Red Right Blog |
|
|
Rants, Rates, Slags, Slates. Manic-depressive posts from Red Wright-Hand. Because there are thousands of worthless blogs out there and who am I not to add to their number?
Total US troop deaths in Iraq to date (09/01/07) since 03/20/03: 3739
From 05/02/03 through 06/28/04: 718 Myeloma (etc.) Blogs
Adventures of Cancer Girl Browse
Arts & Letters Daily
|
Saturday, March 12, 2005
CU CHI: It would be wrong to call it a pleasure, but there is a peculiar satisfaction in re-reading some of the Viet Nam journalism I had studied before my trip, and seeing street and place names now leaping recognizably off the page. An eyewitness account of the fall of Saigon in 1975, for example, is lots more immediate when the author (Keyes Beech) begins "...I had breakfast on the ninth floor of the Caravelle Hotel...and watched a column of ugly black smoke framed by the tall, twin spires of the Catholic cathedral...just up the street"and now I know precisely what he's talking about because I walked past that area every day I spent in Sai...I mean, Ho Chi Minh City. Likewise, this little passage from Dispatches: "We were walking out on a sweep north of Tay Ninh City, toward the Cambodian border, and a morter round came in about thirty yards away."Holy smoke, I was in Tay Ninh City. It is near the Cambodian border. Puts a chill down my spine, let me tell you. Which brings me to our guided tour of the Cu Chi tunnel complex. This is an extensive area northwest of HCMC, where the Viet Cong, living in elaborate tunnel systems first begun after WW2, managed to sustain themselves, seriously harassing first the French and then the Americans; in other words, a major operations base literally under the noses (and feet) of the enemy. If you wanted to fight the Cong there, you had to get down in the tunnels yourself, which a) was often a physical impossibility and b) not really something you wanted to do anyway. American forces came to know this area as The Iron Triangle; they bombed it, napalmed it, burned and defoliated and bulldozed it, and they still had...Cong around the collar. As you might expect, the Viets are rather proud of this history, and a portion of the tunnels (widened and cleaned up) are now available for tourist visits; in fact, it's got to be one of the most popular war-related sites in the country. After a brief lecture in the visitor's center about the place's history, we were shown a propaganda film lauding the Cong fighters and their heroic struggle, etc. The film was b&w and appeared to be of 1960s vintage...but was it filmed on the fly and then edited together after the War? Come on, don't tell me they had film studios in those tunnels too. Maybe the footage was smuggled up north to Hanoi and put together there...I just dunno. The movie had English-language narration (that didn't sound recently recorded) so I am at a loss as to the intended audience...pinko-lefty anti-war types in the States? Once that show was over, we got a look at some recreated booby traps. Here's a guide posing happily in front of a mural depicting the effect of those on GIs. A barrel of laughs! They let us crawl around in the tunnels too...five minutes of that and I was ready to surrender. More pics to come of the firing range on-site. Then it was on to Tay Ninh, center of the remarkable Cao Dai sect, headquartered there in a cathedral whose interior is really worth taking the trouble to see. We'd missed the noontime service but we got an eyeful of the place anyway. I'm at a loss to explain this religion; I refer you to Chapter 2 of The Quiet American, in which Greene (what, you think I'm going to try and compete with him?) or his narrator, if you prefer, has this to say of the cathedral: "A Pope and female cardinals. Prophecy by planchette. Saint Victor Hugo. Christ and Buddha looking down from the roof of the Cathedral on a Walt Disney fantasia of the East, dragons and snakes in technicolour." And what do you know, a few paragraphs later he writes: "It always seemed hotter in [Tay Ninh] than anywhere else in the Southern Delta...you couldn't believe it would ever be seven o'clock and cocktail-time on the roof of the Majestic, with a wind from the Saigon river." I had cocktails on the roof of the Majestic. It is right by the Saigon river. Puts a chill down my spine, let me tell you. Saturday, March 05, 2005
What's in a name? Or The Names, for that matter? A short time-out to note that I finally read Amazons, a work known to (some) contempo-US-lit fans as "the book Don DeLillo wrote pseudonymously for some reason." Money? Kicks? I actually got the great man to autograph my hardback copy (purchased ages ago at a used bookstore for, if memory serves, one laughable dollar) in 1997 after a reading at the 92nd Street Y, but he seemed to grimace as he signed. How frivolous is this fictional memoir about the first (and very horny) woman to play in the National Hockey League? Very, at times, yet at others, it is "funny" in the chillingly prophetic manner which has made me a lifelong fan of DeLillo's writing. To wit: this novel, published in 1980, ends up with a subplot about Saudi Arabian ownership of the New York Rangers that is astonishingly up-to-date, and about midway through (pg. 209, to be precise), there is a riff about Saudis, Afghans and Kurds that had me double-checking the copyright date at the front of the book. Ladies and gentlemen, DeLillo is our most prescient author of fiction, even when he is just doodling. Wednesday, March 02, 2005
BUU LONG: Woke the next morning feeling human at last. Dr. Sinister had a swell idea: a car ride out to Buu Long mountain, east of Ho Chi Minh City, in the vicinity of Bien Hoa. You can easily hire a driver (and possible guide) by checking with the tourist desk at any of Viet Nam's average-or-better hotels; apparently this is the best way to get to any place off of the main air and bus routes. One thing we quickly learn: traffic on the roads outside HCM City is just as nuts as within. You almost never see a helmet on anyone riding their cycles; a dust-blocking bandana tied around the face is about it. And I never did figure out if the fluttering motion drivers sometimes made with their hands meant "it's okay to pass me," or "back off, I'm coming through," cuz it scarcely seemed to make any difference I could see. In the end, paradoxically enough, I found it much less stressful to be a part of the traffic rather than watching it rumble by from an exterior coign of vantage. So we were out in the sticks at last, where few Westerners seem to go, which got us some nice stares, far preferable to people in the city trying to sell us tourist junk all the time. The mountain and (artificial) lake area turned out to be as scenic as advertised, and a good hike brought us to the pagoda at the peak. On the way back down, we passed two Vietnamese on their way up, one of whom began a friendly conversation with us (in English, of course); turned out this fellow was now a mechanic in California, returned for the New Year holiday, and very interested to see us two round-eyes in this area (which, I'll say it again, is off the beaten tourist track). His companion, who apparently spoke no English, watched us with a pleasant smile as we talked; when I tried uttering the phrase "viet kieu," this fellow laughed aloud, good-naturedly I like to think. Later: After the drive back to HCM City, and a revivifying pho lunch, the Doctor and I bought some reproductions of wartime Viet propaganda posters from a shop specializing in them; they're more tasteful than you'd imagine. Sorry, unable to reproduce them for you here. The doctor thought he'd do a little bargaining with the proprietress, and "playfully" made her an offer of one US dollar for the lot of four; the look she gave him had me close to sprinting out the door. Not to worry: a couple hours later I was getting a (legitimate) massage, complete with hot-stone rub-down, not far from my hotel, and all I could think was "Ah, this is Saigon now, not Ho Chi Minh City." Ten bucks for the one hour treatment. The relaxation came in handy, as a couple of Dr. Sinister's friends, fellow American-expat English teachers living in S. Korea, later entered the scene, and a spot of drinking commenced. May I recommend the rooftop bar of the Rex Hotel on the Saturday night before Tet? Tuesday, March 01, 2005
DONG KHOI: In case I'd neglected to notice I was now in a Communist-run country, the view out the hotel room window served to remind me. But who cares when your first Vietnamese meal is waiting downstairs? The local coffee and I begin a lifelong love affair, followed by ricemeal, croissants, and delectable alien fruits. Time for a little daytime trekking. The traffic is stupefying: the main mode of transportation is the motorbike/scooter and the streets are an endless stream of them. Here is what a local turn signal sounds like: HONK! HONK! HONK! To cross through this, just like the guidebooks say, I have to take a deep breath and just sort of steadily keep walking through the stream at a regular pace, trusting to the drivers to slow and swerve around me. I think I'm getting the hang of it but will suffer an existential crisis before the end of day. Dr. Sinister and I walk to the War Remnants Museum, an exhibition comprised mostly of photographs detailing, with suitable captions, the horrors of the American War. A diorama shows a crude GI in action, a scene found on the cover of David Lamb's Vietnam, Now. While there, a fellow with no forearms, a dead eye and a bad leg approached me with a rack of books (mostly war history) slung around his neck. He was rather deft at holding the books out to me with the remaining stumps of his arms, while recounting, in decent English, how a bit of leftover war ordinance had left him as I saw him that day. Yes I bought one of his books. Speaking of this, there is an extraordinary trade in bootlegged/pirated English-language books in Ho Chi Minh City and, I was to find, in the rest of Vietnam and into Cambodia. The usual merchandise includes such classics as The Quiet American, Dispatches, A Bright Shining Lie and, depending on where exactly you are, histories of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Right out in broad daylight! No Tim O'Brien however, that I noticed. Anyway, more sightseeing until I began to get the jetlag wobbles again, precipitating probably the worst moment of my trip: it seemed impossible to deal with the traffic, impossible just to cross the street. Drinking didn't help, and dinner at the Hoi An restaurant, likely the very best restaurant I visited during my entire trip, was wasted on me. Dr. Sinister stayed out late and lived up to his name; I lamely crashed back in the room. IN-FLIGHT: So nearly four weeks after I first shoved off for Viet Nam, it looks like I'm ready to tell you a little bit about the trip. My flights out (all three of them) were fine, on time and in line, but I can tell you frankly that 24-hours-plus of sustained around-the-world travel, even factoring in some nap time over the Pacific, is not recommended for the less than serious. Arrived in Ho Chi Minh City about 10:30 PM local time, evening of February 3rd, at Tan Son Nhut airport, which was used by US forces during what the Viets know as the American War and which has changed somewhat over the years. Exiting the terminal I was confronted by an incredible mass of waiting Vietnamese: Tet was less than a week away and these folks were waiting to greet their overseas relatives (viet kieu) for the grand holiday. I got some memorable looks, I can tell you. A difficult scene to describe, and for the first of many times I wished for a movie camera. Fortunately, a guide of sorts was waiting for me, never you mind how, with my name on a sign, and helped my dazed ass into a legitimate taxi and into town. Got safely to the legendary Majestic Hotel, where I found my room waiting, along with my travel companion for this trip, who shall be referred to herein as Dr. Sinister. A beer on the rooftop bar before it closed, a short walk around the neighboring streets. Sure were a lot of local guys on motorbikes wanting to introduce me to local girls. Not tonight, fellas: I really began to collapse on my feet. Back to the hotel and bed, where a massive headache began just as I drifted off: caffeine withdrawal. My brain thought it was 11 AM that morning on the East Coast and was wondering where the coffee was. |
