More than anywhere else we have been, Vietnam was real. My visit to Vietnam showed me how so many people in the world actually live. People in Vietnam are very obviously poor. The Vietnamese Dong has an exchange rate of $1 USD = 16,100 Vietnamese Dong. A local told us that Vietnamese people actually use more American cash than Americans do. There is no credit system in Vietnam, so everything is paid for in cash. Small purchases on a daily basis are paid for in Dong. Anything larger than a few hundred thousand dong is paid for in US dollars. Anything larger than a few hundred or thousand dollars is paid for in gold. I thought it was interesting how willing local people were to take foreign currency. I thought about how it would be received if someone tried to use dong in America.
Vietnam has a lot of people that many from a Western point of view would consider to be in poverty. The people don’t seem to think of themselves as being in poverty. Some people begged on the street, but this isn’t what I mean. People that live in nothing more than shacks are still very happy. This is what they are used to. They seem to be content in the conditions that they live. We visited a house of a rather wealthy former photographer and it was still similar to other dwellings. There was a thatched roof and a wood floor. It wasn’t glamorous, but it is all that they need. I was quite impressed by the Vietnamese people’s ingenuity. We visited a village and were shown how many of their products are made. They use everything! Even the shells of nuts and things, they don’t discard them, but use them for fuel for fires. This was incredible and I thought about how different America would be if we just chose to be a bit less wasteful and use things even half as well or as long as the people in this village did.
In my time in Vietnam, I had many adventures. I visited the Cu Chi Tunnels, Mekong Delta, Monkey Island, the War Remnants Museum, an Orphanage and school for deaf children, and the market. From all of my trips around Ho Chi Minh City and beyond, I learned why we say “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. This is not some super American speech… haha. I just mean that the pursuit really is the most important part. Most people feel like they will reach happiness – as if it is a destination. My adventure in Vietnam showed me that the happiness is really in the journey. I rode busses that my Mom would be mortified to step foot into, I rode on the back of motor bikes with strangers, I was in the middle of nowhere, I stomped through a monsoon and mud in the woods to climb through tunnels – I had a BLAST!!!! (seriously, though – I am not reckless or trying to get into dangerous situations – this is just the way people travel here, it is an entirely different way of life; I did my best to embrace life the way that Vietnamese people live it every day). All of these things were part of the journey, but I probably remember them more than some of the destinations. This is what I mean – the pursuit means that you should be happy in every moment, not just at the destination – the journey should be the exciting part (because really in life we all have the same destination and I’m in no hurry to get the that point yet – I have too much life left to live).
A final thought I must mention from Vietnam is the result of my visit to the War Remnants Museum and the Cu Chi Tunnels. I honestly know very little about the Vietnam War. We just don’t learn about it well in American public schools, which is sad. Considering that those that do not learn from their history are doomed to repeat it, we really should learn from our mistakes. Obviously we haven’t, I mean look at our current situation in the world, but that is a different topic for a different blog. The museum was sad and had very gruesome depictions of the war including graphic photographs, artifacts, and detailed descriptions. The photographs showed US soldiers doing terrible things. It also had preserved deformed fetuses on display, which completely shocked and repulsed me. I say all of this to show that I had no idea what to expect at the museum and that it was incredibly difficult to see. It also left me with more questions than answers. I had no idea what to think because I did not have enough of a basis in my own history to know different from the museum’s description of the war. I do understand, of course, that when a communist regime creates a museum it is going to be biased have propaganda. The sad thing is, though, that I knew so little about the war that I didn’t know what was blatant propaganda and what wasn’t. I also left with questions about my own grandfather’s involvement in the war. Unfortunately, he doesn’t talk about his time in Vietnam because I know that he could answer some of the questions that I have about it all. I just want to understand why America thought it was our responsibility to interfere in internal struggles in a country half way around the world. I don’t understand why we went to Vietnam (except for the ideas about containment and the domino effect that don’t suffice, there was too much at stake for that to have been the only reason). These are the questions I have pondered, asked, and attempted to study since my visit. The exhibits did reveal to me why many Americans protested the war.
I also visited the Cu Chi Tunnels, which was quite an interesting experience. First of all, when we got there, it was pouring rain, like a monsoon and we toured in the downpour, which was kind of awesome. This gave me a feeling of what it really would have been like in the war as there were no other tourists around and it was pouring rain and kind of eerie with just the three of us and guide in the middle of the woods. We watched a video in which the American troops were referred to as “crazy devils”. This anti-American sentiment was evident throughout the whole video and made me quite uncomfortable.
The anti-American feelings in the museum and at the tunnels were in stark contrast to what I experienced from the individual citizens in Vietnam. For the most part, they were very welcoming and accepting of Americans. This conclusion is not just from the tourist areas that we visited, but from the average citizens on the busses and things that we used. We met several people that were quite kind and interested in our experiences in America. This shows the difference between a government and its citizens. I am glad that this distinction can be very obvious because I have noticed many people throughout this journey that do not like the foreign policy of the United States or some other governmental entity, but do not dislike American citizens. This has been fortunate as a traveler that most people can distinguish between my government and me as an individual.
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