Emails from Vietnam 1 | 2

From: "Angie Eng" <angie_eng@hotmail.com>
To: mailing list
Subject: yackin' away in Uncle Ho's garden...
Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 10:37:21 –0500

YACKIN’ AWAY IN UNCLE HO’S GARDEN

Goodmorning Vietnam! Time to put on a fresh pair of cotton pajamas, lift the front gate, remove the wooden planks one by one as you slip on your flip flops-the baguette lady of 108 years old in her tailored floral silk pajamas hollers out through her blackened capped teeth1 and it is already warm, humid and overcast at 8am, the singing finches in their bamboo cages have been replaced with battery
Yum, Bacon, big bacon! Oh, I mean big toilet.

operated fuzzy stuffed birds chirping Yankee Doodle Dandy you look up and a boy, no actually a grown man the size of a 10 year old is hitting the Duracell bird to make it repeat its tune meanwhile the restaurant across the street with their Chinese fountain with 2 monkeys on miniature Halong Bay mountains (the ones you see in Chinese paintings) are swinging back and forth and one monkey is an amputee(did we do that too?) but also I catch a glimpse of the eagle tied to a rock by a chain around one leg-it is an attraction and I am attracted to it along with the hundreds of white butterflies which are actually schoolgirls dressed in long flowing au-dais, blue bonnets and long white Audrey Hepburn gloves they have half Buddha smiles riding their bicycles through the streets, the streets covered with fresh palms drying in the sun to be used in the traditional bamboo thatched huts gradually being replaced by box stacked brick and tile houses. Pew! I say as I pass a row of salted fermented fish, the Vietnamese version of salt- you must have in combination with cilantro, lime, sugar, and chili to go in your pho, my lunch in the market where it is nap time and all the ladies have put down their rice hats and sprawl their bodies across their goods and wares. Goodmorning Vietnam! Nap time is almost over, the laundry is hanging on the clothesline, it is time to slip on your flip flops again, the fishing boats are at dock. ‘Hom com-on,’ I say to the whistle girl carrying a basket of crudely molded animal whistles, who also looks like a Cambodian model and lives in a poor village across the river and patties and she runs away but not from me, the police are down the street ordered to arrest the children who are trying to make 50 cents to eat that day, by UNESCO another western monitoring police force trying to tackle world problems and inevitably making the poorest of poor suffer even more-“yes, its UNESCO” says a young Vietnamese waitress, ‘child labor’.

But she’s 16. Goodmorning Vietnam, but you are awake even though you are still in your pajamas and Uncle Ho is dead and Clinton is visiting your home town saying “would you like to order a Big Mac with or without fries?” because the wars are over, you beat them all-the French, American, Khmers, Chinese, wake up! Wake up boys no time for rest, get up from your blue plastic stools-go out there in the fields and plant more rice, don’t let the women do all the work. Where do you think you are - Asia? Oh, yeah, we are, aren’t we, but I forgot even though there are letters signed ‘The Peoples Committee of Vietnam’ I was mislead by the Sony television screening Madonna on MTV...Look! a war remnant and like Sean Flynn2 I whip out my 35mm to take a shot at a squatting blind man dressed in rags with cowboy hat holding a cigarette with his ‘arms’ amputated at the elbows. Was that rude? Yes it was rude, I’m a tourist and that gives my presence here to be offensive to at least 50% of the locals even though the government is organizing tourism as a main industry amidst the land of rice patties and tea. Yes, its that time again, ‘after war’ not the other time, ‘before war’, that period is over the one before television, and a new period has arrived, the age of ‘ti-vi’ and ‘VDO’ –

there is more to life than karaoke and video games, but the men are enjoying the ‘singing hands massage’3 ladies in the room beyond the dan bao stringing along to love songs meanwhile the black Tai hill tribe head is playing tetras with the volume set high and under his wooden long house, the pigs and albino buffalos have been kicked out and replaced by embroidered souvenir bags while next door an American missionary fights alongside the Hmong against government land snatching4, so, no visa extensions for you, you nosy Yanks! We only play ‘store’ with you-not cowboys and Indians. We know how you are. You always wanted our titanium5, didn’t you! Don’t bother with your bible, we have plenty of crosses on our gravestones you’ve made over the years. We can do it ourselves, in fact we have an over-abundance of gravestones already ordered and on the sidewalks next to Quan Yin6 being carved in marble, she stands tall across the street from the illuminati eyeball planted between the swastikas on the Cao Dai7 facade. Can you hear the ceremony of monks dressed as the Pope in yellow and red casual wear, the Zen-like women with cropped hair in white rows bow in Unisom as if in a

Check out the guy with the room full of furniture on the moto! These women are drying palms for thatch rooftops.

mosque, but neither mosque, nor temple, nor church, yet all 3 combined worshipping world intellectuals , the likes of Jean Val Jean’s creator, yes could it be like Brian’s fictional religion-‘Jebuddhi’, bibliophile who creates a world religion? Is it time-to have a coconut milk candy again? Martin the gay Englishman is over enunciating and yelling to his lover, Peter “I theenk hees baahls reetract when hee speaks Vee-et-naa-meese!” (And I thought they were all swallowing coconut milk candy when they spoke-‘dao-doy-toy-bao-ga-doy-doy’) And Wow! Through the mountain mist take a look at that rare bird-Dr. Seuss came through this land, the Northwest mountains, living Black Hmong, Flower Hmong, White, Red Hmong, Thai, Meo, Giao, Muong, Taij, Nung, Giao Do...

Fatigue has no shame.Do you know the Vietnamese villagers normally where pajamas as outer wear?

and 42 more ethnics survive. Like mobile Mother Theresa, we pull up in our jeep with bags of shorts, pants, shoes and medicine... Popping up from behind a tree with his naked bum, a little wee one pulls at a branch, grabs a handful of leaves, wipes himself and with a snotty dirty face he smiles with his chubby cheeks aglow, puts on his shorts and tramples up the dirt path. Goodmorning Vietnam! We love you for your old ways, the olden days, the good ol’ days. Don’t change your jeweled scarves, your headdresses, your rice hats into Nike baseball caps. Who knows if you’ll stay awake when the golden arches move into Hang Burger8 street. How long does it take for your yellow star9 to morph into a capital M? The western backpacker wants to sneak into your backyard, but the tourist police comes at you with his bamboo cane, saying ‘stay behind the White line please! This world remains for us and you stay within your boundaries.’ Yes, its that world, the old one , we want to see. Buy a postcard-send it away, come back another day. And we will, Vietnam.

1. Blackened teeth is custom of staining teeth and gums with a black dye from the chonta or black-wood palm (peperonia tinctorioides). Many indigenous tribes in the Mountains of Northern Vietnam continue to practice this ancient beautification ritual.
2. Sean Flynn, son of Errol Flynn, the famous Hollywood actor. Sean Flynn was known not only for his acting ,but moreover his photojournalism in the Vietnam war. He died while tracking down the Khmer Rouge led by PolPot. It is believed that he was killed by the Khmer Rouge in the jungle with his partner Dana Stone, another war photographer.
3. Singing Hands Massage is a term used for massage parlors which also are used as brothels. The phrase is a spin off of the ‘seeing hands massage’ which is massage done by blind people.
4. American Missionaries stationed in the highlands of Vietnam were assisting the Hmong people whom they converted to Christianity. In April of 2000, the Vietnamese government was confiscating land in which Hmong villages resided. As a result, all Americans visiting Vietnam were not granted visa extensions during this political conflict.
5. Titanium theory refers to the idea that American involvement in Vietnam was not only for the soul purpose of fighting Communism, but also for the discovery of valuable titanium mines found in South Vietnam. This theory has not been claimed to be true by either governments.
6. Quan Yin is the Chinese Buddha in female form.
7. Cao Dai is an attempt to create a perfect synthesis of world religions. It is a combination of Christianity, Buddhism , Islam, Confucianism, Hinduism, Geniism, and Taoism. Established in the Southern regions of Vietnam in the early 1920's, the religion was officially codified in 1926. The functioning center of Cao Daism is located in the Tay Ninh province. Cao Dai literally means high tower or palace, a metaphor for the spender of spiritual growth.
8. The names of streets in Hanoi were onced named by the trade or industry of each particular avenue. Most of these streets in downtown Hanoi begin with ‘hang’ meaning road. Therefore the street which once sold chicken or ‘ga’ would be called ‘Hang ga’.
9. The yellow star is the symbol of communism of Vietnam.
10. Organized tourism can be the backpacker’s number one frustration in Vietnam. The Vietnamese government, much like the Chinese government limits the areas and ways foreigners can travel within the country. For instance, it can be difficult to travel by local bus and stop at any town and stay with a family. This is illegal. All foreigners must stay in a licensed hotel/guesthouse. Foreigners are discouraged to travel independently and encouraged to sign up with tour groups.