But I can't help it. I'm in the perfect mood to write about it. I'm listening to Led Zeppelin, for one thing. (They were formed in 1968, you know.) I just watched a show yesterday about FACs, or forward air controllers. Those crazy military pilots who flew tiny propeller airplanes over enemy territory to call in air strikes. Some of 'em worked for the Air Force, some worked for the CIA. The latter flew plain-clothed and in unmarked airplanes (generally Bird Dogs). It was the most incongruous image: a guy in a flannel shirt and jeans, the steaming jungle behind him, loading bombs and rockets onto his single-engine plane, looking like a white-collar office worker on his day off...except for the magnum revolver strapped at his hip and the M16 over his shoulder.
Anyway, let's talk about 'Nam. Some of my friends have told me that I'm missing out. The place has some of the best beaches you'll find anywhere. Surfing's great. I said, yes, I know that, I've seen Apocalypse Now. They said no, no, you don't have to worry about machine-gun fire or mortars now. I said, uh-huh, yeah, I know, I've seen Tropic Thunder. They said no, no, you're jumping to conclusions, there aren't any armed rebels or ex-military personnel or landmines or anything floating around Vietnam anymore. I said, yeah, right, I've read Paul Theroux.
That's where most of my information on modern Vietnam has come from: Paul Theroux. I'll grant you he went through there quite some time ago. But the images he painted of stark poverty, landmines still blowing up trains decades after the fact, scores of Vietnamese-speaking Caucasian toddlers (sired of servicemen and native women), communism, massive reeducation programs for the "unindoctrinated," the single-party system, restrictions on free speech and press...
...well, those leave a bad taste in my mouth.
So I don't know if I'll ever go there. I might. Just to say I've been. I mean, it'd be remiss of me to form an opinion of the place before having gone and seen it myself, right? Plus, I hear they have some pretty weird foods there, like fried scorpions, dog soup and civet coffee (where the beans are passed through the digestive tract of a civet before being roasted and brewed).
There were some Vietnamese restaurants I went to in South Korea that were pretty dang delicious. And for all the strife, Vietnam still possesses some eye-buggingly beautiful scenery, like the Thác Bản Giốc waterfall...
...and Ha Long Bay.
That's the way of it. The most war-torn, dangerous and oppressed nations always seem, somehow, to be the most naturally picturesque. It's almost like Mother Nature's trying to ease the lives of the poor wretched souls living there by giving them a heaven of geological and biological splendor to look upon as they work and slave and die.If none of that stimulates you, though, you can just go play ping-pong with a robot.
4 comments:
Haha, I swear it is just because of it's difficulties, it's weirdness, it's bad history that makes you want to go. I don't want to make any assumptions here pal, but if you're anything like me (and I think we are alike sometimes), you want to go partly just to be stubborn, to be perverse and to say go suck it to all those who say they would never go.
You want to go not just because of it's beauty, but for it's ugliness too. Because it's gritty and real. And I think you like that.
It's a good thing. Shows you are different, have a different way of seeing things, and while maybe it's slightly roundabout it still drives you to have adventures. Or at least, to desire adventure.
That's precisely it, ol' pal. I'm Fyodor Dostoevsky's wet dream: going places and doing things out of spite. My parents wouldn't be caught dead in 'Nam, or anywhere in Asia for that matter (though I changed their minds about Korea). So I say, "Heck yeah, I'll go!" just to say that I've been, and came back alive (and enlightened and vivified).
Gritty and real...that makes the best kind of novel, the best kind of movie, and some of the best kinds of travel experiences. If you're careful, that is. There are times when I really wish I went to the University of Bath (in England, I believe) 'cause they have this program where you go down to Zambia and start up youth soccer leagues with the kiddies. I could do that...I'd KILL to do that.
Thanks for the perspective, Jane. I like to think of myself as the kind of person who's driven to have adventures. You are, too. We are quite alike sometimes.
How you feelin'? I'm about to head on over and read about your Perspective...
Ok, this is crazy. This was the third reference to Paul Theroux I've come across in the past couple of days, and before that I'd never heard of him. Hmmm. Guess I should read his stuff.
Vietnam actually does appeal to me; that whole area of SE Asia does, actually. Especially northern Thailand.
Dostoevsky's wet dream? Lol. I'm not even gonna touch that.
Vietnam's at the top of our list. I've never had such wonderful food, my Vietnamese students were always lovely, and the scenery is just my favorite kind: wet and green. I find rainy places endlessly appealing, being from good old Rio Seco.
Some terrible things happened in Korea during the war, and in the American Civil War -- and, well, I could go on.
For what it's worth, not too far from our kids' school is a sign that reads: 'WARNING: DO NOT PICK UP MILITARY DEBRIS AS IT MAY EXPLODE'. Nice, eh?
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