Saigon - travellers and exploration - cont'd
June 19/09
The next day we were on our first guided tour. Overly sleepy from staying out too late again the night before - not something I want to repeat - we were driving through the lively city and beautiful countryside and my blinks would last for minutes. :(
At a rest stop we observed people making crafts. They were handicapped and the precision and detail that went into those works was incredible. Detailed carving, little tiny bits of eggshells carefully placed in to create massive and beautiful designs.
Next we went to a Cao Dai temple. The place was gargantuan and although very intricate I'm not sure beautiful would be a way I'd describe it. The designs were rather chintzy and gaudy. Kind of like the Disney designs in the old 'It's a Small World' displays. The atmosphere however, was incredible. Over a hundred monks of different religious sects all gathered together on the floors in rows observing their states of worship. And in one group men playing instruments and women singing. Everytime a gong was hit they would all bow in unison.
Interestingly, the Cao Dai religion was partly founded by Victor Hugo - who would have thought?
Our next stop, the trip to the CuChi tunnels was sobering rather than fun. I spent most of the time feeling uncomfortable. The CuChi people were a group of Vietnamese who did their best to preserve their people and way of life during the American War - partly by building an intricate and ingenous system of tunnels providing shelter, medical rooms, kitchen facilities, water, and craftily designed air holes. They spent their days fighting and their nights still trying to work the fields and provide sustenance for the people. Learning about this aspect of things was very interesting but seeing the things Americans did to them and the methods they used to retalitate . . .
When shown the various traps, previously used for hunting that instead would be used to skewer people I felt cold and awed at the way so many other people on the tour coud see this as cool. YEs, what the Americans did was crue adn wrong and it was /is the right of people to defend themselves - necessary -but to now take enjoyment from observing these methods rather than just accept with sober remembrance . . . People are still people no matter what. Many carried the responsibility for their governments actions - joining in their cruelty, and others - I'm sure the felt the misery of what they were being made to do. To hear them described as 'crazy American devils' on the informational video and posters with a gleeful tone describing the photo of American soldiers fleeing in terror before Vietnamese guerillas destroyed them . . .
Such hate propagating more hate - solving nothing and people never seem to see. Reminds me of the situation with Gaze in the winter and the blindness of people putting forth the same type of malice and senseless categorizing against all those associated (be it by ethnic background or religion) with those who were harming their people -continuing the cycle of madness that leads to destruction.
I had a similar feelign when we got to the part of the tour where we had the option of shooting machine guns and rifles. It just seemed . . . sacriligious (though that's not quite the right word) to have 'fun' shooting a gun in a place where so many had died from those weapons only a couple of decades ago. Not that the idea of shooting something used for such destruction really appeals to me anyways. Hearing the machine guns I couldn't help but think of my friends from Africa who were refugees and their stories about the wars, the terror, how on Canada day they stay home and shut the windows so as not to hear the explosions fo the firecrackers that bring back too many hard memories.
I wonder what those explosions throughout the day do to any people living nearby who'd lved through that horror?
The next day we were on our first guided tour. Overly sleepy from staying out too late again the night before - not something I want to repeat - we were driving through the lively city and beautiful countryside and my blinks would last for minutes. :(
At a rest stop we observed people making crafts. They were handicapped and the precision and detail that went into those works was incredible. Detailed carving, little tiny bits of eggshells carefully placed in to create massive and beautiful designs.
Next we went to a Cao Dai temple. The place was gargantuan and although very intricate I'm not sure beautiful would be a way I'd describe it. The designs were rather chintzy and gaudy. Kind of like the Disney designs in the old 'It's a Small World' displays. The atmosphere however, was incredible. Over a hundred monks of different religious sects all gathered together on the floors in rows observing their states of worship. And in one group men playing instruments and women singing. Everytime a gong was hit they would all bow in unison.
Interestingly, the Cao Dai religion was partly founded by Victor Hugo - who would have thought?
Our next stop, the trip to the CuChi tunnels was sobering rather than fun. I spent most of the time feeling uncomfortable. The CuChi people were a group of Vietnamese who did their best to preserve their people and way of life during the American War - partly by building an intricate and ingenous system of tunnels providing shelter, medical rooms, kitchen facilities, water, and craftily designed air holes. They spent their days fighting and their nights still trying to work the fields and provide sustenance for the people. Learning about this aspect of things was very interesting but seeing the things Americans did to them and the methods they used to retalitate . . .
When shown the various traps, previously used for hunting that instead would be used to skewer people I felt cold and awed at the way so many other people on the tour coud see this as cool. YEs, what the Americans did was crue adn wrong and it was /is the right of people to defend themselves - necessary -but to now take enjoyment from observing these methods rather than just accept with sober remembrance . . . People are still people no matter what. Many carried the responsibility for their governments actions - joining in their cruelty, and others - I'm sure the felt the misery of what they were being made to do. To hear them described as 'crazy American devils' on the informational video and posters with a gleeful tone describing the photo of American soldiers fleeing in terror before Vietnamese guerillas destroyed them . . .
Such hate propagating more hate - solving nothing and people never seem to see. Reminds me of the situation with Gaze in the winter and the blindness of people putting forth the same type of malice and senseless categorizing against all those associated (be it by ethnic background or religion) with those who were harming their people -continuing the cycle of madness that leads to destruction.
I had a similar feelign when we got to the part of the tour where we had the option of shooting machine guns and rifles. It just seemed . . . sacriligious (though that's not quite the right word) to have 'fun' shooting a gun in a place where so many had died from those weapons only a couple of decades ago. Not that the idea of shooting something used for such destruction really appeals to me anyways. Hearing the machine guns I couldn't help but think of my friends from Africa who were refugees and their stories about the wars, the terror, how on Canada day they stay home and shut the windows so as not to hear the explosions fo the firecrackers that bring back too many hard memories.
I wonder what those explosions throughout the day do to any people living nearby who'd lved through that horror?
posted by Charles at 2:04 AM
2 Comments:
Wow Charlene. That would have been an ... affective experience. That is one thing I hate of ignorant tourism - people just treat it as a show rather than remnants of the real past.
PS. That was Chelsea...
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