loved ones at home, but I was afforded the comfortable distance of printed text. I was born well after the possibility of intimate contact with the cultural, personal or even political whirlwind that was the Vietnam War- or was it the American War (as the Vietnamese refer to it).
Alright so I am different, but what about the experience itself. What struck me when I saw the sights and walked the streets?
The tourist dollar and the Vietnamese government's political interests have made strange bedfellows in the historicization and commercialization of a horrible war. Their coupling bore one of the first sites we saw in the city.
We visited the War Remnants museum our first day here. It better deserved the title, "One-Half of a War Remnants" museum. It turned out that War remnants was a less offensive term for what another sign in the museum called, Vestiges of War Crimes. Only American and South Vietnamese crimes, of course. I am not saying these didn't exist because extensive research has proved their existencen and therefore their moral repugnance. Rather it was the propagandist suggestion that war crimes were merely one-sided that so offended me. Surely, only the Americans and their despicable South Vietnamese allies were brutal and criminal. The continued attempt at politicalization missed the point, the point is that war is horrible. Both sides carried great guilt for all kinds of criminal and "uncriminal" war activity.
Still, I don't think I can blame the Vietnamese. America's power certainly protected it (and protects it) from answering for its crimes. Spiderman did say, "With great power comes great responsiblity." Does America shirk that responsibility in the case of self-reproach and flaunt it in the case of "spreading democracy"?
I encountered the most disturbing result of commercialization of the War the second day. Matt and I came across a woman who had rusted dogtags in a glass case for a sale. They were of course the former possessions of American soldiers, and in all probability, dead American soldiers. These singular symbols of post-mortem recognition, and thus of life or death, were being pawned off to a new generation of Western tourists. Why would I buy that?!
The commercialization of death and concomitant demand for such items disgusted me. I suppose tourists buy them and pack them in their suitcase as some kind of "unique" memoir of their visit to Vietnam or a little" piece of history" to take home with them... That "piece of history" identified an American GI's body, who was probably younger than me when he died, so that the military could cable the news home to his family.
... I have to take a step back here and take a breathe. perspective, perspective. I am a priviledged American who enjoys the luxury of flying into Vietnam and its history for 4 days and thinks he can write judgemental words on a website for friends at home to read about something he really doesn't understand even while many of you do understand it. I apologize if my brashness offended anyone. Still, I feel enough right to self-expression (or some other intangible noun) to leave the judgements up there. I guess I am torn. Simply, I realize that I can't take myself as seriously as my writing suggests.
Conclusion: I am different from the Americans who came to Vietnam in the 60's and 70's, their relatives, and even their children. I am an outsider, a latecomer, a priviledged child. I suppose this was an effort at understanding the link between the Americans who were here for war years ago and myself. What makes me different and what makes me an American? What makes me these things in Vietnam?
I glimpsed a sanitized picture of the horror of the Vietnam war and its human touch, this experience offered a new perspective on a link to the past and, so hopefully, not the future.
So incredibly different, it's difficult to conceptualize. I am a part of a generation of Americans for most of whom the Vietnam War was something they learned about in the classroom. My parents remember watching the war brought over the television into their homes, my grandparents remember the same as a first of its kind, both knew and loved soldiers there and loved ones at home, but I was afforded the comfortable distance of printed text. I was born well after the possibility of intimate contact with the cultural, personal or even political whirlwind that was the Vietnam War- or was it the American War (as the Vietnamese refer to it).
Alright so I am different, but what about the experience itself. What struck me when I saw the sights and walked the streets?
The tourist dollar and the Vietnamese government's political interests have made strange bedfellows in the historicization and commercialization of a horrible war. Their coupling bore one of the first sites we saw in the city.
We visited the War Remnants museum our first day here. It better deserved the title, "One-Half of a War Remnants" museum. It turned out that War remnants was a less offensive term for what another sign in the museum called, Vestiges of War Crimes. Only American and South Vietnamese crimes, of course. I am not saying these didn't exist because extensive research has proved their existencen and therefore their moral repugnance. Rather it was the propagandist suggestion that war crimes were merely one-sided that so offended me. Surely, only the Americans and their despicable South Vietnamese allies were brutal and criminal. The continued attempt at politicalization missed the point, the point is that war is horrible. Both sides carried great guilt for all kinds of criminal and "uncriminal" war activity.
Still, I don't think I can blame the Vietnamese. America's power certainly protected it (and protects it) from answering for its crimes. Spiderman did say, "With great power comes great responsiblity." Does America shirk that responsibility in the case of self-reproach and flaunt it in the case of "spreading democracy"?
I encountered the most disturbing result of commercialization of the War the second day. Matt and I came across a woman who had rusted dogtags in a glass case for a sale. They were of course the former possessions of American soldiers, and in all probability, dead American soldiers. These singular symbols of post-mortem recognition, and thus of life or death, were being pawned off to a new generation of Western tourists. Why would I buy that?!
The commercialization of death and concomitant demand for such items disgusted me. I suppose tourists buy them and pack them in their suitcase as some kind of "unique" memoir of their visit to Vietnam or a little" piece of history" to take home with them... That "piece of history" identified an American GI's body, who was probably younger than me when he died, so that the military could cable the news home to his family.
... I have to take a step back here and take a breathe. perspective, perspective. I am a priviledged American who enjoys the luxury of flying into Vietnam and its history for 4 days and thinks he can write judgemental words on a website for friends at home to read about something he really doesn't understand even while many of you do understand it. I apologize if my brashness offended anyone. Still, I feel enough right to self-expression (or some other intangible noun) to leave the judgements up there. I guess I am torn. Simply, I realize that I can't take myself as seriously as my writing suggests.
Conclusion: I am different from the Americans who came to Vietnam in the 60's and 70's, their relatives, and even their children. I am an outsider, a latecomer, a priviledged child. I suppose this was an effort at understanding the link between the Americans who were here for war years ago and myself. What makes me different and what makes me an American? What makes me these things in Vietnam?
I glimpsed a sanitized picture of the horror of the Vietnam war and its human touch, this experience offered a new perspective on a link to the past and, so hopefully, not the future.
posted by Dan at 9:21 PM
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