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OF CONTENTS
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A War, Not A Country
By Robbieana Leung
Gunshots
rang in the air as three other Semester at Sea students and I walked in
the
moist, muddy jungle, only a couple meters away from the infamous Cu Chi
tunnels
in Vietnam.
Men wearing Viet Cong guerilla uniforms rapidly took us deeper into the
heart
of thick forest, marked by the concentration of the twisted branches
that
dipped low, like claws reaching to snatch our lives. Soon we fumbled
through a
narrow black channel that constricted air passages and any hope of
light,
shielding our eyes and blinding the senses, as darkness and much
careless
fumbling ensued. My throat began to close up and I squeezed my eyes
shut,
fighting the horrors that the walls embracing my skin would cave in and
smash
me into a fearsome, blinding death…
Wait
a minute.
This
was exactly what the Vietnamese tourist agency wanted me to think, in
their
contrived recreation of the Cu Chi tunnel battlefield. In her essay Recombinant history: transnational practices
of memory and knowledge production in contemporary Vietnam,
Christina Schwenkel
writes that the tunnels “have been transformed into a commercialized
transnational public space for the consumption of a multisensory 'VC'
experience” (9). The entire battlefield has been constructed in such a
way to
satisfy tourists’ desire for authenticity; to feel like they are in the
actual
place and time of where history unfolded. This was evident in the
guides
dressed up as ‘VC’s, the widening of tunnels to accommodate larger
bodies of
foreigners, dividing the 90 meter tunnel into three sections with
emergency
exits (a paradox, as it eliminates legitimacy by placing safety first),
and the
opportunity to shoot guns that were used in the war.
When
our Viet Cong guide took us to a rusting American tank, a hot spot for
tourists
to take a picture, I remember that my companions and I smiled and posed
in
“soldier-like stances” (flexed arms, pretending to look in the
distance). Only
after the picture was taken and my friend had paid to shoot an
authentic war
rifle, breathlessly calling his “quintessential virtual guerilla
experience”,
“So cool,” did I realize how sick our behavior was (Schwenkel, 14). We
had
completely behaved in the desired response that the Vietnamese tourist
board
tried to elicit and propagate, the tourist response that fuels the
fantastical
reconstruction of history to attract tourism in order to boost local
economy. We became so enamored at being in a prominent location, The
Place where
fear
dominated the atmosphere and thousands had lost their lives in an
infamous war
that changed the course of generations, that we feigned the part of
being true actors in the war.
I
was ashamed. It was disrespectful to “enjoy” such a solemn place, as if
it were Disneyland, and mock the
ugliness and
fierceness of war. We had justified the reconstruction for the sake of
tourism,
clearly demonstrating Schwenkel’s point that the whole hyperreal
operation is
perpetuated by tourists’ “demands for the real thing [which] produces
images
that imitate images, obscuring the lines…separating realism from
restoration
and history from entertainment” (13,14).
Visiting
the Cu Chi tunnels showed me the irony of Vietnam’s desire to be seen
as “a
country, not a war,” and their actions, which boost the production of
war
memorabilia and paraphernalia as souvenirs. These war memorials and
souvenirs,
such as Zippo lighters and dog tags, are mainly targeted to the United States,
due to the country’s economical dependency on tourism, especially from
a
country that was strongly affected by and connected to the war. It is
unfortunate that Vietnam
needs to do the very thing that it despises in order to survive:
project a
false image of the country that undermines truth. In selling itself, Vietnam’s concentrated focus and
promotion of
war related tourist spots further engraves the image of Vietnam
as a
war, not a country. Perhaps this contributes to the reason why “in the
perception of many Americans, Vietnam
remains a dangerous and war-torn country rather than a potential travel
destination” (Schwenkel, 6). Having gotten off the “tourist track”
and seen
Vietnam’s beauty in other places, I hope Vietnam will place more focus
on
promoting its natural beauty that compliments the country’s hope of
being seen
as a country, rather than war. I am confident that its natural beauty
is attractive
enough to
bring tourists to Vietnam.
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