Vietnam 1975 today

Today I played music outside of the Mardigian Library.   I was approached by a girl who said she was unfamiliar with a lot of music, though she shared wonderful insight into the ways verses of the Q'uran can be sung (according to her, 10 melodic guidelines can be applied to every verse when reading).  She asked me if the music I played had any meaning or symbolism.

.    .    .

{according to my mother 20:28 28 IV 2013}

American FM radio was a source for interesting music and news in Vietnam, but during these days, all they could hear was "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas"--that's what my mother and grandfather heard as they stayed in their Saigon home under a curfew that began on the 27th of April in 1975.  Instead, my mother listened to her music on reel to reel audio tapes or tape players.  Around April  26th and the 27th of 1975, a few skirmishes broke out and airplanes trying to leave the country crashed. Some of the planes were too overloaded with people, others were piloted by mechanics who didn't know how to fly.  The music persisted throughout the 28th and 29th, and at night the skies were pink from combat.  From the windows of her home, my mother could see a lot of bloodied uniforms, jeans, and guns strewn on the street behind her house.  The uniforms belonged to the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam fighters, while the jeans were almost certainly of the Viet Cong.  Meanwhile, my mother and grandfather listened to the radio.  They didn't know what it meant at the time, but for the U.S. nationals in Saigon, the ongoing broadcast of "I'm Dreaming..." signaled evacuation.

At noon on April 30th, a famous Vietnamese singer-songwriter [Trịnh Công Sơn?] was in the palace to receive the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong.  The Communist flag was raised (yellow star in the center, red field), and no matter where one looked, the South Vietnamese flag with three red stripes on a yellow field could not be found.  With the change of regime, the curfew no longer remained in effect and people were in the streets to see soviet supplied T-54 tanks roll in bearing with many skinny young men (approximately 16 years old).  At this time, my mother chose to wear her scout uniform over her Red Cross uniform since the Red Cross was restricted to certain areas, whereas the scout uniform, especially that of a young Scout Master, was recognized and respected by the North and South Vietnamese alike.  She spoke with two of the youth who appeared to be soldiers, still wearing fresh jungle vegetation on their helmets.  They turned out to be students--North Vietnamese honor students promised to see and liberate the people in South Vietnam.

Drawing parallels to what we hear about malnourished and impoverished people in North Korea today, the North Vietnamese Soldiers and Viet Cong were all skinny, and the students wanted to know why the South needed liberation when the South seemed so opulent:  everyone in the South seemed rich, or fat.  Ladies were well dressed, and you could smell their perfume in the breeze.  The city still had a modernized mark from the presence of U.S., French, and other international forces.  After days of curfew, florists had their finest flowers on display in the streets--and they were exotic to those from the North, where the selection of flowers weren't as diverse and tended to be mixed with edible crops in the city.

My mother and grandfather took a taxi cab rather than their own vehicle to save gas.  With all of the people in the streets, travel was slow.  They had a boat prepared and tried to leave on the Saigon River to the ocean, but since the draw bridge had no operator were unable to pass.

They went to see my grandfather's brother and their 85 year old mother, a suburb where high-ranking officers lived.  Though they couldn't leave the country, my grandfather said he'd continue to try to leave and my great grandmother sadly agreed.  It was a sad affirmation for everyone as they knew it was likely the last time they'd see each other.

On the return, they stopped by warehouses and food stores to purchase non-perishible foods (canned goods, dried foods, etc.) the warehouse which had nouc mam (the Vietnamese fish sauce), rice, and sugar was looted and ransacked--my mother could see people carrying goods away as if they owned them.

Grandfather and my mum got home while it was still light outside, likely around at 6:30 p.m. they ate very little and began pulling photos, documents, and books to burn.  They heard a noise in the street and overheard someone in the street offering a bounty to neighbors.  The description was for my grandfather.  Since it was too soon for outsiders to know who was who in the neighborhood, especially for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong to know anyone there, my grandfather and mother realized one of their neighbors must have been supporters and informants to the communists.  My mother and grandfather tore up any books that were translated so that they could burn them throughout the night.  My mother got exhausted and was told to sleep as my grandfather continued burning books throughout the night and next morning until 05:00-06:00.

On May 1st, my mother went to a friend's house.  Her friend was a schoolmate and fellow scout.  her friend's family, where she overheard their plans to leave.  Mum asked if she could leave with them, and her friend said yes--but the fishing boat leaves at 10:17 (or possibly at 10:47--my mother now forgets).  Mum left for home to tell her father.

On the way, she saw South Vietnamese Soldiers on the street calling out each other's names at their homes and asking neighbors if they were planning to leave the country or go to the jungle to continue fighting.  They gathered weapons that littered the street and planned to rendezvous.  In retrospect, my mother says when people refer to the jungle, it's a jungle that's in the mountains where the Hmong people lived.  The Hmong are respected for continuing the fight long after the U.S. had left, and she suspects it's likely the South Vietnamese resistance soldiers had joined them.

### (recollected from a previous conversation in early May of 2010) ###

My mother and grandfather left for the boat by automobile and she watched as her dogs disappeared behind the car as it drove away from the house.  As the boat departed from the dock, she saw her dogs swim after them.  As she told this to me, she wept.

#01:49 2 V 2013

Throughout the week, and especially as I re-wrote the frantic notes from Monday's phone call into sentences, everything in the present seems to relate to these events.  I suppose that's a good sign--I hope it means I'm living life eventfully and well enough to relate so much to someone else's life and consequences of history that still shake the ground I move upon with its echoes here on the other side of the world:  yesterday a Vietnam War veteran called my father to express his thanks for an e-mail my dad sent in observance of the fall of Saigon and in respect to those who were part of the armed services.  As I've said last year to several people, I can attribute much of the circumstance of my existence to military conflict and aid.    While I believe there's something important about writing all of this down, I'm also detached from the events enough to feel neutral and ramble my writings like a fool in hopes of finding something that resonates with greater coherency.

I spent much of my evening yesterday reading and working in a library writing about organizations that promote literacy, higher education, public service, and peaceable conflict resolution.  I imagined the smell of chemical smoke from burning your own books and family photos in your house at the base of a grand staircase.  I can also imagine my grandfather's heart pump through arteries that stiffened from being persecuted for his involvement with a government that lost its legitimacy again (Vietnam was susceptible to coups and regime changes).

As I wrote my mother's account of the past few days, I also wondered what would I do were I there and what I would represent.

Isaac Asimov was quoted from one of his novels that "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

Despite my belief and interest in non-violence, the fires of youth and bonds of loyalty compel me to imagine myself joining the South Vietnamese even after the capitol and government had fallen if I were part of the armed forces.  Yet last year alone I've seen people get brutally beaten over notions of loyalty and an ethos of escalation.  I also know some people who are in prison for similar reasons.  Myself a musician, I could also see why the musician who greeted the North Vietnamese at the palace might have thought it was appropriate and meaningful to welcome the re-unification of Vietnam.  If it is the person I suspect, he certainly advocated for peaceable action and probably had the imagination to envision a co-creative outcome between both regimes.  To move people toward a peaceable path in the midst of a major event requires so much work that I can hardly imagine it working--the resilience of a peaceable infrustructure must be established in advance, and the sustained opportunity to authentically engage all stakeholders involved must happen as well.

I'd probably do as my mother did to engage the youth riding in the tanks in a curious conversation, and calculate possible ways to escape the country too.

I explained to the girl who asked me about music that it can bear intrinsic meaning as well as carry extrinsic meanings--history on personal and collective levels can imbue new meanings onto a tune or song.  White was once a color of truce, but also a color of surrender under the Hague Convention.  In some Buddhist countries, it's seen as a color of mourning.  Is it odd or fitting that someone chose a song which wistfully celebrates the birth of a Christian icon as the signal for evacuation?  In this case, there's too much life to meaningfully unpack.  People died, many in terrible ways, over notions and an ethos of escalation, nationhood, manipulations of our appeal for humanity, and aggression.  Others, including members of my own family, would suffer from a legacy of oppression in "reeducation camps" and strife once released.

There's a lot of truth to this article:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/06/how-memoirists-mold-the-truth/?ref=opinion
Within the first few lines of my mum's account, I found myself trying to articulate it with narrative devices as a story that fills the gaps and highlights the salient points.  While I certainly see pockets to further explore and flesh out, I understand how my fellow memoirists of the Immigrant Memoir project can find it so challenging to write down their own family histories, and I now also know how the awkward gaps in a possible narrative can occur.  This is the first memoir I've completed (relatively) about my parents' past.

I'm still inclined to write some kind of satisfying resolve to the events described above.  The best I can offer follows: many of the people I know are alive today or have passed on for reasons other than the war, I remain privileged to write about this and partake in the telling the story of other people's misfortune.  While this might not solve a lot of problems in the big picture, we can at least continue to live with gratitude for memorable stories that continue to be made today and our ability to share them.