“The more you travel, the more you can see the ruins of what once was thought to be forever. You notice the way humanity constantly crumbles, and how humans can treat humans with such disdain. As if no time has passed and no lessons have been learned.”

Welcome back and GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!

Trigger warnings: war, violence, torture, trauma, sexual assault

Instead of telling you more about the stops today, I wanted to go into more detail about Vietnam’s current history and how it is affecting the everyday people. I was so lucky during one of our long bus rides, to hear the personal family story of our tour leader. 

I have her permission to share it here on my blog, and I’m honored to tell the story as best as I can from my infamous notepad. This story comes from her and I am simply here to share.  

The story really focuses on her grandfather who lived in Hanoi and worked for a French judge, which meant he lived a very luxurious life compared to the other 99% of the population. The French made sure the Vietnamese could not go to school or have the same opportunities, so her grandfather was in a unique predicament due to his education and status. 

In 1954, as I mentioned in a previous post, Vietnam was cut into 2, North and South. From 1954 to 1956, the people could choose which side they wanted to live, north or south, prior to an upcoming national election. This is where Americans started sticking their nose in (as they always do), since they knew Ho Chi Minh would become communist if the election happened.

I did not know this until she told her story, but Ho Chi Minh wrote to President Truman in 1946 to ask for American support for Vietnam’s independence from France. He highlighted that Vietnam had fought alongside the Allies against the Japanese in WWII. These letters went unanswered, and the U.S. did not provide the requested support, which eventually led to the First Indochina War. There are lots of moments in this story and most every story where you think what if. Maybe the conflict wouldn’t have gotten to where it did, or maybe history was unfolding no matter what course it took. We will never know.

In August of 1964, there was a reported attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on the U.S. destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy. The incidents were used by President Lyndon B. Johnson to gain congressional approval for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which significantly escalated U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War.

At the time, her grandfather moved the entire family south by foot, which took 3.5 brutal months walking through a war torn country. Her mother, 10 years old at the time, was left with her uncle as she was too vulnerable to come on the journey. The thought was that after the national election, the family could pick her up, but she ended up never seeing her family again for roughly 47 years. When the country split into 2, many children were lost or lost their parents. You would see children trying to sell cigarettes to American soldiers just to get by. 

This brings us to the fall of Saigon, or the rapid collapse of South Vietnam in April 1975, which led to a desperate, large-scale evacuation of American and South Vietnamese personnel. Many families were split apart as parents tried to secure spots for their kids. There is even a reality TV show that is on today, still helping to reunite missing people in Vietnam to their families. 

If you have not seen the Hey Arnold episode “Arnold’s Christmas,” then it is a must watch this holiday season. A brief synopsis – Mr. Hyunh lived in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. During the Fall of Saigon, limited transport forced him to give up his infant daughter Mai (Hiep Thi Le) to American soldiers so she could live a better, safer life in the United States. It was not until twenty years later that Mr. Hyunh was able to leave Vietnam to come to the United States as a refugee to search for his long-lost daughter in Hillwood, the city where the departing soldier said she’d be taken to. This helps paint the picture of so many stories just like this at the time. 

On 2 July 1976, the North and South Vietnam were officially re-united into a single communist state, known as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The government also renamed Saigon as Ho Chi Minh City in honor of Ho, who died in 1969.

During this time, the government participated in land reform, which are government-led initiatives to change land ownership, which have occurred in multiple campaigns, notably a major one in North Vietnam from 1953 to 1956 and another in South Vietnam starting in the 1950s and continuing in the 1970s. Her grandfather’s house was confiscated and made into a German embassy. 

The communist government took over, selling everyone on equality, but in reality this meant that everyone was “equally poor.” At the time for her family, 14 people from 2 different families were all living in one house. Teachers and others alike were paid with food coupons and stamps. Each family would only be given 100 grams of meat per month. Malnutrition and starvation took over. Lots of people resorted to eating rice and peanuts for protein, which is why you can see them in so many dishes today. 

Our group leader’s family could’ve gotten tickets to fly out since they worked with the USA and French, but decided to stay, with hopes things would get better. To this day, he still says this was his biggest regret. The what ifs are haunting, and who knows what would’ve happened if he and his family had taken a flight out. 

Unfortunately the grandfather and other family members were sent to re-educational camps. These were prison camps operated by the communist Việt Cộng and Socialist Republic of Vietnam following the end of the Vietnam War. In these camps, the government imprisoned at least 200,000-300,000 former military officers, government workers and supporters of the former government of South Vietnam. At one point her uncle was stabbed after pushing a security guard, and her grandfather was only able to save his life by bribing the guard. 

They were released from the camp after 3 years, but put on a blacklist since they had worked for “the enemy.” This means no one from the family could get a job. With no way of making a living, the grandfather decided to flee with his family, hoping for a better life in America.

The family was going to flee by boat, masquerading as fishermen. There were some of the hundreds of thousands refugees, also known as “Vietnamese Boat People,” who were fleeing Vietnam by boat fearing persecution from the new Communist government.  The grandfather and the uncle played the part, training themselves in swimming, callusing their hands, and shaving their hair. There was a “mother boat,” waiting further out that was to take anyone who can make it beyond the borders. The boat only was stationed from 4am – 10am (6 hours) and if you did not make it, then you were out of luck. 

The Vietnamese police searched every inch of their “fishing” boat, making sure there was nothing on board that gave proof of these men fleeing. With this in mind, her family brought nothing with them, because bags of packed valuables would be a dead give away. 

Instead, the only thing they carried was gold. Since there was not a crevice that went unsearched by police, the family would swallow their gold, defecate it, and re-swallow endlessly until they reached freedom. 

They luckily had made it to the mother boat, where 40 people had to survive on a small boat ride for 45 days. The boat was under attack by pirates at the sea, who would steal anything of value, including the last of fresh drinking water and supplies. The pirates would rape and traffic women across Southeast Asia. For these reasons, her grandmother and mother were left behind for safety. 

The trip had a simple goal – keep the younger generation alive for a better life. 

When the water ran out and all hope was lost, a French boat with a captain from the Netherlands saved them, but instead rerouted them to a refugee camp in Hong Kong, where they ended up staying for 2 years. Eventually they were able to use the gold they kept re-swallowing for multiple years to purchase a trip to America, where they stayed with a friend of a friend in a basement in San Jose, CA. 

In the 1980s, once the family arrived in San Jose, there was still a lot of resentment towards the Vietnamese following the war. Many Vietnamese like her grandfather struggled to find work, and ended up taking on jobs that no one else wanted to do. The grandfather started earning enough money to fly the rest of the family out, but had to send the money through socialist countries so as to not get flagged by the Vietnamese government. The grandfather retired working for Bank of America, with his own place and out of the basement. If it were not for his education prior, he may not have been able to stay alive for so many years.

The mother who was left behind had no idea if her family was alive, till she received a letter from the grandfather in the 1990s. It was not until 2007 that the grandfather bought 10+ tickets to come back to Hanoi, Vietnam. This was the first time in 47 years that her mother was reunited with her whole family and the first time our trip leader even met this side of her family. 

First of all, I want to thank our trip leader for sharing the story and encourage everyone to continue researching and learning more about the world we live in. 

We watch as people are oppressed, and eventually become the oppressors themselves, in an endless cycle of blood and war. The more you travel, the more you can see the ruins of what once was thought to be forever. You notice the way humanity constantly crumbles, and how humans can treat humans with such disdain. As if no time has passed and no lessons have been learned.

It is the reason we tell stories and have listened to them since the dawn of time. The innate human connection, and the way we learn without having to experience, but by simply being shown a life outside of our own. Hopefully one day, we will finally learn from our mistakes, and create a brighter future. 

Thank you for staying with a longer and more intense post today. Until next time, please enjoy this stunning photo of Ha Long Bay after 400 steps up a mountain…