When I was growing up, I always heard about the Vietnam war and the Vietnamese were villainized, like the enemy in every war. I heard all sorts of slang words for the people and all sorts of horror stories about my family’s time in the Maycon Delta and with Agent Orange and how awful ‘Nam was. I had 2 dads, several uncles, and lots of family friends that served in VIetnam and grew up in a world that hated an entire country and its people. As I grew up, I realized that there was way more to the story of of the VIetnam war and it was more complex and political and there was so much more around the war than the very small slice I had been given. I read about the anti war protests and about the civil war in VIetnam itself. About how people in America were torn about our involvement and it created a mini civil war within our country and no one really won the war. When the troops returned, they returned to distrust and fear and anger and repulsion. The advent of video cameras and TV and nearly live stream news reporting made it hard for propaganda to spin the war and each station and reporter was able to twist and turn their stories as they wanted to. This left mainstream America confused and angered at some of the atrocities of war that they never had to face before. The returning soldiers became the scapegoats for the horrors, even though they did not invent war or were by no means to the first to do these things. It was again, complicated.
As I planned by trip to Vietnam, I knew all these things. I knew that members of my family still held hatred and fear for the country that I was visiting. I knew that longtime stereotypes and misconceptions existed and that they feared Vietnamese still hated Americans and that I would be kidnapped or held hostage and tortured for my ancestors crimes during the war. But I knew this wasn’t true, I had spoken with many Vietnamese Americans in my life and I knew they didn’t hold this hatred anymore than I did. Of course, there could be a few outliers, like there is here, but not a Nation of holding on to hatred.
As I expected, my entire trip was full of love and acceptance and amazing hospitality and friendship. The Vietnamese people are so amazing and sweet and industrious and as we sat at dinner in or Home Stay in Mai Chau the owner said it was his 53rd birthday and he never thought he would have a house full of Americans and we must drink wine with him. He was sweet and kind and we drank his homemade wine to toast his birthday and he genuinely hugged us all for celebrating his birthday with him. He is the one who made us all bracelets and selected one each for us based on what he saw in us. So amazing in every way. This is an example of what we saw all around all the time, but Mel and I went to the Hanoi Hilton or Hao Lo prison in Hanoi and it got really hard.
Vietnam was French occupied in the late 1800s, which is why there are bidet everywhere. There may only be a hole in the ground as a toilet, but there is a bidet on the wall. That is also why there is delicious sweetened condensed milk in the coffee, and baguettes and croissants. During this occupation, some VN people wanted to return to a “free” vietnam, free meant comunist VN to these people, but they were happier in the pre-France occupied VN and wanted to return to it. So they began a rebellion and in that, they just wanted to go back to the way it
was. The French didn’t like this and went medieval and shut it down. They took over a village and made it a prison and Hao Lo was born. The French were not kind to the VN rebels, they used the guillotine to chop off heads and put them on a pike and warn off other rebels. They put rebels in isolation cells and shackles them down. They were kept like cattle in little rooms and tortures, given little food, no air, no privacy. It was not awful then, just like it was awful when it was used it the VIetnam war.
Many people were kept in the Hao Lo prison during the war, including John McCane, and not only Americans, but Vietnamese from the South that were on the other side of the war. It is not a place with warm fuzzy feelings and I immediately began to feel sick as we walked in. The cells were dark and the air was heavy and sick. Looking at the place where all these people were held prisoner made me sick to my stomach. As we walked around and learned about the whole area, it was awful. The area about the Americans had the positive “all Americans were treated like guests” angle that the Communist party propaganda machine requires, and it was just eerie to see. Everyone knows that isn’t true, but their own people were also held here, and that was just ignored. Then there was the healing gardens and it was an area with a huge temple altar and negative cement statues of bodies in captivity. I had to leave the area because I couldn’t breathe. The pain and the emotions were so deep and heavy there, it is like you could feel the bodies there, stacked as high as the walls. When I visited Auschwitz, I had the same feeling. Some places just can’t escape the number of deaths that were there. Hoa Lo is one of them. But there was more to this place than just the Vietnam War and VN and the USA and I am glad I got to see that. The wounds that the people here are recovering from are deeper and more jagged that I had ever thought of and it made me think about my own Native American roots and all the Colonialism all over the world. There is so much more to all cultures than the last 40 years and our arrogance to think that the last war could define how they are as a people could be defined by us, by my family and their few years here. It was eye opening, but not for the first time, remembering not to think that we are all that important, but it also felt like coming full circle and being able to close something that needed to be closed for my family. I wish that my Uncle James could have come back, but he has passed and he was never in a right mind to be able to do so. And I hope that others who have this hate for a country that they were forced to go to and didn't really get to see can come back and heal, or like me, their children can, and see that it is not the stuff of their nightmares, that was all manmade for a time that needed it to be. I was crying when Melanie found me and we decided that we had seen enough of the prison and needed some air conditioning and our Vietnam saving grace, Highland Coffee!!
As I planned by trip to Vietnam, I knew all these things. I knew that members of my family still held hatred and fear for the country that I was visiting. I knew that longtime stereotypes and misconceptions existed and that they feared Vietnamese still hated Americans and that I would be kidnapped or held hostage and tortured for my ancestors crimes during the war. But I knew this wasn’t true, I had spoken with many Vietnamese Americans in my life and I knew they didn’t hold this hatred anymore than I did. Of course, there could be a few outliers, like there is here, but not a Nation of holding on to hatred.
As I expected, my entire trip was full of love and acceptance and amazing hospitality and friendship. The Vietnamese people are so amazing and sweet and industrious and as we sat at dinner in or Home Stay in Mai Chau the owner said it was his 53rd birthday and he never thought he would have a house full of Americans and we must drink wine with him. He was sweet and kind and we drank his homemade wine to toast his birthday and he genuinely hugged us all for celebrating his birthday with him. He is the one who made us all bracelets and selected one each for us based on what he saw in us. So amazing in every way. This is an example of what we saw all around all the time, but Mel and I went to the Hanoi Hilton or Hao Lo prison in Hanoi and it got really hard.
Vietnam was French occupied in the late 1800s, which is why there are bidet everywhere. There may only be a hole in the ground as a toilet, but there is a bidet on the wall. That is also why there is delicious sweetened condensed milk in the coffee, and baguettes and croissants. During this occupation, some VN people wanted to return to a “free” vietnam, free meant comunist VN to these people, but they were happier in the pre-France occupied VN and wanted to return to it. So they began a rebellion and in that, they just wanted to go back to the way it
was. The French didn’t like this and went medieval and shut it down. They took over a village and made it a prison and Hao Lo was born. The French were not kind to the VN rebels, they used the guillotine to chop off heads and put them on a pike and warn off other rebels. They put rebels in isolation cells and shackles them down. They were kept like cattle in little rooms and tortures, given little food, no air, no privacy. It was not awful then, just like it was awful when it was used it the VIetnam war.
Many people were kept in the Hao Lo prison during the war, including John McCane, and not only Americans, but Vietnamese from the South that were on the other side of the war. It is not a place with warm fuzzy feelings and I immediately began to feel sick as we walked in. The cells were dark and the air was heavy and sick. Looking at the place where all these people were held prisoner made me sick to my stomach. As we walked around and learned about the whole area, it was awful. The area about the Americans had the positive “all Americans were treated like guests” angle that the Communist party propaganda machine requires, and it was just eerie to see. Everyone knows that isn’t true, but their own people were also held here, and that was just ignored. Then there was the healing gardens and it was an area with a huge temple altar and negative cement statues of bodies in captivity. I had to leave the area because I couldn’t breathe. The pain and the emotions were so deep and heavy there, it is like you could feel the bodies there, stacked as high as the walls. When I visited Auschwitz, I had the same feeling. Some places just can’t escape the number of deaths that were there. Hoa Lo is one of them. But there was more to this place than just the Vietnam War and VN and the USA and I am glad I got to see that. The wounds that the people here are recovering from are deeper and more jagged that I had ever thought of and it made me think about my own Native American roots and all the Colonialism all over the world. There is so much more to all cultures than the last 40 years and our arrogance to think that the last war could define how they are as a people could be defined by us, by my family and their few years here. It was eye opening, but not for the first time, remembering not to think that we are all that important, but it also felt like coming full circle and being able to close something that needed to be closed for my family. I wish that my Uncle James could have come back, but he has passed and he was never in a right mind to be able to do so. And I hope that others who have this hate for a country that they were forced to go to and didn't really get to see can come back and heal, or like me, their children can, and see that it is not the stuff of their nightmares, that was all manmade for a time that needed it to be. I was crying when Melanie found me and we decided that we had seen enough of the prison and needed some air conditioning and our Vietnam saving grace, Highland Coffee!!