Our man in Asia, Part 4

Southeast Asia Don has finally made it to China, but has more to share about his recent travels:

Ho Chi Minh City. Better known by its French name Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City is still referred to as Saigon by both natives and visitors. Everyone seems to agree it’s easier to say.  

Like Hanoi, the French influence is seen everywhere. It’s not as colorful as Hanoi nor does it have the same type of vigor. As our guide pointed out, Hanoi is the cultural capital of Vietnam and Saigon is its economic center.  

What is most prominent (or at least what was emphasized on the tour) is the impact of the “American War” in Vietnam and its last days of U.S. control in Saigon.

This started with a tour of the network of Cu Chi Tunnels that were occupied by the Viet Cong a few miles outside of Siagon. These tunnels were part of the underground Ho Chi Minh Trail. They were extensive and developed over a 30-year period — first in the struggle against the French, and then the U.S.-backed forces of South Vietnam. 

The tunnels were carefully hidden with entry points camouflaged under vegetation and ventilation portals camouflaged as termite mounds. There were also plenty of booby-traps to obliterate any enemy entry into the area. These tunnels are where strategies were made and weapon supplies were kept.

In contrast to these homemade resistance facilities, the grand Presidential Palace in the middle of Saigon sported luxurious surrounding and “high tech” survelliance and planning rooms. The Presidential Palace, now renamed the Reunification Palace, was the scene of the last act of the Viet Cong that effectively ended the war. This is when a Viet Cong rammed a tank through the gates of the palace on April 30, 1975. That’s considered the most important liberation date. 

A week before, the U.S. Embassy was evacutated with the famous scenes of thousands of Vietnamese scrambling to get onto the retreating American helicopters. There is a heliport still in evidence on top of the Reunification Palace. But, despite an equal number of Vietnamese filling the nearby streets of the Presidental Palace for help to evacuate, no attempt was made here, except to scoot the last leader of South Vietnam away.

It was more than a little spooky to visit sites that I still remember seeing on TV and in newspapers at the time.

The American embassy was demolished after 1975. But the U.S. never gave up the property and today that’s where the U.S. Consulate is located. (I didn’t see it.) 

Another highlight that they like to take Americans to is the Wartime Remnants Museum.  This  museum was originally called the American Atrocities Museum, but when the U.S. wanted to normalize relations with Vietnam in 1999, they demanded that the museum be renamed, thus, the rather benign name of “Remnants.”  The museum’s displays, however, are not benign in any way. 

It’s divided into different themes. Bombing and murdering of innocent peasants.  Represssion of accurate news and photographs, and the killing of journalists and photographers (mostly from the West). Displays of captured weaponry. 

But the biggest section was devoted to Agent Orange, which is considered to be the worst and most lasting “remnant” of the war. The effects of this defoliating chemical are still evident today. Vast acerages of land are still poisoned, and the health implications continue to affect people who were directly hit, as well as their descendants. Many of the guides we encountered were children of Viet Cong, and there were a few aging Viet Cong who were around to tell their stories.  

There was some effort to present the American perspective of the time, like “domino theory,” etc. But mostly, they won and the victors, as they say, get to tell the story.  

Think back. When the U.S. involvment started, it looked like a situation similar today to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Vietnam had been divided into two countries like Korea had been just a few years before. It seems, as I remember it, that as the war became more and more intense, the cost simply wasn’t worth it. But that might be colored by the fact that I was of draft age (but with a very high draft lottery number).  

It remains a complex story. Interestingly, it took almost a generation for the harsh Communist rule to be eased into the vibrant economy and life it now enjoys. Or, as I observed “If this is Communism, I’ll take it.”  But, of course, it is not the Communism that the West feared so much from the end of WWII until the fall of the Soviet Union.