"Saigon. Shit. I'm still only in Saigon."

Inevitably, one thing comes to mind when the country is mentioned: the war. And sadly, it seems all the popular images of Vietnam are of American manufacture, and often from Hollywood. Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Hamburger Hill, Good Morning Vietnam, even bloody Rambo. Good movies all, granted (except the last one of course), and highly critical, but all from the American perspective. Can anybody think of a good movie on the war from the Vietnamese perspective, made by Vietnamese?

Met a very good tour guide when I was there, Khoi. He was only 7 when the war ended, but he's got some harrowing stories about the conflict to tell. Here's a pic of him standing in some paddy fields:




Did a very enlightening interview with him, a lot of which, unfortunately, could not fit into the story I was doing on Vietnam. If anything, talking to him only emphasised the simple fact that in war, it's always the civilians who suffer the most. Forget all that stuff about the ideological struggle: most people just want to be left alone to get on with their lives.

I think this song entited A Night Song sums it all up. Khoi started singing it on the bus to while away the time on the highway. We couldn't understand a word of it, of course, but the story speaks for itself.

There's a mother, clutching her baby, who's fleeing an attack on her village. She's been running all night, before she notices that the front of her blouse is wet. Then she realises that it's blood. Her baby was shot while she was running, and is already dead. And so she sings a lament for her lost child:

http://s10.quicksharing.com/v/8713396/1khoisong.wav.html


If you're interested, the full recording of my interview with Khoi can be found below. I should think most Vietnamese, even the younger ones who never went through the war, have similarly sad stories to tell. But their remarkable lack of bitterness, and their immense will to survive, marks them out as an extraordinary people.

http://s10.quicksharing.com/v/7407608/khoi_interview.wav.html