I realized that I'm going to throw up all my impressions on this blog, and then really begin cutting deeply into them. If there is something you guys want me to explore more, please indicate it, but for now I'm just putting stuff up.

There are a myriad of reasons why I've been here six weeks and have not written a word.

1. This place does not make sense. It makes it particularly hard to write about.

2. It is simultaneously so similar to Miami and so foreign from anything I've seen.

3. I kept feeling like there was something hidden around a corner, despite all evidence to the contrary. I wanted to share some hidden jewel of Saigon with my friends....

There are others, but those are the key three.

Let's begin at the beginning. This is likely to go from good to bad to good to bad as my focus swings around here.

The Vietnamese women are beautiful. Graceful, friendly, pretty, petite, sleek, and great senses of humor. All the Vietnamese have great senses of humor.

So, there's a classic issue here because of the low wealth where the women seek foreign men. Many of the more educated women see it as horrible the way that local women seek out foreign men. They ignore something a bit more endemic - women always seek out rich men. The difference in average wealth - Vietnam is still a third-world country - means that even men of average wealth can be rich here. So, foreign becomes a label for rich, and there grows a vast sex culture for foreign men.

It is inherently the same thing that you will see in any developed country by women who are looking for a rich man. There is the added incentive of a possible green card and the dream of America.

Tell the Vietnamese they've got to draw in their horns or we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Age.--Gen. Curtis LeMay, May 1964
And, holy shit we did.
I'm not really sure where to begin about this. We bombed them, and embargoed them. They are one of the commodity richest countries I have ever seen, and ever since the Government became comfortable enough to let in outsiders again they have quickly been pulling their citizens out of poverty... and they dream of America.
There is nothing sharp-tongued about this, or on the sly. They seriously dream about going to America, and working there or going to school there and maybe coming back. Most Vietnamese would rather be in America than here. There is no blame of the American populace for the Vietnam war that I have seen. I've talked with a pretty broad gamut of people, and it just doesn't seem to matter.
They blame a stupid and blind American government for the Vietnam war. They knew the soldiers didn't want to be here, ....
Even the Vietnam War Crimes museum blames the culture of the military and not the individuals. It's pretty amazing considering there are still children being born could be placed in the Mutter museum after their deaths and there is no hate.
I happen to be of the stripe that believes that the populace must take responsibility and guilt for the actions of the government, and it is not up to the populace to free itself from the guilt of whatever sins are done in our names, but it looks like we have been forgiven.
Not that I believe it frees us from penance, but since we have proceeded as if we had no need of it, and it seems no one else is going to hold America to it either... practically I'm wrong.
Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America--not on the battlefields of Vietnam.--Marshall McLuhan, 1975
I took a visit to the Cu Chi tunnels. Any American commentator who believed that we lost Vietnam because of the American populace never visited the Cu Chi tunnels. All the weapons in the world are useless in that place.
Tunnels too deep for bombing runs to work on. Multi-level with sealed doors to avoid flooding, and gas attacks. Vents hidden as termite mounds, and scent-disguised with the equipment of dead marines. Dud bombs turned into mines. Sandals with a BACKWARDS PRINT so that the Viet Cong would be tracked the WRONG WAY into traps designed to maim but not kill in order to remove multiple marines from an engagement. It takes three men to pull out one man who can't walk. The marines will destroy any targets you give them, but there were no targets. It was innovation without technology. It was all done with experience and comparatively primitive tools.
And we made Apocalypse Now.
Which is now referred to on the street here as ApolNow.
It is the biggest sexpatriate spot I have been to yet. Horrible music, expensive drinks, and women who are either working girls or what are called here as opportunists. It is one of the few places I can't get over. I just sit in there sometimes when I'm alone and get a drink and watch.
Brief break - more later.