HANOI, VIETNAM — “Do you mind if I join you,” said “John.”
I was sitting in the lobby of the Mercure Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam, jetlagged and watching the rush of a thousand motorcycles racing past, some laden so impossibly high with jumbo water bottles, bags of rice, and sheets of plywood that the driver had simply disappeared beneath his load. There are 60 million motorcycles on the roads in Vietnam and only six million cars. To own a car is to be wealthy. To own a motorcycle is freedom.
John was a large man, twitchy and out of breath, holding a bottle of Tiger beer. “The last time I was in Vietnam was 1969 to 1970. I was drafted. I went. I handled dogs in Saigon. I guess I made it back OK. Came home, got married, got divorced, got married, got divorced, got married, got divorced…”
Bustling Streets of Hanoi
We looked out the window at all the commerce on the streets. The food stalls with their child-sized, colorful plastic chairs, where people were slurping their Pho, assuming the “Asian squat.” Uniformed children, arm-in-arm, laughing, coming home from school.
Elderly women, faces shadowed beneath conical non la hats slowly peddling their one-speed bicycles with baskets of produce, seemingly oblivious to the rushing river of Hondas, Yamahas, and Suzukis, and the occasional popular Kia, dashing within inches of sending the women crashing to the curb.
(Later, I would learn how to cross these madcap streets: clutch your St. Christopher medallion, look straight ahead, and walk. Do not look at the traffic and, above all, do not hesitate or stop moving. Traffic will flow miraculously around you.)
Unbelievable Transformation
“John, when you were here all those years ago, did you ever imagine this?” I asked, pointing out the window at the results of a booming economy, one following the Chinese model of a Communist government and an open-for-business market economy. Construction cranes dot the skies on the outskirts of Hanoi.
No more antiquated Russian-style five-year plans with its meager ration books and empty stomachs. Vietnam had a 12.54 increase in its GDP percent growth rate in 2022 over the previous year.
According to Trading Economics, “Unemployment Rate in Vietnam averaged 2.39 percent from 1998 until 2023, reaching an all-time high of 4.50 percent in the fourth quarter of 1998 and a record low of 1.81 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012.”
“No,” John said, sipping his beer. “Not in a million years. This is unbelievable.”
“I guess we could say the revolution is over,” I quipped. “Capitalism won. How have you been greeted upon your return? Any strange exchanges?”
“No,” he said. “Everyone is friendly and welcoming. No one talks about the war.”
The last American soldiers left on what is now known as “Reunification Day, “ April 30, 1975, almost a half century ago. It’s now a national holiday. Seventy percent of the population was born after that date. Half the citizens are 25 or younger. You do not see old men wearing caps advertising their service as many of our Vietnam veterans do. The Vietnam War has no context to the personal lives of most Vietnamese, lives that are becoming more affluent with foreign investment.
What I did see on my visit were the hammer and sickle posters of the Communist government, celebrating the 70th anniversary of defeating another superpower, the French, who left with their berets between their legs in 1954. That bit of history begs the question of why didn’t we take notice of that military humiliation before we launched our own failed incursion?
Tourist Dollars
Our conversation is interrupted by the arrival of a noisy French tour group on its way to the bar. I smiled, thinking, to the victors go the spoils. Vietnam is inundated with tourist dollars from two nations they defeated with the remarkable leader Ho Chi Minh, whose guerilla ground game bested the relentless bombing campaigns and chemical warfare of France and the United States.
More than 12 million tourists visited Vietnam last year, 3.4 times higher than 2022. Still, according to Viet Nam News, that number is only 70 percent of visitors that came in 2019 before COVID shut travel down.
I wanted more from John, wanted his most personal observations, but he was not one to spill his life story over one beer. He was quietly observing his surroundings, sometimes shaking his head, perhaps imagining who he was 54 years ago.
I wondered what was next on his agenda. Would he visit the Hanoi Hilton, where John McCain and so many others spent hellish years being tortured? Or Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, a grand edifice that the modest Uncle Ho did not want built in his honor? Will John visit China Beach in Danang, where American GIs took their R&R?
What would he feel when he finally reached Saigon, aka Ho Chi Minh City? When he toured the War Remnants Museum with its discarded US Chinook helicopter and M48 tank on display in the entrance and the piped-in sounds of bombing raids and the desperate cries of prisoners in “tiger cages?” Or the guillotine that the French employed on the Vietnamese until 1960?
Would he be moved to tears as I was recalling the wasted lives lost on all sides in yet another senseless, unwinnable war?
“I’m tired,” John said, getting up from the table. “I have a lot of think about. Thank you for letting me sit with you. I needed that.”
I refrained from thanking him for his service. It’s not that I did not admire his valor. But somehow this seemed like the wrong time and place to use such a cliché. In 50 years, everything around him had changed. Vietnam had moved on from a brutal war. Maybe John had too.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Globe Post.
