We are cousins who graduated from Smith College in the 1960s, in the midst of the Vietnam War. We live in different parts of Massachusetts now and are delighted to be traveling together to Vietnam. Our understanding of Vietnam's history and culture has grown by leaps and bounds as we prepared for our trip through reading. We hope family and friends will join us, virtually, as we take our trip!
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Floating Market in Can Tho
We just embarked on a river boat early this morning headed for one of the many floating markets in the Mekong Delta region. More later!
Naivete in the Face of Ingenuity
From the Saigon airport to the Mekong Delta area we had a 3-hour bus ride. Huy's first words on the bus were: "Do you want to hear another passport story?"
Huy began by explaining that in 1995 Vietnamese could travel freely within the 10-nation ASEAN nations. No passport required. Most Vietnamese travelers were inexperienced. Many Ha Noi residents had not traveled beyond Ha Noi.
"One day a tourist company called me and asked if I wanted to handle a big job. I said yes.The job would be taking a group of travelers to Russia. There would be 54 in the group...a large group. I was told, 'Whatever the cost you must hold the passports for everyone.' I said I could do that. I had an extra large bag.
"The flight went from Ha Noi to Bangkok, to Dubai, and to Moscow.When we arrived at a huge hotel in Moscow, I told the group to meet at breakfast at 9:00 in the morning. I was exhausted and went straight to bed.
"In the morning, in the dining room, I thought something was strange. I did not see one of my group at the dining room. The local guide arrived at 8:50 am as arranged. Still not one of my group was anywhere to be seen.
" I called every room. No one answered the room phone. At 9:10 am I got a master key and a hotel employee and I went to the rooms. No one was in any of the rooms.
"I decided I needed to call the office in Vietnam. I explained what I had done and that none of the travelers were in any of the rooms. The office said, 'We know that. Don't worry. They had no intention of seeing Russia at all. And, do you have all the passports?' "Yes," I replied. "I do have all the passports."
Well, the explanation for the "disappearance" of the group is that in early 1990, Vietnamese monopolized the whole black market in Russia. Then, they needed laborers to help with their businesses. They wanted to bring some friends and maybe some relatives to Moscow. So the shortest route was to bring them via a travel agency.
"Having lost the group, I upgraded my room to a suite, then had a nice private tour of the places where I would have taken the group.Then I returned to Vietnam. What should I do with the 54 passports? The agency said the police will come to ask you some questions.
"The police did come. They said they heard that I had lost everyone in the group. "Yep,I did. I lost all of them." Well, this turned out to be nothing bad at all. The travelers had paid the equivalent of $600 USD per person to the government.So the government was happy. This was a legal human trafficking system.
"Many years later,I met one of those people in Ha Noi. I asked how things were going for him. Very well, it turns out. Most of those people were able to earn $400 to $500 USD per month and send half home to Viet Nam. His wife could build a big house and send their children to the university. There were a few hundred thousand Vietnamese people living in Russia.
"So I asked What if you want to go back to Viet Nam? Well, that's not a problem. You get a big group of friends. You go to a bar and create a scene. You get arrested and kept in jail for about a month. Then you are put on a plane and are sent back to Viet Nam."
Huy began by explaining that in 1995 Vietnamese could travel freely within the 10-nation ASEAN nations. No passport required. Most Vietnamese travelers were inexperienced. Many Ha Noi residents had not traveled beyond Ha Noi.
"One day a tourist company called me and asked if I wanted to handle a big job. I said yes.The job would be taking a group of travelers to Russia. There would be 54 in the group...a large group. I was told, 'Whatever the cost you must hold the passports for everyone.' I said I could do that. I had an extra large bag.
"The flight went from Ha Noi to Bangkok, to Dubai, and to Moscow.When we arrived at a huge hotel in Moscow, I told the group to meet at breakfast at 9:00 in the morning. I was exhausted and went straight to bed.
"In the morning, in the dining room, I thought something was strange. I did not see one of my group at the dining room. The local guide arrived at 8:50 am as arranged. Still not one of my group was anywhere to be seen.
" I called every room. No one answered the room phone. At 9:10 am I got a master key and a hotel employee and I went to the rooms. No one was in any of the rooms.
"I decided I needed to call the office in Vietnam. I explained what I had done and that none of the travelers were in any of the rooms. The office said, 'We know that. Don't worry. They had no intention of seeing Russia at all. And, do you have all the passports?' "Yes," I replied. "I do have all the passports."
Well, the explanation for the "disappearance" of the group is that in early 1990, Vietnamese monopolized the whole black market in Russia. Then, they needed laborers to help with their businesses. They wanted to bring some friends and maybe some relatives to Moscow. So the shortest route was to bring them via a travel agency.
"Having lost the group, I upgraded my room to a suite, then had a nice private tour of the places where I would have taken the group.Then I returned to Vietnam. What should I do with the 54 passports? The agency said the police will come to ask you some questions.
"The police did come. They said they heard that I had lost everyone in the group. "Yep,I did. I lost all of them." Well, this turned out to be nothing bad at all. The travelers had paid the equivalent of $600 USD per person to the government.So the government was happy. This was a legal human trafficking system.
"Many years later,I met one of those people in Ha Noi. I asked how things were going for him. Very well, it turns out. Most of those people were able to earn $400 to $500 USD per month and send half home to Viet Nam. His wife could build a big house and send their children to the university. There were a few hundred thousand Vietnamese people living in Russia.
"So I asked What if you want to go back to Viet Nam? Well, that's not a problem. You get a big group of friends. You go to a bar and create a scene. You get arrested and kept in jail for about a month. Then you are put on a plane and are sent back to Viet Nam."
The Grim Silent Dark
On our last night in Hue, we returned to the Mandarin Cafe where we had lunch the previous day. The walls of the cafe are filled with wonderful photographs of the people and landscapes of Viet Nam, the work of the owner we were told. We were each given a post card of one of his photographs, and shown many albums of his work. The owner himself--Mr. Cu--greeted us when we returned for a light supper.
We had heard he had served with the South Vietnamese army before reunification. Indeed, when he found out we were from the US, he told us with great pride he had been a fire fighter on the runway of a nearby Army base. His bitterness about the war, or rather its aftermath, was quite evident. Neither he nor his family were able to get work because of his collaboration with the US. This is consistent with what we've read and heard from several sources. He ended up making money by repairing old watches and selling them, until he made enough to start this restaurant. He seemed overly eager to share his negative feelings about the communists, and had derogatory things to say about the North Vietnamese.
Huy spoke candidly today about the re-education efforts (in fact, he used the term "brainwashing") of more than 100,000 South Vietnamese collaborators, including the father of one of his friends in Saigon, who endured the "re-education" camp for seven years. For years, he refused to allow anyone from North Vietnam in his home. Although many, like this man, blame the north for their predicament, Huy says it is not a regional divide, but a philosophical one. After all, he points out, many who now live in the south were originally from the north, and vice versa.
Case in point: one of the nation's leading photographers is Dao Hoa Nu. She was born in Hue, educated at Catholic schools, and moved to Saigon with her family when she was 15. I came upon a profile of her in the Vietnam Airlines flight magazine, a light weight journal otherwise devoted to fashion and beauty care. An aspiring singer, her career was cut short "amidst the endemic post-war hardship nationwide," and ended up selling sweet soup on the streets of Saigon. Somehow she managed to get into photography, and has been very successful. But what struck me was the following quote from her:
"Out of my lens are horizons that bear no resemblance to each other: paddy fields, rivers, mist drenched mountains, or sometimes the grim silent dark that enfolds us all. They are always the miraculous and profound poetry."
It's not that I have been looking for this, exactly. It's just I wonder how a people could survive so much pain, so much loss, over centuries and appear so forgiving and optimistic. In Buddhism, there is an acknowledgement that suffering exists, and always will. That one of our responsibilities is "to bring joy to one person in the morning, and ease the suffering of one person in the evening." Somehow Huy's humor and generous spirit are more profound to me when understood in the context of the grim silent dark.
We had heard he had served with the South Vietnamese army before reunification. Indeed, when he found out we were from the US, he told us with great pride he had been a fire fighter on the runway of a nearby Army base. His bitterness about the war, or rather its aftermath, was quite evident. Neither he nor his family were able to get work because of his collaboration with the US. This is consistent with what we've read and heard from several sources. He ended up making money by repairing old watches and selling them, until he made enough to start this restaurant. He seemed overly eager to share his negative feelings about the communists, and had derogatory things to say about the North Vietnamese.
Huy spoke candidly today about the re-education efforts (in fact, he used the term "brainwashing") of more than 100,000 South Vietnamese collaborators, including the father of one of his friends in Saigon, who endured the "re-education" camp for seven years. For years, he refused to allow anyone from North Vietnam in his home. Although many, like this man, blame the north for their predicament, Huy says it is not a regional divide, but a philosophical one. After all, he points out, many who now live in the south were originally from the north, and vice versa.
Case in point: one of the nation's leading photographers is Dao Hoa Nu. She was born in Hue, educated at Catholic schools, and moved to Saigon with her family when she was 15. I came upon a profile of her in the Vietnam Airlines flight magazine, a light weight journal otherwise devoted to fashion and beauty care. An aspiring singer, her career was cut short "amidst the endemic post-war hardship nationwide," and ended up selling sweet soup on the streets of Saigon. Somehow she managed to get into photography, and has been very successful. But what struck me was the following quote from her:
"Out of my lens are horizons that bear no resemblance to each other: paddy fields, rivers, mist drenched mountains, or sometimes the grim silent dark that enfolds us all. They are always the miraculous and profound poetry."
It's not that I have been looking for this, exactly. It's just I wonder how a people could survive so much pain, so much loss, over centuries and appear so forgiving and optimistic. In Buddhism, there is an acknowledgement that suffering exists, and always will. That one of our responsibilities is "to bring joy to one person in the morning, and ease the suffering of one person in the evening." Somehow Huy's humor and generous spirit are more profound to me when understood in the context of the grim silent dark.
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