MILT THOMAS

Hanoi, capitol city of Vietnam, was the first stop on my adventure. It is a city of 3.5 million people, surprisingly up to date considering it was probably the poorest country in Asia 20 years ago. It’s easy to get into Vietnamese politics, but I’m saving that for later. Let’s just say they have done an excellent job of rebuilding, but like China, the price is a smoggy mist that hangs over the city, at least during the five days I was there. That is more than enough time to see Hanoi, which is an odd mix of free enterprise and a government-driven nostalgia for communism. I hope they don’t censor this before it gets to you.

The city features many parks, modern streets, and the people are very friendly. Though their economic boom is not as impressive as that in China, clearly the people of Hanoi are much better off than in the years after 1975. From then until 1991, it would be difficult to tell the people of this country apart from today’s North Korea — poverty stricken and malnourished.

Then came the fall of Vietnam’s sponsor, the Soviet Union. Vietnam’s government changed direction, allowing free enterprise and encouraging foreign investment. Life improved for all – at least no one was starving.

It was still a communist dictatorship though, regardless of what the propagandists say – no free press, limited internet access, and all land is owned by the government. You can build your own house, sell it, hand it down, whatever you want to do, but the land belongs to the state. Foreign companies are given a 50-year lease for land on which to build with a 50-year lease option. We’ll have to wait 50 years to see if that is still true.

As I say, people are very friendly, but there’s this lingering sense of being watched. We went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, but it was closed for its annual “repairs.” Most westerners know the repairs are to Ho Chi Minh’s corpse, which has been on display in that weird communist tradition and must be sent to Moscow every year for a tune-up.

Our tour guide is a happy fellow who speaks English pretty well (except he has a problem saying the letter “s” without making it “sh,” as in “shoup” for dinner). He spoke glowingly about all of Ho’s accomplishments, then as an aside, mentioned that we were being tailed by two government agents. I wonder if one was watching us and the other watching him.

I should mention that there are ten of us in my group, two Australians, a South African and five Canadians along with me and my longtime friend Ken from Kiplinger and the National Press Club. Many American tourists come here, including former GIs, but most westerners I see are non-US.

We also visited several museums, including the Fine Arts Museum. Many paintings in there depict scenes from during and after the “American War,” as they call it. My interest is in history and Vietnam’s history is at least 3,000 years old. So after the tour I asked our guide, “Didn’t the Chinese occupy Vietnam for 1,000 years? He said yes. So I asked why there weren’t any paintings depicting the struggles against the Chinese? He said they were in another building. Then I said, “Didn’t the French occupy Vietnam for over 100 years in the 19^th and 20^th centuries?” He said yes, so I asked why nothing here depicted that struggle. He said that was in another building.

As it turned out, he was partially correct. The French occupation is viciously detailed in what American prisoners referred to as the Hanoi Hilton, where John McCain spent seven tortuous years. Officially, it is the Hoa Lo Museum. Originally built by the French in 1896 to hold 450 Vietnamese political prisoners, it eventually held thousands, maintaining all the old torture mechanisms, including a guillotine for the most incorrigible prisoners.  While it accurately depicts French torture of Vietnamese, it pictured the American pilots held there as if they were vacationing in a holiday spa. We all know what really happened as John McCain’s account featured the very same torture mechanisms originally designed by the French for Vietnamese prisoners. Our guide would not go through that part of the museum with us, but when we came out, he apologized that it serves no purpose to lie about the treatment of American prisoners except for propaganda. Apparently there weren’t any government minders standing around to hear him.

When visiting China last year, the country’s long history was very much a factor in tourist itineraries. Vietnam also has a long, colorful history, but it seems stuck in a 50-year Groundhog Day. Tourist itineraries focus on the years of French occupation and more specifically on the American war to reunify the county. Vietnam has been divided and reunited many times over its history, which officially began in 2789 B.C. The Chinese annexed Vietnam beginning in the first century B.C. until 938 A.D. Hanoi was established as capitol of Vietnam in 1010. According to our guides, today they consider the Chinese to be their greatest threat. As a gesture of friendship, the Chinese built a modern four lane highway in the northern part of Vietnam so people could come and go into China at will. The more skeptical locals see it as an easy invasion route from the north.

The cult of personality around Ho Chi Minh is everywhere. Uncle Ho, as he is called, died in 1969, but is credited with defeating foreign imperialism and unifying Vietnam. In Saigon, which they call Ho Chi Minh City, our tour guides go to great lengths to explain that Saigon is actually just the downtown portion of Ho Chi Minh City. Little mention is made, however, of the time Uncle Ho worked as a cook in a Boston hotel.

The majority of Vietnamese are Buddhist or Catholic, the latter more south. French missionaries came in the 17^th century, bringing Catholicism and other Frenchmen to the country. The French liked it and wouldn’t leave. The Japanese came in 1940 and split Vietnam with the French, who retained the southern half. Is it my imagination or does it seem like the French are on every side of a conflict? The Japanese kicked out the French as World War II progressed and in 1944-45 over two million Vietnamese died of starvation. We were allied with Uncle Ho then through the OSS (forerunner of the CIA) and helped him get rid of the Japanese. When the war ended, Ho declared Vietnam’s independence, but the French came back. That sparked the First Indochina War, which ended in 1954 with a Geneva Agreement that established North and South Vietnam. In 1960, the Viet Cong launch a war against South Vietnam and then it became the American War. We all know where it went from there.

We also visited several museums, including the Fine Arts Museum. Many paintings in there depict scenes from during and after the “American War,” as they call it. My interest is in history and Vietnam’s history is at least 3,000 years old. So after the tour I asked our guide, “Didn’t the Chinese occupy Vietnam for 1,000 years? He said yes. So I asked why there weren’t any paintings depicting the struggles against the Chinese? He said they were in another building. Then I said, “Didn’t the French occupy Vietnam for over 100 years in the 19^th and 20^th centuries?” He said yes, so I asked why nothing here depicted that struggle. He said that was in another building.

One change Ho initiated was to create a 24-letter French alphabet to replace the Chinese characters used for centuries. (J and Z are the only two letters not included, which must be why Beyonce’s husband chose them for his name). So all the Vietnamese cities we know from the 1970s are spelled the same in English and Vietnamese.

One afternoon we met some young girls dressed in traditional Vietnamese garb looking for tourists so they could practice their English. They were charming and could care less about propaganda or Uncle Ho. They did say their favorite television programs were American Idol and How I Met Your Mother.

Speaking of traditional garb, there are 54 ethnic minorities in Vietnam, as in China, but they only comprise about 13% of the total population of 90 million. That is three times the population in 1975, when they must have had a nuclear baby boom).

Comparing Hanoi to Saigon, which is seven million people, would be like comparing Buffalo to New York City (no criticism intended, Buffalo fans). Hanoi is more of a traditional, industrial town while Saigon still retains the spirit and glamour it had before 1975. Hanoi was a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to party there.