No cats in Vietnam: Another myth crumbles in lobbies and alleys
Posted by Bob Keith at 4/30/2006 1:30 AM
Categories: Cats in Vietnam
Urban legends about old enemies
As an American vulnerable to urban legends, I naturally anticipated finding no cats in Vietnam. "Aren't the cats all eaten?" If you hang around the Midwest of American enough and never talk to Vietnamese and believe all the urban legends, you should believe there is not one domestic cat in Vietnam. I was stunned on my first day in Saigon wandering the streets and alleys when I happened on a few cats seemingly unchallenged. Then after a day or so, I noticed that a lot of store lobbies and home foyers would have a lounging house cat laying about.
Now don't get me wrong. There are animal markets that sell all types of animals for various reasons. There are cages of live cats. I suspect parts of these animals are used for things like aphrodisiacs. The nature of these districts are shady. The people often wave you off if you film.
The chosen pussies
But non-the-less, there are the chosen cadre of cats that roam the store fronts and foyers. People call them "meows" in a high voice. Many people name their cats. Again, I was socially conditioned by our American society to think cats in Vietnam were most likely eaten, but what I saw with my own eyes defied that myth. Keep in mind all these observations apply to the Vietnam south of the old Demilitarized Zone. I am traveling up North in August of 2006. Perhaps cats hold a different station up there.
People back here in the States have smiled at me and huffed when I have showed them the pictures of cats in Vietnam. They look at me as if to say, "alright the cat thing is a myth, so where are all the bombed out tanks and missing Americans then?" But for my purposes the cat legend is a stunning example of simple misconceptions in action. It's the little inaccuracies in perceptions that drive me crazy.
Grow cat - kill rat
There was a time after the American War that cats were used for food, and still to this day are used for things like aphrodisiacs. After the war it was a time of economic upheaval. We only need look at the exodus of people from Vietnam in the years following the war to, as Americans, only get a glimpse of the social struggle the Vietnamese went through. I am told that after the war the rat population became prolific. The communist government in all the Orwellian flare that communist programs can muster, finally came up with a consummate Marxist slogan. "Kill rat - grow cat." On page 133 and 134 of his book Vietnam Now: A Repoter Returns, David Lamb gives a nice explanation and corroboration of the strange issue of the battle with rats and the Hanoi government's response to the problem. I hope my little vignette about commie cats is at least marginally accurate. I find Lamb's observations, experiences, and investigation to be some of the most helpful in my re-exploration of the subject of Vietnam. The inclusion of an "attention-to-detail issue like Vietnamese cats and rats speaks to his understanding of the complex country.
Another threshold-of-safety cat - photo by Heide Keith
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