Hien and the New Vietnam

“Vietnam postcards ?" I felt something tug at my arm

as I stepped out of the Rex Hotel in Saigon. Smiling sheepishly
and holding out a bundle of postcards was a little waif of a thing,
not more than ten years old.

“Dollar ?" the young entrepreneur asked. I wasn't

interested in postcards, but she was so cute I decided to let her
weave her charms. She hardly had a chance with a seasoned
travel writer like myself, who has dueled with the shark
merchants of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, and the sharpies in
the back streets of Singapore.

“Too much," I tried to act shocked. “ Way too much."

“Dollar," she just grinned it off and repeated, not

backing down an inch.

“Dollar, too much," I repeated. “A quarter."

“Dollar," she repeated again, pulling on my hand. She

was so cute, I just shelled out the greenback. Of course, paying
her a dollar meant that she probably made ninety cents profit,
which meant that by this single transaction, she made as much
money on that day than the average Vietnamese teacher or
doctor.

My wife and I recently took a cruise along the coast of

Vietnam, stopping at the major ports of Saigon, Danang, and
Hanoi, but before sailing we decided to spend a week in Saigon
and soak up the local atmosphere. It was one of the most
interesting weeks we have ever spent.
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"What a sucker!" I thought to myself after giving her the

dollar. As it turned out, it was the best dollar I ever spent. This
little girl, whose name was Hein, was to be my wife's and my
guide and companion for the entire week. She went with us
everywhere, giving us the inside scoop on everything, the stuff
most tourists don't dream of learning. She told us which stores
overcharged and which ones had the bargains. Most store
owners tried to run her out of their shops, but she'd just hide
behind me for protection. We made a great team.

We took her into restaurants with us and she'd tell us

what to order. The waitresses all knew Hien and would try to
run her out of the restaurant, but we told them she was with
us. Hien would give them a big grin. She'd then order the
biggest bowl of rice in the place. Then she’d order a Coke and
give them another grin. The waitresses would just glare at her
and grit their teeth. Hien loved every bit of it. She really knew
how to turn the screws when the tables were turned. I also
never saw anyone that could put away as much food as she
could. She just sat straight up in her chair, eating the rice with
the serving spoon and grinning at us both between each bite.
I'm sure she thought she'd latched onto a couple of live ones.

One day Hien surprised us and introduced us to her

mother. Hien was always rather secretive about her parents so
we didn't push the issue. Her mother also sold postcards and
stamps on the streets, and Hien was her first lieutenant. Cute
little girls like Hien can generally outsell their mothers ten to
one, and it is common to see the cutest little tykes in pink
dresses selling all sorts of things outside the fanciest hotels
frequented by rich Japanese and Americans. Hien's mother
didn't speak any English, and since we didn't speak Vietnamese
this left Hien to act as translator. There we were, three adults,
talking up a storm through a ten-year-old kid. My wife and I
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then started treating both of them to dinner when we ate ours.

Each meal cost only about fifty cents, which was nothing for us,
but for them they probably thought we were The Donald and
Ivana.

One day during our walks, we stopped at a statue of Ho

Chi Minh.

“Uncle Ho," Hien said. We wondered what Uncle Ho would

think about Hein, a dyed-in-the-wool, free-market capitalist, with
the business savvy of an investment financial broker. In fact,
one wondered what Uncle Ho would think about Saigon (oops,
Ho Chi Minh City). Saigon is awash in free-enterprise and
capitalism. One suspects that as soon as the United States lifts
its trade embargo against Vietnam, its economy will take off.
Most of the businessmen we met on the streets in Saigon just
shook their heads wondering why it had not yet been lifted.
Already, a great deal of money has come into Vietnam from
Japan and Taiwan, and, as one Australian businessman told us,
“the Americans are losing out over here."

One interesting sideline to recent Vietnam history is related

to the up and down fortunes of American and the Soviet Union
(oops, former Soviet Union). During the Vietnam war, the
Vietnamese disliked the Americans and liked the Soviets. Then,
after the war when the Soviets came to Vietnam and the
Americans went home, the Vietnamese learned that they didn't
like the Russians after all, but liked the Americans. Partly,
because Russians weren't as open and friendly as Americans,
and of course, they didn't have the dollars. So, now, after
twenty years and billions of dollars of Soviet aid, Russia is out
and America is back in the hearts of the Vietnamese. It's a
strange world out there.
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“Just a few years ago students in Vietnam wanted to learn

Russian," a guide told us. “Then last year, half the students
wanted to learn Russian and half wanted to learn English. Now,
this year everyone wants to learn English. Russian is dead."

One pilgrimage many American visitors to Saigon make is

the twenty mile trek north to the Cu Chi tunnels. At the height
of the Vietnam war, the Cu Chi tunnels formed part of a
labyrinth of tunnels that stretched all the way from the district of
Cu Chi to the Cambodian border! The tunnels allowed the Viet
Cong to control much of the countryside near Saigon. The
massive network, which were often several stories deep,
included hidden trap doors, living quarters, weapons storage
areas, field hospitals, and command centers.

“Can you find the entrance to the tunnel ?" Our

Vietnamese guide, and former VC guerrilla, politely asked a
group of middle-aged American tourists. The clay soil was bone
dry and as hard as a rock. We poked, scratched, and dug
without any luck.

“You're standing on it," he laughed and pulled a woman

from Florida aside. He then reached down and pulled open a
trap door buried in the clay. He then invited us to inspect his
former home. We, of course, jumped right in. It was strange to
say the least. Here was a real live Viet Cong, and here we
were, a group of patriotic Americans, laughing and joking with
him as we played hide-and-seek in the Cu Chi tunnels. Some
people even bought souvenir tee-shirts that read, “I survived the
Cu Chi tunnels."

The village of Cu Chi was so heavily bombed during the

war that some military historians have called it, the most
bombed, shelled, gassed, defoliated, and generally devastated
area in the history of warfare. Today, no tree stands that is
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over twenty years old. Of the 20,000 Viet Cong that lived and
fought in the Cu Chi tunnels during the war, only 6,000 managed
to survive to the end. Today, in Cu Chi, other than the fact that
all the trees are young, it is hard to find any evidence that any
war was ever fought.

After our short stay in Saigon, my wife and I said goodbye

to Hein and her mother, boarded the Caledonian Star, and
steamed down the muddy Saigon River towards the South China
Sea. Endless paddies of rice of the South Mekong delta
stretched to the horizon. We thought of the American soldiers
who fought in these paddies in a war where it was impossible to
tell friend from foe.

“Most Vietnamese today feel very sorry for the Americans

who had to fight here," more than one Vietnamese told us.

Two days later up the Vietnamese coast we reached

Danang, where the first American Marines landed in 1965. Now,
twenty-two years later, the Caledonian Star was the first
American passenger ship to land at Danang. We were greeted
by an army of tourist officials, who bent over backwards trying
to make our stay pleasing.

The area around Danang has some of the most beautiful

scenery in Vietnam, although the Marines stationed in Danang
probably never thought of the Marble mountains six miles to the
south in terms of their grandeur. All they knew was that they
were filled with VC. The day we visited the Marble mountains,
however, we never found the Viet Cong, but only a gaggle of
giggling girls about 10-13 years of age, trying to sell us some
carved elephants. They also helped the older passengers
manage the stairs that led to the panoramic vistas, which, were
used by the VC guerrillas to shoot at American planes landing in
Danang. From other vantage points the Viet Cong could look
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down on China Beach, where American soldiers were airlifted in

for some R&R. The VC guerrillas could even listen to the music
right along the American GIs.

We stood on the empty stage on China Beach where Bob

Hope performed for American GIs on Christmas of 1968. On the
beach where American soldiers cheered and thought about
Mississippi and Kansas, we saw only a few schoolgirls on their
way home.

On our last evening in Danang, before sailing north to

Haiphong, the captain of the Caledonian Star invited the travel
officials from Danang to a festive buffet dinner on the hind deck
of the ship. The date was twenty-four years to the day after the
Tet Offensive, where just a few miles to the north in the old
imperial city of Hue´, the Viet Cong launched the offensive
which led eventually to the American withdrawal. On this
night, however, the only popping you could hear in Danang
harbor was the popping of corks as bottles of wine and
champagne were being opened.

One young Vietnamese tourist official that came aboard the

Caledonian star asked me about international travel and travel
writing. I had to practically hold up her jaw as she gaped at the
ship's luxurious interior and the colossal mountain of food
prepared by the ship's chef.

“I had no idea people actually lived like this," she said.

And, then she added, “But, now I know." One could actually
see the little wheels turning in her head.

Both the passengers on the Caledonian Star, and ship's

crew were impressed with all the Vietnamese travel officials we
met. There wasn't any of the expected red tape, nor was there
any propagandizing. There wasn't even any put-down remarks
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about the “decadent" Western life style that decadent

Americans are used to hearing. In fact when we left, one official
told me, “Have a nice day." “Have a nice day ?!

A few days later the Caledonian Star inched into Haiphong

harbor, and we took a four-hour bus ride to Hanoi. It was in this
general area that on Christmas Eve, 1972, President Nixon
ordered the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong. The bombing
caused massive civilian casualties and horrendous damage to
the infrastructure of the area. Someone once said that the real
surprise of the Vietnam war is that so little physical evidence
still remains of the massive American presence. From our bus
we saw a panoramic of hundreds of rice paddies with farmers
busily plowing and planting rice.

As we neared Hanoi, however, we saw several piles of

old truck parts, shell casings, and all sorts of shrapnel left over
from the war. Ironically, the largest industry in Vietnam is the
melting down of the American war machine. Even more ironic
is the fact that they sell it to the Japanese, who turn it into cars.
Your present Honda may in fact be more American than you
think!

“Dog meat, it is good for you," our Vietnamese guide said,

pointing to a sign in a store window as we neared Hanoi.
Outside the store hung a string of carcasses of what appeared to
be small mammals. It brought a new meaning to that old
favorite, “How Much is That Doggie in the Window ?" Or about
the guy who always walks his dog before breakfast. You know,
like in woks.

We didn't know what to expect in Hanoi. After all, the

north Vietnamese are more formal and reserved than are the
people in the south. It's kind of comparing a Bostonian with
someone from Alabama.
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“Where you from ?" a teenage boy in Hanoi asked. I

said, “Russian."

“No Russian," he said, pointing to my Minolta 9000i auto-

focusing camera. “You American."

“Yeah, I American," I confessed.

“Ah, Americans, very friendly. We like Americans." This

was pretty much the scene for our entire visit to Hanoi. Just an
old fashioned love-in between Americans and Vietnamese.

On the next day, we left Haiphong harbor and sailed

eastward the short distance to Halong Bay, the local version of
Guilin, to take in the thousands of mist-shrouded islands jutting
hundreds of feet straight out of the emerald sea! Jaded by war,
we seldom think of Vietnamese in terms of its natural marvels.
However, it is one of the garden spots on earth. I guess one
generally doesn't stop to smell the roses during a war.

At last leaving the islands of Halong Bay and Vietnamese

waters, the Caledonian Star cruised east through the Hainan
Straits along the southern coast of China. A few days later we
arrived at the ultramodern megalopolis of Hong Kong, only 250
miles from Hanoi on the nautical map, but a zillion miles on the
economic chart. However, as the modern skyline of Hong Kong
came into view, our thoughts turned back to Saigon, where I
knew Hien was still working the streets near the Rex Hotel. We
had a good idea, too, she was still getting top dollar for her
cards. We could also imagine her and entrepreneurs like her
leading Vietnam into the 21th century, and not the old hard-
liners in Hanoi. We also got the impression that the old hard-
liners in Hanoi are starting to think so too. With Vietnam's
intelligent and hard-working population, one suspects its future
will be brighter than its past. We hoped so.
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