Cu Chi and Cao Dai
Trip Start
Sep 17, 2007
1
141
272
Trip End
Oct 08, 2008
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Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam
Monday, March 24, 2008
Cao Daiism is a religion. It was established in Tay Ninh, near HCMC, in 1926. Its first disciples claimed to have received direct communications from God, who gave them explicit instructions for establishing a new religion that would commence the Third Era of Religious Amnesty.
Our guide helpfully described Cao Dai as a mix of Buddhism, Christianity, and Confucianism. The goal is to escape rebirth, or to achieve buddhahood. Strangely enough, Victor Hugo is recognized as a Saint. There are believed to be almost 3 million followers in Vietnam, with others scattered around the world.
We attended the noon mass at the Holy See. Apparently there are four masses each day: 6am, noon, 6pm, midnight. The temple is quite impressive. On all the windows are all-seeing-eyes, which seem to be taken directly off the one dollar bill. The structure is also taken from the US, and they have a legislative, judicial, and executive branch. Inside the temple are rows of beautiful dragon pillars. At the front a giant sphere with eyes commands attention.
The faithful wear white to mass, while the priests wear a rainbow of brilliant colors and sit farther towards the front. For reasons which I can't understand, tourists are permitted to attend the noon mass, looking down from the upper balcony. It is rather intrusive, but I suppose they must need the money. Every so often a bell rings and the entire congregation prostrates itself three times.
working on inlay
It is a simple and meditative ceremony. And a very up-close look at a little-known religion. Next are the Cu Chi Tunnels. Our guide, strangely enough, fought with the South Vietnamese against the North. Now he is giving tours to American tourists of a North Vietnamese stronghold. So many ironies here. You can detect some of his loyalties when he points out that this place is run by the army and we are helping to support it. Also that the window gives a price (in Vietnamese) for an adult Vietnamese person and a price for a foreigner, but we have to buy both tickets. Nice.
We start off the tour with a short video presentation. There was no explanation before the video was shown, and it was pretty uncomfortable to watch it as an American, to say the least. It's theme was: Who are the Cu Chi guerillas? It goes on to describe Cu Chi as a wonderful, peaceful place, full of green ricefields and happy workers. That is, until the Americans came with their bombs and gas and napalm. From far away in Washington arrived bombers and tanks and soldiers, and in response, the people of Cu Chi built an extensive network of tunnels from which they could fight the Americans. It then went on to commemorate a couple heroes. There was a young girl, nicknamed "American killer" who killed at least 100 American soldiers. The others had similar names. I sat there with my mouth open most of the time. I hadn't seen propaganda like this before. After the video they told us it was made during the war (well at least it wasn't recent).
meticulous work
Then we went out into the forest.The tunnels were mostly escape hatches. They weren't used for transporting troops because they were incredibly tiny. I had a chance to get into a bolthole used by a sniper. It was slightly constricting. We saw a tank that was destroyed by an anti-tank mine. They used to take unexploded ordinance, saw it in half by had, and take out the powder to make homemade weapons. They also littered the area with traps. Some of these are really nasty looking, although our guide said not many people were killed by the traps. It was part of the mental warfare going on during the physical one, and mostly slowed the troops down. I wouldn't want to be caught daydreaming and step on one, though.
Towards the end we had a chance to crawl through a tunnel that had been restored and modified for tourists. It was now twice the size it had been originally. It was only 100m long and had three escape hatches if you couldn't take it anymore. Most of our group went in. Although it had seemed pretty simple from up on the surface, down here it was much more difficult. You could just walk in a crouch, like a duck. The light was dim and it was boiling hot. The tunnels went down two levels and then back up again. It was suffocating and claustrophobic. Erin and I were among the few who went all the way through. It seemed like much longer than 100m. On the way out our guide showed us a cashew tree...what a strange way to grow cashews. Then the long bus back to the city.
We rewarded ourselves with the amazing fruitshakes we found near our hotel. At 60 cents for a giant, ice-cold shake, we had several. The orange one tastes like a dreamsicle. Strawberry is also amazing.
~Travis
