Kim
Trip Start
Jul 10, 2007
1
13
46
Trip End
Mar 11, 2008
Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi,
Vietnam
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Before visiting Vietnam, the visions of this country ingrained in me were of the war; courtesy of too many Time Magazine articles and the black and white television news reports I watched in fear as a child. The photo that keeps haunting me is the Pulitzer Prize winning picture of the nine year old girl named Kim running away from her village after a napalm attack (June 1972). I have never been able to erase this image from my mind and recollect being unable to understand why a young child like her should have to suffer.
After so many invasions, I am amazed at how the people of Vietnam have been able to survive and rebuild their country with such pride. Vietnam is a beautiful country. It offers a scope of many different sites to explore such as lush jungles, "pop-up" mountains, endless sand dunes, stunning coastlines, villages and cosmopolitan cities
Traditional dress
.Poverty is still an issue but the locals seem to have a different mind set and handle it differently from the other countries we have visited. People are early risers (earlier than you Pappie!) and are busy at work until the late hours of the night. This country never sleeps! There is a definite effort to keep the landscape free of litter. Even the big cities are clean; many sidewalks are washed nightly.
However, communication was difficult at best and often extremely frustrating. We have met the calmest and kindest people but also very uncooperative ones. It was certainly the country where we have felt the most like strangers on the sideline. Some people did not even want to acknowledge our easy to understand English words, complete with mimes and pictures mixed with our best attempts at Vietnamese translations. Our questions were often met by complete disinterest and sometimes by the "running away or the flailing hands in the air" approach... never quite understood that one. I heard myself asking people to smile.
In larger cities, especially Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, we can still hear French language being spoken from the 100 year occupation by France
Having Tea
. We joyfully used our mother tongue to glance into the very private Vietnamese society and met the sweetest and youngest 90 year old Café owner in Hanoi. Catherine Deneuve, a very famous French actress and classic beauty, would frequent Huuchi Le's Kinhdocafé when filming "Indochine". We had a most entertaining conversation with this gentle and happy man who spoke eloquently of his country and the turmoil he had witnessed during enough wars to destroy any person's soul. One of his comments I will never forget was when he looked at me and said with a very concerned tone: "Madame, les Vietnamiens n'ont simplement pas peur de la mort" (Vietnamese people are just not afraid to die).True...extremely true if one tries to analyze the driving techniques in Vietnam. Crossing a street in Cambodia was unsafe; here it is facing too many fears. Not only is the driving insane, the drivers can not keep their hands off their horns...which means that you can actually predict when and where you will be hit.
In Ho Chi Minh City, the boys really wanted to visit the War Remnants Museum. We prepared them by explaining that the subject matter of the museum would be hard to process. As we entered the grounds, the boys were so excited and impressed to see Pappie's helicopter and the cool fighter planes outside. I was trying to keep my composure knowing that inside this museum, I would encounter much sadness. As I was walking slowly through the picture gallery, I could see the boys planning some form of escape route for me. One picture in particular was being subjected to a particular hiding scheme. As the boys were ushering me quickly away from a very sad image, I understood which one it was. They had instinctively tried to keep me away from Kim's picture. The original photograph was hanging in the museum. Yes, I did cry...this time because of the caring and kindness of two beautiful young minds.
