Vietnam

Vietnam is different to other places. It strikes an emotional cord with almost everyone, whether they have visited or not, but this is magnified umpteen times by a visit. Regarding the war I can imagine it being a little like visiting Iraq in the future. Everyone would have something to say…either about its history, how they felt during the war, or the situation of the country today. But Vietnam is also emotionally striking in terms of its beauty – scenic beauty, cultural beauty, and human beauty.

I'll start with the beauty first because it is so immediately impressive, the rest you have to dig around a little deeper for. Vietnam is worth a visit just for its nature. It has covered with lush paddy fields, of a variety of greens, from head to toe. Worked on by people dressed in all vibrant colours you can imagine, topped off with the classic conical hat. And, no this is not just a performance for the tourists – this is the dress all the time and everywhere. The whole country walks around in these enormous conical hats, and most women also cover their faces with a mask that runs from ear to ear. Colour of skin, as everywhere in Asia, is important component of beauty, and the Vietnamese go to extreme lengths to preserve their original cream satin. The agriculture is split amongst the diversity of minorities, and they are most varied and striking in the mountains, like their environment. In the lower planes, Vietnam is blessed with idyllic coastal scenes. Plus in the north there is Ha Long bay, misty waters housing big dragons according to mythology, and the mountainous Islands jutting out of the waters sure give this impression, whilst in the south you can get lost in the myriad of rivers that make up the Mekong delta.

The minority culture, as in any country, is the most interesting. They have classic ways of dealing with everyday problems that would be good for us to draw from in our day and age. For example, what to do when the parents of the girl that you are besotted about do not like you, and will not allow you to take their daughters hand in marriage? Well, traditionally, and even today, one of two routes are chosen. You either elope with the girl – but this is only acceptable for a three day period at the most. If within these three days the girl refuses to eat anything from you, that is her way of making it clear that she rejects you (I guess to listen to what she is saying is not enough, given what complex creatures the female species is), if she cant cope with the hunger and eats something, then it is clear that she is comfortable with the idea of sharing every meal with you hence forth for the rest of her life, too. The second option is to make her pregnant (I assume with consent), the classic cross cultural route for men and women to ensure that there is a life long bond and commitment between two people.

Vietnamese culture is unique and interesting in many other respects too. The country is not so big but the difference in language, dress and traditions is vast. What speaks volumes is that minority groups today make more of an effort to learn English than Vietnamese, in order to make money from tourists, and to spread understanding about their specific tribe.

At first you would be excused, like I hope I was, for being desotted by the beauty of the women here. It is really hard to stop staring, because not only does the way their slick hair frame their deep soulful coal like eyes and full lips memorise, but the way in which the traditional long dress flatters their body, it is as if the women are slender leaves gently floating in the wind over a lotus lake. It may seem like I am romantising the women (me? never!) but really, their dress, that fits their top after and then falls straight over their bottom half in one continuous piece of silk and colour, makes them the most elegant creatures on this planet. The language, music and dance are all equally as harmonious and elegant.

So the country is beautiful, in many ways, it is also dynamic – in that the population is young, and energetic, and they work, work, work - to get ahead. This is why they are one of the fastest growing Asian tigers with annual growth commonly over 9%.

All of the above the government is keen to promote, so although Vietnam is a little more relaxed than they used to be about the north – south route that visitors take during their trip, still everything is highly regulated. It is difficult to go off the very well beaten track, so not only are the same places visited by everyone, but almost everyone is limited to the same tour companies or organisers. This is the same for anything regarding the war too. You can visit the Cu Chi tunnels for example, which is an intricate labyrinth underground where the Vietnamese would hide, during the war. This was not just for the lucky few. The tunnel system was vast, stretching from Ho Chi Minh City (the capital in the south) as far as the Cambodian border – over 250 km of tunnels. They are several stories deep and have living quarters, kitchens, trap doors, weapon factories, field hospitals and command centres. Saying this, they were a measure of desperation, and really the only way to save your life, for you would have to be desperate to go into a clay oven – which is what it was like underground. I am not claustrophobic but even I could not handle the confined space and was ready to run out within minutes. Only it is not possible; the tunnels are tiny – you have to scrunch up in a ball, and shuffle along on your arse with your knees next to your face, and once a tunnel start it seems to go on and on, and there is level after level, further into the depths of the soil. It was really interesting how this system worked to save so many lives. Firstly, the doors into the underground system were really were camouflaged and covered, and tiny, so that only Vietnamese hips could squeeze through, not American (no offence intended). When American police dogs were sent to search the area the Vietnamese would place America clothing near the doors so that the dog would walk on by! If an American was searching the area, there were trap doors awaiting with large and very sharp nails pointing up to catch the body. It was possible to live underground for there was provision for everything. The smoke coming from any cooking in the kitchen would be spread through ventilation tunnels underground, and these tunnels were so long and wide that any release of smoke would be too faint to notice. Course, all of this did not prevent massive nuclear bombs being dropped and destroying massive sections of the country as was the case when Agent Orange hit the soil.

I do not know if you have heard much about Agent Orange, but when I think of nuclear bombs (which I do often;) I think of Hiroshima first. But in fact the affects of Agent Orange have been horrific and are being felt in Vietnam even today. One thing definitely worth doing if you are fortunate enough to have time in Vietnam, is to go to the war museum in HCMC. This is one of the most disturbing museums that I have ever been to, but well worth it, for it is one of the few places where you can hear about the war from another perspective than that of mass media. The photographs are great, plentiful and very telling – making you want to serve your life as a war correspondent, because that is all we really have today for a glimpse of what was experienced by this nation for so many years. Our education must go beyond the war to then look at what has happened since which has actually been more crippling to Vietnam than the war – economic sanctions. Ever since the war, until only very recently ie. The Clinton Administration, Vietnam has suffered economic sanctions comparable to Cuba. Neither the USA nor any allies was allowed to deal with Vietnam, for trade or otherwise, until Vietnam returned the 'Missing In Action'. This means that the Americans believed that Vietnam had many US soldiers hidden in the country…who were in action and then went missing. Despite Vietnam's continuous and loud insistence that this was not the case, and sending the showing the body parts of the lives that were lost in Vietnam, America insisted that economic sanctions be enforced until these people were returned. Well there were no people, and all these years on, Clinton deemed the sanctions as unnecessary punishment, and they have been lifted. But in the interim Vietnam has been seriously disadvantaged in the world market and this has had serious consequences on people's everyday prospects.

Back to the museum. I had visited the museum with an American friend of mine, Jean. I had told her that some American members of my family, namely my grand father, told me that he would still never consider coming to Vietnam given the guilt he felt on what the nation had suffered. Jean looked me straight in the eye and said this was silly. She did not feel guilty for something that her ancestors did, and only a few power hungry ancestors at that, and besides, it was now history. That day we experienced something that changed the both of us, and our view on this forever. We went to an orphanage.

This might seem like a strange thing to do, but in Vietnam there are almost government more orphanages than schools. As a tourist, you will never come across them, or even hear of them, because they are hidden intentionally by the government, for they do not portray the imagine of Vietnam that they would like. But the fact of the matter is that almost one in every four children is born with Spinabifida in Vietnam. Agent Orange did not only kill, but has contaminated food for the next 400 years in Vietnam, at least. This food, when eaten your entire life, is affecting the future generations, because so many children grown with deformities in the mother's womb. Spinabifida is the principle disorder and means that the child never grows properly. Their bones are never fully formed, especially the spine, and so most can not carry their own weight, or stand straight, let alone walk. The relationship between Agent Orange and the obscene numbers of spinabifida children has been proven my American doctors and lawyers despite vested interests, because they are undeniable. When a Vietnamese mother gives birth to such a child her choices are few.

There are no social benefits, monetary or otherwise to help look after a spinabifita child. It is a life long job and to work after birth would be impossible. If there are other children in the family, which there often is, then their quality of life drops dramatically too, and the bottom line is that it is unaffordable in terms of time or care, for most mothers/ families. So those families that are not able to cope either drown the new born, if they have they can bring themselves to do this, or drop them on the door step of an orphanage. For this reason there are thousands of orphanages all over Vietnam, government run with about thirty or more cots and two or three nurses. The children never see day light. Their life is their cot, and as they reach their teens they are transferred on to a bed. They are well fed, and looked after, but to give attention, love and the human touch to each in accordance to what a child needs (let alone a spinabifida child whose life is confined to a bed) is impossible. I will be honest. I could not visit a government orphanage. I am ashamed to say this, but I could barely handle the pictures and the journey that I was taken on in the museum, I really thought that I could not handle this in real life, and so I decided to give and share in a private orphanage instead. There are not many private orphanages (by private I do not mean that parents have to may for their child to be looked after, but just that they are not government orphanages), but there was one that I had heard about that I was excited to visit. The model of this orphanage was unique, in that it was an Old People's Home and an orphanage in one. This is brilliant because there are Old People's Homes are unheard of in Vietnam, thought there is a need amongst the poorer family's as anywhere in the world. It is not uncommon to see old people sleeping on the streets of HCMC or Hanoi. There was one old lady that I would pass everyday in HCMC, who owned nothing but a stove, and she would cook soup for passer-by's in the day, in order to earn enough to eat her-self, and then sleep on her cardboard mat under the same single white sheet at night. I hate to say it but the first time I saw her I thought that she was dead, until I saw her at day and night, and day, always in the same position, same clothes, same hair style, same expression on her face. You get the idea. So this orphanage is great, because the old people are fed and have something to live for – giving love to the orphans, and the orphans are infinitely happier than in government orphanages, for they are taken out of the cot, played with and loved all day.

Even visiting this orphanage, with is paradise actually, was hard, hard, hard. The child I spent the most time with was 15, rarely handled because she was so fragile, and cried had tears in her eyes when she was touched. Hung is her name and her entire body is hardly bigger than my arm. At a first glance she seemed to be just bones and a pair of dark, soulful eyes. As we got to know one another and she left comfortable enough to respond to me, I was glad. But for the longest time it was just painful.

I could talk more about this experience and Vietnam, but in all honesty I don't think the black on this white page does any justice to what people here have experienced, and what you experience with them. I am glad that this young, dynamic nation is so focused on the future, on working hard and is so ready to embrace the opportunities in the world, now that the sanctions have been lifted. I found that not to be emotionally or otherwise affected by Vietnam is difficult. People are engaging and want to engage, but at the same time there is a lot that one can only imagine about their history. These imagines are important in understanding people's reactions here to everyday things, to foreigners, and to their own future.

To be lost here – is great!