Travel Blog; Part Two (of Four)

According to the statistics at the War Remnants Museum in Saigon, 8 million Vietnamese died during war with the U.S. and around two-thirds of those were civilian casualties. You do the math. The number of people caught in the crossfire is staggering. During the 20th century Vietnam was also involved with two other major wars with the French and the Chinese on their turf. The fact that a white chick can safely travel solo in this once war-torn country is a true testament to the progressive resiliency of an amazing culture.

Walking around major city centers of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, I didn’t really notice the average age of the locals until, well, I started noticing it. Unlike Thailand and the U.S., it is rare to see people older than 40 riding motorbikes to work on the streets, driving buses, walking in and out of banks, working at restaurants and hotels, etc. and I think, in part, the statistics claimed at the museum might explain why.

In the north region of Vietnam, I got to take a two day cruise on the beautiful emerald South China Sea through a rocky region known as Halong Bay. I had the best company of travelers on the cruise and spent one night on the deck under the stars talking American politics to two 20-something couples from Czech Republic and Sweden. They had the usual questions about why individual votes don’t really count in the U.S. (I tried my best to explain the math behind the electorate) and why Bush got elected a second time when people didn’t really like him after the first four years (for which I didn’t really have a reasonable explanation but I think the two are somehow related). The question that struck me the most is when they asked how it feels to tell the local people that I’m from the U.S. and what kind of reaction I get.

In Thailand, my students, friends in my community, and random taxi drivers looove that I’m from Am-er-ree-gaa. They love to cheer Obama, ask me about snow, sing to me their favorite Justin Timberlake tunes, and just recently have asked me to set their daughters up with Jason‘s friends. Conversely, there’s not much casual conversation about America in Vietnam. By the end of my trip I was barely whispering my answer when the locals would ask me where I came from. It’s not that I don’t love my country and am proud of my heritage of course. It’s just that many people my age in the states had parents that were severely impacted by the war in Vietnam and after observing the culture and reading up on a few statistics, I would venture to say that nearly everyone I talked to while traveling the beautiful country lost someone close to them at the hands of my government, often in a very harsh and violent way. It would be a sincere understatement to say that I hope their traumatic history will never repeat itself.