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Irony, rain, and even more drunk foreigners
Entry 28 of 63 | show all | print this entry |
I thought I'd share a few random ironic details about the vietnam war (or the 'war of liberation', or the 'war of american aggression', depending on where you are and who you talk to).
1 - It's ironic that we call it the 'vietnam war' when we dropped over two billion tons of bombs on laos as well (for comparison, that's more bombs than all of the countries in the world dropped for the entire duration of world war 2), plus some more on cambodia...
2 - Did you know that Ho Chi Minh was allied with the US during world war 2? His group (the viet minh, before they were called that) led around a deployment of american marines in southeast asia, fighting against the japanese....
3 - The US also provided military training as part of the world war 2 alliance, meaning that most of the viet minh leaders were trained by our military....
4 - Did you know that Ho Chi Minh actually worked in the US for awhile? He shoveled snow in brooklyn...
5 - When north vietnam declared it's independence, only one foreign nation was given a place of honor at the festivities. Any idea who it was? That's right, the US....
6 - It's ironic that we were here 'defending democracy', when government we were defending was not democratically elected, but actively repressed people, and - get this - was actually overthrown ELEVEN different times in a two year period (and the US condoned at least one of those coups....)
7 - The opening paragraph of the vietnamese declaration of independence: "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." Sound familiar?
I'm in Nha Trang right now, on the south coast. It's a fairly nice town, right on the beach. I booked a day trip to go out snorkelling in some islands tomorrow... we've had some crazy tropical rain for the last three mornings, so I'm hoping that I won't be swimming in a downpour (although it'll still be warm regardless, so what do I care, really?)
The local 'product' here seems to be independent motorbike tours of the highlands. I've been offered four different trips in the last day. One of them was actually pretty tempting - the driver seemed like a nice guy, and had a book full of testimonials that raved about him. Unfortunately my time in vietnam is beginning to run a little short, and I really can't afford it... maybe next time.
I had an interesting conversation in Hoi An with a drunk canadian man. If you've ever seen the movie 'strange brew', well, he pretty much fell out of it into the middle of vietnam. He builds houses for a living, and takes a month off during the winter to escape from the alberta snow and go travel. For someone who had been drinking for the entire previous day, through the night, and through the morning (this was at about noon) he was actually quite perceptive. We chatted for awhile about travel, about america, and about independent vs group travel. He was of the opinion that americans were great if you talked to them alone, but if there were three or more of them together, we were a bunch of idiots (interesting take, I thought). We agreed that independent travel was pretty great, since if you don't take care of things it was your own fault, and it was pretty much up to you to fix things when they went wrong. Liberating. We also tended to agree that the all inclusive group tours were rarely worth doing.... then he started making comparisons between waterfalls and sex, and I started to get a little worried about his blood alcohol level. The restaurant owner felt the same way, I think, as he kept asking me whether I thought the guy was all right. He seemed to stumble his way down the street fairly well though, so I'll assume he made it to bed...
I thought I was going to have to break up a fight today at lunch between an angry french man and a drunk australian (I really don't know why all of my stories seem to be involving drunk people. I hope it doesn't reflect badly on me.) The australian man was making a complete idiot of himself, and the french guy got mad and got in his face. I thought for a minute that he was going to hit him... then the owner of the restaurant came out (a large italian man named 'carlo' - no I am most certainly not making this up -) and restored order.... you don't argue with large italian men named carlo, especially in foreign countries. Even the drunk australian figured that out.
I'll be in Nha Trang for a few days, then up into the hills to Dalat, and finally down to Saigon...
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| 28. | Irony, rain, and even more drunk foreigners - Nha Trang, Vietnam Mar 20, 2007 |
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