Where is the Saigon government and its army?

This seminar has been absolutely awesome so far. Most of our lectures have been awesome and we have had some very prominent and interesting guest lecturers - Bao Ninh, Madame Ninh, Ambassador Michalak, Chuck Searcy, Col. Sauvageot, Mike Eiland to name a few. The diversity of the speakers has helped us learn the history of Vietnam War from different perspectives. However, I feel that we are missing the perspective of one important group of people, i.e. the members of Saigon government and its army. Most of the speakers who have spoken on a topic related to the war have spoken from the perspective of the North Vietnamese people or the American people.

I didn't realize what I had been missing until today morning when Madame Ninh shared some of her experiences with us. She used to collect political intelligence for the NLF in early 1970's. In this context, she said that NLF was very sophisticated not only in the battlefield but also in the political arena. She also told us that Saigon government was nowhere near the NLF in terms of political sophistication. This was the point when I felt like I wanted to hear what the people from the Saigon government and its army would say in response to her. This is just one instance among many when a "Saigon perspective" would have been interesting to listen to.

It is not like the "Saigon perspective" was never mentioned during the course of the seminar. How Saigon government and its army perceived different events and how they reacted to them have often been mentioned and discussed in the class but having someone from the Saigon side come and speak to us in person would have been much more meaningful than just studying the Saigon side.

However, if I am correct, what I would like to see would not be that easy to arrange. First of all, we are in Hanoi, which was the capital of North Vietnam. Therefore, we are bound to get more of North Vietnamese perspective. And because we are in an American university and because most of us are Americans, we are bound to get more of American perspective. And also, I would guess that many prominent and less prominent people in the Saigon administration and ARVN have left the country already. So probably that makes it difficult for us to get the "Saigon perspective" in the seminar. And even if they were in Vietnam, they may not have the complete freedom of expression to share whatever he wants to share with us. Therefore, the lack of "Saigon perspective" may have existed despite the efforts of Desaix and the seminar administrators to include it. Maybe if I asked Desaix this question, I would get the answer in a couple of sentences, and then this post would just be useless.

I don't mean to blame anyone or criticise anyone by this post. I have not even talked to Desaix about this. So I don't think I have a right to be critical. I am just writing what I felt. During the course of the seminar, I felt like Hanoi government is more "real" than Saigon government. I wouldn't be surprised if other friends in the seminar didn't think so because I have this tendency to think of something as "real" only after seeing it for real with my own eyes. And so far, I have not seen any trace of Saigon government or its army.

We are learning about Vietnam War doesn't mean that we need to see everything about it. However, since we are in Vietnam to learn about the war, I would have liked to see someone from the Saigon side. Whenever I tried to think of the war from the point of view of the speakers and lecturers who have spoken to us, Saigon side has been absent just like it was in the minds of the US policymakers when Johnson decided to Americanize the war in 1965. Maybe, this is the reason Saigon side has maintained such a low profile in the seminar.

Nepal can probably learn more from Vietnam than from the West

I would like share with you all some of my thoughts that may or may not deserve a place in this blog:

When I have been outside of Nepal, I don't think I have thought as much about my country as I have done in the past five weeks. Of course, much of this stems from the fact that Vietnam (at least Hanoi and the countryside) looks very similar to Nepal. But I would attribute it more to the fact that I am studying a developing country for the first time.

In Nepal, people always look up to developed countries like the US, the UK, Germany, Japan, and so on. So I have always thought that the road to development lies only in the expertise of these countries. And probably when I go back home to Nepal and tell my relatives and neighbors that I went to Vietnam to study, they will probably think that I wasted my time here. But this Global Seminar is the one time I could connect whatever I was learning inside and outside the classroom to my country. In the past five weeks, I have realized that I had been underestimating the value of knowledge one developing country can impart to another one.

I am not necessarily talking about the rapid economic development that is happening in Vietnam right now and how much Nepal could learn from it. Of course, that is a big lesson that Nepal could take from Vietnam. But from a personal perspective, when I studied the Vietnamese history and how the landless tenants and the peasants were oppressed, how they were mobilized using Leninist ideas, how they were motivated to fight a war, I feel like I have come to better understand the lives of the people in the countryside that led to the beginning of the 10 year-long civil war in my own country that supposedly ended in 2006. It is fascinating for me to learn that the communist revolutions in Vietnam and Nepal had so many similarities. Literally, when I was reading about the Vietnamese people in the 1930's, I could visualize my own people and how miserable their lives are.

But yet, Vietnam has been able to overcome a lot of challenges and has been able to march on the road to economic development in recent days. And I think, in practical terms, Vietnam's story would be more relevant to Nepal than an American or a British story. When I hear bits and pieces about America's or Britain's historical events, I cannot connect to them in the same way I can connect to a Vietnamese historical event. I think it has a lot to do with the type of people that inhabit these two different societies, the type of culture they have had, the type of economic systems they have had and the historical paths that these countries have taken. And clearly, Nepal is more similar to Vietnam on these grounds. I think this extends to the stories of economic development. Western countries and the Asian countries have different people, society, economy and circumstances. Hence, whatever works in France may not work in Nepal. The business model of Sweden may not work in Nepal because the Swedes may have a different way of doing business than the Nepalese. The agriculture machinery the Americans use may not serve the Nepalese as well because the land distribution in the US is different from that in Nepal.

Thus, I think it is time to stop, look back and evaluate Nepal's development strategy. It might be better for Nepal to look up to a country more similar to itself for advice than going for a country far above in the development spectrum that has different types of people, cultures, and societies. And Vietnam is not a bad option.

Pho Binh

On our Seminar trip to Ho Chi Minh City two weekends ago, Todd Kramer and I stopped by a restaurant called Pho Binh which we found described on an online travel website. While it doesn't look like much, Pho Binh has an incredible history: the second floor of the restaurant served as the staging area for the Tet Offensive in 1968. The place wasn't far from our hotel--around 10 minutes by taxi--and was, except for one trendy-looking Vietnamese man sitting in the back, entirely empty. The only indication that Pho Binh is historically important was a plaque over the door written in Vietnamese, apparently placed there by the local government. 

There was no menu, since Pho Binh serves only one dish--noodle soup with either beef, chicken, or vegetables--which Todd and I both ordered. About halfway through our meal, our waiter, who turned out to be the restaurant's owner, came over to ask us if we wanted a tour of the place. We followed him upstairs to the room where Tet was planned and executed, which is now a sort of homemade museum of the "American War", as well as a shrine to the ancestors of the family that owns the restaurant. The centerpiece of the shrine is a picture of Ngo Toai, the current owner's father, who was a double-agent during the Vietnam War. Pho Binh used to serve plenty of American soldiers and was down the street from the headquarters of the military police in the days of the Saigon Government. Toai was a passionate revolutionary and follower of Ho Chi Minh, though, and so was given the task of feeding and housing the Viet Cong fighters who were planning Tet on the second floor of his restaurant.

After our tour, as we were finishing our soup, our waiter brought us two books belonging to his family. One was a guest book which he asked us to sign, and the other was a photo album/scrapbook with pictures and newspaper articles documenting Pho Binh's history since the end of the war. The guestbook had a number of really interesting entries--one, written by an Australian woman living in England, included the line: "what the Americans did to your country was despicable...they deserved to lose the war." Several were from students from Europe, Asia, and South America.

Ngo Toai paid a heavy price for his involvement in Tet: when the Americans and South Vietnamese discovered that he had aided and abetted V.C. fighters, he was tortured, beaten, and almost killed. He returned to Pho Binh after the Fall of Saigon in 1975, though, and worked there until his death three years ago. 

The most moving part of the whole experience, for me, was a set of pictures at the end of the Pho Binh scrapbook, which show Ngo hugging former American soldiers who've been visiting his restaurant for more than a decade. It demonstrated, I thought, how easily ordinary people like Ngo Toai can suddenly and unexpectedly get swept up in history-making events that are much, much bigger than themselves. It was also the most vivid example I'd seen of the way that most Vietnamese people here treat Americans: as genuinely good people who because of a lack of cultural understanding and the misguided beliefs and actions of a few influential leaders became bogged down in a war of attrition they little understood. It was encouraging to see that the owner of a restaurant which once fed Viet Cong guerillas had made peace with the invading forces who had abused him and his family. In context, though, it makes sense. The locals call the dish served at Pho Binh "Peace Soup."

Hanoi III: Week V by Desaix Anderson

Hanoi III: Week V by Desaix Anderson
The Seminar moved beyond the historical details of America’s war with Vietnam to broad discussions of the geostrategic dimensions of the war, the Soviet Union’s role in the war, and analysis from several points of view of “Why Who Won and Why Who Lost the War.” We examined Vietnam’s integration into the political, economic, and security institutions of the region, and the road to normalization of relations between Vietnam and the United States. We also looked at the contemporary literature which engaged as Vietnam began to reform its economic system through the “Doi Moi” or renovation policies which began in 1986 when Secretary General Le Duan died and reformist, Nguyen van Linh took over leadership of the party and nation.
We examined whether fundamental decisions taking by the United States led to war rather than resolution of the issues concerning Indochina. US cooperation with Ho Chi Minh from 1943 to 1945 through the OSS (later the CIA) and US military “Deer Team” might have led to acceptance of Ho Chi Minh as a legitimate nationalist leader. But we chose, instead, to support restoration of French rule in Indochina which led to two wars. Could the US have built on that cooperation to insist that France negotiate independence for Vietnam after World War II and, thereby, avoided both the French and American Wars. Similarly, France accepted its defeat after Dienbienphu and accepted the Geneva Accords, but the United States refused to accept the Geneva Accords as a definitive end of war with Vietnam. Caught up in fears of the Soviet Union, Mao Tse-dong’s victory in China, Senator Joe McCarthy’s campaign against the “Red Scare” pushed the United States into a rabid fear of communism and irrational analysis of events in Indochina. The Cold War dictated policies rather than a careful reading of Ho Chi Minh’s intentions and policies that might have averted the tragedies for both America and Vietnam of war.
We also looked at strategic errors President Johnson may have made, stemming from faulty analysis of Ho Chi Minh’s intentions rather than viewing the issues as a function of the Cold War, which led to escalation rather than resolution of the conflict. The discussion of why who won and why who lost the war similarly examined the problems of a s succession of South Vietnamese governments, Johnson’s and Westmoreland’s militarization and Americanization of the war and the attendant emasculization of the government and army of the south in the face of the iron determination of Hanoi to pursue the nationalist goals of the independence and reunification of Vietnam.
After successfully mastering the mid-term exam in which it was clear all the students understand what we have been talking about, the students also focused on their seminar papers and spent time seeking a manageable topic and the possible Vietnamese sources of insights and commentaries. The subject matter ranges from Vietnam’s response to the global financial crisis, to evolution of art in the wake of Vietnam’s economic transition, to the role of street vendors in the economic life of Hanoi.
At week’s end, most of the students took advantage of a free week-end to take the train to Sapa, the mythic resort high in the mountains of northern Vietnam, where mists mingle with clouds in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

Hanoi III Week IV

Hanoi III Week 4
We spent the week academically on the Nixon years: Nixon’s “secret plan” to end the war and “Vietnamization,” his plan to turn the war back over to the Vietnamese to carry out. In his frustration about ending the war, Nixon employed his “madman theory” to suggest to Hanoi that he detested communism and was prepared to use almost any weapon to ensure victory over North Vietnam. As part of this strategy, Nixon took the war to Cambodia and Laos, thus complicating resolution of the war in Vietnam itself. We also explored Nixon’s strategic moves to improve relations with the Soviet Union and normalize relations with China, partly in hopes of obtaining Soviet and Chinese support to end the war. Neither cooperated, out of concern that pressure on Hanoi risked alienating North Vietnamese leadership and encourage Hanoi to move to embrace of one or the other side in the Sino-Soviet schism.
We were also treated to a thoughtful analysis by a key participant on the Paris negotiations of the strategies of each side and negotiations of the Paris Accords that ended the war in January 1973, following the traumatic confrontation between Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu and the subsequent “Christmas bombing” of the Hanoi-Haiphong corridor of North Vietnam.
We also heard my description of post-Accord circumstances in the Mekong Delta after the United States military forces departed from Vietnam. We examined conditions in the South from 1973-1975 as Hanoi undertook “socialist transformation” to reform South Vietnam’s economy according to communist theory, resulting in enormous economic hardship and passive resistance to those policies.
We finished the week in Dai Bai Village, Bac Ninh Province, forty kilometers North of Hanoi with the poignant task of cleaning up a Vietnamese Peoples Army of Vietnam cemetery. We found graves of those killed in the first Indochina war with the French, many from the “American War,” and one tombstone from February 1979 during the brief war against the Chinese invasion to “teach Vietnam a lesson, and one from 1984, evidently of a soldier killed during Vietnam’s 1979-1989 invasion and occupation of Cambodia.
We also called on several families whose sons or husbands died during our war with Vietnam and one former soldier who had been shot in the head at point blank range by American soldiers fighting in South Vietnam. We were uniformly received hospitably, but occasionally tearfully. One young woman whose father had been disabled during the war and been taken to a hospital just before our visit broke down in tears. One 87-year old “gold star Mother,” who lost her husband when she was 25, seemed moved to tears in meeting with the children of the ‘former enemy.”
The Princetonians performed admirably with songs that I had not heard before and also a terrific dancer who emerged from the students midst to add luster to the performance.
To wrap up a very good week, we attended the American Chamber of Commerce Fourth of July festival and treated with hot dogs, fried chicken, ice cream and Budweiser. An extraordinary gymnast dazzled us with his athletic feats and then with an eight-foot long python wrapped around his body. The gymnast also invited two blue-eyed children to join him the python’s embrace. Two Mothers were joyful when the two children were released from the embrace. There were also dogs that incompetently refused to jump through hoops, and monkeys that more dutifully performed. After the Star - Spangled Banner and short remarks by the American Ambassador, the evening concluded on a happy note.

Hanoi III Week IV

Hanoi III Week III from Desaix Anderson
Week Three in Vietnam was a strong week substantively and in our field research.
We started the w eek with a seminar on the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’s 1953-56 land reform which both Mao and Stalin compellingly urged the Vietnamese to embark. Based on Chinas land reform and contradicting Ho Chi Minh’s efforts to be inclusive of all social and economic classes into the revolution, the reform, based on China’s experience, pitted peasants against landlords in fierce confrontation. Landlords were denounced as traitors and many put to death. Ho Chi Minh in the latter stages apologized to the Vietnamese people for the mistakes made and the Secretary General of the Communist Party, who had led the reforms, was demoted.
This session as followed by a magnificent session with the author of “Sorrow of War,” Bao Ninh. Mr. Ninh was in wonderful spirits and responded poignantly and honestly to a variety of pointed questions about the book, his life, and philsosophy. It was the best of three sessions we have had with Bao Ninh since the seminar began in June 2007, in part, because of the excellent questions posed by the students.
We also looked at the US mIlitary strategy, as well as rising resistance in South Vietnam. Finally, we explored the “Tet” offensive of 1968, its causes, planning, purposes, and aftermath, including the shocked political reaction in the United States to this dramatic event.
Following on this heavy substantive event, we thoroughly enjoyed a week0-end in Ho Chi Minh City, still called Saigon by most residents. HCM City contrasted dramatically with Hanoi with its sleek modern buildings, upscale shopping on Dong Khoi Street, formerly known at Tu Do Street, where many a GI found love and solace. The well-kept gardens and modernized business district reminded many of other glass and steel cities of Southeast Asia. Others fondly remembered the busy, old quarters of Hanoi, the more intellectual and cultural Hanoi, and wondered where Vietnam’s future lay. Everyone enjoyed “Apocolypse Now,,” in the entertainment heart of Ho Chi Minh City.
We also had a half day in the Cu Chi tunnels, which enthralled all because of the incredible efforts of the Viet Cong in tunneling hundreds of miles underground to avoid the destruction of B-52 bombs and a US military base only five miles away, from whence such attacks as “Tet” provided safe space for those carrying out the massive attacks January 31, 1968.

Hanoi III Week II

Hanoi III: Week # II June 15-19, 2009 by Desaix Anderson
Academically, we covered the brief period of US cooperation with Ho Chi Minh in 1943-45, when an Office of Strategic Services (OSS - CIA predecessor) and a Defense Deer Team worked closely and productively with Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh. Ho Chi Minh hoped this cooperation foreshadowed US support for Vietnam’s independence from France, but the US official position remained neutral and then shifted to support France’s re-imposition of French rule and the First Indochina War ensued, reversing the position of President Roosevelt who thought a UN Trusteeship should be installed until Vietnam could become fully independent. Ho Chi Minh wrote President Truman and Secretary of State Cordell Hull at least eleven letters seeking US support. We also examined the Geneva Accords in 1954 which offered another opportunity for a settlement in Vietnam after the French were defeated at Dienbienphu, but America and the newly-installed Prime Minister of Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, “Understood” but did not support the Geneva Accords.
Reflecting Soviet take-over of Eastern Europe, Mao’s victory In China, the North Korean invasion of South Korea, supported by Moscow and Beijing, and the hysteria incited by Senator Joe McCarthy , heightened fears of Communist takeover of Vietnam was essentially emplaced in the Cold War Context.
We traced the policies and their impact on Vietnam of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. We then looked at the escalation, militarization, Americanization of the Vietnam War by President Johnson. We also looked at the policies of South Vietnam Prime Minister and later President Ngo Dinh Diem’s policies, the Buddhist crisis and the crisis this led to crisis in South Vietnam’s relations with the US.
Princeton Professor David Leheny delivered a masterful discussion of the rising resistance movement and sympathies in the US and around the globe. I discussed the “American military man,” drawing on writers like James Webb’s and Tim O’Brian’s terrific books on Vietnam.
This week-end, despite numerous logistical fiascos, we had a great time in Hue and Hoi An, in central Vietnam. The magic, cultural, and intellectual life of Hue came to life for us, as well as the history of the Imperial Palace and Citadel and a visit to the late nineteenth Century Emperor Thu Duc’s tomb. Hoi An provided a mad search for pink, purple, and pink sport shoes (male choices) , jackets, and other assorted purchases by the students, evidently thinking ahead for Christmas. We also explored this seventeenth Century trading port, Hot An, with Japan, China, Holland, and India and the wonderful restoration of the village by UNESCO.
A handful of the intrepid took a swimming visit to Hoi An’s China Beach before we departed for our flight back to Hanoi.

Col. Sauvageot...

I think listening to Col. Sauvageot today was one of the most revealing moments for me throughout this trip. Watching as tears crept up and interrupted Col. Sauvageot as he relayed his memories brought me back to evenings while I would sit and listen to my father reminisce about his own memories of Vietnam. Most of these stories rarely ever made much sense in the midst of tears that would frequently impose themselves as painful memories surfaced. They came in bits and pieces as if he was retelling stories to himself rather than to his family. As a little girl, I don't think I really understood the depth to which these sorrows originated. All I knew was that it was my duty to sit there and comfort him--especially in these rare moments where he could bring himself to share of his experience. 

Being in Hanoi these past few weeks and seeing, hearing, taking in everything has been at the least overwhelming. I've been at lost as to what to do with all these truths coming at me. But listening to Col. Sauvageot today made me realize something I guess I always knew, that the implications of this war will never be resolved. I knew in coming here I would be faced with facts contrarily to everything I've been brought up to understand. And this, I was prepared for. But what I think I've been doing wrong all along is trying to force myself to come to a black and white understanding of the situation. I came into this program wanting to learn about a war and understand the side that would glorify the sacrifices my father made. Yet what I was faced with was the very opposite, the truth of which the South was far from a position of glorification. But at the same time, with each argument made for the Northern Vietnamese cause, the greater my guilt for turning my back on everything my father fought for. Because of what he fought for, my family and I are where we are today. Yet, what he fought for may have been a horrid mistake that caused the life of thousands and the pain of millions still living today.  

Today, Col. Sauvageot spoke of the high-ranking female Vietcong who wouldn't convert. In his report, he said that there was no way they could convert her. Her beliefs were shaped by everything she's gone through--the life her sons lived then---her reality shaped her motivations during the war. Just as the Col. had his own motivations to serve his country based on the values and truths he'd grown to believe in. They both had their own honorable reasons, and there was no way it would change. Rather, no reason why it should be changed. 

Throughout this trip, I've been worried as to how I would face my father afterwards---how would I present to him these things I've learned. I've been trying to find a side to pin as the bad guy. Open to the fact that it may not be the side I've grown to understand, but as long as it was based on facts and historical truths, I could live with that. Yet, there's no way to do that. If there's anything that's finally sunk in throughout all of this is that human nature is complicated and there is no one side that's right. Each had their own motivations. And while my father, a war torn veteran---still haunted by the war, reminiscent of his lost nation, and bitter for his time lost in the reeducation camps after the war---may never heal from the scars of this experience, as his daughter, I can respect that his own realities have shaped his motives today just has they shaped his motives during the war. I can't change what he's gone through. Just as Col. Sauvageot spoke of in his report. There's no way you can force one to change their understandings shaped by a lifetime of realities. What's important now, is to move past all that and work for the future. There's a lot of reconciliation to do among the Viet Khieu and Vietnamese today. 

I'm sorry for the confusing mess this post has become. It's been more of a therapeutic breakdown for myself more than anything else. We have less than 2 more weeks together everyone! ;] 

(I don't have a picture of Col. Sauvageot...so in light of recent events, will a pic of McNamara suffice?)

The Vietnam Women's Museum in Hanoi

This post is cross-posted from Equal Writes, Princeton's feminism and gender issues blog.

Everyone who is here with me in Vietnam is completely sick of my tendency to connect everything back to gender, so it's a little embarrassing that it's taken me a month to visit the Vietnam Women's Museum, which I dog-eared in my guidebook before I got on the airplane. But I'm actually glad that I postponed my visit, because when I finally made the trek over to the French Quarter, where the museum is located, I had much better context for what would otherwise have been a confusing and frustrating visit. Well, I take that back - it was still confusing and frustrating. But it was also fascinating and worthwhile.

The museum is under construction, so there were only three rooms open - one permanent exhibit, and two very limited temporary exhibits, one on women in war propaganda, and one telling the stories of female street vendors. The permanent exhibit is a medium-sized room ostensibly dedicated to the history of women in the 20th-century Vietnam wars against the French and the Americans, but with a bizarre mixed message. The displays begin with glass cases full of weapons used by female soldiers (shockingly primitive - I am always amazed when I see the weapons that the Vietnamese used, particularly to defeat the French in the 1940s), and the captions extol the female soldiers with the same hyper-patriotic language that we've seen in other museums ("with this knife, female patriot X killed 200 American invaders"). But the Ho Chi Minh quote that adorns the exhibit's entrance sends quite another message about women's involvement in war - women, Ho tells us, should be extolled because they are responsible for raising new generations of heroes. And the second wall of glass cases told yet another story, of women who kept the home fires burning and faithfully wrote letters to husbands, fathers and brothers who could easily be among the millions of Vietnamese soldiers killed.

I've started entering Vietnamese museums with a certain amount of skepticism about the story that they're trying to tell (a skepticism which I hope I'll bring back to American museums as well), and this one was no exception. It was clear, also, who the museum was for - I was one of a handful of Western women, dressed in a very specific way, who perused the rooms with guidebooks in hand. The museum gave almost no solid facts about the numbers of women who fought, the numbers who were killed, the stories of women on the home front, the tragedies of the women who were widowed or lost children or siblings or fathers - rather, it presented individual stories cleverly tailored to present a seemingly whole picture. There were love letters, sent from a woman in the north to her lover who was fighting on the Cambodian border, next to the knitting needles used by a woman who was imprisoned in the south in the 1970s, next to photos of women rationing their rice so that the soldiers could have enough to eat.

The effect was almost smug - leaving the museum, one was left with the impression that the Vietnamese had managed to incorporate women into the war with perfect grace, allowing some to fight and die for their country while preserving the traditional war story of the women who propped up the economy and waited for their men to return home. As I walked through the museum, I thought of Bao Ninh's The Sorrow of War, which tells quite a different story - women who fought for their country and were raped by Americans, other women who were raped by their own countrymen and were irrevocably changed. These were the women who were "ruined", the prostitutes in the north and south who fed the sexual appetites of soldiers on all sides - and the women who maintained their "respectability" but lost their husbands or their only son, and were left with no means of support in the "hungry years" after the war. I wrote a few weeks ago about the contradictions of being a woman in Vietnam, where the government's official line dictates equality, while traditional gender roles enforce something else entirely. The propaganda posters in the first temporary exhibit illustrated all too clearly that the permanent exhibit itself was nothing but propaganda - giving a pretty picture of a charged and messy set of expectations, where women are expected to be patriots, mothers, wives, students, and workers, despite the paradoxes inherent in all of these roles.

The third room presented yet another puzzle. Last summer, restrictions were placed on street vendors, who are primarily female, so that they could no longer sell their products in so-called "historic" parts of Hanoi. Ethnographers connected to the museum spent nine months wandering the streets of Hanoi, talking to these vendors both before and after the restrictions went into effect. The stories are heartbreaking. Vendors make a profit of less than a dollar a day, and they are mostly rural women who travel to the city to supplement their husbands' income. The restrictions themselves make it much more difficult for them to eke out even the most impoverished living, and they don't really get rid of the street vendor presence, because vendors still venture into the restricted areas, risking fines that simply throw them into further poverty. The stories were fascinating without taking gender into account, which the ethnographers mostly did not do. The interviews only scratched the surface of where these women fit into the narrative presented in the museum's other two rooms - there were glimpses of other problems, as when women would talk about children left with grandparents in villages, the problems of living away from their husbands, the challenge of juggling household work, and the loneliness of being single and without a community in an unfamiliar metropolis.

I left the museum with more questions than when I had entered. I wonder what the other visitors thought - did they realize that the museum was constructed entirely for their benefit? And what do Vietnamese women themselves think of the Vietnam Women's Museum? Real lives rarely make their way into museums, and the stories are always simplified. But I'm glad I visited - even if I seem like a grouchy skeptic, I want to avoid the sweeping generalizations that I think Western feminists so easily make. After all, at least the Vietnamese are celebrating their female soldiers, even if they may have an ulterior motive - Americans just hide statistics about the numbers of women soldiers who face sexual violence within the military. The 265,000 women who served on the American side of the Vietnam War are all but forgotten. And rape is a hidden crime in every war in history, not just the wars here. Like the female street vendors, women are disproportionately affected by poverty in the United States, and their stories are rarely told. So I'll visit this museum again - and I recommend it to anyone who comes to Hanoi - simply because it gave me so many new questions to ask, even if there weren't many answers.

"I want to love him" and B-52

When BFDC was in Saigon last weekend, we visited a crowded market in a touristy area. I didn't particularly want to visit the market at that time. However, Desaix entered the market saying that he would spend only 10 minutes in the market before he returns to the hotel. So I decided to follow him.

As soon as I entered the market, I saw T-Shirt shops on both sides of the narrow aisles. The majority of the T-Shirts they sold had Vietnam or Ho Chi Minh or Saigon written on it or Vietnam's map on it or had a sickel and hammer printed on it or something of that sort. Most of the vendors were women in their twenties. I started looking at some T-shirts in one of the first shops along the aisle. With the expectation that I would buy some T-Shirts from her shop, the vendor eagerly pulled out more T-Shirts from the a pile with designs that I had asked for.

Just when I was browsing through the heap of T-Shirts, members of BFDC, Barrett and Dan entered the market through the same aisle that I had entered through. So the other vendors start showing them T-Shirts to them, hoping that such a merketing strategy would earn them some customers.
In the midst of all this, a female vendor decided to get aggressive with Barrett, a white, tall, strong and handsome man in our group. The woman pulled Barrett into the shop I was in and started showing her some more T-Shirts. Barrett looked interested for a while but then after seeing a few T-Shirts, he decided that he didn't want to buy from them. He tried to walk out of the shop but to no avail because the woman stood on his way. Barrett tried to get out of the shop by walking through another shop beside the shop he was in. The female vendor quickly grabbed Barrett from behind with her arms tied around his body. Barrett was able to break out of her confinement but then, the woman vendor stepped on the back-end of the Barrett's flip-flops preventing him from moving even a step forward. After a strenuous "struggle for freedom", Barrett was able to escape from the clutches of the female vendors in that area. All this moment, I split my attention between the T-Shirts that I was checking out and the commotion. When Barrett left the shop, I just hoped that he would not be "attacked" by any other similar vendors.

I asked the female vendors why she treated my friend in that manner. She replied, "He is so handsome. I want to love him." I laughed.

After going through about half a dozen T-Shirts, I decided that I didn't want to buy any T-Shirts from this market. I didn't want to take them with me from Saigon to Hanoi after all. Buying those T-Shirts in Hanoi would make my life easier. I said to the woman who was showing me T-Shirts, "I will go around the market and come back." Upon hearing that, she looked really angry and started blaming me for using her time but not buying anything at the end. Basically, she was trying to guilt-trip me into buying some T-Shirts. I insisted that I will cme back to that shop after going around, even though I was planning not to go anywhere near that shop again. As I started walking away, the vendor who was catering to my needs said, "I don't think you were here to buy T-Shirts. You are just looking for a B-52." Confused, I asked what a B-52 is. She pulled out a cardboard paper from under the table, on which the T-Shirts were piled up, and showed me a word. After showing the word to me, she started giggling with another female vendor who was sitting next to her (the vendor who had "attacked Barrett). The word was "Wanker".


PS: BFDC stands for Bar Funky Dong Club, the name that the members of our group decided to give to our group.

Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh

Until Friday, I felt reasonably confident that whatever my errors, gaffes, misunderstandings, and mistakes, I probably had actually irritated people only in Hanoi. That's the sort of self-empowering message I repeat as a mantra, making myself feel better, that although I've long since given up hope of improving the world, I've probably made it worse for people in only the small number of areas in which I've lived or spent significant amounts of time. Like with one of my private language teachers, who has to hear me maul the pronunciation of his native tongue, despite his best efforts, with the only bright moments for him in our lessons coming when his cell phone rings with a distinctive ring tone, an announcer shouting, "Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Jennifer Lopez!" To quote Jack Burton, sooner or later I rub everyone the wrong way. But in Vietnam, that meant only in Hanoi.

Until last Friday. We took our trip to the astounding metropolis Ho Chi Minh City, aka Saigon, and I think that the students were as impressed as I with the differences between that city and Hanoi. The two cities have the sort of uneasy rivalry, bordering on mutual ridicule, that one sees between Osaka and Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai, and New York and Every Other Place in America that Considers Itself, However Ludicrously, an Important City. But it's hard for me to take sides, given my new affection for Hanoi and even newer affection for HCM City.

The physical layout of the city, with wide, French-style avenues (wonder how that happened), certainly contrasts with the (as one of my students put it) nearly medieval character of of sharp, twisty roads in Hanoi. The prevalence of foreign businesspeople (including, perhaps most prominently, an astounding Korean presence) also suggests a kind of cosmopolitanism that one doesn't necessarily see in Hanoi, even with the gorgeous mergers of architectural styles that have yielded the distinctive character of the streets up here. But the in-your-face modernity of HCM City's District 1, with its luxury hotels and boutiques, could also lead one to neglect Chùa Bà Thiên Hậu, or the Thien Hau Temple, with its distinctively Chinese roots. It's dedicated to a goddess who particularly protects sailors and fishermen (and, if you look at a map of Vietnam, you'll see why she might be of more importance here than in, say, Laos). Most noticeable to the students (including the one who first took a version of this snapshot, which I immediately did myself; she shall remain nameless though I encourage her to write a post to take credit for her good eye, since this is a much

better photo than any I'd have dreamt up on my own) were the visuals of the offerings, mostly in the form of incense. For special wishes that one might want to make, a long stick of incense makes a statement, but after it burns out in 48 hours, what then? Those with special goals -- whether to pray for their child's application to school, or the memory of a loved one -- might wish to purchase one of the hanging, conical incense spirals that sit alongside one another, dropping bits of still hot ash onto those who gather to take photos at the edge of the courtyard.

After the temple, we took in more of the rich melange of religious influences in HCM City by heading to the

famous Cathedral of Notre Dame, which sits a bit uneasily alongside the spectacular Central Post Office. The Cathedral is an architectural wonder, from the Escher-like tile work on the floor near the entrance to the neon-veiled Mary to the left of the spectators. The wall tiles around Maria are thanks and messages from donors who have presumably paid money to make sure that their prayers are remembered permanently in this highly visible symbol of Vietnamese Catholicism. I wish that there had been some worshippers with whom we could have spoken, but we were not there during Mass and could therefore intrude, as touristic ethnographers, into

their prayers. Instead, we took photos of one another's feet against the perception-destroying floors and of the silently glowing Mother of God.

I had to meet a friend that night, so I skipped out on the group dinner and wandered around the hotel area early in the evening. The Circle K convenience store chain, which I haven't seen up here in Hanoi but seemed to be everywhere in HCM City, is a sentimental favorite of mine because they're all over Japan. I pulled into one around 6:45 p.m. to load up on bottles of water and razor blades, struggling even worse than usual with my Vietnamese because of the difference in accents between Hanoi and HCM City, when an alarmingly sudden and violent downpour began. Walking back to my hotel seemed unwise. One of the other customers purchased a can of beer and pulled out his cellphone, speaking into it in obviously native Japanese. Thank God. For the booze and the chance to feel like something other than a monolingual nincompoop. I purchased a beer myself and stood there, chatting first with the staff and another customer in a hideous mixture of Vietnamese and English, and then to the other fellow in Japanese. I was beginning to do something I've read about in novels, seen in movies, watched on TV, and occasionally heard about from acquaintances before they politely excuse themselves and move to another table. I was making a new friend. In HCM City. Maybe, just maybe, I had found my place.

And then they walked in. They looked innocuous enough, two cute little girls, probably around 10 years old, both of them taking off their soaked shoes before walking through the door. The staff obviously knew them, as the Japanese man did. One of the girls had obviously decided that The Feral Kid in The Road Warrior was far more than a mere comedic foil; he was a model for both appearance and action. She started right away with the English: "Mister, please buy me Milo," referring to the sort of chocolate drink mix that one, I guess, puts into liquids that don't contain alcohol. Since I presumably might have mistaken her for a pushy street urchin coming up to a random stranger and demanding that he buy her stuff because, frankly, he's stuck in a convenience store in the middle of a rainstorm and she can make the experience even more purgatorial than it sounds, she immediately emphasized the magnanimity lying behind her request. Well, demand. Well, frankly, order. She said, "Not for me, for my sister," pointing at the other kid. The other girl also said, "Mister, please buy me Milo......Not for me, for my sister."

The other customers and staff, having seen this routine before, told the kids to knock it off. I looked at the Milo, calculated the price in my head, and decided, you know, this kid deserves something for figuring out a way to bug wealthy foreign tourists this efficiently. I reached for the roughly $2 package of Milo, at which point the girl immediately said, "not this one....that one!" I followed her finger to a massive jar of higher-end chocolate mix, running about $14. At this point, I said, "err..." though, to be fair, I was trying to think about how to say "err....." in Vietnamese, which made me less eloquent than I might ordinarily have been.

The girls continued harassing me, but I wouldn't bend. Sorry, for a couple of kids who have learned just enough English to bug the hell out of me, $2 is as high as I go. To irritate me enough to pay for $14 or else make me escape into the certain death afforded by the monsoon, they'd better learn how to recite the entire screenplay for You've Got Mail. I kept offering the smaller tin but they would have none of it. Fortunately, the rain the let up in time for me to avoid the certain segue to Hanks/Ryan/Ephron and my complete and utter capitulation. I said goodbye to the Japanese fellow, shaking his hand. The Feral Kid -- and I suspect that this is an image I will take with me to my grave -- reached out her hand to shake hands with me; when I reached for it, she pulled it back immediately and smoothed her hair, mocking me with the old "fake handshake" trick. I took off down the block, with the girls following me, screaming for me to buy the gum, at a much higher price, that they had just purchased at the Circle K. Realizing that they were going to find out the hotel at which I was staying -- which I couldn't see as being of a lot of benefit to me -- I stopped into a bar with two security guards in front, both of them laughing and then yelling "Đi Đi" to the kids, sending them on their way.

The following morning, the group went on a tour of the tunnel area of Cu Chi District in Saigon, about an hour's drive from the center of the city. This was an elaborate underground complex used by the Vietcong to stage their raids in the Tet Offensive. Now, of course, it's a tourist site, with all that that implies -- and so much more. The show begins with a lecture by one's tour guide (ours was terrific, and it appears that individual guides have the right to do a lecture and then show the film that's available on DVD in the opening lecture room). The documentary, apparently made in 1967 for a Vietnamese-language audience, is a fascinating piece of work. The English-language translation, evidently added much later (as was the electronic soundtrack), sticks uncomfortably close to the original; someone apparently hadn't gotten the oft-repeated memo about how the Vietnam War was a tragedy for both sides, that it was the result of mistakes, and that we're beyond that and that the USA and Vietnam are now good friends. In this video, peasants are valorized for their skill in killing Americans. Indeed, there was apparently a citation known as the "American Killer Hero Award," which may not roll off the tongue in English as easily as "Medal of Honor" or "Silver Star," but one can't fault it for a lack of descriptiveness. I'll admit to loving the video for the same reason that I love watching just about any piece of film or television that undermines our most valiant efforts to sanitize and cleanse the past. The language and emotion of the video were raw, and for that reason good preparation for some of the more striking parts of the tour. The display of booby traps -- all filled with bamboo spikes meant to penetrate hearts, stomachs, legs, arms, genitalia, skulls -- would have been alarming even if not accompanied with a mural proudly showing caricatured American soldiers screaming in pain as they're killed by one contraption or another. It's hard as well not to be impressed by the way in which the firing range -- a couple of bucks per bullet, should one want to fire away from an AK-47 or M-16 -- is located uncomfortably close to (by which I mean, 20 feet or so) the refreshment and souvenir station that comes up 2/3 of the way through the tour. The last section of the tour allows people to crawl through the tunnels (I declined, not so much out of fear as a sense that, having left my regular glasses on the bus, I'd be unable to see anything through my prescription sunglasses) before sitting down for a few strips of tapioca dipped in peanut. It was probably the most memorable and enjoyable tourist site (and I know tourism!) I've ever visited.

It was hot out, unsurprisingly, and I stopped back at the Circle K for some water on the way to my hotel. The Feral Kid popped in again, this time with another, older "sister." Recognizing me, she immediately demanded that I buy her some Milo. I declined, thinking that she'd maybe give up or rethink her negotiating strategy (by which I mean, her strategy of not negotiating). She grabbed my forearm, leaning forward to knock me against the candy rack, then attempted to block my door, preventing me from exiting the store. Quick note: it's very odd to stand directly across the street from a very elite-looking Sheraton hotel and feel that you're unable to get out of a convenience store because you're worried about being attacked by a ten-year-old with the rage virus. But I've always felt that the way you know you're making the world a better place is by thinking about your effect on the children. And at the moment of that push, I could rest assured: sooner or later, I rub everyone the wrong way, and not just in Hanoi.

Desaix

Hanoi III: Week I – Desaix Anderson

Despite technical problems and other discombobulating events, we are off to a good start. The students are a delightful group and full of life.
Historian Huu Ngoc’s presentation at the Van Mieu Confucian Temple of “Three Thousand Years of Vietnamese History and Culture --- in One Hour” again provided a cosmic and well-integrated view of Vietnam’s attraction and resistance to China’s dominance over a period of two thousand years, Vietnam’s struggle against French colonialism over 100 years, and finally the challenges of the emplacement by others of Vietnam in the Cold War. Mr. Ngoc retains certain nostalgia for Vietnamese traditional culture and voices some concern about the impact of globalization on that culture, but ultimately is confident that the Vietnamese people will prevail.

Secretary General of the Vietnam Historical Society provided his excellent analysis of the life and crucial role of Ho Chi Minh. A critic of many government policies, he, nevertheless, believes that Ho Chi Minh would approve of the direction in which Vietnam is now proceeding, including specifically in establishing a strong relationship with the United States.

Dr. Christophe Robert provided a highly insightful analysis on the nexus between Vladimir Lenin’s view of history and Ho Chi Minh’s attraction to Leninist methods and policies to promote the nationalist revolution in Vietnam. With the historical context of French colonialism from their reading, the students were highly appreciative of Dr. Robert’s compelling analysis on Ho Chi Minh’s manipulations and use of Lenin’s theories to create and lead Vietnam’s revolution.

Based on his impressive reading of international and Vietnamese scholars, Dr. Pham Hong Tung outlined the various theories of the sources of Vietnam’s strength in surmounting the challenges of defining its identity against enormous odds.
The week-end excursion to Ha Long Bay on the junk “Sunrise” captivated the students with its stunning beauty, the magnificence of the huge caves, not to mention the delicious shrimp and two sessions of swimming in the fantastic surroundings. We had a great time!

6/14/09

Trong mưa

While our seminar students take their group Vietnamese lessons from 9 to 10 every morning in the same classroom as our regular lectures, I take an individual lesson a few buildings away in the Department of Vietnamese Studies. This usually means wrapping up a few minutes early so I can scamper the 200 yards or so and avoid being late for a lecture on LBJ's escalation of the war or the intellectual background of Ho Chi Minh's communist and nationalist movements in the 1940s and 1950s.

Apparently -- and I would not necessarily have noticed this had sudden events not made the campus's topography very, very relevant to my life -- my language class's building sits a few centimeters lower than the buildings in the central part of campus. As regular readers of this blog know, I consider my body to be a machine; I happily ascend those few centimeters each day without complaint. But in a downpour yesterday, virtually all of the water on campus swept down toward my building, collecting outside the slightly elevated front step and trapping a few of us inside.

My thoughts, naturally enough, turned to the question of how long we could hold off before turning on one another, first with the kind of bitter recriminations of frightened people trapped in a lifeboat, and then later resorting to cannibalism. My guess was that we could probably hold off for 90 minutes or so before the absolute worst began, though admittedly my understanding of the limits of human endurance has been shaped by the length of the average zombie movie.

Others in the building -- perhaps as fearful as I was of the consequences of sticking around, though they hid it behind a kind of resigned laughter, like "here we go again" -- took off their

shoes and socks, rolled up their pants, and plunged into the foot-deep water (immediately

outside our building) and moved up to the slightly higher ground of the road. I'm not one to shrink from a challenge -- except for quitting my marathon training in 1995; deciding not to ask out a girl in junior high school after some of my lying, horrible classmates convinced me that she had been a cast member of the Brady Bunch and therefore far above my station; and turning down a friend's request last year to quit my job and join him on a new venture -- I said, no, but why not take Joe Biden? And look what happened... -- so I followed suit. Silently thanking Princeton for demanding that I update my tetanus immunization, I trudged through the knee-, then calf-, then ankle-deep water to join our class a bit late, barefoot, and soggy.

Spotted!

...Kate Adamson: Fitting In, a brief summary.

JUNE 4, 2009. Adopted regionally appropriate pseudonym, well-received by fellow members of the BFDC, as evidenced by approving smiles in members-only Vietnamese class (June 9) when subtly integrated into “tên là gì” exercise. Further confirmation of its merit as an accurate indicator of identity can be accessed in the contact lists of member's mobile phones. *(6)*

JUNE 5, 2009. Revelry unmatched discovered in regional delicacy: yogurt, and pho. *(8)*

JUNE 6, 2009. Attended historically and culturally rich sites in Ha Noi like Army Museum, HCM's Mausoleum, Ba Dinh Square, one-legged pagoda, and Bar Tunnel Club. Sought funky, alas, fruitless, otherwise merry and rewarding day. *(8)*

JUNE 7, 2009. Joined Lake-side aerobics classes. On any given weekday, from 5-8am, locals stream in from the capillaries of streets surrounding Hoan Kiem Lake. On June 7, KA walked the 3 minutes from the hotel residency through the dense community of shops, restaurants, homes, and even temples concentrated around the lake’s edge, seamlessly joining the mass movement of people. Even in the early morning, when the air is pleasantly less polluted, the humidity is not as stifling, the honking of motorbikes is less frequent, and many residents are still sleep, the circle retains its dynamicism. The migration of people? Incredible (see Prof Leheny’s narration below for more). Even more incredible? The tacit self-designation and the creation of order among the cluttered masses. They systematically arrange in organized exercise. Between the games of hackie-sack on the sidewalks, the weightlifting on testosterone row (distinctly separated from the rest by boundary in the road), and the endless current of pedestrians circulating the lake, chi Kate dabbled between groups of people practicing tai chi, yoga, and heart-pumping, sweat-inducing, endorphin-releasing aerobics. Camouflaged among the other fit people—mostly elderly ladies—aerobercising, each cluster slightly different in difficulty, average age, size, or technique, our subject successively fit in with each group she joined (as measured by the response from other class participants-- all very encouraging, even possessive!) Some, the eldest group, more focused on belly-massages than the upper-body-twists and kicks of the more vigorous troupes, teamed together to shoo away a shirtless and shoeless friend that kept following Kate, unusually attached, offering his hands with open-wounds for her to shake. Clearly, alliances, of many degrees, were forged. *(8)*

JUNE 8, 2009. Hawaii-chaired. Enriched lives and made memories at Chim Sao, delicious dining experience. *(8)

JUNE 9, 2009. Took first Vietnamese Language class. Never has been the thirst for knowledge so desperate! *(7)*

JUNE 10, 2009. Taught ballet class. Language barriers minor obstacle in disciplining the 30 tutu-clad 6-year-olds, however, weaponry of excessively-animated facial expressions, Looney-tune limb-gesturing, pianist, and a young assisting teacher translating the interpretive “universal language” of movement all worked to combat the deficiency of shared spoken language. All and all, trying, but curious experience. Class given a 10 min break, and within the first five, assisted learning exercises in hand games culminated in harmonious and pleasant pointing and laughing. Everyone was having fun. It was much like college at Princeton. Dance moves exchanged, friends made, and smiles shared. *(6)*sunset at Ha Long Bay

JUNE 12, 2009. Just like the “Descending Dragon” fabled to create the physically dramatic rock formations, chi Kate descended from the roof of the imitation ancient shrimp junk into the only mildly-polluted, but richly jade colored, waters of Ha Long Bay. Creation of many karsts in the process. Also, she explored caves (above), kayaked, ate stuffed crab and cooked fish fresh from the sea, and soaked up lots of beautiful views (below, like the dragon.) *(6)*

JUNE 13, 2009. Regional garb sported, among emerald-green rice paddies. *(5--did not qualify for higher rating because purchase was at least two sizes too small, which is tacky)*


JUNE 14, 2009. Lost in the crowd of ~300 residents from the city attending evening Mass. Inconspicuously seated on the right side of the aisle with other conservatively-dressed, young ladies present at the service-- the demographic all very petite, with Westernized dress-- and then and also next to Charlie, the 6’3” Aryan male, (not fitting in. Men were to be seated on the left of the aisle.) *(6)*

JUNE 15, 2009. Snake Village, ritualistic practices of snake-consumption. No parts went to waste. *(9)*


*sliding scale môt - mu’òi’ (1-10) for how well she fit in


This documentation is by no means nearing termination or closure, but this day certainly is!! Until the next installment of Kate Adamson: Fitting In..... chao!!! Much more to come, so, Mom, tune in for more later!

Some snippets from the past 10 days

I'm terrible at keeping travel journals, so for this trip I've started a personal blog - sadly, I'm too lazy to write separate posts for this blog, but since I'm writing almost every day, I thought I'd just post some unconnected thoughts from the past 10 days. I'll cross-post more frequently in the coming weeks - and I promise it won't be so disjointed! I've included the dates, to give you some small sense of chronology.

June 9:

I’m hungry, debating whether I should go up and write this entry on the top floor of the hotel, where breakfast is served. I didn’t eat dinner last night – I’m discovering that between the heat and the large meals, I really only need two meals a day. But I did go to the grocery store last night and inadvertently bought some very overpriced raisin bran (no sign from the box that I’m in a foreign country – it must be imported straight from the U.S.) and a thermos for my tea with Tom and Jerry on the front (it was that or a shiny picture of Superman, but I’m not sure I was prepared to stare at Superman first thing in the morning). Grocery stores are always some of the strangest places to go in foreign countries. I was craving cheese, and after much searching had the rather obvious realization that they don’t eat cheese here. So no bries or gruyeres for me. But they do have kettle chips and cornflakes, so I suppose we Americans are supposed to be set.

I wasn’t brave enough to buy any of the Vietnamese snacks (I will next time), but I loved just wandering around, and I was incredibly pleased with myself when I discovered the second level of the grocery store, which was full of cosmetics and toys and pretty much anything you could want (I found my thermos there). I was amused to see that pads and tampons were in the aisle marked “sundry goods” – I’d love to do a study on how people classify tampons in grocery stores worldwide. There were a couple of other confused-looking tourists reading the backs of yogurt (or were they milk?) containers in the store (it’s called Intermix), but mostly it seemed local – lots of women buying cereal with children in tow.

On the way back from the grocery store, I made a friend! I stopped into an art gallery just across the street from the hotel (clearly very expensive, targeted at tourists – it had a “We prefer Mastercard” stamp on the door) and the girl who was working there turned out to be my age and studying English. We talked for a while before she had to go back to her job – they’re on vacation right now in the Vietnamese schools (unless you’re one of the Vietnamese girls in our seminar, and then you’re in exams), but she said to stop by the gallery again and we'd make a date for coffee – she wants to practice her English.

June 14:

I am in love with Vietnamese architecture. Driving back from Ha Long Bay yesterday, we drove through dozens of villages (and past hundreds of rice paddies) and the houses were insane and beautiful – all of them in different pastel colors, tall and very thin (four or five stories, but as wide as a store front), the sides sometimes just bare grey concrete but the fronts decorated with elaborate wooden doors, twisting balcony railings, marbled columns, the pointed tops of the buildings painted with flowers. One house even had the Mercedes hood ornament incorporated into the front of their second-story balcony. A few times, I could see inside, and the interiors seem to be just as dazzlingly jumbled – sea green walls, mirrors, brightly colored faux-marble tiles. The whole effect was pure kitsch. These houses were scattered among some older, simpler buildings, which have thatched roofs and small courtyards, much more the traditional Vietnamese houses that I had imagined. But the whole effect made the 3-hour ride much more bearable, especially since we had crushed over 20 people into one very small bus, and I had forgotten my iPod.

I think perhaps I should back up a little. This weekend, we went to Ha Long Bay, which is east of Hanoi, on the South China Sea. Hundreds of limestone mountains rise out of the bay, covered with green – and full of insects, which chirp melodically as you sail past. The best way to see the bay is on a tourist junk – we stayed overnight, which meant that we got to see the sunset over the bay (but, sadly, not the sunrise, even though I deliberately got up at 5:30 – the haze over the bay means that the sun just kind of appears). The sunset was unbelievably magical – the sea was pink and blue and gold, with the lights from the boats pricking the water and the sun disappearing behind the mountains. There are floating fishing villages scattered through the bay, and we stopped at one to go kayaking. The kayaking was pleasant, even though I am terrible at anything even vaguely sporty. The distressing part came from our proximity to the water - up close, we could see lots of trash and motor oil floating on the surface. The worst pollution that I saw, actually, was in the fish pens in one of the fishing villages – there were soggy cigarette butts and plastic wrappers drifting in the water.

June 15:

Yesterday, I decided to go to Catholic mass at St. Joseph’s Cathedral with Dan in the late afternoon (the one time I’ve been able to use my French was when I asked a nun when the masses took place), which was so lovely. I didn’t know what was going on, because of course the mass was in Vietnamese, but at least half of the service was sung by the choir, and the cathedral has amazing acoustics. Dan is Catholic, so he kept me posted on important moments during the service (and kept me from getting up and taking communion). But we were both confused when after about an hour, people started getting up and leaving, even though the priest was still talking. We had also been puzzled by the brief presence of a marching band in a corner of the church. We walked outside and saw that the cathedral square was full of people in bright costumes – little girls in yellow headdresses, old men in blue, women in the Vietnamese áo dài, which is a long dress-like tunic over a pair of silk pants. There were also hordes of people taking pictures and milling around. Someone passed us a sheet of prayers in Vietnamese, and we tried to read over it, despite the fact that the words "cat" and "table" were not likely to appear. We engaged several fellow tourists in conversation, but they were equally bewildered. After a few moments, priests emerged from the doors of the church carrying the Eucharist, the little girls tossed handfuls of flowers into the air, and a choir of nuns began to sing the prayers. Then the whole crowd started marching in a long procession around the church, singing. It was incredibly beautiful – Dan and I were both completely confused, although we had a range of wildly varying theories. The truth was almost disappointing - we finally talked to a nun and found out that it was the feast of Corpus Christi. The whole experience – mass, ceremony and procession – took about two and a half hours.

There was a weird coda, though. I was walking back to the hotel and almost got knocked into a motorbike by an old woman in traditional clothes, who had asked me (through gestures) whether I had come from the church. I was expecting a smile, but instead when I nodded enthusiastically she whacked me with her fan and gave me a very frightening frown, and I almost toppled into a passing motorbike. According to the women at the desk and some tourists who were hanging out in the lobby, my dress was too low cut for traditionalists. So that was an interesting complication to an otherwise enchanting experience.

Regina Pacis

Regina Pacis (Queen of Peace) says the statue of the Virgin Mary in front of the cathedral in Hanoi, the former Cathédrale Saint Joseph, a remnant of the French colonial presence in Vietnam.

“Remnant” is a misnomer: there’s nothing dead, decaying, stilted, or immobile about the large Catholic community in Hanoi and throughout northern and southern Vietnam.

Sunday evening, 6:30 pm, last week (June 7). As every Sunday, there is open-air mass in the cathedral, and on the plaza in front of it. The esplanade up the stairs at the entrance of the cathedral is crowded with people. They sit on small red or light blue plastic stools. Two women beggars are seated on the ground on either side of the gate’s entrance. Their conical hats are propped up on the ground in front of them. People bend down slightly and drop 1,000 dong bills in their hats as they walk in and climb the stairs to the church. The face of the younger woman is horribly deformed by a goiter, which results from lack of iodine in the diet. This can be easily treated, though it's still somewhat frequent in remote areas in the northern Vietnamese countryside.

The loudspeakers broadcast the melodious voice of the officiating priest over the plaza. A large video screen projects his image to the faithful as he stands at the altar. His sermon discusses the love of the Father: with this love one is never alone, regardless of one's actual family situation or social status. But one also has a duty to others in Christianity.

His amplified voice is loud and clear. This is very different from the usual terrible quality of loudspeakers in Vietnam. No “noise” in the transmission here, so to speak. I am struck by the comforting tones and reassuring warmth of his voice. At first I almost cannot figure out which accent he speaks in because his voice is so "round" and neutral, and flows so easily. He’s clearly trained his voice. His rhetoric is flawless and he modulates his delivery with ease. He speaks slowly and eloquently. This is fairly basic rhetoric (about love, mutual support, and duty) but also a powerful speech.

As I listen to the priest leading people in reading the scripture, I cannot help the blasphemous (or, preferably, ecumenical) thought that this sounds a lot like the voices of the faithful chanting sutras in Buddhist temples.

People sit quietly and listen. They admonish their children to play without making noise, they draw the little ones closer to them and absent-mindedly stroke their hair. There are a lot of people on the plaza beyond the cathedral's gates, too.

Traffic seems quiet in the surrounding streets, for once. Night falls quickly. The sunset is radiant. The clouds light up and glow, orange and purple. Then everyone stands and people begin to sing. It is a strange scene, but also a quiet one, somehow, which is rare in Hanoi, or urban Vietnam more generally.

At the end of mass, people quietly leave, and speak in hushed tones. They walk home pensively, or get back on their motorbikes, which were parked along both sides of the plaza. Traffic gradually returns to its usual high decibel levels, punctuated by the impatient bleep of motorbike and car horns.