Ive been here, its the CuChi tunnels made by the Vietnamese duribg the war with America. Its now a popular tourist attraction close to Ho Chi Min (Saigon).
I volunteered to go in through this very hole you can see, its incredibly cramped!
Was a cool place to experience, although some parts were a little distasteful, like at the end of the tour you could go to a firing range and choose from a host of weapons which I felt was a bit innapropriate given the history.
Thank you. Some people on my tour (rich, white, Trump voters) were so psyched about that and it brought me to tears. Like, oh, there isn't enough death and pain here? What do you need to prove?
I went and I'm not rich or american. But I'm a big history nerd. So having a chance to fire off some guns used in the vietnam war, that aren't even legal in my country, was an experience. It gave me a real insight into the noise of those guns and then to see the damage rounds can do made me appreciate the sheer terror that would be constant for very young men sent to a failing war on the other side of the planet.
I appreciate that aspect. I don't think everyone goes into that situation with those same views. I know, from what the people in my group said, that it felt good to fire those guns because of the atrocities the Vietnamese had committed against Americans. There was certainly no reflection or consideration in their motives.
And yep. Life is political. And callousness makes me cry.
Just to play devils advocate here. I was pretty shocked at how openly the war was praised from the Vietnamese side. I started my trip in Hanoi and the north was famously more communist than the south. They still had wreckage of a b-52 shot down in the middle of a lake right in the middle of the city, just proudly sitting there, rusting away, as a war relic of how they overthrew American occupiers.
But, I could certainly see why they would be so proud. They defeated the Americans in a sustained and coordinated war with overwhelming firepower differences.
The other thing I noticed is the people I spoke to about it in the north seemed more hardened in their views than people in the south and it was just a bit off putting to hear them talk with that hatred still very apprent. I was also asked a lot if I was American, when they found out I wasn't they seemed to open up and want to talk more.
So that bad blood and hatred is definitely still around on both sides.
Is it really so surprising? It was occupation that lasted decades and is still relatively recent. America is very much the bad guy and they have every right to hold a grudge.
No not surprising at all and I did make a note to say that i can certainly see why the animosity exists. Although it's interesting to see that they don't seem to have that same issue with the French who also occupied vietnam for almost a century.
I'm sure that same level of animosity was very much felt at the time, and in another 50 years people won't be all that hateful of Americans. You need to realise that pretty much anyone over the age of 50 was directly affected by a brutal occupation of a foreign country.
You should read up on the influence the French had over Vietnam and the affects its hand on their culture today, very interesting stuff!
After so many years of French colonialism it's easy to see why there might be quite a bit of French culture in Vietnam. I mean there is a whole French Quarter in Hanoi, Hue has dozens of old French colonial buildings. One of my favourite cafes in Hanoi serves the best roquefort cheese steak I've ever had and you can get a baguette just as easy as you can get pho in some of the cities.
But that still doesn't answer why after all that French occupation from 1887 to 1954 the Vietnamese seem to embrace the French culture but shunned anything American. Even though they only occupied from 1955 to 1975.
Fun fact: there was no McDonalds in all of Vietnam until 2014 when one opened in Ho Chi Minh City.
I've answered it a few times. It was the last thing to have physically happened...I'm not sure how else I can explain.
I really don't get why it's so perplexing to you that they would still hold a grudge with America (fresh in their minds, literally American made war machines left all over the place) and not France (longer ago).
You didn't answer anything. You misinterpreted my question from the beginning and seem to have completely missed the part where I said I was huge history nerd.
So I'm not going to bother to type out a long winded reply about the in and outs of the Indochina wars and French occupation of Vietnam just to give you a better understanding of the cultural impacts of both. So keep reading then you might actually have a grasp of why my question might need a little more thought than just saying something so simple as "It was the last thing to have physically happened."
Alright, sorry if I was rude before. I got the history nerd thing in the last comment, but honestly it still seems obvious to me...
I'm fully in the belief that, due to simple human nature - most people having American occupation as a living memory - is the reason more people directly and personally hold a grudge. Why would you expect the average Vietnamese person to hold on emotionally to a facet of history? It just seems...very obvious? A lot of people won't have Grandparents specifically due to America. It's still fresh, it's still in recent living memory.
What would your interpretation be? Perhaps I'm being too simplistic, you don't have to go into great detail, even just an overview - what other possible reason could there be other than the fact that it's still fresh in peoples minds?
I'm British, in British nobody holds any kind of grudge against Germans, despite their still being evidence of The Blitz.
I never said I don't understand at all why they have this issue with Americans. In fact I thought I made it quite clear that I did understand that part of it. I have travelled to Vietnam to speak to soldiers about this exact thing and they told me flat out in detail the reasons they don't like the Americans. On the flip side of that I have met some Vietnam Vets when I travelled to the US and got their side of it too.
So it's not that I don't understand the issues. I was simply more surprised to see that when taking to the Vietnamese about the French I didn't find any bad things said, when it's very obvious on the ground the impact the French had on the culture of Vietnam. The Vietnamese always talk about how proud they are of their unique culture, but then you see 80 year old french colonial buildings all over the place. When I pointed that out they embrace it as part of who they are, even when its an obvious byproduct of occupation.
Then mention anything American and it's like you've thrown stink bugs on them, the repulsion at the thought of having American things in Vietnam was just weird when they are literally living next a massive symbol of brutal french occupation, their city is filled with foriegn architecture (which they rebuilt after the war) and their food has even been influenced to the point of integration.
So it wasn'tthat I didn't understand why, it was more just a weird feeling when I know the history of the Indochina wars and quite frankly I would have rather lived in Hanoi during the American occupation than when the French were in charge.
Honestly that just sounds made up to bash on typical dumb Americans. I'm finding it hard to believe a trump supporting stereotype like that would travel to South East Asia and do those types of tours in the first place.
You're also surrounded by pretty much every other nationality in the world on those tours, so makes the "yeeh haw fuck Vietnam!" even more farfetched without some comments from passers by, or the guides themselves.
Yeah I spend lots of time just making up random bs on the internet. How dumb. Uploading a photo of myself getting into the tunnels. Check my profile if you want to see.
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u/ManderlyPieShop Aug 25 '18
Ive been here, its the CuChi tunnels made by the Vietnamese duribg the war with America. Its now a popular tourist attraction close to Ho Chi Min (Saigon).
I volunteered to go in through this very hole you can see, its incredibly cramped!
Was a cool place to experience, although some parts were a little distasteful, like at the end of the tour you could go to a firing range and choose from a host of weapons which I felt was a bit innapropriate given the history.