Today I decided to do the Vietnam War, or the Resistance War Against America tour around Hanoi. First thing in the morning I decided to pay Uncle Ho himself a visit since like Kim, or Kim, or Mao, or Lenin Ho Chi Minh is still in a glass coffin. Photos were ban in the mausoleum so I was unable to take any pictures. I would describe the experience as almost pseudo-religious. You walk passed many nicely uniformed PAVN troops before being allowed into the mausoleum itself, there you are lead through several passageways with gradually dimming lights, finally you are brought into the room where Ho Chi Minh himself lays permanently in state, you shuffle past the body as you make your way back out into the light. Uncle Ho doesn’t look bad for a dead man, he is a bit waxy though. Afterword I went to the Ho Chi Minh Museum located on the same site. I don’t know how much I learned about Ho Chi Minh or the struggle for Vietnamese independence against the French then the Japanese then the French again than the Americans but it was a trip. The whole museum is several massive modern art pieces with some random stuff from Ho Chi Minh scattered about. While some of it is kind of weird, like a set of crystalware the czechoslovakian Government gave Ho, to the cool, like the actual pens used to end American involvement in the Vietnam war. It is the kind of place that would either be, in proper 1970s fashion, great or terrible place drop acid in.
After a lunch of chicken with mushrooms over rice, I went to the Hanoi Hilton, officially called the Hoa Lo Prison. The prison was actually built by the French colonial government in what was then French Indochina to house Vietnamese political prisoners. The museum spends most of the time focused on this period in Hao Lo’s history discussing at length the atrocities of the French imperialist regime in what is now Vietnam. The small section dedicated to American POWs unsurprisingly tells a different story of the Vietnamese Communists. The Vietnamese are depicted as being extremely charitable and gracious hosts to the American pilots who were illegally and aggressively invading Vietnam. In comparsion to what the French gave the Vietnamese, the clothing the Vietnamese claim they gave the Americans, while simple, looked acceptable. The American POWs were shown studying Communist thought, making art, and playing sports while being well cared for by Vietnamese doctors and guards. They also had trophies form the captured American piolets, like a flight suit that allegedly belonged to Sen. John McCain of Arizona before his capture. I finished my day with what is called an egg coffee, a Hanoi specialty. It tastes kind of like what would happen if Starbucks made creme brulee. It wasn’t bad but I couldn’t see drinking them often.
2 Comments
Dad
12/20/2016 09:48:55 pm
...His idea of R and R was cold rice and a little rat meat (Col. Willard)
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Jared Paul Miller
12/20/2016 09:51:09 pm
Yup. Vietnam has coffee with milk, sandwiches, bread, and silverware.
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AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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