Emails from Vietnam, July 2002

Notice
The information contained in this e-mail is the intellectual property of Patrick R. Saunders, P.O. Box 13, Norwalk, OH, 44857, tel   419-668-0335; cell 419-6810290; e-mail: Patrick.R.Saunders@gmail.com None of the information contained in this document can be used without the express permission of Mr. Saunders, and if it is used, attribution or credit must be given to him.

The following is a collection of e-mails recording my thoughts, observations and reportage sent back to my wife and friends while I was traveling in Vietnam from July 5th, 2002 to July 18th, 2002 with the South East Asia Field Study class from Firelands College, BGSU, Huron, OH.

Pat Saunders
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Date Mon, 8 Jul 2002 182744 -0400

Subject “The Question Should Be?"

Hanoi, VN: Before embarking on this trip, I had many thoughts of what I would be doing once I arrived "in country." But sitting in the lobby of the hotel in Hanoi where I am staying and showing a local Vietnamese youth (born in 1975, the end of the war) how to register and participate on E-bay, was not one of
them.

"Enterprise" is the word to describe what is happening in South East Asia. And it is defined both by approach and by scale, from the massive economic infrastructure developments that we saw in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, i.e., the "Airport City" project to the thriving small business atmosphere here in Vietnam. The type and level of enterprise is also equally varied, from the totally "Western Mall" atmosphere of the 89 story "Petronis Towers" complex (remember the Sean Connery movie?) in Kuala Lumpur to the bazaar-like atmosphere of the thousands and thousands of small shops here in Hanoi; which are organized by street, by products and by services that are offered.

The atmosphere and attitude is one of that anything is possible, sounds down-right "American," doesn't it. So the question that was asked by the reporter of us before we departed for South East Asia, who won the war? Should have been, what opportunities were lost and at what price? Because here in the heart and
soul of Ho Chi Minh, "capitalism" with a little "c" and a human face, holds sway and Americans are welcome.
on further reflection and another question comes the heels of the terrible events of September 11th and the questions of why do they hate us (the Arabs), after we have done so much for them? After a twenty year war and three to five million casualties on the Vietnamese side and 360,000 casualties on ours, why do they (the Vietnamese) like us? That is a question that I will be trying to find an answer to, in the days
ahead.

Pat Saunders
"The Hotel Ho Guom"
76 Rue Hang Troung
Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel84.4-8252225
9 July, 2002


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Date Tue, 9 Jul 2002 183354 -0400
Subject “Learning Starts at Three"

Hanoi: Another hot day, the morning air hit you like falling face first into a boiling vat. The summer is in full swing and yet the rains have not arrived, for when they come, they will not go away until the Fall comes. Life is a learning experience, and most people recognize that it starts at birth. In this country, they are making an investment in their children based on the thought that the earlier the process starts, the better.

As a group we visited an Early Childhood Teachers College in Hanoi, it is one of two in the country. The purpose of this facility is obvious, to train teachers to successfully start the child on the learning path. The facility, while not like the nicely appointed colleges we have in our country, (no A/C, etc.), is equipped to give develop those skills critical to the process. At the college, they have an onsite kindergarten, where children and the student teachers are both exposed to the methods being developed at this school. Children are admitted at age three and then go through a phased program much like we have in the States.

Children at three and four are mainly allowed to play and interact, with some learning exercises incorporated into the "play." We saw yesterday, three year olds, who have learned how to use the "Windows" system on computers to perform functions and to access and to utilize programs designed for children. At five years, the children are started on the path to being bilingual, in that they begin to learn to speak, read and write English as well as Vietnamese. The children also start to develop math skills and at the time they enter the regular school setting at age seven, they are proficient in basic reading, writing and math skills.

The students at this teachers college, receive their education without cost to them. Vietnam has like our country has realized that an investment in education is an investment in their future. The only difference, is that they make that investment on the frontend, not the backend like us. There are not any students graduating with $40,000 in debt at this facility, as there are in schools across our country today. The main difference in approach, is that these students are those who are academically up to the challenge of college and in our country, we still feel and believe that all people should have the chance to try and fail in college.

On another note, we had some free time in the afternoon and went shopping. Haggling is the national pastime and no offense is taken or no quarter given in the contest between shopkeeper and shopper. There are some really beautiful things here and they can be purchased at a very reasonable price, if you stick to your guns, so to speak. There are many westerners in this country, many are from Europe, it seems that this country has been discovered as a not only exotic but very reasonable vacation destination.

Pat Saunders
c/o
The Ho Goum Hotel
76 Hang Trong Street
Hanoi, VN

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Date Tue, 16 Jul 2002 235840 -0700 (PDT)

The trip has been something out of a dream. On last Wednesday, the 10th, we visited Hanoi University of Education and met with the Vice Rector, the Director of International Affairs. They are Dr. Thanh's superiors and are not appointed by a board of trustees, but elected by their peers (their fellow teachers). They have about 1,700 students on the campus at Hanoi, but nationwide have about 15,000.

Their setup is like California's and they have campuses in all of the other cities in Vietnam. HUE, is a "liberal arts" school and is regarded as the top school in the country. As I said in a earlier e-mail, for education majors, tuition and books are free. For all other colleges, the tuition is rather nominal, like maybe $7.00 @ year and books are just as cheap. In order to attend, students are required to take a competitive exam, that is the difference.

On Thursday, the 11th, we went to Ha Long Bay, which is North East of Hanoi and next to Haiphong Harbor. This is a beautiful place and there are islands composed of limestone all over a vast bay area. We went out on the bay and went to a island for swimming. The commercialization of this area is something else and the Vietnamese are fast taking pages out of our playbook in regards to promoting natural wonders.

The next day we departed for the south, we spent the night, Friday, the 12th at Cua Lo, a village on the south china sea coast about 2/3's of the way to Hue City. There was a beach there and 10,000 vacationing Vietnamese.

The next day we pulled out and headed for the DMZ and south. We stopped at a the Director for International Studies, Mr. Cho, mother's home. It is right on highway one and just north of the DMZ. They were very nice people, poor people, but very proud of Mr. Cho. I guess it would be the same thing if a poor family in Eastern Kentucky had a son who rose up to be a big shot at Harvard or something, same thing.

We then went to the DMZ or what used to be the DMZ. I walked across the Ben Hai Bridge, from the North to the South, something that none of my friends did so many years ago. We stopped at Dong Ha, that was a site of a big Seabee Base during the War, they were trying to build a fence (it was called McNamara's wall, because he thought a fence would help end the war) to separate the North from the South and got the hell beat out of them in attempting it. We drove through Quang Tri, where my best friend, Ron, was KIA in July of '67.

We arrived in Hue City that evening. The next day, we visited the tombs of Vietnamese Emperors. Minh Mang and Tu Doc, who were largely puppets of the French in the 19th century. The tombs are beautiful and show the Chinese Dynastic influence on Vietnamese architecture. 

In the afternoon, we went to the old imperial city, the Citadel. While I was there, I ran into a group of American 'Nam Vets, who were part of a group called “Veterans with a Mission.” They were at the citadel as tourists. But they had just opened their 23rd Medical Clinic in Viet Nam in Da Nang. The citadel was interesting for me, because of the major battle that was fought there in Tet of '68. They are
restoring it, but there is major battle damage still evident. The controversy over the Citadel was the fact that we bombed and shelled it to dislodge the NVA and VC soldiers who had taken control of it at the beginning of the offensive. The Vietnamese fought to the end and few were taken captive after the bombing and artillery attacks. We spent two nights and three days at Hue in all, leaving it for our next stop HoiAn, south of Da Nang.

I am sending this e-mail to you from an open internet cafe in Hoi An , an ancient trading port on the Yellow Sea, about 20 klicks from DaNang, it is hotter than heck and sweat is pouring down my back. I will continue this later.

Pat

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Date Wed, 17 Jul 2002 101021 -0400

Ho Chi Minh City, VN
Subject: Vietnam Journal, filling in the gaps to 12 July, 2002.

July 11th, we visited the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh. This is similar to viewing the body of Lenin in Moscow, in that the his body is perfectly preserved in a climate controlled massive building. It is said that before Ho Chi Minh died in 1969, that he told those close to him that he wanted a simple funeral like any other Vietnamese. Now Vietnamese and people from all over the world come to pay their respects to him. On the day we visited the tomb, there was a group of about 50 veterans (Vietnamese) who were paying homage to their fallen leader, just ahead us. It was interesting to watch their reactions as we walked past the body. After leaving the mausoleum, we went to the Museum dedicated to the fallen leader. It documented the struggle for independence from the first French invasion in 1858 to the fall of Saigon in 1975. While the struggle against the French was represented in display after display, the “American War,’ was only a small part of the museum. After leaving the museum, we visited the home of Ho Chi Minh. In 1954, when the French pulled out of Viet Nam, the government of Ho Chi Minh inherited the former Governor’s Palace in Hanoi. Ho refused to live in it, saying that he would live as the rest of the Vietnamese lived and had a small four room house built on the grounds and the Palace today is used only to host visiting foreign dignitaries. In the afternoon, we visited the Hanoi University of Education and met with the Vice Rector and the Director
for International Relations.

On our way out of Hanoi, we stopped at the “Hanoi Hilton,” the prison that was used to house the American POW’s. One thing that I learned there, that long before John McCain spent time there, thousands of Vietnamese had been imprisoned there, tortured and executed by the French Colonialists by guilotine or firing squad. In fact, the very torture techniques used by the Vietnamese on our POW”s were developed by the French and used on the Vietnamese during the long “French war” for independence. (1930-41/1946-1954).

Ha Long Bay: This picturesque area is located some 60 klicks north east of Hanoi. We left Hanoi on the morning of the 11th for Ha Long Bay. Ha Long Bay is a beautiful place, a huge bay with limestone islands scattered all over (it was in the film, "Indochine," the slave market). To the east of it, is Haiphong Harbor, one of the major shipping ports of Vietnam, and a heavily bombed area during the war. It was hard to imagine that this beautiful area was the scene of some of the most fierce combat during the war, with Haiphong being a target of our Navy and Air Force planes. As we cruised slowly (about 2 mph), across the bay, I tried to picture planes streaking across and the responding anti aircraft fire, I could not do it.

The next day we departed down highway One for the south, our first stop was at Cua Lo, this was about 300 klicks from Hanoi. We spent the night there and continue on our trip the next morning. The coast of Vietnam is one beautiful stretch from the North to the South. We stopped at the home of the mother of Mr. Tho, who is the Director of International Relations for HUE. They live very simply (poor) and are in the area of the 17th parallel, the former DMZ. She is about 80 years and consequently saw the whole war, French and American. They were very gracious and showed us around their small home and garden.

I am now in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City, will send More.............

Pat
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Date Thu, 18 Jul 2002 003147 -0400

On Highway One, Vietnam

“Enterprise”

As we drove through the length of the country, one thing that is for certain, the Vietnamese understand “enterprise.” Every home it seems has some thing for sale, from refreshments at an ad hoc “café,” to merchandise. This was evident in every village, town and city. While Hue City, we visited some imperial tombs. At each site there was a flurry of vendors selling post cards and other items that tourists buy. The vendors were kids and women. At Minh Mang, we had to cross the Perfume River in Sampans to get to the site of the tomb. There were large numbers of vendors on both sides of the river, but once we entered the tomb site they were gone. It seems that the vendors are not allowed near the sites and cannot use what could be described as forcible tactics in their sales approach. As we crossed back over the river, I watched as workers constructed a large bridge across the river towards the tomb site, I wondered what impact that bridge would have on the local’s rice bowl, since it would put the sampans out of business and take tourists away from the small village from where they were based at. Something would be worked out, because every one works in Viet Nam.

“Infrastructure”

Construction is not a word here, it is the only word. There are no orange barrels, just miles and miles of road, bridge, water and sewer projects. There is literally thousands and thousands of homes being built up and down the length of Highway One and all over Viet Nam. In the central region of the country, they had some devastating floods from tropical storms and Typhoons. Now the Vietnamese are in the process of rebuilding the roads, raising the level of the roadway, enlarging the other infrastructure components, culverts and drainage ditches. There are bottlenecks, but at 37 mph (70 kph) the national speed limit, traffic just moves on and they accommodate each other.

“Remnants of War”

Driving through the country, we saw few signs of the “American War.” Maybe a former Army 6x6, now hauling stone, dirt or rice, but that was it. The huge American complex at Chu Lai is mostly non-existent, with the buildings being disassembled and the materials put to other uses. The concrete forts and gun emplacements of the “French War” are still scattered through the countryside, mostly at bridges, railroad points and mountain passes. At Da Nang, I saw something left over from the “American War, the remains of some concrete airplane revetments, and the main gate of the Marine base, all slowly deteriorating in the heat. At Nha Trang, I saw numerous revetments and airplane hangars, still being used by military, but the planes ere covered up and not on “stand by.”

The most telling remnant of the “American War,” was the memorial at Song My, the village also known as My Lai. This is a reminder of man’s inhumanity to man and that violence only begets violence. The original village site is preserved and the foundations of the homes still there. There is a simple plague at each, that tells who lived there, who died, and their ages. The ages ranged from senior citizens of 68 to babies of one year old. Five hundred and seven people were killed at this village, mostly women and children. Ironically, the last remaining survivor, a young woman, who was three years old at the time and who used to give talks about the massacre to visitors at the memorial. Died of cancer several years ago, I wondered if her death by cancer was attributable to the defoliates that we used in this area during the war.

Beaches”

The one thing that this country has in abundance is beaches. There is hundreds of miles of pristine beach and wonderful surf. There also are thousands of people at the beach in the larger towns. But out in the country along Highway One, there are beaches without a soul that make Club Med look sick.




“Housing”

In this country, if you want to build a house, you must get a permit from the state, since all land belongs to the state. But after getting that permit, you can build any house you want. Most homes range from 4 to 6 rooms and are multi-storied in the city and more spread out in the country. Each year the homeowner pays a fee to the state for the land that his home is on. Dr. Thanh, our guide and host said that he pays about 100,000 Vietnamese Dong annually, or about Eight Dollars to the state.

“Food Production”

Outside of commerce and construction, the other main interest is production of food. Food for human consumption, not for animal consumption as in our country. All along Highway One, are rice paddies, as we drove the length of Vietnam, we watch the harvesting, preparing , planting and harvesting of rice. With Vietnam's climate they get an average of two to three crops a year and in the delta, three to four crops

a year. That is why Vietnam is now a major rice exporting country in Asia now.

They also raise sweet corn, melons, and other vegetables for consumption. All along the central region, are hydroponic ponds where they have a thriving aqua-culture  industry. They have salt water ponds where they raise shrimp and crabs; and freshwater ponds where they raise a variety of fresh water fish. They also raise large numbers of livestock from ducks and pigs to cattle. Also still evident is the “Water Buffalo”, the tractor of the Asian farmer. There are still vast numbers of these animals being used in agriculture right along side tractors and trucks.

“Traffic”

The word is intense to describe the traffic, huge trucks by the hundreds roar by. There are many cars and SUV’s on the road; but the most numerous are the motorbikes and motorcycles in the millions it seems. They are like swarms of bees at times, buzzing enmasse from one point to the next. One of the group commented on the lack of white lines and lane dividers on the road. When drivers use the whole road, who needs lines?

“The land of the cold towel”

Finally a note on how the public is treated in this country. Whether you are Vietnamese or foreigner, people go out of their way to be cordial and friendly. At restaurants, large or small, the comfort of the customer is number one. One of the first things you are offered is a cold towel to wash off the dust of the road and to refresh yourself. When the temperature is hovering near a hundred degrees. That really hits the spot and makes you feel like a Million dong.

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“Answering the Question”

Ho Chi Minh City, (Saigon) Vietnam

In the beginning of this trip, I posed the Question, why do they like us; especially in light of 9-11 and its aftermath? The answer that I have been able to find is that they look at history with a long view. They still talk about the many wars that they had with the Chinese over a thousand years ago and have not forgotten the brutal French Colonial period. But seem to consider the “American War” as a post script and that it is time to move on to the future.

So as I board the plane today and embark on the trip home to my country, that is what I will be returning too, the future and not the past.

Pat Saunders

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DateThu, 18 Jul 2002 223558 -0400

Vietnam Journal, 19 July, 2002

“On the Flight back to the World”

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
On the road again, this time bound for home and family. While waiting here in KL to catch the next connection to home, I’m looking at the past ten days and the trip down Highway One in Vietnam. There are a couple of things that I left out in the earlier journal entries.

“The Cities”
The cities in Vietnam are growing by leaps and bounds, new construction and new businesses are going up every where there is room. We saw evidence that industry was moving outside the cities to find room to build. Unfortunately, the land that they are building on is being reclaimed from the rice fields, by filling the paddies that line the highway. Hanoi, the capital city has a population of 3 million people and is growing. Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) has the largest population of all at 5 million and by the incorporation of Cholon
and HCMC in the late 90’s it is also one of the largest cities in Asia now.

"Population”
The population of Vietnam is over 81 million and growing rapidly. The “carrying capacity” of the country is around 95 million and at the present rate of growth will reach that in the near future. If the land along Highway One is representative of the rest of the country, population density will be a critical problem for
the Vietnamese Government in the new Millennium. There was evidence of a state program encouraging small families, there were billboards all through the cities and along the roads, espousing the benefits of smaller families. In the cities, the average family is about 4, but out in the countryside, there are still large
families. Of course, the issue in the country is that the work of the farmer is still labor intensive, with many hands needed to prepare, plant and harvest the crops; with the work being the hardest kind of stoop labor. The introduction of machinery into the agriculture production was in evidence. There was also the use of more “people operated” machines, like pedal driven threshers that separated the rice head from the stalk and pedal driven pumps to move water from one rice paddy to another.

The average life expectancy in Vietnam is 68 years old and with smoking a national past-time in this country, it probably will not increase in the future. The government is waging a very visible war on HIV and Aids in Vietnam. The billboards addressing these health issues are quite common throughout the cities and countryside. They also have billboards stressing vaccinations and highlighting undesirable behavior, such as using drugs and promiscuity.

“Communication and Information”

While we are still having problems in Huron County utilizing cell phone technology. In Vietnam, the “mobil” phone is wide spread across the country and a common sight in the city and in the country. The Vietnamese have leapfrogged from the shoulders of the more developed countries in adopting the wireless technology
wholeheartedly. Vina-Conex, the state communications company has erected up and down the length of Vietnam, a series of huge towers and the accompanying smaller towers for transmission of wireless communication. You can be anywhere and be reached by “mobil” calls or make a “mobil” from anywhere. Reception is clear and no fuzzy or background noise in the call. They also have text messaging available throughout the country. Our driver received many text messages from his wife during the trip on his “mobil” phone, so I don’t know if that is good or not!

The internet is widespread and there are internet cafes’ in all of the larger towns and cities. In most of these “cafes”, you can use their computers and connect on to the internet for a very low cost. In Saigon, I used a computer and accessed the internet for time period of over two hours, the cost was 9,000 dong or about fifty cents US. The Vietnamese use the internet to communicate amongst themselves in “chat rooms”, they love this past-time and to send messages to family members who are overseas either working or living.

“The Vietnamese Expats and Workers”

There are many Vietnamese who have left the country to work in other countries. They are an important source of “hard” currency for the Vietnamese Government. These workers send their money (mostly in US Dollars) home to their families and it is exchanged for Vietnamese Dong at the local banks and the foreign currency goes to the government’s foreign cash reserves. There also those Vietnamese who left the country at the end of the war in 1975, afterward and now are returning home to see their families and the country that they left. They are referred to as the Viet Khieu They also send to their families large amounts of money, which are then exchanged and end up in the country’s cash reserves. Our driver, Hai, spent two years driving oil trucks in the Kuwaiti Oil fields as one of these expatriate workers.

“Back to the World”

I leave KL today, the afternoon of the 19th, when it is still the morning of the 18th , back in the “World.” I arrive in LAX on the evening of the 19th and in Detroit at 530 a.m. of the 20th. Just in time for Pat’s wedding at 4 that afternoon.

See you when I get home,

Pat