The Fatherland

Tran Binh Nam

Flight number 7655 of the United Airlines left Philadelphia at 9:50am, May 5, 1999, the first leg of my trip to Vietnam. At Dulles International Airport in Washington D.C., I boarded ANA (All Nippon Airways) for Tokyo, then to Singapore. From there I took Vietnam Airlines to Saigon.

My visit would have been happened earlier. Many reasons had delayed it. For years I had participated to the struggle for democracy and human rights in Vietnam and for the last eight years I wrote political essays that in general were critical of the communist regime in Vietnam. I doubted the Vietnamese authorities would grant me an entrance visa.

There were other reasons as well. To a certain segment of Vietnamese overseas if you visited Vietnam you were not a good fighter for the Vietnam cause and this also implied you recognized the communist regime there.

Psychologically, there is nothing wrong with this line of thinking. But I see it from a different angle. The country and the government are two different entities. The government has the power to open or close the gate to the house. And that is it, no more and no less. Asking them to open the gate for you is not to recognize their ultimate rights over the house. These rights belong to the people.

I could not impose on myself separation forever from the land where I was born. I left the country a long time ago. My parents had died. My father passed away after I left Vietnam. Their tombs have been exhumed more than once and I have not seen them. My brother and sister are at their 70s and their lives are like candles flickering in the current of a strong wind. And the country? I could not see clearly how it has been although news about it has been available in abundance from the time economic renovations commenced in the mid-1980s. I wanted to see the country with my own eyes.

I consulted some of my friends. Many suggested I could not obtain an entrance visa from the Vietnamese Embassy. Many said the adventure was not worth it. Some said why not try.

Early in February 1999 I sent a visa application to the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington D.C. Some questions in details needed to be answered, especially: When did you leave the country? How? Since then, how many times have you returned? I answered the questions truthfully: I smuggled myself out of Vietnam by boat in 1977, and this was the first time I applied for a visa. I wanted the Vietnamese authorities to know exactly who am I and then to decide whether or not to grant me the entrance visa. My intention was to avoid the embarrassing situation befalling some visitors in which the immigration officers of Vietnam refused to admit them, stating that the Vietnamese Embassy had erred because the applicants had not answered the questionnaires truthfully.

Upon sending out the application I just waited. Three weeks later I received the entrance visa.

According to the recommendation written in the U.S passport I wrote to the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi informing them of my trip and the time frame in which I planned to stay in Vietnam. I hired a lawyer in case I encountered problems in Vietnam.

Vietnam Airlines flight # 742 left Singapore and entered Vietnam skies at 11:00 am May 7, 1999. Rains came early this year. The branches of Cuu Long River wandering through the windows in the middle of the green, wet fields and forests offered a pathetic, familiar view.

It seemed Tan Son Nhat airport was not busy. Landings and take off were scarce for a city of more than 3 million inhabitants of a 76-million-people country that is in a stage of economic development. There were no signs of economic recovery in Vietnam from the 1997 economic crisis as in other Asian countries. My daughter, her husband and I stood in line before two immigration officers for visas examination. There were six windows, each manned by two officers.

When I presented the passport and visa to the immigration officer, the younger officer entered some information on his computer, and then asked me to go back to another office for further examination. The young man gave my papers to a captain, who listened to his report, gave some kind of order to another policeman in another office, pushed my papers to the side and resumed his work without telling me anything. My daughter and son-in-law were with me and three of us waited quietly. Half an hour passed, and a clerk brought in a faxed message to the captain. Examined the faxed document, and comparing it with what I had claimed in my application the captain asked:

- "When did you leave Vietnam?"

- "In 1977," I answered.

- "How?" he continued.

- "By smuggling myself out of the country on a boat", was my answer.

- Amused, he asked, "who helped you getting this entrance visa?". I answered: "Nobody. I mailed an application to the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington D.C. and they mailed me the entrance visa."

After a quick look at my application he added: "Are you sure to stay in Nha Trang at the address you put in your application?" I said: "Yes"

He signed the application and directed me to present it to the same gate. The exit was finally granted.

I stepped onto the fatherland after 22 years of separation. At the exit door, my brother, one of my high school classmates accompanied by his wife, and some of my nephews were smiling at my appearance, hiding painfully their impatience.

New Saigon was right before me! I didn't notice any difference from the old Saigon. Eating places and restaurants were everywhere. Motorcycles, bicycles, cars negotiated their ways on the streets, creating a noisy, dusty environment characteristic of Saigon.

The next day I went to Nha Trang by night train. Trains with Pullman cars have three different rates. One rate applied to foreigners, another for Vietnamese holding a foreign passport and the third for Vietnamese. Commercial airlines applied two rates, one for people holding a foreign passport and one for Vietnamese. Rumors said the government would apply the same rates for all passengers at the end of 1999, probably after the Unites States and Vietnam signed the agreement to normalize trade relations between the two countries. New rates would be the average of the current rates.

The Pullman car is in good condition, except the restrooms. The windows were covered with metal screen grids to protect passengers from stones thrown at the train by gang members and to prevent the slow moving train as it neared the stations from being boarded through its windows by thieves, who would then throw the passengers' valuables to friends waiting outside. Although installed with good purpose, these metal screens prevented passengers from leaning outside to catch the air and from enjoying the nature at night. The metal screened windows made the Pullman cars look like prisoner cars.

Domestic flights used small European jets and Russian-made propellers planes. Services were punctual. Beautiful stewardesses in green traditional Vietnamese robes were well trained and served passengers in a professional way, better - I think - than American stewardesses serve coach passengers on some short flights in the United States. Most of passengers were foreigners, visiting Vietnamese overseas or high ranking government employees. This reflects the economic conditions of the country.

I did not understand why the restroom at Tan Son Nhat airport reserved for passengers waiting to board the international flights was so dilapidated. Leaving the sumptuous gift shop to enter the restroom one might be surprised with the most-to-be desired conditions of the restroom. I tried to find an explanation and found none. The government would not have spent much money to have a restroom meeting international standards. International airports are the windows of a country.

Many hotels had been built during the economic boom in Vietnam at the beginning of 1990s. Hotels business has declined steadily due to the scarcity of foreign visitors resulting from the Asian economic crisis from 1997. To survive, hotels owners have upgraded the standard of services. If you check into a hotel, you "are the king." Supportive staff consist of young and pretty girls, most of them born after the end of the war, grew up, received formal education, and entered the labor market during the period of "doi moi" and the market economy. Thus they do not hold strong feelings about friends and foes, losers and winners, nationalists or communists. For them, their duty is just to perform their assigned jobs to the best of their ability, and then go home. They see no need to dwell on the past or anything else.

Complexities may be found with older people. Hotel Huong Giang on the right bank of the Perfume River has a special program called "king's diners" to entertain those customers who want to buy the feelings "to be king" at a royal diner, presumably of the kind that took place in the royal palace of Nguyen dynasty of former years. A group of singers and dancers performed to arouse the appetite of the king and the queen and wish them long lives. It is reported that descendants of Nguyen family in Hue complained about the program - which they say belittles the kings of the Nguyen dynasty - but to no avail. Every evening the "king's diners" were served if there were people to pay for it.

Just by luck, one night I had the chance to watch the performance of a "king's diner". The "king and the queen" were a young couple eager to purchase sensational feelings. The "king", eating and talking on his cellular phone, did not hide his satisfaction with the marvelous food and all the music and singings around, nodding his head approvingly. The young, beautiful and ever radiant dancers and singers in their traditional dresses tried their best to serve the couple, not paying attention to the ridiculous manner of the "king."

An older man, the "eunuch", leader of the performing group, occasionally ordered the artists to stop dancing and singing to deliver his complimentary address to the "king" and the "queen." He was very serious, bordering on sadness. What was he thinking about? Was he thinking about the ironic aspects of human life? Anyway, his seriousness balanced the crudeness of that evening "king's diners."

Vietnam was an active country for youths. Prewar adults have simply disappeared making room to young people grown up or born after 1975. The economy - earning a living or getting money - is the preoccupation of most people. Nobody pays attention to politics and to what the government was doing.

The celebration to the battle of Dien Bien Phu of 1954 took place during my stay in Vietnam. Groups of ancient fighters associated with the great battle discussed the campaign victory on television networks night after night. It was no surprise not to find among the participants the generals who led the troops during the campaign such as Vuong Thua Vu, Cao Van Khanh, Hoang Van Thai, Le Trong Tan - who died years ago from old age or by internal purges - nor was the absence of General Tran Do surprising, as he had been expelled earlier from the party. But the television viewers could not miss the fact that General Vo Nguyen Giap, 89, supreme commander of the campaign and known to be in good health, was not among the participants either. Watching the debate about Dien Bien Phu on national scale like the one conducted in Vietnam last May without General Giap among the debaters was like participating in a wedding ceremony without the bride. Something must be wrong! The government goes one way, the people the other way, like the pieces of a puzzles game not matching each other to make a significant figure regardless how hard we had tried.

The State-controlled media does not mentioned much about the leaders in the Viet Nam Communist Party Politburo, except Prime Minister Phan Van Khai as a necessity, but the Politburo is on top of everything and the party tightly controls the people. Upon my arrival to Nha Trang, when my brother went to the local district police to register my stay, the police in charge looking at my passport and talked to my brother: "Ah ha! The congressman is already back here." (I represented the city of Nha Trang in the Houses of Representatives of the defunct Republic of Vietnam from 1971 to 1975). A day after I left Nha Trang for Saigon ready to return to Philadelphia, another police officer visited my brother to inquire about whom I had contacted during my stay in Nha Trang. He told my brother that he should know the government had been very generous allowing me to visit Vietnam.

The day I went to Thanh Trung, a village 15 kilometers north-east Hue in the district of Quang Dien to visit the three-hundred-year-old temple of Trans' clan, a district police officer accompanied by village police came to "greet me." My sister had called the Tran relatives living in the village to announce my visit. Thuong Ta Le Thanh Nam politely checked my passport and visa and recommended me to register with local police should I decided to stay in the village for the night. I didn't.

I visited Hanoi for three days. I have never been in Hanoi. Its position in the history of Vietnam as well as its holding on Vietnamese art and literature had attracted me from the childhood. I registered for a Hanoi tour organized by - as it turned out - the tourist office of the city of Hanoi. I wanted to learn and see many things in a reasonable period of time. The guides first led us through Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and to the Institute of Vietnamese Ethnic Cultures just inaugurated by French president Jacques Chirac during his visit to Vietnam in 1997, two showpieces of Hanoi. Later in the afternoon he showed us other historical and cultural sites such as Van Mieu/Quoc Tu Giam, temple Quan Thanh, pagoda Tran Quoc along the bank of Ho Tay, and the old citadel of Hanoi.

The guides intentionally did not show the tourists the controversial sites like the reserved developer zone over the water of Ho Tay and the Hong Ha dam. Powerful people in Hanoi had built sumptuous houses years ago, disregarding warnings from dam experts that the construction would weaken the dam.

At the temple of Quan Thanh I read the old poems:

Morning breeze bending the young bamboos
And the sound of the bell of Quan Thanh mixing with the crowing of the cocks of Tho Xuong.

written with by black Chinese ink on a large canvas

My memory took me back to an article written by a somewhat well-known writer that I had read a long time ago asserting that the poems were:

Morning breeze bending the young bamboos
And the sound of the bell of Thien Mu mixing with the crowing of the cocks of Tho Xuong.

and suggested that Tho Xuong was the old name of the village of Nguyet Bieu facing the pagoda of Thien Mu across the Perfume River, just to justify the poems were composed for Hue.

I asked the guide as to why the poems had been written in here. He said because the poems were a well-known piece of poetry in Hanoi. They described the entanglement between the sound of the bell of Quan Thanh and the crowing of the cocks in the village of Tho Xuong on the water of Ho Tay lightly ruffled in the morning breeze. I inquired if Tho Xuong was still there? He said affirmatively, a little amused, pointing his fingers across the lake of Ho Tay: "Yes, It was then and it is now"

Hanoi nowadays is not much different with Saigon. So many new buildings, congested traffics and so much noise. Hanoi has been preferentially upgraded. Foreign investments to the provinces in the North may encounter less government red tape. Also regulations require that all foreign companies investing in Vietnam must have an office of liaison in Hanoi. The 35 kilometer road connecting Ha Noi to the international airport of Noi Bai has become a highway.

Most cities in Vietnam had been expanded. Roads leading to suburbs were enlarged, some of them paved with asphalt capable of handling compact four-wheel cars. Electricity and telephones are common utilities now, even in some remote areas. Nha Trang beach from Xom Con to the restricted area in the southernmost tip of Nha Trang harbor (now called Bao Dai Mansion area) is a beautiful beach with clear and warm water stretching endlessly. It reminds me of Nice, the French beach on the Mediterranean Sea whose beauty has been described by writers from around the world. Along the beach you can find three-star and five-star hotels, and all kinds of restaurants serving succulent and exotic seafood. Sea and land breezes refreshed the beach days and nights.

Behind the Nha Trang air force base that includes the airport, a newly built asphalt-paved road connects Highway 1 to Binh Tan village, an isolated location specializing in making fish sauce. From Binh Tan a modern concrete bridge spanning over a narrow strait provide access to the mountainous part of Dong Bo, a secret zone for the communists during two previous wars. The secret zone had become a green farming site punctuated here and there with red-roofed houses.

However, the development of Vietnam has not been balanced. Living standards in rural areas are low compared to those in the cities. Young people in the cities are tired of politics and therefore have not paid much attention to political matters. On some world affairs issues they seem to believe the interpretation given by the state media. A few older people who have kept the habit of listening the Vietnamese-language programs of BBC or VOA may have a limited understandings of world events, and to a certain limit domestic political events. The government of Vietnam has not forbidden the people to hear the foreign programs in Vietnamese.

Under the influence of mass media controlled by the communist party, young people accused NATO, especially the United States, of having used air power to crudely violate the sovereignty of Yugoslavia. They did not know that the campaign had been conducted to halt the genocide carried out by Milosevic against Kosovo Albanians, who composed 90% of Kosovo inhabitants, just because they had claimed self-determination rights.

It seemed nobody trusts the communist party for their own future and the future of the country. And this is true even to the limited number of people who either know how to take the opportunity of market economy or have made good connections with people in power to become rich. Even young professionals and technicians trained in the country, fluent in foreign languages, holding good jobs in the important state-owned corporations or in foreign companies, look forward to find a way out to America! This is the most worrisome and depressing sign for the country. If young, educated people do not believe they might have a future in their own country, how does this country have a chance to become prosperous. A hemorrhage of "matière grise" is silently taken place in Vietnam. Political reforms in which people are able to trust may stop this deadly hemorrhage. It seems the institutionalized corruption and the lack of democracy were two culprits of the loss of trust among young people.

On the last night before leaving Vietnam, two of my friends and I went to Saigon theater for entertainment located next to Caravelle hotel on Tu Do street, which used to be the seat of the lower house of the Congress before 1975. The night program named "The New Age" (Ðoi Moi) consisted of short plays performed by a dramatic company coming from Hanoi. The theatergoers belonged to the middle class. The artists were professionals and the plays were well done. The plays ridiculed low ranking government officials, criticized the health care system and other social discrepancies. The viewers enjoyed the plays, applauding and laughing in pleasure, knowing that the critical words never had a chance to induce new insights to anybody whatsoever.

At Tan Son Nhat international terminal I sat, waiting to board the jetliner to go back to the United States, with mixed feelings, divided between joy and sadness. Sadness overcame my joy at having a chance to see the country. A cup of water may be half full or half empty depends on the way you view it. But even if you try to be optimistic it still difficult to see the "cup of Vietnam" is half filled. There are too many contradictions in the country.

Heading to the sea, the jetliner gained altitude. Seeing the Cuu Long River wandering among the greens of rice fields and forests smaller and smaller under the clusters of white clouds I could not hold my tears. (August 1999)

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Trần Bình Nam

http://www.vnet.org/tbn