Tour guide perspective—spinning and spinning—Rog
After visiting the War Remnants Museum in Ho Ch Minh City, I found a bench in the shade. Beside me was a young (twenty something?) Vietnamese girl. She was a tour guide and very knowledgeable about Vietnam war history. She asked what I thought of the museum. The museum had presented reasons for the war that were different from what we heard in the U.S. I told her that in the U.S. we were told that the Vietnamese people wanted us to help them force the Communists out so they could be free to choose their own leaders.
She thought that idea was very funny…she laughed and said that the Vietnamese people had had an election and they chose to reunify their country, but the U.S. tried to keep the country separated. The U.S. set up a government in South Vietnam and wanted to keep South Vietnam as a colony, denying them freedom.
So…the Vietnamese were fighting the war to win freedom from the colonialist power, America.
A big difference in perspective!
She went on to say, "That was a long time ago. We don't hold any bad feelings toward the U.S., we just think about the future. We are happy that we are one country and are no longer separated the way that Korea is."
———
Later, while visiting Dalat, a man smiled and asked where I was from. We talked for awhile and he told me that his father had fought along with the U.S. during the war. After the war his father was jailed for 10 years. When he was released from jail he went to the U.S. and lives there now. Even though the war ended long ago and we see mostly smiling faces, the damage to individuals and their families is often just below the surface.
She thought that idea was very funny…she laughed and said that the Vietnamese people had had an election and they chose to reunify their country, but the U.S. tried to keep the country separated. The U.S. set up a government in South Vietnam and wanted to keep South Vietnam as a colony, denying them freedom.
So…the Vietnamese were fighting the war to win freedom from the colonialist power, America.
A big difference in perspective!
She went on to say, "That was a long time ago. We don't hold any bad feelings toward the U.S., we just think about the future. We are happy that we are one country and are no longer separated the way that Korea is."
———
Later, while visiting Dalat, a man smiled and asked where I was from. We talked for awhile and he told me that his father had fought along with the U.S. during the war. After the war his father was jailed for 10 years. When he was released from jail he went to the U.S. and lives there now. Even though the war ended long ago and we see mostly smiling faces, the damage to individuals and their families is often just below the surface.
Some Russians were recently allowed to visit North Korea and…
They had a reaction similar to how we feel when visiting unfamiliar places.
RogSee below for what one Russian said.
"The main message of my content is that anywhere: no matter what country, no matter what nationality, it is regular people who live there, and you should treat people with love everywhere," says Voskresensky. "I hope traveling will save the world."
Maybe it won't save the world, but it might help us to feel that we are all in this together and that we are more alike than we are different from one another.
