Postcard from Old Saigon

The south coast region of Vietnam around the Mekong delta has experienced successive waves of settlement and colonisation over the centuries. Founded in the fourth century, its principal city was first home to the Champa and Khmer peoples before the arrival of the Vietnamese in the seventeenth century. In the nineteenth century it was colonised by the French and Spanish, with the French assuming full colonial control after 1862. It briefly came under joint Japanese-Vichy French control during the Second World War, before Vietnam achieved its independence, but even then it changed hands again with the conclusion of the Vietnam’s civil war. Reflecting these changes, the city’s name has changed over the centuries – known as Baigaur to the Champa, Prey Nokor to the Khmer (the name by which most Cambodians still refer to it), and then first Gia Dinh to the Vietnamese, then Saigon, and now, Ho Chi Minh City.

Notre Dame Cathedral, Saigon

Of all these names, that of Saigon is undoubtedly the most evocative, particularly for Westerners and Vietnam’s own diaspora communities. For the French, with many of its grand French colonial era buildings still standing, it is somewhat nostalgically thought of as Saigon. For Americans, and for the Vietnamese who left Vietnam in the 1970s and 1980s, it remains, rather more defiantly, Saigon. The end of the Vietnam War in 1975 saw the city renamed in honour of the reunified country’s Revolutionary leader, Ho Chi Minh (who died of heart failure aged 79 in 1969) – yet even its locals still refer to the downtown area as Saigon. So the name – Saigon – lives on, equally redolent to differing emotions, to different people.

Central Post Office, Saigon

For me, when I visited in 2009, I wasn’t sure which name felt the most appropriate. I’m not French and I am not American, so it doesn’t hold the same associations. The cultural echoes which had reached me growing up in Britain were mostly derived from Hollywood movies – such as Platoon, Good Morning Vietnam, and Full Metal Jacket. My awareness of the Vietnam War was probably more closely associated with the 1960s peace movement – student demonstrations in Europe and the USA; protest songs, such as The Unknown Soldier by The Doors; Alice’s Restaurant Masacree by Arlo Guthrie; Give Peace A Chance and Happy Xmas (War Is Over) by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Photo by Hubert van Es, 1975

Ho Chi Minh

Arriving in Ho Chi Minh City I was surprised to find myself in a minority. The majority of other Western tourists were either American or French, and it was interesting to note how their nationalities clearly determined their sight-seeing priorities. I found there were lots of Americans visiting the Independence Palace – this building was the former seat of the President of the Republican Government of South Vietnam, until it fell with the front gates which were knocked down by three North Vietnamese Soviet-made T-54 tanks which burst through and roared across the front lawn on 30 April 1975. A highly symbolic act which signalled that the North Vietnamese had won the War. The Communist Government subsequently renamed the building Reunification Palace. An old US Army 'Huey' Helicopter parked on the roof commemorates the aerial bombing of the Palace on 8 April 1975 by a rogue South Vietnamese pilot who was a Viet Cong sympathiser/defector, but no doubt it serves as a reminder to all Western visitors, and US tourists in particular, of the iconic photos of “the last chopper out of Saigon,” airlifting people from the rooftop of a nearby building. Most evenings there would be busloads of US tourists in my hotel lobby returning from a day tour to the famously claustrophobic 200 mile complex of Viet Cong guerrilla warfare tunnels at Cu Chi. Whereas wandering around the areas close to the Catholic Cathedral, the Central Post Office, City Hall, or the Municipal Theatre, all buildings built during the French Colonial Era, there were always more French tourists than any other Westerners. In the grand old Central Post Office a giant portrait of Uncle Ho’s smiling face looks down on them from on high and seems to relish this palpable sense of nostalgia which is all that’s left of the colonial rule he wrested from their grandparents’ grasp. It’s almost as though he might be whispering with a chuckle to himself – Liberté, égalité, indépendence.

Saigon, 30th April 1975

Graham Greene

I suppose, if there is any British connection to old Saigon it is a less tangible one. Not so much a building, a place, or an event – but a person. The writer, Graham Greene made several visits to Saigon in the early 1950s, acting as a war correspondent for The Times newspaper. In these years Vietnamese nationalists were fighting the French, aiming to secure Vietnam’s independence in the wake of the geopolitical turmoil wrought by the Second World War. The Viet Minh independence movement was led by Ho Chi Minh, and defeated the French in 1954, establishing the Communist Democratic Republic of North Vietnam. The war from 1955 to 1975 pitted Ho Chi Minh’s North Vietnamese Army, and the Viet Cong People’s Liberation Front, based inside South Vietnam, against that of the American-backed South Vietnamese Republic. The two wars are respectively known as the First and Second Indo-China Wars. Graham Greene’s novel, The Quiet American (1955), very evocatively brings to life the events of the First Indo-China War. Written whilst Greene was staying at The Continental Hotel in Saigon at the time of the events it describes, the novel is notable for its prescient assessment of the likely outcomes of increasing American involvement in the conflict.

The Continental Hotel, 1950s

I bought myself a lovely old Penguin paperback edition of The Quiet American from a secondhand bookshop in Tokyo’s Jimbocho area before travelling to Vietnam and read it during my trip there. The novel’s atmospheric turn of phrase is what is quintessentially characteristic of Greene’s writing-style:

“I can’t say what made me fall in love with Vietnam – that a woman’s voice can drug you; that everything is so intense. The colors, the taste, even the rain. Nothing like the filthy rain in London. They say whatever you’re looking for, you will find here. They say you come to Vietnam and you understand a lot in a few minutes, but the rest has got to be lived. The smell: that’s the first thing that hits you, promising everything in exchange for your soul. And the heat. Your shirt is straightaway a rag. You can hardly remember your name, or what you came to escape from. But at night, there’s a breeze. The river is beautiful. You could be forgiven for thinking there was no war; that the gunshots were fireworks; that only pleasure matters. A pipe of opium, or the touch of a girl who might tell you she loves you. And then, something happens, as you knew it would. And nothing can ever be the same again.”

However, not being very well versed in the historical background to, nor even the facts of the struggles which preceded the Second Indo-China War, meant that I found some of the political aspects of the novel a little hard to fathom. Two books which I read subsequently helped to elucidate this lacuna in my knowledge: Brian Crozier’s South East Asia in Turmoil (1968), and Milton Osborne’s Southeast Asia: An Introductory History (1979).

Crozier argues that the post-colonial governments of Southeast Asia are themselves essentially neo-imperialist, even though they professed to be otherwise. Written in the period just prior to the American military escalation in the failed defence of South Vietnam it gives an interesting contemporary political critique of events leading up to that point in time. Hence it can now be read as a history book turned primary source in some respects. An eye witness to history which can be cross-examined by hindsight.

Osborne’s book takes a more detached view. Written a little later, and updated in subsequent editions up to 2016, Osborne gives a very good introduction and overview of what is essentially a huge topic and a vast region, covering the history of Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. In light of this fact, Osborne frequently points out the book’s limitations in a way which is helpful. He also reiterates the main events and the historiography occasionally which is necessary to keep such a broad survey flowing for the reader in a connected way. As with any introductory history, it's perhaps best read as a launch-pad book, or used thereafter as a quick-reference guide. It has a good bibliography which is arranged by theme/region, a wayfinder for further avenues of more focussed interest in the history of the region.

Prior to reading either of these two books much of what I had read previously about Vietnam was what I’d found in the pages of the National Geographic Magazine. But the late 1980s weren’t so very far removed from the events of the Vietnam War, and the Cold War itself wasn’t yet over, so the perspective which the National Geographic articles gave was very much still that of an emotionally engaged USA. For different reasons the Vietnam War is a deep bruise on America’s national consciousness which is even today still a long time in healing. The old adage frequently holds true that “history is written by the victors,” but in the case of Vietnam the opposite is very much the case in the West. As mentioned above, the US perspective has deeply inculcated complex responses and representations of the conflict in Hollywood movies, yet the protest songs and the legacy of the peace movement have equally swayed our cultural idea of Vietnam and its civil war. In many senses, in the West at least, the present reality of modern Vietnam is largely obscured. For me, before I actually visited the country, my conception of Vietnam remained unconsciously stalled by these familiar tropes of Huey choppers flying into a blood red tropical sunrise accompanied by a Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black soundtrack. The hell of jungle warfare, American soldiers pitted against an unseen ghostly foe who never seems to die. The distraught, screaming faces of innocent children running down the roads in terror. The B-52 bombers, ugly black angels of death, senselessly raining down bombs across the impassive green jungle. Quips about relishing the smell of napalm in the morning, etc., etc.

Photo by Horst Faas, 1965

Consequently, getting off the plane I really wasn’t sure what to expect of Vietnam or Ho Chi Minh City. Apart from a stony-faced immigration official in military uniform who stamped my passport at the airport, the trappings of Communist Government which seem so all pervasive in a city such as Beijing appeared to be largely absent here. The Vietnamese people I met during my stay there all seemed very relaxed, very welcoming and friendly, even the Vietnamese soldier at the gate of the US Embassy compound who discouraged me from taking a photo of the place did so with amicable good cheer. The soldiers guarding public buildings in China certainly aren’t like that! – I suppose I was expecting the scars of the war still to be fresh, the distrust of foreigners, especially white Western ones, to be more sharply marked. Maybe it is for Americans? – I don’t know. Certainly, when it was found out I wasn’t American or French it was often something which was remarked upon with surprise, and so may well have exempted me in some senses which I couldn’t clearly measure. I was an anomaly amongst all these culturally invested outsiders. Hence perhaps why I kept finding myself returning to these questions and speculations, ever revolving and ever to be unresolved …

"Hanoi Jane"

Maybe it’s been easier for the Vietnamese to move on? – Perhaps what’s past has passed. I soon realised that far from being a topic to shy away from, the Vietnam War was something to be openly extolled here. From the Vietnamese point of view it wasn’t a tragedy, and, if it was viewed in any sense as a sacrifice, ultimately it had been a successful one. In that sense, “to the winner go the spoils” and the honours too. The displays and information boards in the Reunification Palace clearly reflected this fact. Studying the famous series of photographs of the tanks bursting through the palace gates my preconceptions of the Vietnam War were further confounded by finding out that the British poet and war correspondent, James Fenton, was apparently on-board one of the tanks at the time. It was like my mind was a radio dial struggling to tune itself between two wavelengths ... “And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for?” … This fact evoked echoes in my memory of photographs of the American actress, Jane Fonda – “Hanoi Jane” – posing on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun ... “And it’s five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates.” – If the Vietnam War is anything to Westerners, it is certainly far from straightforward.

Reunification Palace, 2009

Notre Dame Cathedral

I tried to equate my experience at the Reunification Palace with my visiting the Check Point Charlie Museum in Berlin in early 1993. Here in Ho Chi Minh City the Cold War was weirdly refracted back on itself, the narrative going in the opposite direction to what was innately expected, coming from my side of the old Iron, or in this case the Bamboo Curtain. Yet on Dong Khoi Street there was little to suggest this is a Communist State. Coco-cola is on sale in the cafes. American Dollars are acceptable as a dual currency alongside the Vietnamese Dong. Much like India’s Rupee, the Dong is a closed currency, meaning you can only change it within Vietnam. Hence the first thing you have to do at the airport is run the gamut of bureau de change stalls. When I reached this point in the airport terminal I paused for a moment, standing to one side rummaging in my backpack, trying to find my money while my fellow passengers went ahead of me. Inadvertently in doing so I reaped the reward of their eagerness as my advanced guard, because it meant that by the time most of them had haggled their way down the line and I got my turn to change my money, the exchange rate had come right down as the stalls had all been loudly vying with one another to secure the most customers. Meaning I very happily got more Dong for my Yen. Vietnam is a poor country, for sure, but the cost of living there is very low. Hence tourism is clearly both a boost to the nation’s economy and a boon to the thrifty backpacker’s budget.

Notre Dame Cathedral

It seemed odd to me though, that Western tourists could wander around with such ease and were so readily catered for on their own terms. Smart hotels, boutique shops, artisan cafes, bars playing Western music. But then, even in the 1970s and 1980s, Communist Yugoslavia was a popular holiday destination for decadent Westerners too. I’m not sure how closely the two equate with one another, nor am I sure as to how well the lives and livelihoods of the average Vietnamese compares to the former citizens of Yugoslavia or the USSR, or present-day China for that matter. But these were things I kept finding myself coming back to and wondering about as I dodged the crazy drivers on their motorbikes and in their mini-vans riding and driving pell-mell around the streets and traffic islands of old Saigon. I never did manage to figure out the rules of the road in this city. But one thing was abundantly clear. Life is lived at a different pace here. Different norms too. I saw one woman calmly breastfeeding her new-born baby whilst riding pillion and helmetless on a speeding motorcycle which was weaving through the traffic in a manner which made my hair stand on end. Crossing the road here is an act of faith. On the busiest streets I learnt that the only way to do it is to step out and maintain a sure steady pace, and somehow the traffic parts around you like water round a rock in a fast flowing river. Believing you are a Jedi Master and that the Force is strong with you is just one means of helping you to hold your nerve!

The Continental Hotel, 2009

Writing Postcards in the Central Post Office

I don’t think even now I’ve managed to reconcile all the questions that this trip set buzzing around inside my head. It’s hard to say whether or not a different sort of politics might mean life here would necessarily be lived any differently in its essentials. Ideology doesn’t always correlate with culture. Had the Communists not won the war would Vietnam now be more like South Korea? – And who’s to know how it might yet change in the future? – But perhaps the fact that Vietnam isn’t closed off to the world, as is North Korea, for instance, is a good thing. Perhaps the fact that Western tourists – especially those with familial ties intimately linking them to past conflicts and former colonial connections – can visit and freely wander the streets of Old Saigon is all to the greater good. The fact they can talk freely to the locals, as well as observing the realities of their lives forty years on from the last war, some sixty or seventy years since Vietnam was a colony, the fact that Westerners are so warmly welcomed might help in reconciling the past with the present. In lifting the veil of such Western preconceptions of the past, experiencing Vietnam as it is today – the opportunities such openness presents may well help to bring peace at last to both personally engaged outsiders and Vietnamese alike. Past and present divisions aside, in time bamboo may yet prove to be more flexible and therefore more resilient than iron. Who is to say? – One thing I do feel sure of though, having seen it for myself, is that Saigon is a city which endures.

Hotel Continental & Municipal Theatre

Notre Dame Cathedral, Saigon

Central Post Office

 

Reunification Palace

Central Post Office

City Hall

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