The Quiet Vietnamese

Travel certainly affects your perspective. It’s the American War here. And it’s very much “here” in Vietnam. Which is strange, really, because it’s such a remarkably young country. After China – the country that rests literally and metaphorically on on the indomitable shoulders of little old ladies - it was notable to be in a country without old people. I would double-take if I saw white hair - just like in Sarajevo.

I had Graham Greene's Quiet American on my mind here. That great, wry, ironic title makes me grin, of course, but it makes me think about the real quiet people, the Vietnamese themselves, and how they quietly went about their way through the myriad wars in their land.

So maybe I have been too hard on the place. It's really been through the meat grinder over the years. Finally freed of France, split in half by the UN, invaded clandestinely  and then overtly by the US, and winning all these relentless brutal battles pretty much through sheer bloody-mindedness. And once they get free, having to rebuild a country devastated by a bitter civil war and the harshest economic sanctions ever seen. Even North Korea, today, has more freedom to trade than Vietnam did post the American withdrawal. So then this hardened battle weary but still battle ready people decide to wade in to kick the dictators out of Cambodia, for which they still get no thanks.

I stick by it not being the prettiest, or most lovable place in the world. And I wish that some of the younger people would let the bitter go (like their elders seem to have). But mostly I wish things, finally, go well.