Never having been in a Communist country, we weren't sure what to expect when we went to Vietnam for my son's wedding. We would soon get a glimpse of the party in action.
All foreigners passing through immigration at the airport are required to register the address where they'll be staying. Party officials apparently found it suspicious that nine or 10 foreigners claimed to be staying at the house of my daughter-in-law's parents. One afternoon, the neighborhood cadre dropped in unannounced to find out why.
One American citizen, a Vietnamese woman who's lived in the U.S. for decades, was incensed and reportedly took issue with the uniformed officials for questioning her - or anyone's - presence.
Other family members, however, those who have lived in Vietnam all along and those who weren't able to leave until long after the war, took it in stride. We were there for a wedding, they explained, smoothing everyone's ruffled feathers and getting rid of the nosy officials.
Though I wasn't there at the time, I found the idea unsettling, having observed the same group of five young officers swaggering down the street.
One day we discovered that someone had rifled through our belongings while we were away from the guesthouse. We wondered if it might have been the party animals. "If it was the party," we were told, "you would never have known they'd been there." Since nothing was missing, we decided to chalk it up to curiosity and not worry about it.
Communism again reared its head at the bookstore.
I had the name of a book about Vietnam that sounded interesting, but didn't have time to order it before the trip, so I figured on picking it up once I got there.
I was surprised when the store with the largest selection of foreign language books in Saigon didn't carry it. Neither did any of the street vendors who specialize in foreign language books.
Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I reread a review of the book on Amazon.com and immediately understood. Though "Dragon Ascending," by Henry Kamm, offers a historical overview of Vietnam, not everyone quoted in the book is pleased with the way things have turned out since the war - including some who had supported the Communist cause.
A banned book! I still find it astonishing.
When it comes to politics, families are not necessarily united in their views. A former South Vietnamese Army officer, whose oldest brother and sister have always been staunch Communists, told me they don't allow politics to interfere with family. "We keep family and politics separate," he said.
Perhaps, but I'm told that hard feelings, though submerged, remain. Long-simmering resentments occasionally bubble to the surface, though the innate politeness of the Vietnamese keeps them from boiling over.
Possibly the saddest effect of Communism is the waste of human potential. For a nation that says it wants progress, it seems shameful that so many educated, skilled and talented people are so woefully underemployed.
Whether it's because the system is corrupt and jobs go to the politically connected, or people are being punished for having been on the wrong side three decades ago, or because there simply aren't any jobs, it's tragic to see such resources sitting idle.
Only in recent years have the children of those who sided with the south during the war been allowed to further their education, I'm told. And, though such restrictions are easing, the lack of opportunities is what causes many Vietnamese to seek a better life elsewhere.
Many people would love the chance to resettle in the U.S. or Europe. And the Vietnamese government apparently is happy to see them to go - the finance ministry anticipated that overseas Vietnamese would send a record $4 billion home last year, a significant boost for the Vietnamese economy.
Food is plentiful in Vietnam, and inexpensive - downright cheap, by our standards.
In the city, a breakfast of grilled beef and fried egg with a couple of fries, small slice of pate, glass of fresh juice and basket of crusty French bread costs about $2 in a nice neighborhood restaurant. Our favorite place was Hinh Nhu La, on Nguyen Dinh Chinh Street (ask for Nguyen; tell her Zach's mom sent you). In a place with less ambience, a hearty bowl of beef soup with rice noodles and fresh greens, or a plate lunch of pork chop and rice goes for about 50 cents.
At the other end of the dining spectrum are the buffets at the five-star hotels in the tourist district, which, by the way, aren't nearly as tasty as the simple fare found at the neighborhood noodle stands or sidewalk food carts.
Pho - pronounced like fun without the n and often referred to as the national dish of Vietnam - is a soup best consumed at one of literally thousands of hole-in-the-wall establishments all over Ho Chi Minh City. Although the Vietnamese aren't rigid about eating particular foods at certain meals, pho is especially popular for breakfast.
It's invariably accompanied by a plate of fresh leaves - cilantro, mint, basil, who knows what - placed in the middle of the table so each person can pick and choose the herbs they like. Diners select from any of several sauces - fiery hot sauce or fermented fish sauce being the two most popular - then dig in, chopsticks in one hand, spoon in the other.
Not only were the eating utensils different than what we're accustomed to here in eastern North Carolina, so were the ingredients.
Along with fruits we'd never heard of, such as longans, dragon fruit and rambutan, we tried three different kinds of snail, a soft drink made from winter melon (a type of squash), crunchy pigs' ears, grilled banana stuffed with rice and all manner of food wrapped in lettuce, rice paper or banana leaves.
After more than two weeks of delicious but unfamiliar foods, we were surprised when a bag of snacks brought along for a bus ride to the beach contained something we hadn't seen since we left home - boiled peanuts.
When Saigon fell to the communists in 1975, a tremendous swath of surrounding land was incorporated into the city, which was divided into districts and renamed Ho Chi Minh City. District One, the downtown business district, retains the name of Saigon.
It took at least five hours for the bus to cover less than 150 miles to the resort of Mui Ne, just beyond Phan Thiet. Highway traffic moves at around 35 miles an hour, which is not a bad thing, considering the way people drive. For $35 per person, our two-day tour included round-trip transportation, a room in a lovely resort right on the beach, a trip to sand dunes that looked like the set from Lawrence of Arabia and where the adventurous could sled down the slopes, and four meals.
We met a fisherman who had put away his nets to try reeling in tourists by offering rides in his boat, which resembled a giant basket. In an effort to help him succeed in his new venture, the men he once fished with give him the seashells that end up in their nets and he offers them for sale on the beach.
Until the recent resort development, he told us, the area was jungle and fishing was the main occupation. When the developers came, local people were promised jobs, so they welcomed the changes.
Once the land was cleared and construction underway, however, the locals were replaced by workers from the city. "We had to go back to our old way of life," the fisherman said. "I cannot read or write, so for me there is no opportunity. But I have three children and they go to school. My hope is that they will have a better life here."
At the urging of my husband, who wasn't able to make the trip, and another former Army Ranger he served with in Vietnam, I visited the tunnels of Cu Chi.
An amazing feat of low-tech engineering, these manmade tunnels stretch for miles just below the surface in and around the village of Cu Chi. Built during the war, the maze of tunnels made it possible for the Viet Cong to escape to safety whenever U.S. or South Vietnamese forces were in the area.
Arriving at the site, our tour group was ushered into a room filled with hard chairs, where we sat through a creaky propaganda video that appeared to have been made shortly after the war. In addition to actual war footage, this relic of the 1970s featured pretty young women shouldering AK-47s who managed to stay spotlessly clean while flinging themselves into bunkers and low crawling through tall grass and smiling resolutely the entire time.
The video concluded by calling the citizens of Cu Chi heroes of the liberation, although a Vietnamese-American I met offered a different take on history.
Calling Cu Chi "a national disgrace," she said the villagers were forced by the Viet Cong to dig the tunnels. "They would take a parent or child hostage, so the people did whatever they had to to save their families," she said.
In any case, the video ended and we headed out to see the tunnels, the centerpiece of this curious war theme park.
Clearly defined trails wind through the jungle covering the once defoliated landscape. Scattered along the trails in clearings are tableaus featuring lifelike Viet Cong mannequins.
In a bomb-making bunker, mannequins creaked noisily into action when our guide flipped a switch. Up and down went their arms as they hammered away on bomb casings clearly left over from the long-ago war.
As if this wasn't disconcerting enough, shots suddenly rang out. It seems there's a rifle range on the site. In addition to military practice, it accommodates tourists who can fire various weapons for $1 a shot.
Additional displays included booby traps, mines and a destroyed American tank.
The tunnels themselves are big enough for a skinny person to slip into, arms raised so the shoulders can slide through the astonishingly small rectangular opening. When covered, it's virtually invisible.
In order to accommodate the ample European behinds of tourists, a couple of sections of tunnel have been enlarged and we were able to go through one.
Despite its relative roominess, it was small, confining and claustrophobic. Quite a few tourists quickly backed out rather than spend the few minutes it took to crawl through 40 meters of darkness to the other end.
Thousands of motorcycles clog the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, along with a far smaller number of bicycles, taxis, cars, buses and trucks.
Crossing a busy street on foot requires an act of faith. There's rarely an actual break in traffic, so people simply launch themselves off the curb and into the maelstrom as soon as they see the slightest gap in the outside lane. Since the main concept in driving appears to be to keep moving at a steady pace, traffic simply parts and flows around pedestrians. What at first was totally unnerving soon became commonplace and we casually stepped into the busiest of streets.
Being on foot in the middle of all that traffic sometimes felt safer than being on the back of a scooter or in a taxi.
The dashboard altars in many cabs led to speculation about whether to feel safe because of our driver's request for divine intervention or concerned because he felt the need for it.
The sights, the sounds, the scents of Ho Chi Minh City are very different than those in eastern North Carolina – or any place else I’ve lived.
Zipping through packed streets on the back of a motorscooter offers a constantly changing kaleidoscope of sensory stimulation -- the steady rumble of engines, the constant bleating of horns, the frequent chatter in an unfamiliar tongue, the sudden presence of an exotic aroma.
Horns are used to announce your presence and let the driver in front, back or beside you that you’re getting ready to do something – most probably squeeze into the few available inches in front, back or beside him.
From the looks of it, riding through these packed streets should be harrowing. But it’s not. I soon viewed the traffic as the lifeblood of the city, flowing with surprising precision through its arteries, branching off into ever narrowing veins that feed and nourish its far-flung neighborhoods.
At first, all I noticed was the sound of engines and the smell of exhaust fumes. Soon, however, we turned a corner and the scent of jasmine filled the air. I wasn’t able to determine in those few seconds where the fragrant aroma originated, whether a cafe, florist or tea seller.
A few minutes later, my nose was assaulted by a pungent, slightly unpleasant odor as we passed a fruit vendor pushing her cart down the street. Durian fruit, I learned. Descriptions of its aroma range from unpleasant to downright disgusting. The flavor, however, is said to be scrumptious. We'll see; I definitely plan on trying it.
A couple of blocks later, the toasty scent of rice – a large quantity of rice – cooking grabbed my attention. It’s a common smell here. There is a tremendous variety of rice – long, short, broken, sweet, sticky. It appears at just about every meal in one form or another, including dessert.
So far, the only western-style cake I’ve seen was at the wedding of a Vietnamese bride and her American husband. The groom’s mother, a very gracious woman from Portland, wanted to bring some small part of American custom to the otherwise traditional Vietnamese ceremony.
I was delighted to have been invited to the wedding. Although I had done a bit of online research on Vietnamese wedding traditions, the experience was invaluable since my son’s wedding would follow in less than a week and they don’t have wedding rehearsals here. I now have a better handle on what to expect – and what’s expected of me as mother of the groom.
Weddings are tremendously important cultural and social events here, fraught with tradition and ritual. My soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Thu, was delighted when I advised my son a month before our trip here that my research indicated that tradition requires me to place a pair of earrings on the bride during the ceremony. If that’s the case, I told him, then I want to do it.
She said it is, in fact, the custom, and that her parents were planning on buying a pair of earrings for me to use. I'm told her face lit up when she learned I wanted to give her a pair that had belonged to my mother.
Though we won’t be doing a wedding rehearsal, we did have a trial run of the dinner menu that will be served to around 300 at the reception. Thu and Zach, her parents, an aunt and uncle who live in Houston, and I sampled all the dishes in the eight-course banquet. We rejected an unappetizing appetizer, a skimpy fish dish, and an unattractive beef platter, substituting other more appealing dishes instead.
No wedding cake, though. Instead, for dessert we’re having sweetened red beans.
My first thought upon taking a bite was of field peas cooked with plenty of sugar. It’s served in a small bowl with the cooking liquid, like a cold soup. I know it sounds odd – unless you're Asian – but they’re actually quite tasty.
Although I had practiced for months using a language CD, I hadn't grasped the subtleties of tone that make Vietnamese a difficult language to speak. Learning to read is said to be relatively easy, but Vietnamese, like most Asian languages, is tonal. Depending on how you say a word, it might mean something totally different than what you intended and my inability to get a handle on the different tones earned me a lot of blank stares, a few guffaws and an appreciation for anyone who wanted to practice their English on me.
Luckily, English is spoken with varying degrees proficiency by a large number of Vietnamese, many of whom are anxious for the opportunity to try it out on a native speaker. The slightest encouragement - a smile, or even eye contact - was often enough to induce a stranger to start a tentative conversation, usually in surprisingly good, if somewhat stilted, English.
Walking through a crowded neighborhood market, I heard someone say "Happy New Year" and looked around in time to see the smiling face of a passing pajama-clad older woman wearing a traditional cone-shaped hat. In another part of town, I raised my camera to take a picture and a street vendor flashed me the peace sign and a big grin.
For the most part, it seems that people - Communist or otherwise - harbor no ill will toward Americans, though the expressions on the faces of a few made it clear that good will is not a universal sentiment. As rare as this was, it was easy enough to ignore.
The sultry night air of Ho Chi Minh City settled over us when we stepped through the doors of TanSon Nhat Airport, leaving no doubt that we had left Pamlico County far behind.
On the sidewalk, hundreds of people gathered in an orderly semicircle to wait quietly for the arrival of friends. There was no pushing, no shoving, no shouting - none of the frenzy and drama that so often accompanies arrivals in other countries.
Greetings, however, were warm and welcoming, and my soon-to-be daughter-in-law's eldest aunt quickly took me under her wing.
Communist Ways Chafe American Sensibilities
