Sunday, January 07, 2007
Meeting Uncle Ho face-to-face
If you ever get to Hanoi, the most fascinating museum in the city is the brilliant Ethnology Museum. The museum is quite new, opened by Jacques Chirac, and provides information about Vietnam's many ethnic groups, their histories and lifestyles. I particularly enjoyed the section of the museum which details life under heavy communist rule in the 1970s and 80s, including the rationing system. Everything was regulated by the central communist government: how much rice you ate, if you received a bicycle, radio or TV, what you could buy for Tet (important national holiday). I remember visiting the Communist Museum in Prague and feeling horrified and sorry for the Czechoslovakian people under communism but it's all relative. Compared to the Vietnamese, the Czechoslovakians lived like kings! In fact, one of the dreams of most Vietnamese during this period was to be able to travel to the Soviet Union or the Eastern bloc countries to eat well and buy goods to bring back home. Unbelievable!
Yesterday, I did a Ho Chi Minh morning. For those of you who don't know, Ho Chi Minh was a revolutionary and founding father of Vietnam's independence movement and communist party which is still the national government. Coming from the provinces, he studied in France (which was then Vietnam's colonial power) and became an independence activist and journalist. He later trained in Russia as a Comintern and returned to Vietnam to lead a nationalist party and command the war of liberation from the French. For anyone who knows anything about Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh or Uncle Ho is the most revered historical figure among Vietnamese, young and old.
I visited his impressive mausoleum which is the most popular tourist site in Hanoi. There were long lines snaking around the complex which is heavily guarded by soldiers. Inside, a perfectly-preserved Ho lies on a beautifully-carved wooden berth in a simple communist party suit. Apparently, he is shipped off to Russia every fall for an embalming touch-up. I was hustled quickly passed him but it was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. The closest thing to a a religious experience that communist Vietnam can provide. Next, I visited Ho Chi Minh's simple wooden house on stilts where he preferred to live which is located next to an imposing, yolk-coloured Presidential Palace. Located conveniently close is the Ho Chi Minh Museum which combines an overview of the suffering of Vietnamese people under French colonial rule with a fascinating photo gallery depicting resistance, independence and communist rule under Ho.
Yesterday, I did a Ho Chi Minh morning. For those of you who don't know, Ho Chi Minh was a revolutionary and founding father of Vietnam's independence movement and communist party which is still the national government. Coming from the provinces, he studied in France (which was then Vietnam's colonial power) and became an independence activist and journalist. He later trained in Russia as a Comintern and returned to Vietnam to lead a nationalist party and command the war of liberation from the French. For anyone who knows anything about Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh or Uncle Ho is the most revered historical figure among Vietnamese, young and old.
I visited his impressive mausoleum which is the most popular tourist site in Hanoi. There were long lines snaking around the complex which is heavily guarded by soldiers. Inside, a perfectly-preserved Ho lies on a beautifully-carved wooden berth in a simple communist party suit. Apparently, he is shipped off to Russia every fall for an embalming touch-up. I was hustled quickly passed him but it was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. The closest thing to a a religious experience that communist Vietnam can provide. Next, I visited Ho Chi Minh's simple wooden house on stilts where he preferred to live which is located next to an imposing, yolk-coloured Presidential Palace. Located conveniently close is the Ho Chi Minh Museum which combines an overview of the suffering of Vietnamese people under French colonial rule with a fascinating photo gallery depicting resistance, independence and communist rule under Ho.
