The (Mer)Lion Sleeps Tonight

Singapore

I debated long and hard whether to blog about Singapore. I was only there for a day and I spent that day at Universal Studios so I very well could have been in Florida instead of Asia. So even there I was only there for 10 hours, I figure it was worth giving Singapore its due. It is, after all, a very unique place. There are three major ethnic groups there: Chinese, Indian, and Malaysia and four official languages: Chinese, Tamil (an Indian language), Malay, and English. I found out that when determining the borders for Singapore and Malaysia, they divided things the way they did so that they would not have more Chinese people in Malaysia than Malay people.  Singapore itself is less than 50 years old and fought tooth and nail to rise from a third world country to a first world country in record time. So say what you will about this city state, but it really is something special.

The coolest thing about Singapore? The city’s mascot is a merlion. Yes, a mermaid lion. Its roots can be traced back to the city’s history as a fishing village. Hence the mermaid. The city’s most recent name, Singapura, means “the lion city.” Hence the lion. So there are giant merlions all over the city. And they’re awesome.

Universal was pretty great too. Just like Orlando except more diversity and worse food. (Turns out Chinese and Malay food is hard to translate into theme park food. Had we gone to a real restaurant outside the park, the food would have been fantastic. Go figure.)

At our post-port reflection, a time where folks on the ship gather to share about their experiences in each country, there was this sentiment that Singapore lacked culture. Yes it was modern, clean, more Western than we’d seen in awhile, and everyone spoke English, but does that mean they don’t have a culture? One student argued that all of these cultures melding together is, in and of itself, a culture. And I tend to agree. No place else that we’ve been has there been three distinct cultures that blend together to form one unique culture. This got me to thinking about the culture, or the lack there of, in the United States. I think there is this idea that we, as white middle class Americans, don’t have a defined culture. I think there are definitely arguments for and against that idea, but it is something interesting to think about.

What the hell are we fighting for?

Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

Today I visited the War Remnants Museum, the final stop on my list of places to visit in Viet Nam in order to learn more about the war from the other side. I didn’t imagine it to be much more difficult to see than Hiroshima, but I was wrong. There was an entire room dedicated to victims of Agent Orange including Vietnamese soldiers, American GIs, and their subsequent offspring. It was found that once the chemical is in your system, it can affect also affect your unborn children so generations later, families are still feelings the effects of the war.  There were also pictures of victims of the bombings and of the massacres that occurred throughout the country. There was also a collection of before and after pictures of cities that were destroyed during the war and photos of how they look now. This display was a beacon of light in an otherwise dark and dismal place. I found myself returning to this display for a second time at the end of my visit in order to end on some semblance of a happy note, if you can call it that.

My initial thought was after seeing these pictures was, “How could we ask these kids to do these awful things?” Or rather, “How could we draft these kids and tell them that this is what they HAVE to do?” Seeing pictures of the death and destruction in what was ultimately a lose-lose situation was, as an American, incredibly challenging. It was awful and appalling, shocking and sickening all at the same time. While this was an intentionally one sided story, I have now seen both sides and the story didn’t end well for anyone. It was arguably one of the hardest things I’ve ever seen.

One of my goals while in Viet Nam was to learn about the war from the other side and I feel like I’ve done that during my time here. The Vietnamese people are very open and honest about their experiences and, surprisingly, no one I met seems to hold a grudge against Americans. So I suppose the best I can do is to take this experience, learn as much as I can, and move on in a positive direction, much like the people I met during my time in Viet Nam. While it is certainly not a part of our history that we’re proud of, this is as much a part of my history as an American as it is of theirs and it doesn’t have to define us as a nation. 

Somewhere in the Middle

Ha Noi, Vietnam

This morning we had a city tour of Ha Noi, the capital of Viet Nam for over 1000 years. I was looking forward to visiting Ha Noi’s Army Museum and getting the north’s perspective of the American War. (In America, it’s the Vietnam War. In Viet Nam, it’s the American War.)  Turns out the museum is closed on Fridays (poor planning on their part), but we did have the opportunity to visit the Ha Noi Hilton instead. Why, you may ask, did we visit a fancy hotel? Well, we didn’t. Hoa Lo was a prison that was originally built by the French for Vietnamese political prisoners that was then utilized during the war to hold American pilots that were captured by the Viet Cong. It was nicknamed the Ha Noi Hilton by the American pilots who spent as many as seven years there as prisoners of war. First, they showed us the lake where Senator John McCain’s plane went down and the monument that was later built in his honor. Then they took us to the Ha Noi Hilton where Senator McCain spent his first weeks as a political prisoner before being transferred to another prison on the outskirts of Ha Noi.

The tour focused primarily on the treatment and living conditions for the female Vietnamese political prisoners. I read part of Senator McCain’s book a number of years ago and the living conditions were exactly what he described. Then came the section dedicated to the American pilots that were held there. There were artifacts, including the flight suit Senator McCain was wearing when he was shot down. There was also an array of photographs, depicting the pilots playing basketball, eating Christmas dinner, and getting presentations on Vietnamese culture. One of the students in our group commented that this looked like summer camp. Our tour guide went on and on about the struggles of the Vietnamese prisoners and said, comparatively, the Americans were treated very well. I’m not sure I completely understand how it’s possible to use the term “prisoners of war” and “treated very well” in the same sentiment. The discrepancies in what I had read versus what I was looking at were staggering. A million questions ran through my head. Were these photos staged to then be released to the American press? Was Senator McCain instructed to leave certain truths out of his book by his editors and advisors in order to help advance his political career? Depending on your perspective, there’s multiple truths in every situation, but in this situation whose version of the truth is actually the truth? I suppose the truth lies somewhere in the middle. 

Where the Dragon Ascends Into the Sea

Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam

Today I had the amazing opportunity to visit Ha Long Bay in north Viet Nam. They are proud to boast that it is one of the natural wonders of the world. And what a wonder it is.

I first saw a picture of Ha Long Bay in the visitor’s center at Bryce Canyon National Park. There was a display of other places in the world where these crazy rock formations called hoodoos (the ones that Bryce Canyon is famous for) also exist. There was a picture of Ha Long Bay, shrouded in mist and mystery. As soon as I saw it was in Viet Nam, I knew I had to go there.

Ha Long Bay is an area with over 3,000 rocky islands that are only accessible via boat. The indigenous people here live in house boat-type structures, fishing and living off the land. The legend of how Ha Long Bay was created is that the mythical dragon who lived in the bay, slashed his tail about, carving out the islands, while the rest of the area filled with water to create the bay. In Vietnamese, Ha Long translates to “where the dragon ascends into the sea.”

We hopped on a junk boat (their words not mine), and headed into the fog. Slowly the islands began to come into view. It was like nothing I’d ever seen, some mythical land akin to Narnia or that place in the Avatar movie. It was breathtaking. We spent the next several hours navigating our way through the waterways, taking more pictures than I can count. It was easily one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been and a place I won’t soon forget. 

Good Morning, Viet Nam

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Let’s start off with a fun fact about Viet Nam shall we? Vietnamese doesn’t really have compound words, so it’s actually written Viet Nam, not Vietnam. They acknowledge the fact that English speakers utilize compound words so they just go with it.

This afternoon I had the opportunity to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels where 16,000 Viet Cong soldiers lived and fought during the Vietnam War. One of my goals in visiting Viet Nam was to see the war from the other side and the Cu Chi Tunnels gave me the opportunity to do just that. Although the section we visited was a recreation and akin to a theme park, it still provided an interesting perspective of how the Viet Cong soldiers lived and fought. We were able to crawl through the tunnels, see the booby traps that were utilized, and shoot authentic Viet Cong fire arms if we so desired. (I told my students who had never shot a gun before that shooting a 50 year old Vietnamese firearms with minimal safety regulations may not be the best place to start.) At the end of the tour, we sat in a room and watched a video describing the guerilla warfare tactics of the Viet Cong. There was a great sense of pride in killing US soldiers, describing the Viet Cong soldiers who had made many kills as “American killing heroes.” When I first heard that term, I was taken aback. As an American, it was a strange sensation to be sitting in a room in south Viet Nam hearing about out our people killed your people. It was almost as if they were boasting, “You all came here and killed a bunch of our guys but we killed a lot of your guys too.” It was a stark contrast to any education I’d received on the war thus far. Also, the fact that Uncle Ho’s portrait was smiling down on us from his perch above the TV did not go unnoticed. 

The Price You Pay

Beijing, China

At the end of the first day of hiking, the local farmers who had been so gracious in helping us navigate this foreign, snowy terrain, cornered us in a watchtower, opened their backpacks, and began peddling their wares. In return for all of the help they had given us throughout the hike, they expected us to buy their tacky souvenirs. I felt like I had been bamboozled. The lady who had helped me throughout the day was not in fact this nice local woman whom I had made a connection with but instead was someone who looked at me as simply an American with a fat pocket. (Does she know we don’t’ get paid til the end of the month?) In my Big Mac induced stupor, I managed to evade them the first day, but the second day’s hike on the Jinshanling section of the wall, was significantly more challenging, steep, and slippery, so as soon as this local farmer turned guide turned hawker grabbed my hand to help me up the first snowy staircase, I knew I was done for. The longer she held my hand and kept me from plummeting to my death (which I very much appreciate), the more I knew I would have to buy. As soon as we reached the bottom, her question of concern for my safety quickly turned to a question of “How much”? I contemplated for a moment and decided that my health and safety was worth at least one tacky t-shirt and a packet of overpriced post cards. At least we didn’t have Big Macs again for lunch. 

"It sure is a great wall." -President Richard Nixon

Beijing, China

I had grand plans of doing a hike in every country and while that didn’t materialize in Japan (I blame it on Mount Fuji being closed for the winter season), I feel as though I hiked enough in China to make up for it. I signed up to hike the Great Wall of China through a Semester at Sea trip. I mean how hard can it be? The answer? Really freaking hard. But also, really stinking awesome. According to Raymond, our adorable and spunky tour guide, we were hiking on the “wild” part of the wall. A remote section that has yet to be rebuilt and, as it turns out, looks nothing like the pictures I’ve seen on TV. I also figure out why people filming those TV shows don’t go to this section of the wall. Wild was a pretty accurate description.

After driving more than 2 hours to get out of the center of Beijing, we arrived at the Gubeikou section of the Great Wall. We then proceeded to literally scale the side of the mountain in order to make it to the top. The views from the top were absolutely breathtaking. Mountaintops etched with tracings of the Great Wall as far as the eye can see. While sections of the wall were little more than a few stones placed into the hillside, there were also sections where you could very easily envision how this world wonder must have looked in all its glory centuries ago. After hiking for a few hours, we stopped for lunch. Our guide kept telling us we were going to have Big Macs for lunch, which I thought was code for hamburger. My thought? Oh, how sweet that they’re going to cook out hamburgers for us on the Great Wall. Boy, does a burger sound good. I was shocked and appalled to see that they had honest to goodness Big Macs ready for us to devour. There were porters standing by, who had strapped coolers to their backs to schlep 100 Big Macs, Filet O’Fish, and McChicken sandwiches up the hill for the crazy Americans. And they were piping hot (don’t ask me how they were still hot since I estimate that the closest McDonald’s was at least an hour away after you made it down the mountain). Everything about it was disturbing. I couldn’t decide what bothered me the most. Was it the fact that I had hiked for 3 hours and still had another 4 to go and all they were giving me to eat was trans fats, empty calories, and special sauce? Or was it the fact that we were atop one of the seven wonders of the world and we were eating fast food? Or was it the fact that they thought, as flag-waving, Starbucks-drinking, McDonalds-eating Americans, that this is what we wanted? Again, everything about it was disturbing. One student pulled out a Clif Bar, refusing to eat a Big Mac on the Great Wall. I admire the heck out of that kid and sort of wish I had done the same. While it is a funny story to tell, it is also pretty horrifying that our identities as Americans boils down to “Would you like fries with that?” About an hour before we were finished for the day, I felt my blood sugar drop to my toes and things get a little blurry in my peripheral vision. Deciding that the top of the Great Wall was not the place to have a medical emergency, I sat down, drank some water, and devoured the Snickers bar they gave us (Turns out Snickers does really satisfy) and then proceeded to curse those Big Macs all the way down the mountain. 

Commode Conundrum

Beijing, China

I have been in China for a couple of days now and while I should be painting a picture of the rich culture and delectable cuisine, instead I am choosing to write about toilets. Yes that’s right, toilets. As our journey progresses, what we take for granted at home - a commode where you can sit and read the paper on a Sunday morning – will be increasingly harder to find. These so called “Western toilets” are few are far between the further afield that you travel. It has only been a few days and I am already over the squat toilets. I suppose the novelty of perfecting the stance and successfully not peeing on my shoe each time I needed to relieve myself wore off during my last voyage. It’s sad, but I find myself getting increasingly excited each time I open the stall door and find some place to sit. Extra points if there is toilet paper. Super extra points if there is actually hand soap at the sink. 

Not one to judge

Shanghai, China

Upon sailing into Shanghai, my first thought was, “It looks like the future!” Google a picture of the Shanghai skyline and you’ll see what I mean. Shanghai, much like the rest of China, is an interesting land of contrasts, with the modern, futuristic skyline on one side of the river and the colonial, European influenced skyline on the other.

We spent the afternoon wandering around the city, taking in the sights. One thing that stood out to me was the concept of a place of worship as a tourist attraction. While I have been to more cathedrals and churches in Europe than I can count, this idea never really struck me as weird until now. We visited the Jade Buddha Temple in Shanghai and with the Chinese New Year rapidly approaching, the temple was bustling with Buddhists paying their respects in preparation for the new year. It wasn’t until we entered the gift shop that the whole thing struck me as weird. On one half of the gift shop were the customary Buddha statues and prayer beads. On the other half, there were more pieces of art work. Smack in the middle was another Buddha statue, flanked by soda machines, where people were actually praying. There in the middle of the gift shop within a stone’s throw of the snack counter, people were worshipping and paying their respects. There were hundreds of people there that day, praying and leaving gifts for ancestors past, while tourists stood by taking pictures of them. Is it weird for a place of worship to also function as a tourist attraction? Is there something a bit sacrilegious about the whole thing? As one who paid good money to go to the top of both St. Paul’s Cathedral and Notre Dame, I’m not sure I’m one to judge…