Actually, that last one sounds interesting. A balance is nice.
My iPhone got taken, potentially from my hotel room. Whatever, no big loss. It was dated and I have an upgrade. But our new buddy's wallet got stolen while he was on the boat with us to Cat Ba. I think it was the crew. He kept his passport separate, thanks be, but still a huge hassle. It was all terribly suspicious. Nevertheless, not the end of the world, but keep an eye on your shit up here in the north.
I'd like to relate two stories that aren't mine. They're Alfie's. But they illustrate the remaining tensions from the Vietnam War so well, that I am going to post them. The war that they call the American War.
So. We fucking decimated this place 40 odd years ago. They "won," but even more than usual, nobody fucking won. There are children in Vietnam, born in the last couple years, that still suffer from the effects of the arsenic and dioxin that was in all the shit we dumped here. They lack arms. They're born blind. They get leukemia and cancer at an exaggerated rate. It. Is. Fucking. Horrible. I'd take PTSD.
If you fought there, if your dad fought there, I genuinely don't assign any blame to the soldiers. All due respect, they saw horrible shit, they were scarred for life, of course. And in retrospect, the VC were doing some pretty inexcusable shit themselves. But our quagmire accomplished almost nothing politically and the innocents in Vietnam suffered much more than the soldiers or politicians. I gotta side with the hippies on this one. But if one of you fucking long-hairs spits on another soldier I'm going to kangaroo-kick your teeth down your throat.
Some people here are too young to give a shit about a generation old war. This makes it easy. Then we're just stupid tourists. I can do that. Some Vietnamese, mostly of a certain age, clearly hate us with a vengeance. Some are content with simply grifting us for every dollar they can - smiling to our faces and mocking us the moment we turn. So, there's a spectrum. Just like anything anywhere. Let's do away with these broad stroke generalizations - "oh, the Northern Vietnamese hate us, oh now they've forgiven us, oh but they resent us, oh now we're friends again." It's not that simple. It's never that simple.
Right, right. Alfie.
So there's a nice gentleman we affectionately call Moleman. He has a huge distinguishing wen with wispy hairs that sprout out from its position on the bottom of his chin, and he sells chips and cold drinks to tourists now, down the street from our Hanoi hostel. But at the time he would have been fighting age. Alfie noticed he had some war commendations on the wall in his little shop, and asked him if he fought in the war. He said yes, with a proud smile, and made a machine gun with his hands and started firing at the wall with a chattering of his teeth. Then he turned on Alfie and started firing his machine gun at him. Then he stopped and laughed.
This wasn't a vindictive or aggressive act. Not strictly speaking. He was pleased with his service. Just a shocking reminder of how odd it must be to sell snacks and cold drinks to Americans, when not that long ago he was given orders to kill every one of them he could find.
The second interaction was on Cat Ba Island, across Halong Bay from Hanoi. We were sitting on the pier late at night and Alfie got into a pretty long conversation with an ex-military guy who lived there on Cat Ba. They were talking about the war when the guy starting talking about American bombardments. "Saigon, Da Nang," he said, "very very bad."
Alfie stood there, unsure of how to respond. The man had become morose. Finally, he looked up, as though seeing Alfie for the first time.
"You're very young," he said. And waved away the moment with his hand.
I do not begrudge them their sadness, nor their anger and resentment. I don't even mind getting grifted here and there. But I return to that stare. That follows you down the street or drives you out of the restaurant. A stare that suggests that I came here myself and killed your father. Disfigured your child. I feel terrible that this happened, I do. And I apologize.
But I wasn't fucking born yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment