Welcome to the Mancuso Family Website!
I don't see any method at all, sir.
Kurtz : Are my methods unsound?
Willard : I don't see any method at all, sir.
"Apocalypse Now, 1979" The Socialist Republic of Viet Nam. French Indochina. The Kingdon of Annam. Charlie. The origins of the Vietnamese people are not known. Genetic evidence suggests Chinese descent while ethnolinguistics suggest heavy indian influence. Their unknown origin is meaningful in that it suggest they spent many formative centuries in relative isolation.
The Vietnamese have been known since the Chinese found them in to be a culture of brilliant military strategists. China tried to absorb them continually over the millenia and were beaten back constantly. When Kublai Khan swept across China in the 12th century, laying waste to the greatest military state in history, he rested his 500,000 troops at the border of Viet Nam expecting to be given passage to Siam to conquer Sukhothai. The vastly outnumbered Vietnamese politely declined. The Kublai Khan decided to crush them in short time before moving on to the great Thai capital. After losing a series of offensives, Khan withdrew to mobilize 300,000 more men and returned, having mastered his new enemy. The Vietnamese drew the Mongols, through a series of tactical battles, into a bay, when at ebb tide they turned on a massive offensive strike. The entire Mongol fleet was captured or sunk by spears placed in the bay the night before, and the ground forces badly beaten and demoralized. The great Khan did not return.
In 1471, the great Kingdom of Champa took on The Kingdom of Annam and were wiped out of existence, save a small monority living along the delta and little more than scattered legends.
In late 1978, they Khmer Rouge, not content with killing their own people in Cambodia, attacked a border village of 3000 in Vietnam. The Vietnamese promptly marched into Cambodia and, despite Chinese and Thai support of the Khmer rouge running riot there, dismantled them. In early 1979, they installed the former Cambodian goverment, repopulated Phnom Penh, and walked home, nonchalantly handing them back their country. (It was Charlie who found S21, the Toul Sleng prison in PP and buried the 14 left behind).
China, having been enamored with the Khmer Rouge's lip service to communism, lauched an offensive over the northern border of Viet Nam. After 17 days of running in circles looking for the enemy and being ambushed, China packed it up and headed back North. They decided instead to ressurrect the remaining crippled Khmer Rouge, bankrolling them for years. The Vietnamese surgically whittled them down until, in 1992, they were reduced to a terrorist group, a show of their former self. They finally dissolved shortly before 2000.
The American's, the Roman Empire of the modern world, in all its awesome military might....well we won't talk about that but to say that the Vietnamese handed America its only loss in a war (not counting the surrender at Fallujah this year).
I entered Viet Nam via a rice boat from Phnom Penh. Floating down the Mekong River, through the Mekong Delta through to Saigon. It was like waterworld. Entire villages floating on top, houses and all. It was right out of Apocalyse Now but the real thing, (AN was filmed in the Philippines). It is so fertile here, every square centimeter has something growing on it. The people still live traditionally and look timeless. When I stopped in Chau Doc for the night, I couldn't find food, so a swarm of kids walked me a KM or two to the village next door and sat me down to a small restaurant. I gorged (they fill up you plate until you cannot eat anymore...something I hadn't figured out yet) all night for about 80 cents US. My room, with a mountain view was 4 dollars. The entire boat trip from PP to Saigon including the room was 20USD, including stop offs for touring in every major town.
Enter the uniquely Vietnamese phenomenon known I affectionately call "self service tourism". For a culture of tacticians, nobody can seem to figure out how to get tourist from point A to point B. You literally have to keep a compass, map and Vietnamese phrasebook on hand at all times. I must have been passed around to 10 different boats and "tour guides" and every one wanted to take my only reciept, leaving me in the middle of malaria heaven without a ride. A few of these tour orphans hopped on with us by parting with a few dong. At first we thought it was a scam, but all were convinced by arrival in Saigon that it really is just cluelessness. Traveling here is not for those expecting any semblance of efficiency, but the country is absolutely beautiful and I wouldn't think twice about coming back. Immigration at the border took 4 hours (I guess they must have finally figured the cash incentive wasn't forthcoming). They processed us at a wood table by the riverside.
Saigon is one of 20 some districts that make up Ho Chi Minh city. It has been cleaned up a lot since reunification and has an incredible energy in the air. I think this may be one of my favorite cities. I went to the Codai Temple and Ci Chi tunnels yeasterday and both were great. They call the Vietnamese War the American war here (obviously huh?) and couldn't say one more time how wrong it was for America to be here. They are very nice to Americans though, I guess it helps knowing they sent us packing too. I crawled through the tunnels and shot both an AK 47 and M16 rifle at the VietCong Base. The tunnels run all around and right under the American base! This morning I walked into another martial arts showdown in the street between two cyclo drivers. This time I shot video and have the memory card in the safe at my hotel! I got the best part of the fight where one driver smashes bottle on the ground and swings around with it trying to cut the other guy and the other guy counter attacks with the seat of his bike. I'l be posting the video for download on my website when I get home. Never a dull moment...
"SELL THE HOUSE
SELL THE CAR
SELL THE KIDS
FIND SOMEONE ELSE
FORGET IT
I'M NEVER COMING HOMEXXX BACK
FORGET IT"
"Captain Richard Colby, Apocaypse Now 1979"
Hope all is well with all of you,
:-)
Joe
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The Face of Poverty
"Just as your about to dig into the scrumptious Vietnamese meal you've ordered, you feel someone gently tugging on your shirt sleeve. You turn around to deal with this latest "annoyance" only to find it's a bony eight year old boy, holding his three year old sister in his arms. The little girl has a distended stomach, her palm stretched out to you and her hungry eyes are fixed on your plate of steaming chicken, vegetables and rice. This is the face of poverty." LP Vietnam .
It amazing how a few months in Asia's backwaters can soften you heart a bit. How many times have I shoed away beggars that could have been Katie, Alyssa, Sean, Sean, and Drew. What a crapshoot life is. Illiterate, starving, disease ridden and entirely pathetic, they have no future, no hope and you...well, you have everything. In your pocket, that spare change I had planned to buy a cool metal statue of Vishnu for my dresser at home could feed their family for months. But there are thousands of them. Millions more beyond them. What do you do? Usually nothing...it overwhelming.
In Pnomh Penh, I briefly met a girl named "Lucy". She had no arms or legs and face was terrible scarred. I assumed she was privileged landmine worker who had "retired early" as many do. Under her scarred, smiling face, she looked as though she had been an attractive girl in her earlier years, and people from the village took turns wheeling her around and feeding her whatever food people would give. She wore filthy old clothes, and hadn't bathed in weeks. She looked about my age maybe younger. I had saved all of the toiletries (toothbrushes, combs, soaps etc...) from the hotels along my trip and decided it was that would be a nice contribution to the street kids. When I finished giving them away (small scale rock and roll concert), I looked across the street and there was Lucy sitting by herself, smiling. I went back upstairs to my hotel room and grabbed the North Face pack I had though or replacing that had a rip in it, emptied it and brought it out to her. I set it on her lap and she was so, happy, she jerked around in her chair with her watery eyes wide as could be. She couldn't zipper it up, but was using her left upper arm to sort through the pockets I had left open. I was was getting really uncomfortable, looking for the opportunity to move along, when she called my attention to let me know I had left a few pieces of paper and some Riel (less than a dollar worth). She didn't want me to leave without knowing I had left them there. Imagine that.
Later, I asked a local German guy at the cafe what her story was. He explained that during the war she was captured, having been badly wounded. She was spared to be a sex slave. Lucy was a fighter, and though accounts vary as to how much was injury or revenge, her limbs were cut off to avoid her fighting back. When that failed, they would hold a knife to her face. I had seen Lucy every night sitting by the road and sometime in the morning. She was always smiling. She wanted to practice her English, French, or teach you Khmer. There were thousands of hard luck beggars around from Tibet to Ho Chi Minh, but she was a symbol to me of how down and out life can be and you can still smile. It was the memory of her that made Toul Sleng Museum (S21 prison) so personally meaningful and heartbreaking. Her entire family was killed. I felt awful sometimes knowing that I didn't do more for her. Imagine your family all being killed and you are so poor, you have nothing to remember them by. No pictures , but the ones their captors took of themselves killing them, and you have to go to a museum to see them. Or worse, have to be wheeled there with no arms or legs. And you find a way to wake up every morning and smile. I did not see her again.
Throughout the developing world, people by the millions plow fields, pick rice, sew clothes and live in squalor so we can import their goods for pennies on the dollar and live the good life. After being so close to this for months, I won't be joining a monk order anytime soon, but it makes me think...about how I can give back...about how great life is...how trivial our problems are...how small we are.
I'm headed back home now via Thailand and then the Philippines. It has been a great summer and thank you for reading my travelogues. I'll be posting lots of pics and video soon at http://www.themancusofamily.com . Hope your summer was good and maybe you found something meaningful in all of this, I know I did and it was great to hear your reflections.
Best wishes,
Joe
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