Shock of the Truth in Saigon

By John Keeble

The very concept of truth is mostly a lie in practice, isn't it? There are exceptions - the Holocaust and Hiroshima are examples. But usually when we travel we are falling into set-piece constructions, even fictions, and happily conspiring with them to enjoy our leisure, to forget for a time our own realities with our own localised ‘truths’.
 

Just sometimes, essential truths escape from museum and tourist constructions of preferred overall realities and stare uncomfortably into our eyes: can you see them, can you steel yourself to take them in, or do you weave a ‘yes, but’ fiction to soften them to an acceptable lie? I remember three women, decades ago, looking at brutally honest newspaper photos of starving Biafa children and agreeing it was not so bad because African mothers got used to their babies starving to death.

Amid the winner's truths in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, inside the building away from the American hardware, the blisteringly uncompromising faces stare, frozen in real truth, into the unprepared eyes of tourists and Vietnamese visitors alike. Some people stare back, some are shocked into anger, some bounce off the truth to read the explanations marinated in chosen perceptions.

There are, in these real moments frozen in time, essential truths that cut through the reality presented from one viewpoint. For me, the starkest image in the museum showed a group of women crossing a river, trying to find safety, the stress and fear on their faces. I did not need to be there in the water with them to understand the emotions, the horror of being a helpless human being - forget the labels of civilian and non-combatant and all the rest of the truth-obscuring claptrap. They were desperately caught in bloody conflict where death could come at any second. The image was so powerful that it arced like lightning to Syria and from there to all the other places where the defenceless are pawns or less in games played by men with guns.

The horror of another image was the description itself: Ron Haeberle, famous for his My Lai massacre photos, is quoted as saying: “Guys were about to shoot these people. I yelled ‘Hold it’ and shot my pictures. As I walked away, I heard M16s open up. From the corner of my eye, I saw bodies falling but I didn’t turn to look.” A few seconds more life for the convenience of the soldiers’ photographer.

In another gallery, away from the immediacy of violence, the images show, portrait style, the Agent Orange legacy of deformity and lives wrecked and twisted into misery from the moment of conception. On the ground floor, young adults affected by Agent Orange earn a living by making and selling jewellery and cards. One girl has a face without eyes or even eye sockets. They laugh together, help each other, interact with people from around the world.

Wilma, a Dutch visitor, said after touring the museum: "I wanted to see the photographs, but they shocked me. They made me feel sick, but I am pleased they are shown here. I wanted to know the truth and I felt these photographs told the truth. The Agent Orange photos show how the people still suffer. They made me sad and angry but now I know the truth.”

Tiger, a Saigon guide who knows the museum well, told me: “The photographs are tough but they have a lot of information for my country’s young ones, the students learning about what happened in our country. They understand that war is terrible. Tourists are very sad when they see the photos. I always ask them how they feel and they say sad, terrible, and war should not happen.”

The museum also has a large collection of aircraft, tanks and other weapons plus a re-creation showing imprisonment, interrogation and punishment equipment ranging from the French colonial guillotine to barbed-wire 'tiger cages' from the war against the Americans and their allies from the Philippines, New Zealand, Thailand and Australia.•

CITY & AROUND

Ho Chi Minh is enjoyable but does not have many sites to see. On a tight time budget, I would allocate three or four days maximum.  Attractions:
 
● Reunification Palace, aka Independence Palace. The iconic building from the surrender of South Vietnam as the North Vietnamese troops swamped the city.
● Coffee culture with many attractive places to suit your mood.
● China town is spread over three districts - fascinating major market (sharpen your elbows and wear your thickest skin). Motorcycles are the major means of transporting goods in incredible loads, sometimes impossible loads (yes, the loads fall off with or without the rider).
● Restaurants. Definitely a city tempting visitors into adventure. Even vegans like me. Many foreign cuisines but Vietnamese and Japanese predominate.
● Notre Dame cathedral. The outside is OK, the inside plain. A big image representing the 8% catholic population of Vietnam.
● Colonial-era Post Office. Opposite the cathedral, very photogenic and culturally interesting.
● War Remnants Museum.

Out of town

Tours are very cheap -- whole days for $18. The tours go to a limited number of places with enormous numbers of tourists in the stream. Buying a 'small group' tour is OK but when you reach each attraction you will probably join a heaving mass of other tourists who bought small-group tours and coach outings.

Delta tour (day): It was a cheap and easy way to see some of the delta, cross the Mekong by boat, see a beautiful pagoda with enormous Buddha images, visit some touristy things that were fun, have a truly exceptional included lunch. Some of the tourist places were excellent for buying presents (locally made and better prices than in the city).

Cao Dai Great Temple

Cu Chi Tunnels and Cao Dai Great Temple (day):  I joined a small group, one of nine drops of rain contributing to a flood of tourists at the tunnels. Interesting, informative, takes heavy-duty imagination to think the crowds out and the soldiers in. Mostly above ground for viewing but a chance to crawl through tunnels to get the feel of it. Mass production tourism... but enjoyable enough if you play it for what it is. Cao Dai Great Temple was a different experience. There were far fewer tourists and we were allowed in during a service for several hundred local people. The building was very beautiful, inside and out, and the people using it made the living experience meaningful and immensely interesting. Do not miss this! We also stopped at a centre where 100 disabled people work on highly-skilled craft processes and in a cigarette factory. The centre's simple layout shows the immense skills in making products by hand, rather than emphasising the disabilities. There is a chance to buy quality pieces in different sizes, designs and prices ... it is their only sales outlet, so tourist cash keeps the centre going to provide good employment for those who might not find it elsewhere.

Scams: Coconut seller puts his bamboo carrier on your shoulder. Fun with photos. Then gets you to pay three times the right price.  Wrong change: notes look similar, so 10,000 instead of 100,000 ... a taxi driver tried it on me

Risks: phone, camera  and bag snatch. Everyone warns you. I did not see or hear of it happening but took more care after warnings.

Taxis: use only the most numerous taxis – Vinasun and the green taxis. If you use other taxis, they might have a meter but they set the rate themselves and a 40,000 fare can cost 200,000. Beware hotels getting you taxis... better to go out on the street and hail one.

First Published in VISA 126 (April 2016)