30 April 2006
Don't the Vietnamese hate Americans? The consummate question I am asked
Posted by Bob Keith at 4/30/2006 1:30 AM
Categories: Vietnam - the study of
The consumate American centric question
Once people find out about my study of Vietnam and my visits there, their faces usually scrunch up and the perfect American centric question just involuntarily spills out their mouths. "Don't the Vietnamese hate us?" I can only answer that not once while in the southern part of Vietnam (I am going north in August of 2006) did I feel the least bit sense of hatred toward me. There wasn't much of any sense of animosity of any kind. In fact both my wife and I noted that we were not even singled out as "American." We were just looked at as "others" in a group of world visitors that needed to be guided to local commerce and have our economic potential exploited. We were rarely pegged as Americans unless we brought it up and then only to rather bored acknowledgment. "Ya what ever - now let me give you a scooter ride and let me show you around town for a couple bucks please. We go now, ok?"
In regards to the initial question of do they hate us, Americans seem to be annoyed when they find out they are not the most reviled and hated people on earth. We must be the most of everything apparently. Yet, in a country we battled in openly for fifteen years (1960 to 1975) and funded the French War for another ten years prior to that (1945 to 1954) (please don't split hairs over the dates) the Vietnamese seem rather over it. At least if not they are amazing actors.
Looking past the hate
Perhaps I did not meet the offended, hateful ones. Yet, my journeys are journalistic. I take no packaged tours where all the faces are smiling per marketing necessity. Rather, I walk the back streets - search the catacombs of neighborhoods in the old parts of the cities. "Hello, Hello," the children always say as they smile and the adults always smile and nod.
Heide and I rented a motor bike and drove out to the coast near Na Trang and visited the fields that harvest sea salt. A man ran out from his house on the water, surrounded by salt piles, and insisted we drink homemade rice vodka with him. After we visitors honored his request he was even more happy. It was an interesting afternoon after that. We were already lost. And, it is already hard to drive a motor bike in a country of millions of vehicles on unregulated, unpaved streets - now enter in the fact the rice vodka got us more lost.
People have suggested to me that Vietnam has a lower life expectancy and the old guard is fading away. So those that may have vehemently hated America are becoming less visible. And, after all, it may be easier to overlook hate if one actually wins a war.
Showing posts with label vietnam - the study of. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vietnam - the study of. Show all posts
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Where my interest in Vietnam got yet another nudge
Where my interest in Vietnam got yet another nudge
Posted by Bob Keith at 4/12/2006 1:30 AM
Categories: Vietnam: The study there of
After I finished my bachelor's degree one of the first classes I took in grad school was titled Mass Communication in Society. - Nice segue since my undergrad studies were in sociology and criminal justice. The professor was Dr. Norma Coates.
While I was plugging away at the end of my undergraduate studies the study of Vietnam had once again gotten lost in the shuffle. Not to mention 9-Eleven had knocked the Vietnam War off the map. But in this class I found my self doing a paper about movies - more specifically, Vietnam War movies. I don't know why I choose the subject, but as an older student I had learned to weave into many of my papers the strategy of "write about what you know about already - don't reinvent the wheel."
To my surprise, as she handed the papers back Dr. Coates said, "there is a hint of a thesis in this somewhere. Dr. Coates where ever your academic journey has taken you I don't know whether to thank you or to cry. The resurrection of the subject has however taken me to Vietnam twice, Laos and Thailand once, Little Saigon near Los Angles once, and now another pending trip back to Vietnam in August of 2006. If nothing else it has gotten me out of town.
Posted by Bob Keith at 4/12/2006 1:30 AM
Categories: Vietnam: The study there of
After I finished my bachelor's degree one of the first classes I took in grad school was titled Mass Communication in Society. - Nice segue since my undergrad studies were in sociology and criminal justice. The professor was Dr. Norma Coates.
While I was plugging away at the end of my undergraduate studies the study of Vietnam had once again gotten lost in the shuffle. Not to mention 9-Eleven had knocked the Vietnam War off the map. But in this class I found my self doing a paper about movies - more specifically, Vietnam War movies. I don't know why I choose the subject, but as an older student I had learned to weave into many of my papers the strategy of "write about what you know about already - don't reinvent the wheel."
To my surprise, as she handed the papers back Dr. Coates said, "there is a hint of a thesis in this somewhere. Dr. Coates where ever your academic journey has taken you I don't know whether to thank you or to cry. The resurrection of the subject has however taken me to Vietnam twice, Laos and Thailand once, Little Saigon near Los Angles once, and now another pending trip back to Vietnam in August of 2006. If nothing else it has gotten me out of town.
Friday, April 7, 2006
Where my interest in Vietnam got revived
7 April 2006
Where my interest in Vietnam got revived
Posted by Bob Keith at 4/7/2006 1:30 AM
Categories: Vietnam the study of, travel blog, Vietnam, Vietnam never ends
A haunting reality
While attending classes at Madison Area Technical College in the fall of 1998 I came across a new class offering - a history class about America's Vietnam War. Having been in the Army in Germany when Saigon and South Vietnam surrendered in 1975, the subject always haunted me. By 1998 Hollywood had re-fought the war in nearly one hundred movies. Every political election we Americans re-fought the war in the campaigns. Every time we thought about military action somewhere in the world we re-debated the wisdom of the Vietnam War. I did not know what to think anymore. I was drawn to the class like a moth to a porch light.
The instructor was a guy named Jim Roseberry. I was immediately put at ease by him. When I asked him about the class before hand he simply said, "welcome." I was then struck by his methodical, calm pursuit of the saga as he started with some ancient history of Vietnam and then brought the class slowly forward from World War II.
Gestating a reality
I later interviewed Mr. Roseberry about his new class for the school news paper - he mostly constructed the class curriculum himself - it was his creation. "Why did you take so many years to take on the subject?" I asked. He smiled slightly, paused and said, "being in the military during the war and in the county of Vietnam during the war I had to let it all gestate."
And he was right. Gestation was an odd but appropriate description. The class pulled together 15 years of the American Vietnam War that were disjointed in my memory. My war, the era that touched me was 1975. Yet I knew there was more to the story. A neighboring farm kid had died over there in 1967 or so. Another one who served over there came to our grade school to talk about his experience. That must have been around the same time. Little did I know six years later I would be in the Army and the War had taken on yet another dynamic.
Five U.S. presidents or more, millions of soldiers, and millions of civilians were touched by the war that lasted so long and each year of it had a different signature of timbre. No wonder many of us so many decades later still could not understand the war.
The living war
In 1998 when I asked Mr. Roseberry about how we attach Vietnam to other military conflicts, he quietly said, "Vietnam is a living history." Never was so prophetic a statement made now that I reflect on the Iraq War now in its fourth year.
In the summer of 2005 I looked up Mr. Roseberry to consult him on my then graduate study of the subject of Vietnam. I had been to Saigon in January of 2005 and was to go back again in August of 2005 this time to more locations. He seemed pleased and excited for me and my continued quest.
Here's to you Mr. Roseberry. Your guidance helped revitalize my interest in my own life's touching of the complicated subject. Your own quest for clarity inspired me to continue with the study of the complex subject. And finally, I am glad you yourself got a chance to get back over there and continue your journey with the "living history" of Vietnam.
Where my interest in Vietnam got revived
Posted by Bob Keith at 4/7/2006 1:30 AM
Categories: Vietnam the study of, travel blog, Vietnam, Vietnam never ends
A haunting reality
While attending classes at Madison Area Technical College in the fall of 1998 I came across a new class offering - a history class about America's Vietnam War. Having been in the Army in Germany when Saigon and South Vietnam surrendered in 1975, the subject always haunted me. By 1998 Hollywood had re-fought the war in nearly one hundred movies. Every political election we Americans re-fought the war in the campaigns. Every time we thought about military action somewhere in the world we re-debated the wisdom of the Vietnam War. I did not know what to think anymore. I was drawn to the class like a moth to a porch light.
The instructor was a guy named Jim Roseberry. I was immediately put at ease by him. When I asked him about the class before hand he simply said, "welcome." I was then struck by his methodical, calm pursuit of the saga as he started with some ancient history of Vietnam and then brought the class slowly forward from World War II.
Gestating a reality
I later interviewed Mr. Roseberry about his new class for the school news paper - he mostly constructed the class curriculum himself - it was his creation. "Why did you take so many years to take on the subject?" I asked. He smiled slightly, paused and said, "being in the military during the war and in the county of Vietnam during the war I had to let it all gestate."
And he was right. Gestation was an odd but appropriate description. The class pulled together 15 years of the American Vietnam War that were disjointed in my memory. My war, the era that touched me was 1975. Yet I knew there was more to the story. A neighboring farm kid had died over there in 1967 or so. Another one who served over there came to our grade school to talk about his experience. That must have been around the same time. Little did I know six years later I would be in the Army and the War had taken on yet another dynamic.
Five U.S. presidents or more, millions of soldiers, and millions of civilians were touched by the war that lasted so long and each year of it had a different signature of timbre. No wonder many of us so many decades later still could not understand the war.
The living war
In 1998 when I asked Mr. Roseberry about how we attach Vietnam to other military conflicts, he quietly said, "Vietnam is a living history." Never was so prophetic a statement made now that I reflect on the Iraq War now in its fourth year.
In the summer of 2005 I looked up Mr. Roseberry to consult him on my then graduate study of the subject of Vietnam. I had been to Saigon in January of 2005 and was to go back again in August of 2005 this time to more locations. He seemed pleased and excited for me and my continued quest.
Here's to you Mr. Roseberry. Your guidance helped revitalize my interest in my own life's touching of the complicated subject. Your own quest for clarity inspired me to continue with the study of the complex subject. And finally, I am glad you yourself got a chance to get back over there and continue your journey with the "living history" of Vietnam.
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